Speed Bumps and Angels

My flight to Hungary was one of the most difficult that I've ever encountered. The first thing that happened is that I had problem with kiosk check in at the airport due to the merger of Northwest and Delta. The kiosk kept kicking me between one and the other without either moving forward. That meant a live person had to help me, and when she discovered I wasn't returning until July 15, she said I couldn't board without my long term visa. I told her I would get the long term visa once I was in Hungary, that even the Hungarian Embassy had told me to do it that way. I was mystified about why an airline clerk was acting as an EU Border Guard. She went to get the manager to work with me. The compromise is that they wrote in a return flight for April 1 that I'll have to somehow cancel before that date. Not sure if this man was an angel, but at least I got out of Minnesota!

Meanwhile I was playing telephone tag with the Washington office for Fulbright. When we finally connected, she told me I was the second person who had encountered this difficulty. Something has obviously and recently changed.

I had to connect for the flight to Amsterdam in Montreal. Due to the fact that we arrived one hour late, I couldn't make the connection. I got to KLM just when they said they had closed the door to flight. They sent me to Air France. The woman at the counter said she was supposed to put someone like me on the next flight on Tuesday, but she would instead try to get my on stand-by for the Air France flight to Paris that evening. She asked me to come back in 25 minutes and she would have an answer for me. Well that's how I found myself on Air France on the way to Paris rather than on KLM to Amsterdam. Indeed the woman at Air France is an angel. She didn't have to help me and she didn't have to be so very pleasant about it. She also got my Paris - Budapest connection to arrive at the same time as would my Amsterdam to Budapest flight, so my reservation for the Pecs Shuttle wouldn't be messed up.

Once we landed in Paris -- and hurrah I was able to sleep about 2 hours even with all this adrenalin in my system - I had exactly 65 minutes to make the connecting flight to Budapest. I kept following and following and following signs for Terminal 2D.

I walked at least 15 minutes before I hit passport control. I was right. The passport control office looked at my passport only about 4 seconds, just long enough to find a place to put the stamp. Then I had to walk a lot, lot more -- I have learned the Hungarian word for my walk is that is sok-sok, meaning long-long or lots-lots. I got there just in when that flight was closing. My boarding pass wasn't good enough. They wanted my ticket. By this time I was totally frazzeled. I couldn't find my e-ticket print out. I was convinced that it had been left in Montreal. The young ladies went through all my carry on trying to find something. Can you imagine this happening in the United States? The definition of privacy is very different between our country and that of others. Meanwhile one was on the phone and discovered I did indeed have a Malev ticket for Amsterdam to Budapest, so they let me on the plane for Budapest. At last I could relax, and my stomach untied the knots that hda been there since Monday morning -- and I was quite puzzled on Monday morning why I was so anxious.

The shuttle driver was waiting for me. He had already found one passenger, a university student. I changed some money so I was ready to go and purchased a bottle of water for the trip. We picked up two other university age passengers a bit later, and were on our way to Pecs. We were moving along, only 50 km from Pecs when the driver turned west and then in a bit found another highway going south.

This main highway is just that. The secondary route took us through villages. One in particular was very interesting for it was full of food stands selling bags of paprika. This really is Hungary!

After about 30 minutes we arrived at a Christian Conference Center of some sort, signs all in English and I think American, and that's where the two passengers got off. Think American because these two had to walk up a long driveway. Meanwhile two young men came running down this same driveway. They didn't pay attention to these two and that's why I think they were Americans. Hungarians are much too gracious to ignore some arriving.

Then we made our way east back to the main highway. At last we got to Pecs and I found myself at the Hotel Barbakan. I put my bags in the room and then headed off for a bit of dinner. Clearly I was much more disorganized than was the "all packed" picture pictures that appeared earlier.

When I had been preparing for this trip, I talked to a professor at another university who had recently been in Hungary. He told me he was uncertain if there would be food in Pecs during the winter. I was mystified by that comment and was very certain that wouldn't be true. Dorota, from Poland, was staying with me then and just laughed. She had led a Global Volunteers team in Hungary. She told me the food would be wonderful in Hungary and probably less expensive than Poland.

For dinner I had a selection from the appetizer menu -- broccoli a la Poland and one entree -- a pork cutlet stuffed with plums served in a plum yogurt sauce. This with a diet Pepsi came to $11.00 with the tip -- which I think I messed up a bit trying to get used to the coins and how to do math with these big numbers -- the check was 1920 forints. Well maybe I was OK for I left a 280 forint tip which is right on for the recommended 10% tip.

I walked back to the hotel and tried the TV for a bit and fell asleep. I woke up at 7:30 PM! Got myself back to sleep and woke up at 11:30 PM. I read for awhile and set an alarm so I would sleep through my Wednesday morning activities. Woke up at 7:30 to see a bit of snow storm. If this is winter here, I can certainly handle it. The people here are complaining about how cold it is and how much snow they have.

The University staff picked me at 11 AM as planned and took me to my flat. The owners explained to me that this unit is usually rented to tourists who stay only a few days. It is very basic, but will be fine for my short, long stay. I'll post up pictures of this place another day.

After letting me settle in for a bit, the staff returned and walked me to lovely restaurant. We were joined by the professor who directs the English as Special Purpose classes in which I will participate. He also advised me that Hungarian classes have been organized for me. On Friday I'll learn more about my whole schedule.

Would love to get comments or questions from readers.