The Other L Word

The train ride was painless, not at all what I had anticipated. I don’t do well in confined spaces for very long, if I know I cannot escape from them. I had not even considered the lack of air conditioning, but of course the weather did not disappoint. It was in the 80s. Some train person had the foresight to open every window on the train. The cross breeze made it acceptable. We were in a cabin for six, but only one thirtyish-year-old man asked to join us. No one bothered to look at our tickets for the first two hours; by that time we were in Veszprém. An hour later, the man left us and we had six seats to ourselves.

We had cleaned out the fridge, taking food that would spoil with us for our meals. Loaded down with four sandwiches, extra cheese cut into thick chunks, two beers (they do spoil when unattended), a large bottle of water, three tangerines, and assorted other goodies, we looked like a catering service. What the conductor happened to walk by again, he looked in, said something like “Oh, you are Hungarian. Good appetite”, in Hungarian of course. 

During the trip, I finished the novel that I started when the train pulled out of Deli station: The Dressmaker, by Elizabeth Birkelund Oberbeck. I only brought one other book with me; I am thinking I should save that for the trip home otherwise I will chew on my foot out of boredom. There were plenty of catnaps in between reading, so it wasn’t all recreation. Sleeping on a train takes stamina holding your head in place. It’s not easy.

We arrived fifteen minutes late, in the other L word, again better than expectations. There were innumerable stops for ten to twenty minutes, but no passport control to hold us up.  We had no idea where to go to find our hostel once we arrived. We only had 2 ½ months to prepare for this, but that is a map thing. Everyone knows I don’t do maps, but Ron is Mr. Map. He fell by the wayside on this one. We walked 2 blocks in the wrong direction, before we asked for directions.

Once we were turned around, our hostel was a breeze to find. I have to say even in the dark, this city has more graffiti than Budapest ever thought possible and that is a real stretch. The hostel is a converted prison. Our room is an old cell, needless to say, there is only one window that opens on high, with bars on it, preventing any cross ventilation and is HOT. The temperature when we arrived was still in the mid-80s. More about the hostel later. It is time for a b and b = beer and bed.

For those not in the know, The L Word was a television show on cable TV.

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