You've read it here before, but it bears repeating, because it is perfect. Our friend John Passacantando taught us years ago that "it's not an adventure until the first thing goes wrong." In hindsight, this story isn't really an adventure, or something going wrong, but at the time it sure seemed that way.
After the synagogue on Sunday morning in Budapest, we high-tailed back to our hotel to meet the noon check-out by minute.
(Editor's Note: Uh, Glen, don't you mean by minutes? Blogger: Nope, by a literal minute).
On the forced march back, I stopped our progress to buy a couple of apple pastries being sold from a card table on the side of the road just before crossing Chain Bridge. It was delicious -- Carol compared it to having an apple pie you can walk around with (I think those exist -- McDonald's used to sell it, and probably still does!). Unlike Myanmar and China, Carol believes the street food here won't get her sick -- and she's been right so far!
The hotel kindly stored our baggage and we popped down the street to a restaurant grandly named "Meat." We riffed a bit on it being the perfect name for a vegan place. The food was quite good -- I had Hungarian sausage, which is sausage from Hungary.
(Editor's Note: Thanks Captain Obvious! Blogger: Now you know as much as I do!)
Anyhow, it was quite tasty, and the bread & butter were fabulous. There was a romesco sauce that was quite good, but not as good as Carol's romesco sauce Carol and Torie had goulash, which Torie said was better than at Zona (I liked Zona's goulash). They had different bread, but it was good too. Carol wisely notes that European bread is better than American bread. We speculate as to the cause, with water being one option. There is no way European wheat is better than American wheat!
(I'm writing this on the train from Vienna to Salzburg, we're currently stopped in the small town of Wels. Now you know!)
Our cab pulled up just after we got our bags from the storage room (there were tons of bags -- we're not the only ones with a later departure than the checkout time).
(Editor's Note: Your loyal readers put up with a lot, but I daresay they don't really care about how many bags were in the storage room. Blogger: For once you have a legit point.)
Our cabby didn't know where our train station was -- oh, he claimed to, but he went inside the hotel with our paperwork. It certainly wasn't the main train station, but it's where Rail Europe sold us the tickets to depart from.
As it turns out, the main station was the first stop after our train departed our station (Kellenhof). When you google train stations in Budapest, our train station doesn't even show up as one of the top three.
When you click on "show more" it shows about 12 more, and Kellenhof doesn't show. Google it specifically, and it shows up as "Quellenhof," which is not how it is printed by Europe Rail on the ticket.
Most of the way there, our cabby, a very friendly fellow, stopped and asked to see the tickets again. He explained that it was a station with many entrances and he was trying to figure out where best to drop us. We realized later he had no idea and that was just a cover story.
The cab pulled up to a decrepit train station that looked like it was falling apart. He pointed to some stairs that go down deep into the ground. No signs or anything. He said "go down, then up." Seemed easy enough.
Except we went down into an underground area that, if had still been a communist country, is the location where the innocent American tourist (family in this case) gets gunned down with no explanation.
Since that was no longer official policy of commie thugs, the only thing we were worried about was getting mugged. While there were certainly seedy characters traversing the tunnel, drawing on my experience as Batman whilst getting pick pocketed in Barcelona, I figured the three of us could take them.
Every so often, there were stairs leading up, with some track numbers. There was zero other information. We had just lugged our many bags down the long staircase. But at least the bags are heavy (it's winter, so we need heavier stuff than most of our trips).
Finally, we sent Torie up one flight of stairs (sans bag) to scout. She was gone for a good while. With good reason, as there was no information. Eventually she came back down, little the wiser on where we needed to be than before.
Next, we all carried our luggage up one set of stairs, wandered around aimlessly, and then went down another set of stairs we had just lucked upon. (Don't worry -- there were no signs). The escalator led into the underground station, full of other dazed tourists like us who didn't know where to be.
THERE WERE NOT EVEN SIGNS IN HUNGARIAN!
(Side note -- Austrians are mellowing. I'm not sitting in my assigned seat as the train is mostly empty. This way I have more room to blog and edit pictures, and poor Carol doesn't get squished by my technology man-spreading. Anyhow, the ticket guy just walked by and didn't order me to return to my seat. I half-expected a "Jawohl, papers bitte! barked at me, but he just smiled and went on his way. Frankly I'm a bit freaked seeing an Austrian not named Maria smile.)
Carol went to the help desk to inquire about our train, but was told to wait and watch the board. Soon enough, it appears, so we went up the escalator (blessed relief) to the track. With time to look around I realized we were in the middle of the parts of Budapest they don't show you in the tourist brochures. The info drought was so bad that other people were asking US where they should be. Talk about the blind leading the blind.
With confidence, Torie assured them they were on the right track. Soon our train showed up, and we boarded for an uneventful trip to Vienna. We were just happy to found the train. We did laugh the laugh of the damned when five minutes later the train stopped in the more conveniently-located, actually modernized Budapest main train station of Keleti. I bet it even has signs.
No one checked our tickets until just before Vienna, so we could have boarder at Keleti. But then we wouldn't have this story.
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