Across the Big Wide Blue

After saying good bye to my parents at Terminal 2 at JFK, I got dropped off at Terminal 4. Because I still had a considerable amount of time before my plane was to depart (we're talking about eight hours), I opted to stay inside the airport for the day instead of venturing out into the city once again for the second time that day. I was tired and didn't feel like cashing out the money to take the train in, nor was I prepared to haul all of my carry-on luggage around NYC alone, my laptop, cameras, passports, etc. As for my checked luggage, I still had a four hour wait before I could even check in, and instead of carrying two huge duffle bags around the terminal with me, I checked those in to airport storage- it cost me less than it would have for me to go around the city, and it freed me of my bags for the five hours while I waited before I could actually check in, so it seemed rational to me.

I hand the guy at the luggage storage my passport to show some identification. He looks at it and says:

"¡Qué Bárbara!"

Which in Spanish means something to the effect of "how great." The first time I heard this was at the dodgy Mexican restaurant I worked at for less than three weeks before it closed due to "immigration problems," but working with Mexicans proved to be good for my Spanish, in the least.

Mr. Luggage Storage went on to speak Spanish with me, Spanishized the pronunciation of my surname until I told him I was not Spanish, but Hungarian. He continued to speak Spanish to me anyway, albeit my not-so-fluent form; it felt great to just randomly speak Spanish to someone, and I suppose in NYC you can't really miss that opportunity much.

After checking in, I waited for what seemed like forever at the gate. Our plane left a bit late, and when we landed at 11:20, I checked my boarding card for my transfer flight and noticed that it was boarding at- well whaddya know, 11:20. I jetted out of the plane, and I'm fairly certain that I walked from one end of the Amsterdam airport to the other, and when I came upon a queue that led up to the passport control, I thought that I would for certain miss my flight.

I managed to push my way to the front of the line, get through the passport check and once again go through security. I took off all of my items I knew which would set off the beeper, and lo and behold, it set it off anyway, which awarded me a no-privacy, spread eagle frisk right there and then. Apparently it was a random check... ja.

After meeting my friend Tünde at Ferihegy airport, we took the lovely BKV back to downtown Budapest to the flat. I unpacked, did some light grocery shopping to prepare me for the next travel day, and took a nap. The next morning I left for the train station, Keleti Train Station with a good 45 minutes to spare, you know, just in case something goes wrong. Good planning, Barbara.

If waking up at 5:45 in the morning wasn't a big enough achievement the day after arriving from half way across the globe and having no sleep on a 12 hour flight, I think going head first and buying a train ticket at Keleti Train Station in Budapest was the icing on the cake.

Because of the renovations going on at the train station, I wasn't quite sure of where to go to buy my tickets, so as any normal person would do, I asked someone who worked there. The lady was kind, helpful and quickly explained the way to get to the international ticket counter; walk to the other side of the train station, out the hallway into the street, around the building and in the back. Simple enough, and thankfully it was. And that's just about where all the simplicity ended.

I got the the counter, one person standing in front of me, and no one else in the huge hall. Once the man in front of me finished, I went up, greeted the lady and explained to her that I wanted to go to Csap on the 7:35 train this morning. But before I could finish, she asked me for my ticket. Dating back from what seems like communist time, every bank, post office or any other government office with public services has about a list of 20 different items to choose from. Of the 20, about 19 of them are the same, but you still must get your number and patiently wait.

Annoyed as there still was no one else in sight in the hall but myself, I went to the ticketer, got my number, handed it to her, and continued to explain where I wanted to go.

"Oh goodness, excuse me! You have to go to the national ticket sales to buy your ticket, please forgive me."

Confused and even more annoyed, because Csap is in Ukraine, I naively went to the national ticket sales counter which was in the train station in the underpath, waited in line (no ticket this time!) and asked the young lady for a ticket to Csap.

Looking at me like I'm stupid, she tells me that Csap is in Ukraine.

