Return to Budapest

Monday-Tuesday, July 21-22, 2014--San Antonio to Chicago to Munich to Budapest

I just arrived in Budapest for the first time since the early 1980s which was during communist times here.  I am at the airport waiting for Wes' flight to arrive in about an hour, then we will head into town where we have the Hello Leo Apartment reserved. 

I am remembering the last time I was here.  I was travelling with David Cordova, and we took a train from Vienna even after being warned that a major music festival was occurring here and that housing would be full.  I figured there was no way that a communist country would let a westerner go homeless.  When we arrived at the train station, I got in a long line of people waiting at a window where they had lists of rooms available in homes of private citizens hoping to earn some hard currency.  Fortunately, an American was in front of me, and I overhead his conversation.  They told him that they had no more rooms available.  He was smart enough to know there were more offices around town and that their lists were kept in a card file rather than a database on a computer.  He asked about another office, and they suggested that he go there to see if they still had any rooms available.  I quickly asked if he minded if we went with him.

We took a taxi to the other office and, sure enough, they did have rooms available. We got rooms in two separate suburban communist-style apartment buildings that were near each other.  He dropped David and me off and suggested that he return a few minutes later and that we go into town together to eat.  Since we were out in the suburbs with few businesses in sight, we agreed.

We took the streetcar back into town, and he immediately noticed that La Boheme was being performed at the famous opera house here.  The performance would start in only 30 minutes, so he suggested postponing dinner and buying tickets if they were available.  I was so hungry, and I was worried about being dirty and dressed poorly for attending the opera.  However, he was so excited, that David and I waited while he checked at the box office.  Sure enough, we got tickets for only about $3 each.  Although I was still worried about being dirty from traveling and being only in jeans and a polo shirt, I figured at that price we would be high in the balcony.

That wasn't the case, though.  As we entered, we were escorted straight onto the main floor to the 9th row of the orchestra!  My concerns increased when a party of 6 dressed in evening wear sat beside us.  The elderly lady next to me had heard us talking and asked me, "Are you Canadian or American?"  When I responded, she said, "My husband is our ambassador here."  I wished I could disappear!!  When I told her I was from Texas, she replied that they were friends with J. Frank Dobie, had visited him in West Texas, and asked me if I knew who he was.  I responded, "Of course, anyone who has gone to school in Texas knows his writings."

As the opera progressed, a different person sat beside me for each of the 4 acts.  Was it due to my smell?  The ambassador was one, and I asked him to suggest a place to eat that would be open after the performance.  Hungary being a communist country at the time, I figured that most places would close early and that we would have trouble finding a place.  During the next act, their friend, a British actress whose name I never caught and whom I did not recognize (but who may have been famous or become famous later without my being aware of it) leaned toward me and said, "The place the ambassador recommended is very nice, but it is quite expensive!"  I could tell she was evaluating us on our appearances.

After the show, we eventually went to the place the ambassador recommended, because we could not find anything else open.  It was already about 11:00 p.m.  The atmosphere of the restaurant and the food were both wonderful.  And it cost only about $6 per person.  Yes, we had been considered to be poor backpackers who could not afford such a place!!  And that story has become one of my better memories of my world travels.

Our trip to arrive here over the past two days went well.  I had good seats, and although the flight from Chicago to Munich was delayed by over an hour, I still had 4 hours to catch my connecting flight from there to Budapest.  The best part was that I had all 3 seats on the Atlantic flight which allowed me to recline and sleep a little.

As soon as Wes gets here, we will take a bus and then a subway line to get downtown.  The Hello Leo Apartment where we are staying will only be about two blocks from the metro station where we will end our journey.  Leo, the owner, will be waiting there for us.  We'll go to bed quickly having taken a melatonin to help re-set our clocks, and will be up tomorrow ready to start exploring.  It's summer, so there will be no opera.  But if there were, I am sure it would be much more than $3 for an orchestra seat these days.  Too bad that political liberty and low costs can't combine here in Europe!!