One night in Budapest

Aim: Caves in Romania
Stops: Budapest(Hun), Satu Mare (Rom), Cluj Napoca (Rom), Brda (Rom)

Saturday ? August 19th
Every place in the bus was taken. The journey started . I must say that I have never been in Hungary and all my wisdom about this country based on some knowledge from history classes and some half-true half-false stories of people who have been in Hungary.. To sum up I knew nothing about Magyarsko and my mind about them was working stereotypically.. Fortunatelly for me my neighbour in the bus was Hungarian and what?s more he was speaking Polish fairly fluent - it might be strange for some people who know both countries because it?s obvious for them that polish and hungarian language are defenitelly different, but not for our nations... from very lil we are taught that ?Polak, Węgier ? dwa bratanki? (Pole and Hungarian are two nephews) and with such motto we left Cracow, we left Poland. I should admit that the only words which I knew in magyar were ?Ferenc Puskas?(famous hun.football player) but thanks to my bus-mate, after 7 hours of journey I knew how to introduce myself and ask ?Where is hostel?? ? ?Hol van diakszalló?? the problem was that I got to know only how to ask and if someone will reply, then I won?t understand that :P
We arrived to Budapest at night ? here I could rely only on my map, good luck and good people :) From the train i have maken a reservation in Kizisi hostel which on the map seemed to be very close to everything... I found way to the underground, but when i wanted to buy some ticket I found first obstacle.. i didn?t predict that every kiosk will be closed and that the tickets machines can take only coins... Because I didn?t have any change i had two ways in this situation ? 1st to go on foot at night to the hostel , 2nd to travel illegally... the weight of my bags convinced me... i forced the gate quite easily and entered the last train going to the centre (it was really late)... If anyone has seen famous hungarian movie ?Kontroll? about budapestian ticket collectors can somehow understand how uncertainly I felt...

Although i felt exhausted finding hostel was really nice and suprising challange. The stairs from the station led me to one of the biggest squares of Pest. The first feeling was ?Have I been here before?? really, I felt like I have come to some well-known place ? Pestian architecture and urban style are typicall for all galician cities. Interesting activity was deciphering of names of the streets (i have had city map from 1983 which my parents had bought here long time ago... ) After 30 mins of walking down the same streets around the square I was close to giving up... I sat on some bench and looked one more time at the map... Suddenly I heard loud music and human voices mixed with Polish words, it was 1am and I was really tired so i thought that my mind is getting crazy... but I was wrong.. in the minute i was surrounded by Gypsies who were playing music and singing... when they saw me they stopped.. I had to look really strange because Gypsies never stop playing music ;) one of them ? very young came to me and asked in English if I am looking for something... ?Wow, how could you guess I thought? ... I was mad on me, on the map, on everything.. and a bit afraid because again i started thinking stereotypically and worried that faster or later with this people I could loose my bags.. He asked me one more time ? then I told him where I am from and the name of the hostel which i should be in 1 hour ago... I have never seen before so enthusiastic and positive reaction on word ?Poland? :) they started singing ,playing and shouting again from this boy I got to know that it was some wedding between polish gypsy boy and some niece of hungarian Gypsy King. They invited me to join them, but after wishing all the best to bride I asked the boy if someone could show me the way to the Kinzsi hostel.. When I said ?someone? i thought about one person... that?s the way how i hace come to the hostel with company of gypsy musicians... I thanked and greeted one more time and entered the hostel. Sleepy eyes of receptionists were telling me that my company has just woke her up ;) I registered and got a key. In the room were sleeping two Bulgarians ? who as I can suppose knew very well who was guilty for the loud music in the middle of the night... Here I must stop further story because it?s impossible to describe feeling of taking shower after so long, exhausting and filled with emotions day...
Costs: Ticket from Wroclaw to Cracow 9 ?, two-ways ticket Cracow-Budapest ~46 ?

Sunday ? 2006.08.20
I woke up at 7:30am... it was really hard to leave bed and in the morning I could feel that my bag was quite heavy... My roommates already got up ? and the thing which I will describe now might be impossible and incomprehensible for western-european readers ? because I have found stood in front of me mug with hot coffe which smell I will never forget.. I took one of the chocolates from my bag and deal with guys. From the discussion (in half English ? half Russian) i got to know that this day Hungarians were celebrating Saint Stephan?s (patron saint of Hungary) Day and it would be difficult to get anywhere with public transport. And they were right ? all the city was decorated with red-withe-green flagues, but the trains were going as on every Sunday so I didn?t have any problems with getting to Keleti station (this time with tickets). I had two ways to get to Satu Mare... first by train to Debrecen and then by some bus or hitch-hiking to Satu Mare or second ? directly by small bus to S-M. The problem with the second option was that the bus was leaving only two times daily and of course I didn?t have any scheldue... there were many buses with romanian number plates around the station but none of them was going to Satu or to Baia Mare... I thought that I will spend one more night in Budapest.. well it wouldn?t be bad, but only if I would travel lonely and in SM were waiting for me two of my friends.. Finally at some back street I found one bus which was going to SM, though just after my comming the driver told me that we will go only if there will be enough many passangers, but still after 40 minutes I was the only one sitting inside.. He came to me and said that we will go.. I was relieved because I didn?t want to waste any minute more in such way... With hunger for sight seeing Budapest we left capital...
In Budapest I spent about 7 ?uro (4 Euro f or one night in hostel+3 ? on tickets for trains and some water)

The bus driver was a 40-years-old balding man, having gold thick neclace around... he knew only few words in English and spoke somehow Russian... Far-sightendly I have taken from Wroclaw Polish-Romanian Phrase Book (which remembered student?s times of my parents) and for five hours, holding that and searching for new words we were talking about weather, politics, life, joining European Union, girls, cars, corruption... about everything! :)
Sometimes to express his thoughts, Florian was loosing the steering wheel ... I must say that Hungary has very good roads and Romanian busses have quite good achivements in speeding ;) The landscape was very nice... because it was August, the fields were in bloom and near the streets farmers were selling their products ? i have never seen so big and so cheap melons!
We crossed the border in 5 minutes and at 2pm romanian time we came to Satu Mare. At the end he gave me basket of peaches. The cost of the journey was about 13,5 ?

Few minutes after my arriving at the station I saw waiting for me Ionel, Laura and Adriana Ionescu... then I knew that I have come to Romania :) But about this in the next post...

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