So Very, Very Hungary

As the train pulled into Brasov station it looked old, maybe from the 1980's era. I really wasn't expecting it to be very comfortable at all. Once I found my compartment and entered I was actually surprised by how nice and very clean it was on the inside. The compartment was heated, so warm in fact that i turned the heat right down and still got hot at times. hidden in a panel was a little wash area with a sink and mirror. In the wash area was a bag with a toothbrush and some toothpaste as well as some paper towel and moist refresher towels. There were 2 bunk type beds, one above the other. The bed was fairly comfortable and I slept pretty well. The fact that nobody else was in the compartment helped that a lot too as I didn't have to worry about my bags. The one problem I had was I couldn't turn off the light. The ticket cost me about 370 lei (about $100.00 AUD). You have to pay for a seat and then an additional fee for the sleeper.

At one point during the night, I was literally shaken awake. I don't know what was on the tracks but i woke as I was bouncing up and down. I went back to sleep and I woke at about 5:30 AM. I opened the blinds on the train. It was still dark outside but I could see a little of the scenery. About 20 minutes later the train stopped in what looked like some kind of rail yard. I could hear shouting. Then came a knock on the door. "Oh no, I hope that's not somebody coming into the compartment", I thought. I opened the door and there were about 5 men in uniform standing in the hallway. The guy at my door said something to me and I didn't understand. I said, "Sorry, I don't understand" to which he said "Passport". I grabbed my passport and handed it to him. He looked at it and then spoke with another officer down the hall and said "Australian". 

The other officer finished what he was doing then made his way down to my compartment. He checked the passport, asked me where I was coming from and how long I had been in Romania. He wrote something on a piece of paper. I guess he was happy with my answers because he stamped the passport and gave it back to me. All I could think was how strange it was that I was asked more questions when leaving Romania then when I first entered. I guess if I was European it would have been a simpler process, but because I have restrictions on the amount of time I can stay, they had to be more thorough with me. Maybe they were looking for a way to get a bribe out of me.

After about 20 minutes or so the train started to move again, but we didn't get very far. Maybe 15 minutes later, the train stopped again. There was another knock on the door. This time there was a big guy in a Hungarian police uniform standing in the doorway with something strapped over his shoulders and hanging around his waist. "Passport" he said to me. I said "Again?", and grabbed my passport from my bag. He put the passport in the machine around his waist. It was a portable passport scanner. He stamped the passport, gave it back to me and left.

The train started to move again after another 20 minutes. I went back to sleep for awhile and when I woke, we were passing through fields. Some of the fields were covered in snow, some were not. I watched while packs of rabbits hopped through the fields. Then I saw some herds of deer too. We passed through some small villages. I tried to take some pictures but they didn't turn out. Probably something to do with the window on the train. The Hungarian countryside is very nice. It looked very peaceful and I thought to myself, "This is a lifestyle I think I would like". The truth is I would probably get very bored quickly and as I am lazy probably starve to death.

For hours, the only thing I saw was fields and small villages. There was a power point in the compartment. I had my phone on charge and decided to unplug it. I started feeling hungry, so I went to look for the restaurant car. I walked through 3 carriages and once I got there the conductor told me it was closed and to come back in 2 hours. I went back to the compartment and slept again for an hour. The thing i did notice was that most of the compartments on the train were empty.

The train was due to arrive in Budapest at 8:50 AM. At about 8:00 AM, I made my way back up to the restaurant car. Once I got there I found all the train staff sitting around smoking cigarettes.I hadn't had a cigarette for 12 hours. I bought a Red Bull for 3 Euro ($3.60 AUD). There was a laptop behind the counter and it was playing some sort of dance music that was one long mixture of all kinds of pop songs. I smoked 3 cigarettes and then went back to my compartment.

About 5 minutes later the conductor knocked on the door and gave me a packet of biscuits, a bottle of water, a bottle of Nestea and a small packet of coffee and said "This is your breakfast". I just put it all in my bag and drank the bottle of water. About 15 minutes later, he knocked on the door and told me we were arriving in Budapest.

As we came towards Keleti Station I looked out the window and saw a wall that had a lot of murals graffiti'd on it. Each panel of the wall had some kind of anarchist or left wing organisation such as 'Anti Facsist Action'. "This is interesting", I thought to myself. I couldn't see to much of the actual city. The train stopped, I grabbed my backpack and got off the train. I headed out of the station and had a cigarette while I thought about what to do. I couldn't check into the hotel until 12:00 PM at the earliest, which meant I had 3 hours to kill. The first thing I noticed was how tourist friendly the place was. It wasn't like in Romania where you really stood out as a foreigner. Budapest probably has a lot more people visiting and therefore they are more prepared and welcoming. Also about 90% of the population speak English too. I felt very comfortable here.

