I have grown soft in my old age
Aug. 29th, 2016 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyWhen 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.
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.
