Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Budapest and the Unfortuante Incedent with the Train

Kinda sucked. Lorin and I spent the night on a train, got off on the wrong side of the Danube and got lost in the subway - she was tired and it was hot. Hungary was having a massive heat wave that week. So we finally got to our ghetto hostel and crashed out for the afternoon, the night and half of the next morning. We wandered around, went to the train station and got tickets to Krakow and discovered that we had to leave that night becuase there is only one train between the two cities and it leaves at 19:00 every night.
We did do some sight seeing, But like I said, it was blisteringly hot

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We wanded up having to spend an hour indoors because it was brutal. We had lunch and then went to the zoo (it seemed like a good idea)

This is the castle
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and the Train Station
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Yeah, so then there was the shitty incedent on the train. Here's the e-mail Lorin Sent her mother - it pretty much summs it up:

So, I took a night train to Budapest and I met some cool people, Moo (not making this up) from South Koraea and Seb from Hungary. Moo was afraid that he was going to be robbed on the train as he had been robbed tiwce in Paris. Seb was just rewally excited that I live in Vehgas.
Budapest was really nifty, the hostel I stayed at was kinda mingy and the lady in charge was a complete dingbat. If she hates backpackers so damn much, why is she running a hostel? Anyway, I wandered around all day Tuesday and it was bloody hot. I thought I was going to die! I drank so much water it's not even funny. And I Still got degydrated? What the hell is that? Anyway, I went to the zoo and I went to the art museum and I went to the castle and I went here there and everywhere I could in 105 degree heat.
At 7:00 I got the train to Krakow and unfortunatly fell asleep. I woke up in some town somewhere in Northern Hungary. The train had un-coupled and the half I wasn't on went to Krakow.
And of course it's like midnight and no one speaks English and I was totaly fucked.
So they put me on a train and gave me the name of a sattion I was to go to. I got there and was told that I could get to some city and there was a train to Krakow from there, but I had to wait until 5:00
So I slept in a train station for 4 hours and got EATEN ALIVE BY A MOSQUITO!!! I have a grand total of 13 bites on my legs and arms. Why me?
So, I got to X town and they send me to Y town and THEY send me to Bratislava and from there I finally made it to Krakow at 8:00 last night. Needless to say I was a little batty when I got to my hostel.

Oh, and at the Polish border, the border controllers had electronic scanners to make the tracking of the commings-and-goings of people easier, but they still have to stamp the visa into the passport itself. These are the first computers I've seen in days, right? So he scans me and goes to put the visa in and the hand stamp broke! I couldn't believe it! My passport looks like a kid got to it and the controller was covered in ink. It was the funniest damn thing I've ever seen!!
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So chuck it all up to experiance: This worked out better, I arrived in Krakow at the time I had origionally planned in my origional plan; I got to see the counrty side as I was traveling by day and now I have a really funny story to tell.

Only it sucked


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