It was freezing in Budapest. I found a WiFi connection and updated my phone. I texted Miss C to let her know that I had arrived and sent an email to my mum. My phone told me it was -2 degress celcius. Budapest looked like a nice city from where I was standing. I went back into the station and tried to think of what to do. I went over to the Western Union counter and exchanged my Euro for Hungarian Forints. The exchange rate was about 290 Florints for each Euro. There was some dodgy looking guy at the front of the counter offering to exchange money at a higher rate. It's not wise to exchange money from guys like this as it may be counterfeit or some other kind of scam. The girl gave me over 30,000 Forints. I saw a ticket office and thought it was a good opportunity to try and organise my ticket to Prague for Friday. I found that everyone in the office spoke English so it was easy. The ticket cost me 19 Euro.

I went back out into the main area and stood around for about an hour. I went back outside for a cigarette. I watched people come and go. Hungarian are very beautiful too but maybe not as abundant as in Romania.I remember meeting a Hungarian girl at Star City when I was on my friends bucks night. She was very good looking. My friend Andrew was Googling Hungarian words on his phone and writing them on a coaster to try and impress her. I came over and ruined it for him.

While I was outside I noticed a Burger King across the street. "Fuck yeah", I thought. I was starving. My backpack is fairly big and pretty heavy. I didn't want to lug it around the city. I went back  into the station and tried to figure out what I wanted to do. I saw a sign with a suitcase on it and decided to see what that was about. It was a big open room with lockers for people to store luggage. I changed one of my nights for some coins. The smallest note I had was 5000 Forints. The machine spat out twenty five 200 Forint coins. "Great now I have all these fucking coins" I thought to myself. 

I put the 800 Forints in the locker and stored my bag. You can leave it there for 24 hours, but I only needed 2 hours. There are varying sizes of locker and the price varies accordingly. I got one of the big ones as my backpack is fairly big. I had to help a lady put coins in one of the lockers as she couldn't reach the top. Now I was free to roam.

I headed over to Burger King. There was some sort of construction being done across the road from the station and part of the street is partitioned off with wood. I headed under this archway which had some shops and some market stalls selling fruit and vegetables. It had been snowing for awhile now and my beanie was wet. I entered Burger King, looked at the menu. They have Whoppers here but some of the other burgers are different to the ones in Australia. I missed Burger King (or Hungry Jacks) a lot. They don't have Burger King in Romania.

I asked the guy at the counter if he spoke English and he said "Yes". I ordered a 'Duppla Whopper' (double whopper) meal and after some confusion with the money, payed him the 1460 Forints ($6.50 AUD). I took the meal and went upstairs to sit down. They had WiFi there so I stayed there for awhile to kill some time. The food was so good. I hadn't eaten much the night before and I was so hungry. After eating and using the toilet, I took a quick walk around some of the streets and headed back to the station.

It was close to 12:00 PM now so I went back and retrieved my bag and found the taxis. The taxis in Budapest can be fairly dodgy as with most of Eastern Europe. Before I left Casa Timar, I googled some information about them. There are a lot of private taxis, guys that basically have a car and use it as a taxi. These are the ones you should avoid. I found out that a reliable one is called City Taxi. I walked out to where the taxis are and tried to see if I could find one with City Taxi on it. I was in luck. There were a couple of unmarked cars there and 1 with City Taxi. I took the City Taxi and showed the driver the address of the hotel. It was only about 3 or 4 Kms away.

As we were driving to the hotel, the driver pointed out some of the sights and told me a little about the city. Budapaest is actually made up of 2 twin cities seperated by a bridge. On one side you have Buda and on the other side is Pest. I was staying on the Pest side of the city. The city is very beautiful, Bucharest looks like a dump compared to Budapest. It is much bigger than Bucharest as well. The hotel is right in the middle of the tourist area. The taxi cost 5000 Forints ($22.00 AUD). A little expensive, but at least I got to the hotel.

I checked into the hotel, found the mini bar and drank the beer. It was a Hungarian beer called 'Dreher'.  It was very nice, sort of a draught beer I guess. I went for a short walk to locate an ATM and store. I bought 5 cans of Dreher and came back to the Hotel. The WiFi is only free in the public areas of this hotel. The room only cost $150 US for 3 nights so I guess I don't mind paying extra for WiFi. I paid for the WiFi and headed back to the room. I drank the mini bar and then went to bed.