2 October 2008: Pécs, Hungary

When I woke up in the morning I was exhausted and feeling in no way like taking a trip. But I knew I had to go anyway because if I didn't I would regret it. So I forced myself out of bed, into the shower, and out the door.

The girl at the hostel had said that the bus was 1500ft for students and the train was 2100ft. 600ft isn't nothing but the train also got into Pécs three hours earlier, so I decided to splurge and go by rail.

I walked to the train station but it was 3700ft. I showed her my ISIC card but she shook her head and said something. I couldn't understand, obviously, but she couldn't speak English. And so the 3700ft was it. That was much too much and so I decided to check the bus-- although wouldn't you think that at the international train station in Budapest they would have people at the ticket counter that speak English? I mean, that just makes sense.

I got directions to the bus station, but had quite a time trying to find it. I got to the intersection where the station was but still had to ask three more times to find the damn place. It was impossible. Finally I got there, but when I asked for a bus to Pécs they said that I was at the wrong station. I couldn't believe it.

So I took the tram five stops, as they said to do, and hoped it was in the right direction. And keeping an eye out for ticket-checkers the entire time. It turned out that I was in fact going the right way, and I got to the station without getting caught.

I asked the woman at the ticket counter about buses to Pécs and she wrote down 14:00 and 16:00 and below that she wrote 2740ft. Or what I thought was 2740ft, because I couldn't tell her 1s from her 4s from her 7s. I wasn't sure it was 2740 so I held up fingers, and then she held up hers but she held up a 2, a 7, a 1, and a 0 instead. So it was 30ft less. Yippee.

But then she crossed out 2710 and wrote 3010. Unbelievable. That was twice as much as I had expected, and once again would have made the train worth it in order to arrive sooner. I tried to ask the woman how much the 16:00 bus was, just in case it was cheaper, but there was no way I could do this. So it was 3010ft.

That is way more than I had expected or wanted to pay, but there was no going back now. If I didn't go to Pécs it would have been a waste of another day, not to mention a weak-sauce move in general. I had to go.

'Cause you know I ain't weak sauce.

I gave the woman the money and she handed me back a receipt with a number 13 on it. No ticket, just the receipt. I tried to ask if that was all I needed, but since that got me nowhere I just had to hope and pray that it was.

I assumed that 13 meant gate 13 and so I waited in line for the bus that pulled up next to 13. I pointed to the number on my receipt, as if to ask people if that was where I was standing, and all I got was murmers. I took that as a yes, but at the very last minute I walked over to the next bus, showed the driver my ticket, and got on. I had been literally two minutes from missing the bus. And ending up know-knows-where.

This whole ordeal, trying to get to Pécs, basically sums up the language difficulties. I had no way to ask why I wasn't getting the student price despite my student card, I just had to hope that they weren't ripping me off. I had an impossible time trying to find the actual bus station, I just had to keep asking in the hopes that I was getting closer each time. I couldn't ask about the price of the second bus, I just had to hope it wasn't cheaper. And I had to hope that I was at the right gate, and we saw how that worked out-- very nearly a disaster.

Although, on the flip side, after I went to the gate the woman from the ticket counter ran up and handed me my camera, which I guess had fallen out of my bag when I was buying my ticket. So that was lovely of her.

(And I finally exchanged my euro. €15 for 240ft a pop. Not quite a gold-mine but it was still better than the bank rate.)

I got to Pécs at 7:45, which was awfully late to find a place to crash. Just as a safety net I decided to check the first hotel I found, which looked cheap but was 15,000ft per night. That's $100. Moving on.

Unfortunately, the guy at the hostel said that there was nowhere to move on to. He didn't know of any hostels in the area, and it was much too late to go off in search for one. And it was 7:45. So was I fucked? Maybe a lesser traveler would have been, but not I.