"Yes, I'm aware of that, but the lady at the international ticket counter told me that I need to buy it here."

She went back to speak with her manager twice until she told me she couldn't help me.

So, back I went to the international ticket counter even more ticked about the whole situation. I got my ticket from a different woman, but before you think "well that was easy enough" I still had to get a seat ticket from a DIFFERENT ticket office. I went to about three different places until I figured out that the one where I was supposed to go only opened at 8:00, and of course my train was scheduled to leave at 7:35. There was a lady in the office with some construction workers, and she was quite unhelpful, to say the least. As my luck would have it, the ticket counter right besides the office opened and I managed to buy my ticket, costing less than $1, and ran to catch my train, which left one minute after I got on.

Unfortunately the drama did not stop there. I had two connections, and although my first train left on time, it got to the next station over half an hour late. This made me miss my connectiong train, thus making me miss my second and last connection which would have taken me from the border of Hungary right across to the border of Ukaine. I tried reaching my friend, Kati, to let her know (and also to tell my other friend's (Zsuzsa) parents who were coming to pick me up at the Ukrainian border that I would be arriving much later) for her to tell Zsuzsa's parents since I didn't have any of their contact information. She finally called me back just after I got off the train in Záhony. The conversation went something like this:

Kati: "I just spoke with Zsuzsa's parents and told them that your train was late and wouldn't be coming by train. It's too long to wait for the next train, so just hitchhike across the border and they'll be waiting for you at the Ukrainian side."

Me: (I stopped dead in my steps when she said "hitchhike" and said, "Umm... and how do I do that?"

Kati: "There are probably a lot of people who are going across the border from the train parking lot, so just asked someone for a ride and then you can meet Zsuzsa's parents."

Me: "O...K..."

I managed to get a ride from some two nice guys who took me up till the border, since they really weren't going that direction, but took me anyway since it was only about 3 kms from the train station. Once I got to the border, I thought I could just walk across, like the border at Esztergom at Hungary and Slovakia. That would have made things too easy, though. After the borde guard thoroughly looked at my Hungarian passport, he asked me if I was born in England.

"No," I replied, "America."

"Where is your American passport."

"I didn't bring it with me, I'm in Hungary."

"All right, well you can't walk across the border, so I'll seat you in the next car that comes."

And just to spice things up, the next car that came was something close to a rusty red, banged up pilot model of the Lada, and it's owner pretty much fit the same description. Reluctant, but not wanting to cause a scene, I got in after the border guard asked the guy, who just as well could have been on Hungary's most wanted list, if he would take me across.

The guy seemed a bit confused when clarifying with my that I was Hungarian, even though he had my passport to give over to the Ukrainian officials. Other than feeling like I was forced into a really awkward and potentially dangerous situation, I just acted like I did that all the time.

We finally got pass the Ukrainian border patrol and as soon as I saw someone that resembled a kind face, I just assumed that it was Zsuzsa's family and asked the guy to stop. As I was getting out and making sure I didn't leave anything in the car, he looked back at me with the look of "so are you going to give me anything or what" on his face. I quickly thanked him and wished him well on his way and shut the door.

Ukraine was fantastic- I had a great time with Zsuzsa's family. They showed me around the orphanage they organise and direct, and then they took me to Kati house in Mukachevo (Munkacs). I had a wonderful four nights at her family's place as well; she took me around Munkacs and Ungvar (Uzhhorod), I met so many wonderfully nice people, and the icing that topped the cake was probably the trip with her uncle and cousins to the Vereckei hago- where the leader of the seven Hungarian tribes came and declared that the land in front of him would be the new home of the Hungarians.

The way back to Budapest was a bit less dramatic, thankfully. I met my friend, Tunde, at the airport, and there we met our friend Bela and his friend, Adam, at the airport. I hadn't seen Bela for four years by then, so it was so great to finally see him.

It's getting late, but I'll make a next post more Peace Corps-oriented...!