You choose how to take your travels. I prefer to stay upbeat: good things are karmic kindnesses and thanks are owed to God for the privileges. Bad things are identified as the fodder for funny stories and thanks are owed to God for the lessons.
But this had to been one of the more annoying turns of events. I was in a social Catch-22. Although I had not meant to meet fellow PCVs Teresa, Terese and Lisa outside the Kiraly baths, fate or coincidence had made it possible. But I had to leave scant hours later, after some lunch and walking around. In addition to a request to stay from them, the invitation had come from two more fronts: Hugo and Dowat and their rugby team, and from Amy and Anna. All three groups were independently going to Rio tonight. It seemed a shame to miss that critical mass.
Terese, Teresa and Lisa
Plus, I had yet to have a good Turkish bath experience: T, T and L were going to a good one the following morning. I was also exhausted: staying up with the rugby team, Amy and Anna had not been conducive to my 7:30 AM wake up call to get breakfast and be checked out of my hostel at 9:00. Also, my tendon in my right foot had been torn or severely strained from walking around in my sandals and I was limping. Every step bordered on agony, despite the popped painkiller. That would not have prevented me from going to the club, but it certainly made limping around the train station annoying.
Although everything said to stay, I had an appointment: my Czech friend, Jana (the one I met in Chicago, if you’ve read that travelogue), was coming into Prague to show me around and then take me back to her village for the evening. My schedule with her was locked: she had an appointment for exploratory surgery the day after and could only come tomorrow. Plus, I couldn’t have cancelled if I wanted: it was rapidly approaching midnight and the Internet cafes were closed. The only way we could cheaply correspond were via e-mails and internet-sent text messages. I had also changed all my Forints into Euros, and the currency exchange places were also closed, so I couldn’t buy a phone card.
So the goal was still to go to Prague, and, so far, the delay wasn’t lethal: Jana and I were scheduled to meet in front of a museum at 10:45, and my train was supposed to arrive at 5:30. But as time moved on and the train didn’t arrive, the cut off marched closer.
There were at least forty or us waiting on that train, tourist-circuit rounders of Brits, Australians, Spaniards and Germans, with the occasional American thrown in (we were still in the minority this side of the former iron curtain). Spread out in the labyrinthine Budapest train station, we were trying to track down any kind of solid information about the train, spreading news like viruses as we met in halls. It seemed no one knew anything. The train was coming from Romania and had obviously been held up, but for how long? Long enough meant leaving the station to eat or relax. Anything less meant staying put for fear of missing its arrival.
Waiting for a train
Hungarian train attendants are the most willfully uninformed people I had ever met. If the information wasn’t in their computers, they didn’t care. Some, in a huff, made phone calls or left their cubicles to ask other people. The consensus answer seemed to be: four hours. It will be four hours late.
The board stayed stuck at 120 minutes. There was no line number.
Figuring three hours would be safe, I went back to the hostel to have dinner and to talk with Hugo. As I had already said my big good-bye, I got ragged on for being back again. Amy and Anna were on hand, and I passed the next two hours with their pleasurable company.
Ironically, if I had given up on the train right then, the night would have been perfect: everyone was readying to go out. I didn’t know where Teresa, Terese or Lisa were, but I would probably run into them at the club. But despite my desire to stay, I couldn’t stand Jana up. So I said yet another big good-bye and trudged back to the train station. On the way, I ran into T, T and L on the street. Budapest is a big city. Running inadvertently into the same people twice was an amazing coincidence, but I could do no more than another big good-bye, and then walk to the train station.
Back at the train station, the 120 minute sign mocked. The line number was blank. I settled in with a group of Australians, their monstrous bags piled together and making mine look puny, us circling them like wagons guarding against attacking Indians. I finished 100 Years of Solitude and gave it away to another traveler. I wrote. Midnight came. I sat half awake as the date changed and the sign didn’t.
After the four-hour mark passed, more inquiries were made. Forty minutes, we were told. An hour later, more inquires were made. Forty more minutes, we were told. By now, the few attendants still at their jobs were sick of us. At the international tickets desk, the woman whose job it was to sell the tickets for our train and, one would assume, be aware of its location, stonewalled all questions. This was my 1:00 AM conversation with her, in English:
“Do you know when the train will arrive?”
“I can’t help you.”
“Can you ask when it will arrive?”
“I can’t help you.”
“Who can help me?”
“I can’t help you.”
“Can you get someone who will help me?”
“I can’t help you.”
“Can I change my ticket for tomorrow?”
She hesitated. “Your ticket is valid only for today.”
