My wife is as honest as the day is long, north of the Arctic Circle on Summer Solstice. If you think you have problems, try living with that and dealing with public transit in Budapest and surrounds.Take the HEV. We did.While out on a Sunday stroll, he-who-does-little-advance-planning suggested to his wife that maybe they should jump on the HEV and go up to Szentendre for lunch. Little did I know that ‘jumping on the HEV” was about to become more than a figure of speech.We knew the station was somewhere around Margit Hid and we found an entrance a short distance up the Danube. Who knew the main entrance was under the bridge? We don’t hang out under bridges. Where we entered, there was no ticket office above ground, so-he-who-does-little-planning and too often assumes the best, thought there would be a ticket booth by the platform. There wasn’t. However, there was a train pulling into the station and this being Sunday, it might be anybody’s guess when the next one would roll in. Assuming the best and applying flawed logic, I thought that if there was no ticket counter above the station and no ticket booth on the platform surely one could buy a ticket on the train. They did want money for this ride, didn’t they?Out on a limb
But not my wife. She stood on the platform, pleading, “But we don’t have a ticket!”
“Susan, get on the train!”
“But we don’t have a ticket!”
“Susan, get on the train!”
“But…”
She decided to warm up to this idea slowly. Reluctantly, she put one arm and one leg into the train while leaving her other arm and other leg as well as her head and torso firmed planted on the station platform.
Then the doors began to close. I believe I heard her say again, “But we don’t have a ticket!” All I was thinking was, “And soon you won’t have an arm or a leg, either.”
Wedged between the doors, she was unable to get either on or off. With the help of a fellow passenger, I managed to pull her through the doors before the train lurched forward and out of the station.
As it turned out, her worry about lacking a ticket was justified. But not on this train when she didn’t have a ticket but on a train ride when she did.
Two days ago she left an appointment in Pest for a meeting in Buda, getting on the metro at Keleti palyaudvar (train station). When she put her only ticket in the machine, it jammed and it had no more intention of letting go of it than the HEV had of letting go of her arm and leg.
Fortunately, a ticket inspector at the station came to her rescue. He opened the machine and retrieved her last remaining ticket; now an illegible, mangled mess of orange paper. Susan used her ever-increasing skills at charades to communicate to the non-English speaking gentleman that this was her last ticket and she was running late. The man kindly wrote the station and time on her ticket and sent her on her way: Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Destination: Moszkva ter.
Moszkva Ter-ror
We use the transit system regularly and the only time we have had a ticket inspected was once at Deak Ferenc ter when an inspector took a fleeting glance at my ticket and waved me on. I figured he had to have Superman X-Ray vision or something because I sure couldn’t read it.
This was not how things went for Susan at Moszkva ter. Armed with a mangled ticket with a questionable endorsement, Susan, standing five foot and a bit, encountered a ticket inspector, standing six foot and a whole lot more. Although able to speak in English, he did not seem to hear in English and refused to even listen to her explanation.
“Nem.” Or was it, “Nyet”?
Goliath, meet David
First he accused her of using a used ticket. Then he accused her of it being a tram ticket when, in fact, all it was a mangled ticket. But endorsed! As honest as Susan is, she is also obstinate. And frugal. After all, we had 6000 HUF in fines at play here. Intimidated but indignant, Susan stood her ground.
This called for security and so did he.
Susan called for help.
She reached a friend fluent in Hungarian and Susan’s cell phone passed from ear to ear and after being accused of lying, cheating and who knows what else for a 290HUF ticket, eventually she was free to go.
It’s a good thing Susan is not a tourist or who knows where “free to go” would have taken her, other than somewhere else with her money.
