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Train Collision in Hungary

Monday, October 6th, 2008

Wow, got out of there in time. 

Hungary: 3 dead, 30 hurt in train crash

 BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — At least three people have died and 30 injured in a collision between two passengers trains near Budapest, Hungary.

Monday’s accident in the town of Monorierdo occurred when a local passenger train ran into the back of a long-distance InterCity train heading to Budapest from the eastern city of Debrecen.

National Rescue Service spokesman Pal Gyorfi says two women and one man died at the scene.

At least eight other passengers were seriously hurt, some with life-threatening injuries.

Gyorfi said rescue workers are still working in the wreckage and it’s possible that more casualties will be found.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/06/hungary.train.crash.ap/index.html

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Budapest

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

So Friday was Germany’s Reunification Day, and I figured, “What better place to celebrate German reunification than…?” I finally came up with Croatia. I know. I really wanted to go to Berlin with Keri and Julian, but it was my last long weekend before Thankgiving, and that weekend is already reserved for Istanbul. Since I spent over $3000 for my 4 months of unlimited eurail passes, I figured I might as well make it worth it and visit a country I haven’t been to before. Somewhere, kind of far away. I initially wanted to go to Budapest, but Katie and Megan had mentioned wanting to go, so I chose Croatia. I figured it would be nice to see the Adriatic. So I took the Hannover train to Munich and then the night train. I really like the idea of going to sleep, and then waking up at your destination, several countries away. Plus it saves a night of hostel stays. Anyways, apparently I got on the wrong 23:45 train, because instead of waking up in Zagreb, I woke up in Budapest. Then the fun began…

With no hostel reservations, or even knowing a single one to ask for, I tried to find an internet cafe for some information. Unfortunately, in Hungary, they use the forint instead of the euro. I found several ATMs, but all of them were out of order or out of money. I figured it would be better to find an ATM rather than get screwed on exchange commission, so I ventured out of the train station to find one. After walking around for half an hour, and passing about 10 McDonald’s and Burger Kings (which really pissed me off), I finally found one and had the fun of finding my way to back the train station. I found the HostelPlus hostel and made my way through the metros and trams to find it, just off the Danube river. Upon arrival I met Anna, one of the owners. She was extremely nice and helpful. Since I hadn’t planned on visiting, I wasn’t sure what there was to see besides the castle and Parliment. She gave me a lot of suggestions, like Hero’s Square, Vajahunyad Castle, The Citadell, Fisherman’s Bastion, Andrassy utca, and the Chain Bridge.After taking in some of the sites, I headed back around 7:30 after walking for about 6 hours. Exhausted, I laid down to rest and listen to music and ended up falling asleep. 30 minutes later I awoke to “Gary!!!!”, “Gary!!!”, “Wake Up!!!”. Anna was yelling at me to wake up. It was time to go to see Stoned, a Hungarian Rolling Stones tribute band. Despite my best efforts to ignore her and sleep, she was able to get me up. Apparently I made a good enough impression for her to want to take me out to meet her friends, but not a good enough one for her to remember my real name. I guess it could have been Jerry and it just sounded like Gary. Hungarians pronounce their G’s and J’s differently. Who knows.

I woke up and met two others that were going with us. Jamie from New Zealand and Andrew from England. After meeting them, I also got to meet the bottles of extremely cheap wine Anna had bought. After asking why wine, she gave me a lengthly explanation in which I gave her a one word phrase to summ it up, Pre-Game. Unfortunately, she didn’t understand, so I went into my lengthly explanation of what Pre-Game meant. After the two lengthly explanation, we all downed 2 bottles, and headed to Sivouplze, a standard basement club pub, that apparently has occasional rock and indie bands playing. Stoned was, I believe, the only tribute band that I’ve seen that made no attempt to look anything like them. The lead singer actually dressed kind of like Avril Lavigne with that stupid tie, and who kept “petting” his hair every 10 seconds to keep it from getting messed up. Plus they didn’t play any of the major hits. I don’t remember hearing any songs I recongized. Although, we did argue for over an hour on whether they were singing in English or not, so maybe it was a combination of liters of Zlaty Bazant and not being able to understand them.

We left after the band was done. Despite Jamie and my efforts to head back and go to crash, they talked us into heading to one more bar. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t know that the tram we were getting on (and going the opposite direction of the hostel) was the last one for the night. We got off the tram, walked for another 6-7 blocks before getting to the bar. Within 10 minutes, half the people (including Anna) were passing out on the tables. That was our cue to leave. We actually found one of the night buses and hoped on just as it was taking off, not knowing where it would take us. Jamie was too drunk to realize that the person he was asking directions from was a controller, who kept asking for our tickets, which we didn’t have. I never thought of doing this, but Jamie just said he didn’t understand and ignored him and it worked. The guy finally decided to stop trying, even after a woman explained to us in English that we wanted to see our tickets. We finally got off, about a mile from our hostel, stopped for a doner wrap (the perfect food if you’re drunk), and had to walk the rest of the way.

Friday was fairly uneventful. I spent a couple hours in the morning watching the BBC replays of the VP debate while waiting for my clothes to get washed from doner wrap from the previous night. Couldn’t get the stain out of my favorite Hamburger SV sweatshirt. Damn it. After that I ventured out to see the rest of my suggested sites, do a little shopping, eat some traditional Gulachesuppe and papricka chicken with dumplings, before heading to the train station. Luckily I got on the right night train this time and ended up back in Hamburg before heading back to Luneburg.

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