I have grown soft in my old age

[aryanhwy]

When I was younger, when my travel nerves combatted with my very deeply rooted cheapness, cheapness usually won, and you could find me anxiously navigating public transport all over Europe. I could tell I'd reached a transition point, recently, when I was finally earning enough money that if I was landing in a foreign airport after dark, my default went from public transport to taxi.

But for whatever reason, I didn't particularly want to do that coming in to Budapest tonight. I wasn't getting in that late (8:30pm). And I had no idea what sort of cost a taxi would be, and I didn't want to have to over or under estimate how much cash to get from the ATM immediately upon arrival. I also didn't want to display my shockingly rudimentary knowledge of Hungarian pronunciation either by trying to name the address of my hotel or by passing the driver a written note.

So in a return to younger form, I looked up the public transport info. Bus 200E to a main metro hub, then metro M3 to the city center, and from there it should be about two blocks to my hotel. And wouldn't you know, it went incredibly smoothly. The bus was waiting when I got out of the terminal, but not in so much of a hurry that I wasn't able to buy a ticket from the machine (it costs more on the bus). At the terminus, it wasn't immediately obvious where the metro was but my usual ploy of "walk purposefully in the same direction as the majority of the people" also worked. In 6 minutes, the metro arrived, and 20 minutes later it deposited me into an entry room that had a very nicely signed map that made it obvious which exit to take. From there, I basically walked straight to my hotel, and here I am!

Budapest is humider than I expected.

Comments

[kareina.livejournal.com]

The year I did a conference in Budapest there was a market at the Castle wherein I found some good loot, including a French butter dish.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Oooh. I'm not sure how much sight-seeing/shopping I'm going to get to do, as the schedule is packed. Today we run 9am-7pm, tomorrow is the conference excursion in the afternoon, Thursday we don't go so late but that's because the conference dinner is in the evening, and then Friday I leave mid-way through to catch my flight back.

[(Anonymous)]

I was reflecting on this recently. Used to be the idea of having to interact with a person was way scarier than interacting with a public transit system. Now it's the reverse. I mean, public transit systems aren't scary, but there's a lot of cognitive effort involved. I also find that having a smartphone takes a lot of the stress out of, well, either. Because I can more easily navigate the transit system, and I can also be sure that the taxi driver is not taking me somewhere crazy because we've miscommunicated. Have a good conference. --Bunny

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I like public transport when I can understand the ticketing system. I still remember distinctly being in Berlin with a group of other academics, including a German, and none of us could figure out what type of ticket we needed to get to our destination.

Thankfully, tickets here are so cheap (less than 1GBP a pop) so that I was happy to buy two, one for each type of vehicle I was on, even if the one I had gotten initially might have been good enough for both.

I always notice how much I rely on the internet (i.e., googlemaps) for foot travel when I'm in a foreign country, and I don't have internet via my phone! It's amazing how many places I randomly get eduroam just long enough to keep me from getting lost. :)