More Logic

BKV, the company that handles the public transit system in Budapest has been bankrupt for some years now. With that in mind, what else is there to do, but repaint the buses blue. Is this because the administrators have the blues? In reality, they should paint them all a bright red like the color of their balance sheets. 

I had an need to add the link to the Iowa roadeo article below, because Ron is there now. Yehaaaaaa!! Ride'em bus driver!

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Make Money Through Adversity

Image via Wikipedia

I am updating the Hungary chapter for the Frommer's Europe book. One small piece of the chapter discusses Esztergom, the capital of Hungary until King Bela IV moved it to Buda in the mid 13th century. The primary reason for visiting for the majority of tourists is to see the cathedral or capital of Hungarian Catholicism. 


I had been to this quaint little town a number of times to explore in general, and then later as research for various books I was working on at various times. However, this time, not only am I short on time, but the section is too paltry to warrant a visit. The next best thing was to get a student to make calls for me, navigating the Hungarian language where I cannot in order to get to the heart of the matter with brevity of time in mind. She did an excellent job, but one thing that seemed to be such a glaring mistake it rattled my attention after gaining it. 


The quest was to find out if bus numbers 1 and 6 still go from the train station to close to the cathedral and if they still charged 150 Huf and 180 Huf respectively. They are from two different companies, hence the difference in fees. The response returned to me was that all public transport in the city has ceased to exist as of July 2011. The only buses on the road now within the city are those that go from point A to the hypermarkets and return. There is no other transportation. 


I was incredulous; how could a city survive without any public transportation? This is nearly impossible. Oh heck, wait a minute, I have been out of the US for too long. Most towns and cities have no to very little public transportation. Duh!


Trusting this student was not a issue. I have known her for a time and trust her implicitly, but some things you just need to hear for yourself. I Googled, I searched, I read, I explored. Either there was nothing about public transport in the articles I found or for those that did refer to it, showed the last update as pre-2007.


Could I trust the tourism office when they cannot decide if they are TourInform or Budapestinfo Point? I called the national tourism number, taking a risk on honesty and integrity. Golly gee, I was informed that all public transport went out of business in July 2011 due to the economy. The only buses are those for grocery shopping.


Here is the deal. During tourism season for those not in the know, you can do one of two things. Sell cheap walking shoes at the train station or offer rides in a golf cart to and from the church. Let adversity pay off for a change.  Is it any wonder why King Bela IV looks so sad in this picture?

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Going Metro

There is an expression in US English called "Going Postal" when people go into a rage due to workplace stress. Since I don't speak Hungarian, I am going to develop the "Going Metro" phrase. This will be when one falls into a full rage, beating those who are standing in the doorway of public transport vehicles. 


When people say "You have lived here THAT many years and you still don't speak Hungarian?" Well, in my defense, if I did, I would have been arrested by now. First I would scream at these inconsiderate morons who insist on standing in the doorway as soon as they get on. If they were the last ones on, I could accept it if there were no more room. However, they shove their way ahead of everyone else and then stand guard like a Swiss soldier at the Vatican: stone-like and immoveable. If they were getting off at the next stop, I could also give them so leeway in their lack of manners, but no. They are still there 2, 3, 4 stops later, obstructing the entrance and exit for all of those who presumably have the same right to enter the vehicle.


If I did speak Hungarian, I would rip them a new one, breaking the record that a Hungarian linguist stated as fact; Hungarians can curse for an hour and never repeat the same word twice. Of course, this would lead to fist to cuffs wrestling them to the ground, which would be unfortunate since there is generally barely the room to stand in these modes of transport. Due to lack of the target language, I may have to resort to my mother tongue to tell these mothers what is what. 


I could not get far enough away from this trio. They were not speaking to each other, so my impression was that they were three ill-mannered egocentric individuals who chose to join the block the door union. It is difficult to tell from my angle, but the man was literally in the middle of the door.

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New Video

A new video has been uploaded. I should call them Old Goat Productions. If you are so inclined, you can view it here.

