"Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go..." Well, we didn't go over the river and through the woods literally, but travelling strictly by public transportation can provide a new dimension to holiday travel. Rusty and Beth Ridgeway hosted the library staff for Thanksgiving dinner. They live in one of the suburbs of Budapest. It is on the opposite side of Buda from where we live, they live south and we live north. In preparation to go, we look at the bus and tram schedules, figure out how much time it will take to get to the destination and then decide when we will leave. Not all buses keep the same schedule throughout the day, ie every 20 minutes. It turned out that we wanted to be in Diosd by 2 pm and the bus that would get us closest to the Ridgeways left the stop that we would take it from at 10:53. We left our house at 8:25 and rode the bus, suburban railway and tram to the library. Then at the library we took an express bus that doesn't stop as frequently as the regular bus. However, about halfway to our connecting point, the bus stopped and the bus driver told us that we had to get off. Fortunately, our Hungarian assistants, Zsuzsi and Anna, were with us and could get information on why and where to go to find another bus to our connecting point. We made it to the connecting point with time to spare, but it looked like we should buy an additional ticket. Anna and Zsuzsi went and inquired about the tickets and were told we'd have to buy them on the bus from the driver.
At 10:53, the #13 bus pulled up to the platform and we boarded the bus. The driver didn't care that we had no additional tickets and was indifferent to selling us any, so we rode the bus. Rusty had told us which stop we needed to get off at and said that one of his children would be waiting at the stop, so we would be sure to have the right one. We were successful and really happy to see Weston, who then walked with us back to the house. We had a lot of good visiting and lots of laughs on our adventure that lasted almost 3 hours. It is one of those holidays that we will always remember, for the change in challenges. We had a delightful afternoon with the Ridgeway family, playing games, eating, talking about what we are thankful for and telling our Hungarian friends about the American tradition. Happily, the return trip was a little more brief, 2 hours.
Holidays are about making memories and we are so happy to have an experience like this one when we are away from our friends and family in the US. The American expats really like to share holidays and especially when it is one like this and our host country does not celebrate it.
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| Dinner guests at the beautiful, bountiful table |
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| The bird! |
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| Landon, licking Ranch dressing off the broccoli |
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| Anna and Zsuzsi chatting |
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