Budapest - Where East Meets West

After all of the drama on the train to Budapest --- I was very ready to sleep!

We bid our farewell to Prague last night. To say the very least the last 24 hours has been jam-packed with adventure (the kind that is much more fun when it's OVER with. . .) I'll break down the highlights


NIGHT TRAIN
I was kind of stressing and nervous and scared about the night train thing all of yesterday. We heard a comment that we didn't want to be at the train station any longer than we had to be so that made me feel VERY unsettled. We got there via taxi. No problems. We looked at the sign to figure out where our train was and the board said that our train number was going to Bucharest. Panick set it. We triple checked our tickets (turns out that the final destiation was Romania with a stop in Budapest).


We get on the train (which seriously must have been around in the 50's). The train person takes our tickets and directs us to the room where our "berths" ("beds" but that's a reeeeeeeal stretch) were. Technically 6 passengers could have been been in the room and we knew that. We were PRAYING that we would be alone. We were for quite awhile until we got a knock on the door. An old gentleman who spoke no English peered in. Soon his wife and his LARGE friend accompained by HIS wife were peering in speaking some language I couldn't identify. Denstiy and I looked at each other with wide eyes and started scooting our luggage (seriously - there was hardly room for the two of us and our bags in this little area, so fitting 4 more people - one of who was quite sizeable- in seemed quite ludicrous. About five minutes later the train guy with our tickets came and apologized and told Destiny and I we could move to area six. Phew. All we could do was laugh.


ARRIVING IN HUNGARY
We actually managed to sleep fairly well. However, when we woke up and stepped out into Budapest train station we were surrounded with a rude awakening. I had gotten instructions how to get to the hotel via metro, however it was hard to distinguish what kind of public transport was the metro (yes, it seems stupid I know but trust me) - there was no where to get ON the metro. Well, we ended up getting on a bus. We could tell it definitely wasn't matching the metro directions I had gotten about getting off at the first stop by a Burger King so I called the hotel manager. Destiny and I decided to walk back to the station and start again. Mind you this was 7 am so most places were not open. The city was looking pretty forlorn. We wound up finding our way to the hotel after a few conversations of broken English with pleasant fast food workers about an hour later.


Our luggage was stored for the morning. By this time I was looking at my watch counting the hours until I could go to bed. I was tired. I was scared. I was stressed. I just wanted to go home to Philip. Well, we had some time before we could check-in, so we got a map and travel advice from a hotel worker in our building and ventured out. We got some breakfast at a cute cafe.

At breakfast. Tired. Residually Stressed and reeeally needing a shower.


We sat (okay, stood) in on part of mass at St. Stephen's Basilica (we weren't allowed to sit - after trying to figure out what the criteria was for being allowed to sit we decided the old man patrolling let you in or out based on if you looked Hungarian or not - way to live Christ's love man). We began to discover the more charming and beautiful parts of the city.


When it was time to check-in we ventured back and were able to settle. IT WAS SO WONDERFUL TO TAKE A SHOWER. It seriously made all of the difference in the world because I had reached a point of just the subconcious stress of the last 24 hours bringing me to a point of tears. Destiny and I enjoyed a wonderful evening out on the town tonight and are not settling in to watch Friends.


I have done a lot of thinking the last 24 hours . . . it started yesterday when Destiny and I walked through a memorial set up in Wenceslas Square in Prague were communism was overturned. The memorial had pictures and stories of several people who had been a part of the resistance to the communists. She and I had a good discussion on the train last night about how so often we think of Europe in the context of WW2 and think that all of the suffering ended when the war was over. I forget how many people suffered under the power of the USSR following our troops returning home to freedom. People in Prague and Budapest couldn't even take a train freely when Destiny and I were still FOUR YEARS old.


We can see very clearly the slow process rebuilding is in Budapest. Our hotel/apt. is on the rim of "civilization" There is a stark contrast of what has been developed and rebuilt and all there is yet to be done.


I am so grateful to be an American citizen. I was thinking as I was traveling a little frightened on that train what it must be like to live under fear constantly or the constant stress it must be to live in opposition to an oppressive government. On the train last night I considered how it must have felt to be trying to escape Prague via train 60 years earlier. . .