Broken in Budapest

Capital City #11

Broken thing #1

By the time we arrived in Budapest my bag was about had it. This is the same one that broke in Prague, that we had bought new in Stockholm. The broken wheel had a worn down patch, so instead of being shaped like an O it was shaped more like a D. Wheeling the bag down a rough tar-sealed surface was fine, it would just make a clacking sound as if it were a train. On smooth surfaces, like the floors of the subway stations, it would refuse to turn. I ended up carrying the thing through a couple of subway stops.

Speaking of subway stops, the underground system in Budapest has one of the oldest subway lines in the world, with a World Heritage status.

Also their escalators ran really quickly, and some of them were these really solid, steel-looking contraptions that you'd really not want to get a toe caught in.

Broken thing #2

While we were there, they had people inspecting the tickets at the entrance of every subway station (and once at the exit, bizarrely). We're not sure if they're there permanently or just because the machines are broken. We got adept at showing our ticket, and looking for the nod telling us we were allowed to proceed.

Incidentally, this is the first place since London where we've had our tickets checked at all on the underground system. In London you had to present your ticket to a machine with a barrier in order to be let through to the transport area, but since then it's felt like it would be easy to just travel everywhere for free. Finally, in Budapest, we felt gratified to actually have our tickets checked. Buying them was worthwhile after all!

Broken thing #3

Our accommodation was able to house 9 people, so it was rather large, but we had the whole place to ourselves. The major downside of it was that there was a little crack in the shower floor, which allowed probably about half the water to leak out on to the bathroom floor. Thank goodness we brought a little bit of duct tape. I stuck it on like a bandaid and it was broken no longer!

Broken thing #4

Anna's Kindle broke while we were there. A broken screen, so not fixable under warranty or anything, so we had to get her a new one. We'll talk about this later.

Anyway, we arrived and decided to have a look up Castle Hill. We arrived at what looked like the closest station, and had a little wander around looking for where the hill was. It was in a dodgy-looking area of town and looked like it was going to start raining, so we just went home instead.

Church the next morning was easy enough to find, given the directions on their website. Another international church, another American pastor. In this particular church, they felt it was appropriate to call on any and all visitors to introduce themselves to the congregation. Anna and I were united in our desire to avoid this cruel and unusual form of torture. Thankfully, it was a rather large church, so we were able to get away without alerting our presence to anyone who might thrust a microphone into our face. It's not something I'm accustomed to, and while it's inclusive, it's a little alienating at the same time. What we found surprising was how many people were comfortable with standing up and introducing themselves – a good dozen at least!

Broken thing #5

Getting transport out to Ljubljana was our next task. We'd looked online for buses or trains, and the only option seemed to be getting a train. A train to Zagreb, and then on to Ljubljana, which would either leave us in Ljubljana at about 1 or 2 am, or require a stay in Zagreb. We opted for the stay in Zagreb. Booking a ticket online though seemed to be a bit more difficult than that.

“Surely,” we thought to ourselves, “there'll be a train that goes to Ljubljana that we can't see on their website,” and then, “If not, we'll just have to book the train to Zagreb, which will surely be easier in person.” Surely.

At the train station we stepped into the international ticket office and got our ticket. Our ticket for the queue, that is. In many of these countries in Scandinavia and eastern Europe we're encountering a machine that will give you a ticket number, allowing you to wait in line without actually waiting in a line. Just wait until your number comes up on a little screen above the counter, and you're away.

There were a few options on the machine with labels in Hungarian. Anna selected one and got a ticket and we began to wait.

Half an hour (or so) later our number popped up and we talked to the lady behind the glass about getting a ticket to Zagreb, or Ljubljana. She printed out a couple of sheets of paper and shoved them under the glass. “We'd like that one please,” we said after a quick confer. “Sorry, this is the information window, you'll have to get another number and wait for the ticket purchase window, although it will be a very long wait.” If the half hour wait was the short wait, we didn't want to find out how long the other one would be – we suspected it was well over an hour.

Since the lady was unable (or unwilling) to sell us some tickets, we decided to try again online. We went home and got on the internet. After finding the route that we wanted, we managed to actually purchase tickets, and go back to the train station to get them printed at a ticket machine.

Genius.

Having done all that, it was high time to actually do something in Budapest. Hungary so far had been a little disappointing. People rave about the place. Perhaps it's that everything is cheap, they use exotic currency, their not-quite-indo-european language, and that the city itself has a tired charm. We weren't really feeling it.

We visited the National Museum, and were able to get around the Hungarian history section to around about the Reformation, before we had to rush through the rest of their history since the museum was closing.

That night we set out to have a look at the city at night.

Statues of Hungarian heroes

Castle. There was a private event happening there, so we weren't allowed in.

Looking from Pest to Buda.

The next morning we were still stuck with broken bag #2 and broken Kindle. We went shopping.

The Central Market is famed as a key attraction in Budapest, and we are generally in favour of markets anyway (especially in cheap eastern European countries) so we made sure we checked it out. However, the marketplace isn't the type of place that you'd expect to get a Kindle (or indeed an e-reader of any kind) and that expectation would be accurate. There was a whole lot of food, and a whole lot of tourist type items to buy, from tablecloths to hats and everything in between.

Still without bag or Kindle we set out to a proper shopping mall.

West End Mall had plenty of what we were looking for. It reminded me of any number of shopping malls in NZ, quite flash, except half the shops had the same feel as those little stalls in the middle of the NZ malls that sell phone covers or socks.

I finally found a replacement bag that I felt would be better than the last choice. Time will tell.

We also got another Kindle for Anna. They cost about the same as they do in NZ. That's all the “more on that” there is. Sorry if I built your hopes up.

Then finally we made it up Castle Hill. On the top of the hill there's a little fortified town with a nice view of the city, We were able to catch the view of the Danube from the top of the hill, and finally realised why so many people rave about the place. Budapest had won us over at last.

We walked around a corner and BAM. This thing.

Looking from the top of the hill fortress across the river to Pest.

The next morning we went to the train station to catch a train to Zagreb, with my new bag sleek and fat clattering across the cobblestones.