Travel Day

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Almost exactly a day, actually. I left the house at 1 pm eastern on Monday, arrived at the airport 2 pm eastern, the flight, sheduled to leave at 17:30 eastern actually left at 21:45 or so. I then took two more flights, from Berlin to Munich and from Munich to Budapest, at 18:30 Hungarian time, or 11:30 eastern time, Tuesday. While waiting for my first flight I happened to be sitting near an older couple and a guy a couple years older than me. He was Albanian, studying economics, and they were from Bari, Italy. They had initially asked to make sure they were getting on the correct flight, as they didn't speak any English. However, the Albanian guy's Italian was a bit rusty, and at one point, where he was failing to adequately mime skiing, I decided I might jump in, offering some supplementary explanation in Spanish. This was more or less understood (though whether because they actually spoke Spanish or the two are similar enough (especially with my accent) I don't know), and so I ended up talking with them as well. This proved fortuitous (for them, anyway) when the plane was delayed (for having a screw or something in one of the tires). Announcements were made in both English in German, but they were of course among the small percentage of passengers who still couldn't quite understand what was going on. By the time I realized they might appreciate some help, the man had found someone who spoke some Italian, but they were still rather appreciative. I ended up lending my phone so they could call their (English speaking) children (who lived in New Jersey, so no great expense on my part). Hopefully after they got off the plane it was easier to find Italian-speaking Airberlin employees.

It was somewhat amusing how not strange it was to walk through the German airports, due in part to the amount of English on signs but also, I think, to some universal quailty that airports share. If you don't look beyond the tarmac (which usually extends far enough that the surroundings are unclear, anyway) any given airport could be anywhere. There was a moment, stepping out of the plane in Budapest, that I mused we might not have gone anywhere at all, exiting the same small plane in the middle of an indistinguishable stretch of open pavement, boarding a similar bus... Of course then I discovered my bag wasn't there, which made it fairly clear we were in Budapest.

There were some quirks to the German airport, however, which may well apply to other European airports. I for the first time used an inclined moving walkway, which is reasonable yet, somehow, unfamiliar. Also, they seem to put smokers in glass boxes, to be gawked at. Finally, it seems "not-" is a morpheme in German that means something to do with emergency. The most amusing occurence, I think, was the panel with instructions to break the glass with the nothammer.

On the planes, though, there was definitely a different feeling, both because of the ambient (German) conversation and the usual ordering of the language of announcements.

Arrival in Budapest wasn't quite greeted with fanfare. I tried to ask some questions to the peron who drove me to the apartment I will be staying in, but I wasn't in the best frame of mind to really be observant/inquisitive. I did find that there were very few English signs outside of the airport, except for a few English language international chains (McDonalds has a strong presence). Also, perhaps because stick shift is more common here, traffic lights go: green, yellow, red, red and yellow, green.

I've now met Alex, my roommate. He is from Denver, and goes to college in upstate New York. He has been here a few days at this point, so I think I will be relying on his familiarity for a while, at least.

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Photos

airberlin provides a blanket, a small pillow, and a toothbrush and some similar items

the wrapper of a chocolate I received on a flight

a cute child play area in the airport

Smoking Lounge
this was one of the more remarkable smoking lounges, some others were merely glass boxes

A comparison of the photos used on the tickets

snow on the first morning

Comments

[Tamara]

Congratulations
Congratulations on finally setting up a forum so we can read about your travels! I recently had those Mozart chocolates- a co-worker had received them as a gift and brought them in to share. I think you were tired when you wrote this- didn't you fly into Berlin first? I'm sure the 27 or-so-hour journey was exhausting. Looking forward to hearing more from you.