Budapest 1

My first day in Budapest was spent in the Buda Castle area (the hilly part of Budapest) and wrestling with Hungarian bureaucracy. Trying to buy a metro underground railway pass was a mission on its own. I went to the woman sitting in a box at the station platform. She told me she doesn’t sell tickets and I had to buy it from the machine upstairs. I am not sure what her job exactly was but she did have a bowl of unshelled peanuts in front of her. I guess that would occupy her time as she didn’t look flat out. I went to the machine but it wouldn’t accept notes. A local, also buying tickets (but with coins), was much more helpful. He brought me a ticket, and wouldn’t accept any money for it, and told me which station to go to buy my ticket from a real person. I got off the station but couldn’t find the ticket office but I did find, once again, a box with a woman in it. You guessed it; she said no, she is not allowed to sell tickets and I had to buy it from a machine. I went upstairs but couldn’t find a machine. I asked someone in a souvenir shop and she pointed me in the right direction and I found the main entrance to the station which had a whole area devoted to people selling tickets. Who would have though? I was subject to more bureaucracy later in the day when I went to a small booth selling ice-cream. I went up to the person behind the ice-cream tubs and she said no, I had to pay at the register. So I went to the register (a metre away) and she moved to the register to collect my payment. I then went back to where the ice-cream was (1 metre away) and she gave me an ice-cream. Apparently, they normally have one selling and one dispensing, as shortly after the other person returned to the register. 

On a positive note, the architecture rivals that of Vienna. It really is a pretty city, in the centre anyway! Also, the weather has been good, 32 today. When I was in the Buda Castle area, I had lunch at Jamie’s Italian. I didn’t realise until I sat down that it was owned by Jamie Oliver. I think he needs to do a bit more work on the restaurant side of things because while the food was good (but expensive by Hungarian standards) the service was not. First, I couldn’t have a pizza because the oven was broken. Secondly, the waiter took my plate with food still on it without asking whether I had finished. Then they told someone that they had run out of a particular thing and a Japanese family on the next table were getting anxious about how long it was taking to get their order. Things were looking perilous as the small child was filling in time by playing with his knife. In other words, the service was poor.

Today's photos....