The trip back started badly with a numb self struggling with three pieces of luggage in the old 1977 Budapest M3 metro line which goes between two extremes of the Hungarian capital. Unfortunately I chose the wrong direction and didn’t bother to double check it so I ended up at the wrong side of the city (Ujpest) instead of Kobanya-kispest (sounds similar kispest-ujpest). No excuse indeed and I was getting increasingly mad going back to Kobanya. This whole thing has cost me about an hour so instead of getting to the airport around 10:30 I got there at 11:35 am. My plane was scheduled for take off around 11:55 so I virtually had little/no hope that I will catch it. But someone up there really loves me and when I saw a free (off duty) operator of Malev (Hungarian company) I just went straight for it. Got my check in done in the next 10 minutes and slided through the security check in with the help of the same kind desk lady. Moreover, the flight was FULL (aren’t they always??) so I had to spend some time at the boarding gate as well.
Awful flight though. Got the worse seating ever right in the first coach class seats about 30cm from the projection wall and no room whatsoever for tired legs during a 9hr flight to NYC. Finally got ahead the whole pack in the Big Apple and flew through customs etc but got stuck waiting for my luggage for about 20minutes. I was hoping to catch a 5pm bus to New Carrolton, MD. However, there was another one at 7pm. Got a salad and a paper and waited. However, forgot that lines are a common thing for buses leaving Port Authority and seats are scarce commodity there, so I didn’t get one on the 7pm one. Stayed in line for two hours and around 9 I finally got into a Washington DC express bus after some serious explaining to do with the driver. Funny guy, but not in my sense.
Finally, I arrive there around 1:15 in the morning. Naturally, my girl was not there so I reached my boiling point. My phone was showing Cingular roaming but I couldn’t call her; I managed however to call her from the bus by borrowing a phone and now I was stuck there thinking what should be my final deadline and if I shouldn’t have came here perhaps. Quite understandable, after so many hours of travel with all this luggage and frustrations all over the place. After about an hour of reflection and deep human behavior observation, she finally appeared and I was relief that finally I am getting somewhere. That proved to be harder in the end (I mean get out of Washington) but we made it around 4am to Southern Maryland and the dawn was beautiful. I was finally “home”!:)
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