Once again, we stepped off a bus in an unknown location, and casually tried to figure out where the hell we were. This time was different because we had the address of a hotel where we had an actual reservation. This type of forward thinking was only due to the fact that someone else took care of that for us. We were off to meet our fellow Habitat for Humanity volunteer crew. The plan was to stay in Budapest for the night and board a bus for small town of Hajduboszormeny the next day.
We stood in the middle of the dingy bus station, and quickly consulted the guidebook. I hadn’t looked at the Budapest map until we actually arrived in Budapest. After a few weeks of travel, I’d come to terms with my lack of memory and realized that there was no point in consulting maps before I was actually lost in the middle of an unknown town. The first guidebook discovery was that Budapest is actually two cities- Buda and Pest. I had no idea about this and was instantly fascinated. How had the world kept this secret from me and what else weren’t they telling me? Is New York actually New and York? Is my hometown actually Pars and Ippany?
It turned out that we were, and needed to remain, in Pest. Some friendly young strangers showed us the way to the metro stop that would apparently get us quite close to our hotel. Sam and Ramona, friends we met in Lake Balatan just days before, had given us an unused pack of metro tickets. Kris and I both fancy ourselves city slickers so urban trains are in our comfort zone. We ripped out the first two tickets in the booklet, and following the lead of all our fellow train riders, stamped them in the machine next to the turnstile. We flashed the tickets to the security guard who nodded with approval, and then schlepped right aboard. If it weren’t for the giant backpacks and our boring under-dyed American hairdos, we may have been able to pass for locals.
Arriving at the Oktogon stop, we stepped off the train with a spring in our step and a false sense of direction. A short, stocky security guard asked to see our tickets, and we both smiled and handed them over. We were old pros.
“NO GOOD!” she yelled.
Surely she was mistaken. Poor lamb. She must not travel much. We had tickets. Tickets that were stamped.
“Stamped twice! NO GOOD!” Ok, first of all ma’am, how do you know we speak English? Just because our shoes are not fashionable, and neither are our entire outfits for that matter, it does not mean we’re not European. And also, what in God’s name do you mean…stamped twice? Clearly you’ve got double vision. I took my ticket back.
“See here….it was stamped only…” Crap. It was stamped twice.
Kris and I looked at each other with eyes that said, “This is kind of funny but I don’t want to get thrown in a Hungarian prison, and also, what is going on?”
Kris attempted to interrupt the guard’s repetitive “STAMPED TWICE” song with, “Yes, we see that it was stamped twice. But, we only put it through once. Maybe the machine was broken.”
“MACHINE NO BROKEN! STAMPED TWICE!” This gal was exasperated with what she could only assume was our attempt to overthrow the Budapest rail system. With a hand on her hip, and a toe tapping, she shook her head, and with all the creativity she could muster, yelled, “Stamped twice!”
Listen, lady. I’m sorry that this job forces you to wear a mustard-colored business suit that strips whatever femininity you had left after that unfortunate haircut, and I’m sorry that Americans are unnaturally obsessed with dental hygiene, and you have a mouth in which no two teeth are heading in the same direction, but sweet Jesus in the morning, we did not stamp these mother-stinking tickets twice. And then Kris figured it out.
We stamped the tickets twice.
Of all the ten tickets in the book, we chose the two that had already been used by Sam and Ramona. How on earth are we to explain this to Hungarian Cruella DeVille?
“Ok, “ I started with a little chuckle, “NOW we see what happened! It’s funny actually….our new friends, Sam and Ramona, they’re great by the way….they met at a whorehouse in Italy a few years back…”
“Pay fine! Six thousand forint each! You pay right now!” My inner currency convertor calculated that to be about $30 each. By this point, Cruella had called over her co-worker, Budapest security’s answer to Paul Blart: Mall Cop. He joined the “Stamped Twice” chorus complete with the disappointed head shake.
Kris and I made one more attempt to explain ourselves. “We made a mistake.” Kris explained. “I took a ticket that I used already BY MISTAKE. Look at the other empty tickets in this book! Used that one by mistake!”
They weren’t having it. Ok, FINE. We’ll pay your fine. We very calmly explained that we didn’t have 12,000 forint on us. Cruella, with her hand outstretched, asked with less grace than I would’ve preferred, “EUROS? CREDIT CARD?!” Like we were gonna hand a credit card over to this dynamic duo.
Correction. Trio. A third metro security guy entered the scene. He had what seemed to be the standard issue moustache (yes, that includes Cruella) and grumpy pants. He grabbed our double stamped tickets and yelled, “No good!”
Thank you for clarifying that, sir. Finally, after at least 15 minutes of less than satisfying discussion, they agreed to let Kris go upstairs and get money out of the ATM. I, on the other hand, was not to leave the train platform. Cruella wanted Paul Blart to go with Kristen, because she must’ve thought Kris was just gonna leave me stranded in a Hungarian train station. Paul Blart started going upstairs but then gave up. He probably just wasn’t in the mood for that much cardio.
Standing around with the Trio of Incompetence while waiting for Kris was a wee bit awkward. They didn’t really have much to say now that screaming “stamped twice” had lost its luster. Time passed. Even more time passed. Finally, Kris came downstairs, paid off the security guards, and we were released. It turned out that Kris took so long because the guard upstairs wouldn’t let her back down with a ticket that was stamped twice.
