One Girl and a Big World

Dear Reader,

Are you ready for another crazy story? I hope you are.

Let me first set the scene:

The date is July 2016. Coordinates of the incident are 47.5004° N, 19.0840° E, Budapest Keleti Train Station. Weather is pleasant; blue skies with some clouds floating above. My mom is adamant on getting a picture of the mosaic mural at the entrance of the train station. My dad is freaking out. Scene set.

Now, let me back up to earlier that day. On that beautiful July morning, my family vacated the AirBnB we had stayed at. We were leaving later that afternoon for our next destination, Vienna. However, in order to still sightsee, we went to the train station that morning and placed our luggage in luggage lockers for the day. After dropping the luggage off, we proceeded to wander around Budapest and explore whatever else we could before our departure.

The day itself was very enjoyable. Although I no longer remember much from that day, I do remember walking around a beautiful park that had huge weeping willows. As someone who adores reading, I remember looking at those huge willows thinking they would make the perfect place to sit down under with some food, a blanket, and a book. After a couple hours had passed, we decided it was time to make our way back to the train station.

In Budapest, there were a couple options we could take to go back to the train station. We could either take the metro, or we could call for a taxi. The cheapest and quickest option was the metro. Once we made our way down into the nearest metro station, we pulled out our Metro cards. Unfortunately, they did not seem to work. Perhaps we were short on credit? As we walked back up the steps to the entrance of the metro, my mom and dad tried to add more credit to the metro cards. Their efforts were to no avail as the electronic metro card system was not working.

At this point, we are running short on time. We needed to get to the train station as fast as possible or we were going to miss the train. Giving up on the metro, my parents decide to get a taxi. At the side of a street, my parents see one and wave it over. The taxi is available. My mom begins to ask the taxi driver about his prices. He gives her his prices and she begins negotiating. My dad, whose anxiety is rising, no longer cares about how much the taxi costs. No longer willing to risk more time lost, he says quickly, “Gloria, no hay tiempo para negociar! Ya súbanse!” “Gloria, there is no time to negociate! Just get on the taxi!” (I encourage the reader to imagine all this playing out in Spanish. It makes it so much more exciting!)

Once we are all on the taxi, my dad explains to the taxi driver that our train is leaving soon. The driver nods his head in understanding, and proceeds to drive like a mad man through the streets and traffic of Budapest, Hungary. As he is zooming through traffic, the train station finally comes into view. Time, however, keeps ticking. When the taxi driver finally makes it to the entrance of the station, we have four minutes before our train leaves. After my dad pays, we take off into the station, when all of a sudden, my mom yells, “Espérense! Le tengo que tomar foto a la pared. Sofia, ponte enfrente para tomar una foto.” “Wait! I have to take a picture of the wall. Sofia, go up there so I can take a picture.”

My poor dad, who is on the verge of a breakdown because we are cutting the time very close, leaves us behind to go retrieve the luggage from the lockers. At this point, we are down to three minutes before the train leaves. Now, a normal person would take one quick picture of the mural on the wall and run to the assigned train car. But no, my mom is not normal. My mom takes one picture and decides it does not look good. With the calm of a person who arrived an hour before her train departs, my mom changes the settings on her camera to get the lighting right. She then takes another picture. This picture is still not satisfactory. She changes the settings once more and takes one more picture. We are down to one minute before the train leaves.

At this point, my dad has gotten the luggage from the lockers, so I tell my mom that that was the last picture, and I take off to go help my dad. My mom, probably still dissatisfied with the picture results, gives in saying, “Fine, let’s go.” When we are all together, we start running down the train station to make it to the train. Knowing the train is leaving in the next couple seconds, my dad stops us at a train car, and is frantically telling us to get on the train, and once on it, we can walk to our assigned train car. Right as we are about to board the train, however, the doors close.

My dad starts going crazy. “Gloria! Gloria! Ya perdimos el tren!” “Gloria! Gloria! We’ve missed the train!” His arms fly back and he starts looking frantically all over the train station. I am standing there dumbfounded. We have just missed our train. We have no place to sleep for the night. We are never leaving Budapest… I’m never going home again… my whole life is ruined.

Now reader, I do not know how it is possible, but my dear mother has an abnormal amount of luck that follows her around. Still as calm and collected as if she’d arrived an hour in advance, my mom walks up to the train doors. “Ay Mario. Esperate…” “Oh Mario. Just wait…” She presses the button for the train doors, and like magic, the train doors open! I am not sure if it was from nerves and stress, or the two different responses my parents gave, but I burst into laughter. My mom has this funny little grin on her face. My dad, looking half sheepish and half relieved says, “Ya súbanse.” “Just get on.” My mother got very lucky that day, because ten seconds after we boarded the train, it departed the station.

A word of advice to anyone running late to a train: I do not recommend stopping to take multiple photos of a mural wall, no matter how pretty it looks. It’s too much stress and anxiety.

My mom on the other hand would give this advice: “Take the picture! It will be worth it. And don’t worry, you will make the train. Just don’t freak out.”

Love you mom and dad! 🙂