Budapest Diary - Day 1

By the time we boarded the flight, snag was a bundle of nerves. “I don’t want to fly! I am scared” she cried. Ours were the last two seats. And seated in front of us, was the dog-lady. Snag somehow seemed to be impressed with the dog. “I am scared! Let’s talk about something to distract myself from the flight!” she said, and picked up the topic of Calvin and Hobbes, as we taxied on to the runway. “What would Calvin do in such a situation?” she asked. I couldn’t resist the reply: “He would think of how to crash the flight!”

She pointed to a few lights glowing on the ground below: “Is that Bangalore?”

“Nah!” said I “Bangalore can’t be so small”

She: “Then which place is that?”

Me: “I don’t know...I think we are too far up to make out”

She: “Well wouldn’t it be nice if they could just put up a sign up in the sky so that people flying can make out?”

And then we hit the clouds.

“I hate turbulence” moaned I

“Why? Haven’t you gone on those roller coaster rides? “She asked

Me: “No. I am scared of them”

She: “This is nothing compared to what we go through in our shuttles. People like you who complain about turbulence should be made to travel from the office to where I live, in the shuttle”.

I couldn’t find a suitable answer. Surprisingly, the dog was quiet. It never even whimpered in that turbulence.

Thankfully, I was not made to starve. I guess no one told the stewards that food had not been reserved for me. Snag somehow liked the offering: “The food is good! And you were saying it is unpalatable? Isn’t it any day better than our canteen food?”

Again, I couldn’t find an answer. And, the dog was still quiet.

Breakfast was a different issue altogether. The hard and rubbery idli was unpalatable, and the masala vada seemed to be a leftover from our Onam celebrations a week back. Add to that the fact that I had not slept comfortably - a fact refuted by snag (“whenever I saw, you were just curled up asleep”). As we started descending, Snag got more excited. “Look, those farms – they look just like Farmville!” she exclaimed!

It was my first glimpse of Frankfurt City. Snag seemed as excited. For her, it was her first trip abroad in any sense, and she was all agog at the massive building of the Hauptbahnhof. We walked towards the river. The riverside was quiet – a few children played on the makeshift playgrounds, and a few guys were jogging along the riverside path. We walked towards the Altstadt. It was beautiful, but no different from a host of others in cities across Europe. Romer Renterum was a huge square with old building around it. A little fountain stood in the middle and all around the square people were oohing and aahing. Soon Snag was complaining that her bag was heavy. I convinced her to walk till the end of the street and catch the metro back to the airport. Along Liebfrauenstrasse, were florists selling all kinds of flowers. Snag seemed happy. She pointed to one of them and said: “look…that’s very popular in India now!”

“Oh! Is it? I don’t know anything about flowers.” I replied back

“It is Ganesha festival now no? That’s why” she said.

“I don’t think they celebrate that here” I said.

At the end of the street was the familiar sight of Galeria Kaufhof. I pointed it out to Snag, telling her that it was a huge shopping mall.

“Don’t they have seasonal sales here?” she asked. “I guess so, but I don’t think they’ll have it for Navratri” I replied back.

At one o’clock, we decided to turn back. I turned out to be a good decision, as the storm hit Frankfurt minutes after we left.

For the whole day, we were confused by the time zones. The in-flight monitor informed us that we had landed in Frankfurt at 6:45 AM. Too good to be true, and it was. The guys at the waterfront had corrected me. “It is 11 O’clock, and not 10. Happens all the time with these time zones”, they’d chucked. And now, as we sped towards Budapest under the darkening skies, the taxi driver informed me that it was 5:47. Again, too good to be true. Sure enough, at the hotel I found out that he was one hour behind.

We seem to have lost two hours and I don’t know where…Whoever said “Time Flies” was more than right!