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Happy 2010

We made our last trek up the mountain of stairs for breakfast today. We leave at 5am tomorrow morning for Mombasa, Kenya. Zanzibar was nice, but we overstayed. Seven nights is too long. As romantic as the name sounds, there is not a lot to do and those who come expecting beautiful beaches are gravely disappointed. Add in the electric and banking issues and it can make it extremely challenging.

Honestly, over two weeks into this trip, we planned it the way we usually plan trips, but we goofed this time around. Normally, what we do is pick the time we want to be away and then fill in what we want to do, where we want to stay, and what we want to see within that range. Up to this trip, this method has worked well for us. As I said, in retrospect, 7 days on Zanzibar is too long. Four days would have been plenty. We could have done the turtle tour to spend another day doing something, but we had the feeling there were would be as many turtles as there were dolphins, making it a waste of money. 

The beaches in Stonetown are not swimming beaches, they are for the fishing boats and tourist dhows, though there is not much of a beach anyway. The better beaches are a taxi ride away. We are not beach people anyway, but those we know who have come for the beaches swore they made a mistake. The sights on the island are limited. Today, we did go to the old palace of the Sultan. It was interesting, but in dire need of repair in every inch of the place. 

We saw the fort last night when we went to dinner, we did the spice, dolphin, and monkey tour. We toured every touristy souvenir shop innumerable times and they all have basically the same merchandise.

We have seen more of the hotel room here than we ever have on any vacation. Part of this is that the heat and humidity wipes us out, but there really is not much to persuade us to stay out for. Been there, done that. We could have cut it short, but live and learn. According to the owner of the 236 Hurumzi Hotel, Stonetown is the largest city on the island and there is not much else on the rest of the island. Even if there were, we would need to taxi there, the public transportation consists of trucks with lengthwise benches in the back. When they are filled up, they go to the destination. After arriving someone, we may never be seen again, not knowing how to return again.

A stop at Mercury's for a drink took some time today. Later, we went to another restaurant we had drinks at previously, but this time Ron had a pizza. One last trip through the shops was just to waste some time until the fan and air conditioning at the hotel were turned on again. For dinner, we went to Monsoon Restaurant, but almost didn't. We wanted to have a drink on the terrace and dinner inside. They refused to allow us a drink outside, but would serve us dinner inside. Not understanding their reasoning, we questioned it again when the manager, a German woman overheard us. She came to the rescue and said it was fine. Inside, you leave your shoes at the door and sit on mats on the floor. Dinner was good, but my chicken curry was a leg and thigh only. Ron had prawns and a healthy serving of them too.

We did our last stop at Kilude Cafe, said good-bye to Esther, our favorite waitress and went to bed for a 4:30 am wake-up call.

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The Underground Transportation Museum - 3 Stars

This is the second in my museum series, if one could call the Citadella a museum. The Underground Transportation Museum is located in the Deák Metro station, appropriately enough since it only houses the history of the metro (subway) lines in Budapest. I have passed this place thousands of times in the last five years, have been curious about it, but never bothered to go in. There is another transportation museum in Budapest, which is outdoors.

The ticket office directly outside should not be confused as the ticket office for the museum. This is the ticket office for the metro. The museum ticket office is immediately inside, not that it much matters since it looks just like a metro ticket office and the tickets are identical. Entrance for adults is 185 Huf, less than $1.00. Your receipt for entry is an individual ticket for riding the public transport in the city. There is no difference whatsoever. It is not certain if you have regular metro tickets if you could use this in lieu of buying one, but it would make sense. The ticket seller validated the ticket just like one would when going on a bus or tram.
It is basically is the history of the subway (metro) system in Budapest. It is impressive when you find explanations and other information in English in any foreign museum. Though we were not expecting this here, it was a pleasant surprise to discover everything had been translated. After reading all of the information available, goggling at the old subway cars that were on display from different eras, we had only needed one hour for a thorough tour. I ward it three hearts out of four. It is concise, educational, informative, and there was English. Transportation is not in my top ten categories of favorites, but this was well worth an hour and you cannot haggle over the cost of admission. I give it three stars!

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