Starting to feel Hungary

I am tired of mediocre looking postcards. Some of them that I’ve found in my travels are 100 times worse than pictures I’ve taken. Maybe I should start making postcards. I might.

After a seven hour train ride and a fifteen minute luggage pulling adventure followed by an interesting elevator and outdoor balcony, I now lay on an Ikea bed in a room decorated with Ikea things (which I am only assuming from what I know about Ikea and the fact that we passed one on our way here, as I have not actually seen the inside of an Ikea in my lifetime). It’s a cute place. It smells like a hostel, but that never hurt nobody. And it’s only costing us 336,000 hufs.

Budapest is a lot bigger than Zagreb…or Siena. When we arrived in Hungary a parade of people came through to check our passports. They lined up and all checked them individually, because everyone looking at it at once would be irrational. And they came in pairs so one could look at the passport and the other could stare at us and speak three different languages. Then they wished Kimberly a happy birthday and asked us if we had, “Cigarettes? Beer?” no. “Cocaine, ecstasy? Heroine?” Nem.
The flags on their hats were Italian flags flipped sideways and I really wanted them to speak in Italian instead of Hungary. And then I felt for a tiny moment like I was the main character in Farewell to Arms (or maybe it was The Sun Also Rises) because he talks about the Italian policemen during the war. And I pictured it as such.

I really want to learn every language. I do not need to be fluent in more than a few, but I want to know a little bit of everything.

Also, wikipedia said Croatians invented the ballpoint pen but it was actually a Hungarian. Good thing I decided to go to both.