A Weekend in Budapest - by Rachel Neer

It’s something that almost every student at Harlaxton College will plan and execute while they are abroad: independent travel. Matt and Bronwyn, our “travel agents” for the semester, told us at the very beginning how we should go about travel. They told us how to plan, the things to look at, what to watch out for.  Apparently, Caitlyn and I drifted off early on in the seminar, because we didn’t start this trip at all in the way that they would recommend that we start the trip.

Before I tell you about this past weekend in Budapest, I have to tell you how it is that we decided to go to Budapest three weeks ago. The original destination for this weekend was Ireland, I do believe, but it changed several times. After discussing our options, we both decided that we could go to Ireland on a different weekend, one when it was warmer and when time could be better spent. Instead, to decide where it was that we wanted to go this weekend, we pulled out a map. We looked at the map and decided where we would like to go, and then looked at where Ryanair flies. We wrote down the names of the places that we wanted to go, nine places in all, on a piece of paper. Those pieces of paper went into a hat, and we drew five. From those five we drew three, and from those three we chose the one that would be the most feasible to do on this weekend. (We’ll go to Sweden over a long weekend.)

Yes, it was unconventional…but I’m glad that it happened that way, because Budapest has been my favorite place to go to thus far. It may cause Matt and Bronwyn to shudder a little bit on the inside and wonder just what we took away from that seminar. I think it was one of the best decisions that we made, though. I think that may be how I make major life decisions from now on…by putting all my options in a hat and then drawing out the one that I should choose. It could work for some things, you know.

In either case, this past weekend was the second weekend that I spent Thursday night in the airport. I’m becoming quite the expert. It never really matters that I don’t sleep at the airport because there is always a flight the next morning. That is what happened this time…lots of Sudoku puzzles were completed (I finally learned how to do them!), plenty of word searches were done, and we played MasterMind, Cluedo, and Connect Four until we couldn’t really stand it anymore. Caitlyn and Crystal slept while I watched people go about their respective tasks…the airport is one of the best places to people-watch, you know. At 6:50 the next morning, our flight took off…we arrived in Budapest about 2 ½ hours later.

It was cold there, but it was easy to find the hostel from the train station. The train ticket cost us less than one pound sterling, but we paid about 300 florint for the tickets because of the exchange rate. The things that war will do to an economy, I tell you what…in any case, we made it downtown and walked out of the train station that looked like it came from a film from the 1920s, only I was seeing it in color. There was the city, and I loved it…like I love every city.

Our hostel was amazing. The people there were nice, and we stayed in a room for 7 people but the people that we stayed with were there for the same reasons as we were. Every night that we came in we were greeted with a hot cup of tea, in any flavor that we chose. We had to go by the pictures on the boxes because none of us could speak, much less read, Hungarian…every cup of tea was amazing, though. Scrabble occupied our time the first night that we were there, while reading took the greater part of the second night.

The first day that we were out we (Caitlyn and I, because Crystal came prepared) had to find some place that sold both hats and gloves. Being on the bank of a river, the city was subject to the piercing wind 24 hours a day. This spelled disaster for the two Southern girls wandering the city…Caitlyn stated her feelings plainly. “When God made me, he was thinking, ‘I’m going to make a girl who wants to sit on her front porch 9 out of 12 months of the year in a rocking chair and drinking sweet tea.’” Alas, it has been nothing but cold the entire time that we have been in England, and while I have a cup of tea with every meal, Caitlyn is feeling very much deprived of her sweetened iced tea that is so readily found in all states south of the Mason-Dixon line in the US. We found hats and gloves, though, and continued up the hill…where we could see the whole of the city.

I’m not sure if we looked miserably lost, but that first day that we were there, two locals stopped while we were looking at a map and pointed us in the direction that we should go, because they couldn’t speak English. We took their advice and headed off, offering them gestures of thanks in the only way that we knew how. That day we went to the Fisherman’s Bastion, where pictures were taken. There was a Marzipan Museum somewhere that we managed to find, where all of the sculptures inside were made of marzipan. Friday we visited a park with several fun sculptures, ate dinner at a pizza place a few blocks from the hostel, and called it a night.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early to go visit the Basilica of St. Steven. It was amazing on the inside…much more exciting to me than any cathedral we had been to. The colors and the statues…everything was amazing to me. I know what a little of it meant, just from being raised in church and taking classes in theology, but some of the other things were all a mystery to me and will remain that way, because English wasn’t one of the languages that was listed anywhere that we went. Not as many people there spoke English, which made me appreciate ulterior forms of communication (hand motions, facial expressions) even more. That afternoon we went to the top of the hill on the other side of town, where we visited an art gallery (I love art!), wandered about what remained of Buda Castle, and went back across the river to the Opera house. Caitlyn had a great grandmother that sang in the opera there, and she wanted to go see it. I was glad that we did.

Time is one thing that I have learned just kind of happens on these trips. When we were in Budapest, though, we went to a park that has a time wheel in it. This time wheel is a large hourglass that is computer controlled and allows sand to run through it continuously throughout the year. The controls help to ensure that the sand does not run too fast or too slow through the hourglass, but every new year the hourglass is turned over with a series of simple machines, namely wheels, pulleys, and levers, that remind those watching that time has never changed and is still as simple as ever. There is a sculpture in the gardens here at Harlaxton that has the following words inscribed on it, and I think that the two things go hand-in-hand: “Make time, save time, while time lasts. All time is no time when time is past.” Time. It’s there. It happens. It’s simple, and so priceless. How I spend my time here is my choice, and I think that I am choosing to spend it well.

Saturday night we shared another cup of tea at the hostel, and woke up a little bit later on Sunday morning since we had no real plans for the day. We wandered about the city for a while before getting some lunch and gelato, and then a ticket that took us from the train station in Budapest to the airport just a few miles out…the train ticket cost just as much as the gelato, and so I’m not sure which one was the cheaper of the two…but that doesn’t really matter.

When we got off the airplane at East Midlands, there was a slight dusting of snow on the ground, which excited me but made Caitlyn less than happy, and Crystal remained indifferent, I do believe. Maybe it’ll snow here one day; that would be nice.

The weekend all in all was amazing, and I wouldn’t change a part of it for anything…except maybe the cold. There were flurries at one point. I would definitely go back when it is warmer, and I may just do that. I think it’s very exhilirating to get another stamp on your passport. I smile to myself every time it is stamped. It was nice to come back to the familiarity of Harlaxton: my bed, my friends, and a melting pot of American, Australian, English, and Scottish accents are my life now.

Helpful information that came from Caitlyn about this trip:
1.) Hold onto your passport with both hands. (This one comes from experience; hers, though, and not mine.)
2.) Nod, smile, and say please and thank you…even if they don’t understand you.
3.) Don’t wear loose-fitting trousers through security. (Again, experience, and not my own.)
4.) Always close the door behind you on the train…especially in Budapest.

That’s all I’ve got for now…this weekend promises a trip to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, a trip that I’m sure will offer many more exciting stories. Things aren’t going to calm down for a while, I don’t think…but that’s the way that I imagine life here is on a regular basis. Here’s to the hectic aspect of all that is life. If it doesn’t calm down, may it always remain exciting, in every aspect and around every twist and turn.