I asked where the university was, and he pointed me to the closest part of it. Since, as in Budapest, there wasn't really any campus. I asked the first people I met, a couple kids named Tomi and Matt, if I could crash at their place. Tomi said that his flatmate was out of town for the weekend so I was more than welcome to crash.

And it's just as easy as that. It really is.

Tomi had been on his way to meet some friends at the bar, so I went with him. He bought me a couple beers and we spent about an hour just hanging out and talking with his friends. It was nice, not just because it was free and delicious beer but because there's really nothing better than proving right off the bat that you're a good dude and worth helping out. Once you do that you feel a lot better about the situation, and it really could get no sooner than this for me to demonstrate my chillability.

I just made that up, but it's my new favorite word. It can be yours too, if you want.

One of Tomi's friends was a dude from Transylvania. I told him about the dude in Budapest who I had met who was angry at the Hungarian government, and I asked him why he was angry like that, since I hadn't gotten any idea from him. He said:

Transylvania used to be part of Hungary but after WWII the allied forces gave the region to Romania in order to weaken and penalize Hungary. So now Transylvanians are technically Romanian, but they speak Hungarian and still hold onto Hungarian culture. In fact, you can find more authentic Hungarian culture and traditions in Transylvania-- politically a part of Romania-- than you can in Hungary itself. But Hungary voted down a law that would have allowed Transylvanians to legally seek employment in Hungary, where the work and pay is better than Romania. So now Transylvanians are upset with Hungary and don't feel a part of Romania at all, and are thus a region without a country. Interesting stuff.

(The friend was also the manager of what he said was "my hostel," which cost 2500ft a night and where there was no one staying at the moment. But he wouldn't let me crash. I thought that was unbelievable.)

After the bar Tomi and I walked back to his flat, which he explained was built in "Communist fashion"-- it had a big bedroom for the parents, a small bedroom for the child, a kitchen, and a bathroom. That was it. As Tomi said, it was nothing more than was needed and encouraged "eat, sleep, work." You could really tell that it was like a building from another era, and it was the first moment in Hungary where I truly thought "Yeah, this was communism."

The first thing we did when we got back to Tomi's flat was heat up some ghoulash and tarhonya. Sorry, I meant to say "some sweet, sweet ghoulash and tarhonya." It was the first Hungarian food I had eaten in Hungary, and my goodness was it delicious.

(Also, as his mom was the one who made it, I like that food is the only reason you can tell someone "your mom was good" without it being an insult or a joke. Seriously, Tomi, compliments to the chef-- your mom was good.)

After we ate Tomi got a call from this girl Vita, whom he had hooked up with a bit a couple summers ago. They hadn't spoken in about six months, and Tomi wanted it-- so we were going back out.

We went to a cool, little bar where there were half-liters of beer for 290ft-- under $2-- and usually English-speakers, although not tonight. Tomi and Vita were hitting it off, but when he went to get beer and I asked Vita to say something in Hungarian, the sentence she chose was "my boyfriend is not here." Crash. And burn.

After the bar we went to a reggae club, which was basically what you would expect from a Hungarian reggae club-- the girls were shimmying and the guys were doing doing their most exaggerated "drunker sailer" arm-swings. But not as a joke. Because that is how they dance.

As the reggae music took over our senses, Vita was giving me the eye and I started to move in. But then I realized that it was a bad move, if not totally unacceptable, on account of Tomi. So I backed away and Tomi made a move in. That's great, it really is, but I think there needs to be some sort of rule where, if a dude backs down from dancing with a girl because he knows his buddy is into the girl, then the buddy needs to buy the dude a beer. End of discussion.

Tomi and Vita were getting pretty close, and a few times I thought Tomi was going to go in and seal the deal, but Vita would back away just in the nick of time. Tomi confirmed this as we walked home, saying that she was just a tease. Which, seeing as she has a boyfriend, is probably true. And trouble for everyone.

So instead of hooking up with Vita, Tomi had to settle for ham and cheese at the flat, as did I. And that was the end of my first night in Pécs-- a success in every way.