Budapest Has Us Under its Spell and We Just Can’t Leave!

And by “leave”, I mean “get out.”  And by “spell” I mean “its burning desire to squeeze from us every penny, Euro, Forint, and Koruna that we might have remaining in our possession." Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely city, and I absolutely recommend visiting. But be aware that screwing with the tourists seems to be the national pastime. With the exception of the friendly neighborhood Couch Surfing community, it seems like everyone in this city is out to swindle, manipulate, cheat, charge, or wheedle our money from us. And those that aren’t after our wallets are simply messing with our heads. Anecdotal evidence:

At the train station, we are unsure whether or not we need seat reservations to the next train, so we ask if the woman at the counter speaks English or German. She replies “no,” and indicates that she can’t help us by with a “buzz-off” waggle of her forefinger. Then she says something in Hungarian. We blink. Then she sighs the sigh of the long-suffering, unwilling, and bitter shepherd of tourists, points and says, in perfect English, “You need to go across the hall, up the stairs, and to the left for international tickets.” And so we blink at her again, and observe the five other Guest Assistance” windows, fully staffed by women staring blandly back at us, and follow her instructions, going to wait in the international line, which, by the way, snakes around most of the eastern half of the train station and is completely stationary. Word has it that neither of the guest service assistants there spoke English as well as that first teller.

Budapest tourists seem to have developed multiple ways of coping. We met a German group who swore beer made it all more logical, which is why they bought a new crate of beer at each train station. The Aussies in our hostel seemed to favor temper tantrums. We’ve taken two different methods: studied avoidance (best when we can see other tourists find the pitfalls first), and playing head games right back. Kelly put on a fine display in the metro when a rotund little uniformed Hungarian woman demanded to see our tickets upon exiting, to ensure that we had not been fare-jumping. She then explained with a lot of pointing at the map and reprimanding frowns that tickets were only to be used for one line, and you can’t transfer from red to orange line on the same ticket, as we had mistakenly been told previously. So we offer her three more tickets from our book of ten to compensate for our mistake. She says, “No. No new ticket. You must pay fine.”
“What is the fine?” Kelly asks.
“6,000 Forints each.” (Notably, our hostel was 5,000 Forints a night for three beds. 6,000 Forints is a lot.)
“But we don’t have 6,000 Forints.”
“Then you pay Euro.”
“We don’t have that in Euros either,” Kelly responded truthfully.
“Credit card,” she replied, waving the form for recording a credit card number at us.
“We don’t have credit cards here,” Kelly responded, somewhat less truthfully this time.
“Fine.  Bankomat [ATM] there. You go. They [Kristina and I] wait,” she countered, growing concerned.
“I’ve already withdrawn the maximum. I can withdraw no more today,” Kelly fibbed smoothly.  “Do you have a bank transfer form?”
This seemed to have hit the end of her English capabilities, so she waylaid a passing Hungarian teen and the other ticket taker to translate as she grew progressively more flustered. Meanwhile, other passengers moseyed on past the checkpoint unhindered.
Apparently the term “bank transfer” makes less sense in Hungarian because she only grew more confused before insisting Kristina or I should make the withdrawal. “They left their wallets at the hostel,” she was assured. “Either we can do a bank transfer,” clearly the foreign phrase made her uncomfortable, “or we can give you three new tickets.”
“PASSPORTS,” she demanded flatly. I have no idea that good these would have done her, other than giving her the satisfaction of being able to demand them, but she looked quite miffed when Kelly explained slowly and clearly that they were locked safely in the hostel with our wallets. It took a while, but eventually she took three more tickets and tore them enthusiastically (“That’ll teach ‘em,” you could hear her thinking). We went on our way, and thenceforward, when confronted, Kristina and I would just start speaking only Spanish, which is much less widely known in Hungary.

Really, Budapest is a stunning city, perhaps my favorite so far. I think if you were to live here long enough to avoid these snags, it’d be wonderful, like Paris with more character and spring-fed Turkish baths. And much as I admire the intrepid capitalist’s spirit with all my heart, I don’t much mind watching the swindlers who give this beautiful city such an inhospitable façade fade into the distance. I think my wallet will be safer in Vienna.