Posted 11 Nov 2008 — by Sarah Eustance
Category Journeys
I arrive in Budapest woefully unprepared. Euros don’t yet work here. I need forints but the cash machine at Keleti station has run out.
Hungarian isn’t from the same family as most other languages in Europe. It’s Uralic rather than Indo-European. That makes my usual survival tactic of guess work difficult. The word for street ‘Ut’ doesn’t resemble anything I’ve come across before, so it takes a little while to figure out what I’m looking for.
Maybe for this reason I end up at the bus terminus instead of my hotel.
Posted 11 Nov 2008 — by Sarah Eustance
Category Journeys
On the train to Budapest, my phone lights up and switches to the T-mobile Hungary network. No one’s asked for my papers so it’s the only way I know for sure we’ve crossed the border.
A woman sits down opposite. Because her outfit is of shiny, black, synthetic fabric and round metal studs on jeans, boots and bag, I think how typically eastern European she looks.
We pass wind turbines, their blades disappearing into the mist at the highest point of their rotation.
T-mobile beeps through a text message. It’s the Syrians. I should be able to pick up my visa in Budapest.