“If the train does not arrive, can I get a refund?”
“I can’t help you.”
Then she looked down at the paper in front of her and refused to look up again.
Still waiting on a train
Finally, at 1:30 AM, the viral information started spreading that the train would not arrive until 4:00 AM. The Australians decided that if the train never came, they would catch the 6:00 AM train—a different train—to Prague. Then they settled against their backpacks and went to sleep.
As I had paid extra for both a reservation and for a couchette on the night train, I was annoyed to have to spend five and a half more hours in a train station to take a cheap day train to Prague. Plus, if we didn’t leave until 4:00 AM, there was no way I’d be in Prague in time to meet Jana.
Where did this information come from, I asked? No one knew; it was just spreading. I went to the woman who handled domestic tickets. She was the only helpful attendant, and our train wasn’t even her responsibility. She suggested two things: 1) Find the information office and/or 2) Just switch the ticket to the next day; she was pretty sure the train wasn’t coming.
I finally did find the information office, this mythical office no one had been able to find in the six hours people had been wandering around the station. It is not near any of the ticket windows, the train lines or the departure board. Rather, it is a tiny office in the back of the train station with no signage pointing to it. You either have to know where it is or, like me, find it by accident.
Inside were two older women, chatting, and a ten year-old girl, sitting and looking bored. I asked about the Prague train. The two women looked to the little girl for translation. After a moment’s conversation, the girl looked at me and said: “Don’t know when come. Maybe four. Train…” she hesitated and then smacked her hands together while making an exploding sound with her mouth.
A train wreck. There had been a fucking train wreck. And no one had bothered to tell us.
The departure board still said the train was 120 minutes late.
I was pissed. Had I been told six hours ago, I could have notified Jana and partied in Budapest. Instead, even if I got on a train now, it was too late to meet Jana and too late to notify her. I had just wasted a lot of my time painfully limping around a deserted train station in the middle of the night because the Hungarian rail service does not know the first thing about customer service. Or when its trains blow up. Welcome to Eastern Europe.
I took the domestic lady’s advice to switch tickets. The Australians renewed their commitment to wait on the 6:00 AM train. I shoved my ticket through the hole in the window of the unhelpful international lady and told her to change it. As bitchy as she was before, she could have caused me all manner of problems now. Instead she changed my ticket without a word and without a fine.
A cab driver took five American dollars to drive me back to the hostel (all the buses had stopped running at midnight), I gave the hostel my passport as collateral for a night’s payment (since I still didn’t have Forints) and, wonder of wonders, while checking in, Terese and Lisa walked in, having just gotten back from the club
It turns out that their hostel had overbooked and they had ended up in mine.
Three times we ran into each other! Chalk that up to travel karma.
The rugby team had forgone the club, but were still awake when I arrived at the rooms. I got ragged on for returning yet again after having said I was leaving the country. Hugo leapt up and said: “let’s go to Rio! Amy and Anna are there”. His mate reminded him that the clubs were due to close in an hour. As is, I was too tired: the rugby team and Amy and Anna had slept to noon. I had gotten up at 7:30, walked all over Budapest trying to go to a bath and had spent most of the night limping around a train station.
But, this is what happened: Jana was already on the way to Prague when I sent her a message early the next morning, but it wasn’t a bust because she got to spend the day with her boyfriend in Prague, who works there. With T, T and L at the hostel, the four of us were able to meet up with two other Ukraine PCVs I hadn’t known before, and all of us went to those good baths I talked about last posting—after I bought a speedo, of course.
Peace Corps Ukraine about to bathe Budapest
The baths we went to
I tapped some cash and bought myself a couple of good meals—including a not-bad Cuban sub--to make myself feel better. Amy and Anna said I missed a great night at the club, but promised better clubbing in Prague, when they got there. Also, I got to say a proper good-bye to David and Frances, the Australian couple I went caving with. Getting off the packed bus, we had lost track of one another and had only been able to bid good-bye via e-mail. I ran into them in a subway station later that afternoon. Budapest is a big city, but it’s in a small world.
I did finally get out of Budapest the next day, after a day of trying to keep at bay my paranoia that I’d have a repeat of the previous night. When I arrived at the train station, the 120 minutes late sign was staring at me.
I sat down with another book. As I told Hugo that evening, I wasn’t leaving the station unless I was on a Prague-bound train. He told me I’d probably be back again. Some time later, a staccato clacking caught my attention. It ended with a line number by my train. I felt a wave of relief wash over me: after getting held up in a very frustrating way, my trip was continuing.
The 120 minutes sign was still there, but that night, my train was exactly two hours late.