After getting my blue card and leaving the Ministry of Information in Belgrade, I went to the bus and train stations to see what to do, but there were no direct connections to Budapest, all the morning ones having left and the evening ones would not leave Yugoslav territory in time!

So I got a bus to Subotica, leaving Belgrade 4:45 PM, Subotica is a mere 20 km. from the Hungarian border. Arrived there 7:15 or so, got taxi to the border, driven by a tough blonde woman, a first for me in this region. Arrived at the border and it was excruciatingly closed for a half-hour or so while the customs people drank their coffee. Finally got across at 8:15, three hours and forty-five minutes to go on my visa.

I grab a Hungarian taxi and ask to be dropped off at a train or bus station, I get driven 40 km. to the small town of Kiskunhalas. There the train station is filled with weird Hungarian characters, couples making out in the waiting room, teenage girls with tiny mini-skirts, old men smoking too much, you know the scene…

Nobody speaks any English, the woman at the ticket counter sells me a ticket, then takes it back and gives me another one, and gives me some money back as well! (final price: $6.00) By the time I figure out the train schedule and basic Hungarian geography, I’ve missed all the trains.

So into another taxi, and I spend the night at the Klub Hotel, a charming establishment with cable TV and a bar of soap on each pillow. I must admit that I slept like a baby, feeling like a free man! The next morning the train was late and I didn’t get into Budapest until 2:00 in the afternoon.

Budapest beautiful with all its history and grandeur and dignity but not uptight like Vienna, and Hungarian is such a difficult and ridiculous language (they tell me this, I’m not being an ass) that no one even expects you to speak it.