home sweet home (in hungary)

i traveled this weekend, as you may recall. traveling has never been so hellish in all my life, let me assure you.

i purchased a ticket for me (and xander) for a train leaving at 4:00 from Nyiregyhaza to Budapest. i was not allowed to use it, however, because there are no dogs allowed on that (fast) train. the woman who sold me the ticket and the dog ticket seemed to think it would be allowed. so i left on a slower, dirtier train at about 4:45. i had to change trains in some city. when i did, the conductor guy said no dogs allowed. greaaaat. he said if i sat with him and talked to him all the way to budapest, he would allow me to ride the train...in first class with him. of course i did it! his name was tibor, he's 24, he was my first life-saver of the weekend. we arrived in budapest after 8pm.
(CLICK ON THE PICTURES FOR A BETTER, WIDER VIEW. SOME OF THEM ARE CUT OFF AND IT'S SAD THAT YOU CAN'T SEE THE WHOLE THING.)





the CETP hungarian lady, hajni, was meeting me at the train station to give me a replacement phone (since i lost mine last week - which i have never before done in all my life). my "sure thing" place to stay was unavailable, unbeknownst to me until friday. she was concerned that i wouldn't find a place to stay, so she waited with me as i called the trusty CETP teachers living in budapest with plenty of hospitality and extra space. i didn't understand the severity of the situation at first because of course i would be able to at least stay in a hotel or something, right? no. not even close. after 31 calls to CETP teachers, hostels, motels, and hotels, i was still without a place to sleep. hajni would have let me stay with her but she has a big dog and i have a small dog and she feared for xander's life. she finally called a friend of hers who called a friend and got a "yes" for me to couch surf at his house. he's some american named ben. ok, fine, whatever, i was tired. hajni took me to meet annie (her friend) who took me to a bar to meet ben. a dog-friendly bar (siberian huskies and dachshunds, etc. were roaming about freely) where i met the slightly drunk ben and his company of merry brits. we had a good time for the first 2 or 3 hours, but soon it was just too much. xander was crying from all the smoke, i was almost asleep, and precious potentially life-saving ben was trashed. his birtish pals james, lucy, and richard (pictured below) lived close by and james noticed i was almost dead. he asked if i wanted to sleep on their couch (pictures below) because ben was probably going to stay at the bar until 3 or 4. i went home with james the brit and slept comfortable in the chic flat. xander made out pretty nicely, too.
this is ben, richard, and lucy. no pic of james. sad.










i took the train to vienna. no problems. whew!

when i arrived at the train station where my vienna-residing abdul was to meet me at 4:10pm (and we had confirmed that time on that very morning) i couldn't find him anywhere. i waited and practiced my very, very sucky german with an old man sitting on the bench next to me. soon it was 4:30, 4:45, and no abdul. i tried to call him but my cell phone can't call vienna. i tried a payphone, but no success. i was scared, sad, and frustrated. at about 5:10 i tried the payphone again, but asked for help. ahh! i had been calling the country code which wasn't needed and i should have been calling 0. whatever. adbul answered, CHRISTIE, WHERE ARE YOU? i cried... where are YOU!? we had both been waiting over an hour - me at the west train station, he at the south train station. grrrrr. so he came and met me and all was well. much fun ensued.

(back story: i met abdul in 2003 when i was on a mission trip to hungary to teach english in a refugee camp. he was interested in talking with us americans and his english was good enough to do so. he asked us a million questions about christianity and jesus, so we became pretty close with him. he got all of our phone numbers and stayed in touch with most of us over the past 5 years. he has called me about every month for 5 years. that's more contact than i've had with some of my blog readers! some of my family! so, we're buddies. he has been living in vienna since 2003, is now an austiran citizen with an austrian passport, and he's a welder. fyi - he makes about $7000 a MONTH being a welder, so the refugee has surmounted his life's trials nicely, i think. this was a long awaited reunion and we were both very happy to finally lay eyes on each other again.)



abdul was kind of sick, but he insisted i come this weekend anyway. the first night was cold and rainy so we stayed in and talked. we made some phone calls to my friends and family for our own entertainment, but also for theirs (or yours). oh, and he has been learning to play a sitar for the past few months. here's some proof:





most things in europe are closed on sunday. abdul had to buy bread from a turkish shop as it was the only thing open. he cooked me eggs. it was actually eggs, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and salt, but he just called it eggs. we ate it afghan style - with our hands, using the bread as a spoon or something. it was fun and delicious!







i snapped some shots around vienna. great city! much cleaner than budapest. the people are obviously richer in austria than hungary. the clothes, the prices of things, and the attitude of people there all betray their financial security secret. the fun pictures are in Stephensplatz - stephen's place - where apparently all the vienna people go on sundays since it's the only thing open. there are street performers, street artists, and vendors of every kind.











this guy was moon walking, doing the robot, doing some weird cool slow motion thing, anything and everything! he had great crowd control and an excellent sense of humor. plus, he spray painted himself silver. come on!


this would have been cute if i would have opened my eyes. nice people gawking on the left, eh?




all this guy uses to paint is spray paint, metal circles, magazine pages, and his hands. um, wow. he had a lot of amazing pictures. we watched him for about 10 minutes while he painted this brown picture. wow, wow, wow.
(REMEMBER TO CLICK THE PICS!)







it's hard to explain what this (british) guy was doing. see that string he has? and there is some weird, plastic, hourglass-like thing on the string, well those things come off, they aren't attached. he would get them spinning on the string really fast, kind of like a yoyo, then throw them up in the air and catch them on the string - still spinning. he was hilarious! anyway, he threw those things higher and higher until they were so high we could barely see them and then BAM, catch them when they came down. i've never seen anything like it.



more of vienna... (CLICK THE PICS!)



there is a starbucks in vienna - it's the envy of many hungarians. this pic, though i am disgusting and tired in it, is for my starbucks addicted marlena...

oooh, night!




xander is the same in every country


clothes in vienna


abdul on a tram


xander on the train home

the girl who fed him

reka not eating - she is hungarian, living in vienna, and speaks english just a little. we had fun talking on the 3 hour train home. she offered me some pot, which i refused politely, she's 25 like me, gave xander her chinese food - a LOT of it, and we exchanged email addresses. she sang some song to me in english and taught me the words. it's hilarious like this: i like my shoes and my freaky pants, my blue jeans jacket and my chevy vams(?), i like my style and you like it too, you like it too, i know you like it too.


abdul was talking to his brother in greece instead of getting ready to take me to the train station. i missed my train. i took a later one. i got to budapest too late to go to nyiregyhaza that night. UGH! i called CETP teachers again. someone let me stay with them. jake and ellen. they rule. i was crying, sad, and very tired so i didn't take any pics of their awesomely huge flat and comfy bed all made up for me. got up at 5:30 am to go to nyiregyhaza. i needed to take a metro to the train station - but all my money was in euros now. hungarians don't take euros. i couldn't by a metro ticket. i wasted 15 minuted trying to before the metro nazis let me get on for free. i got to the train station 3 minutes before my train was leaving. it was already gone. WHAT THE!?!?!? so xander and i ate breakfast in the train station and waited an hour for the next train to nyiregyhaza. i got here at 10:30 am on tuesday instead of 9pm on monday. i missed my first class on tuesday, was late to my second class, and was very irritable.

there was a train crash between nyiregyhaza and budapest on monday. my train line, but not my train. 4 people died and 26 were injured. 2 of the dead were from my town, college students. it's very sad and i think i'm lucky to be alive. my coworkers were concerned that i was dead when i was late on tuesday. haha, no. thankfully.
(no pics from the second time in budapest because i hated it that time.)

anyway, i'm home. though i had an excellent time once i got where i was going, i'm not traveling for a while, i think.