Finally we are on our way to Braunau. 09:10 train, departing from Budapest, Keleti Train Station (that's what means "pályaudvar") with destination Salzburg (the city where Mozart was from). From there it's yet another train to get to our final destination, where I'll meet - at long last - a penpal of mine. ^_^
The day started with an early waking, for which nobody was gratefull, except Cinder, of course, who got her daily food at once and about one hour earlier than usual. Our crazy little monster looks now ahead to a three day vacation from her "humans", who are always trying to pet her and hug her and never let her go. (Hell, we remind me of Elvira, from the Tiny Toons!). Though I had packed up all of my things yesterday night, my boyfriend had only packed part of his stuff, as he was otherwise occupied. (I'm loosing my boyfriend to the dubious art of philatelia, so currently the hunt of the rarest post stamps in the world is far more important than menial things such as packing ^_^)
After pulling our sleepy bodies from the comforting embrace of the bed, we made the bed, cleaned the cat's litter throwing out the old one and pouring in fresh litter. Finished the last aspects of packing, such as packing the deodorant, flip flops (and I think my boyfriend may have left his at home...), and then put to use my unique luggage winzipping skills. As time goes by I'm amazed at my ever improving skill to fit overflowing masses of stuff into small suitcases. It makes me feel like Mary Poppins! My boyfriend, on the other hand, was busy preparing a huge amount of sandwiches, which I believe he intends to feed to the poor or for an Army stationed on the way that's waiting for his sandwiches to save the world from eternal damnation. Really, what's with Hungarians and their idea that you need to make 10 sandwiches per person for a 6 hour trip... on a train that has a bufet wagon? Or is it just my Costa Rican side telling me that there's no need to pack food when you can surely buy it on the way?
We've got our tickets yesterday, and at the express recomendation of the lady selling us the tickets, we've got reserved seats. These are numbered seats that are good only for a given trip. This means that you pay more, but you have to take a given train, because the reservation is good only for that one trip. (You can take other trains too, but then you'll loose your reservation.) Piece of advise: when the lady at the train station cashier tells you to get the reservation, GET the reservation! We've got to the train about 30 minutes before departing and got our seats - fabulous and with table secured, which allows me now to blog comfortably ^_^ - and as we were looking around realized that most seats are already reserved, and there's not one single good seat that's not taken. Many people have gotten on the train without reservations and had to suffer the discomfort of being made move out of the places they've taken because they were reserved for others.
A lot of people is traveling these days to Austria from Hungary, due to the summer vacations - and because Hungarians are crazy about Austria - which has prompted the railroads to sell the tickets at lower prices (less than half of the original price), but also to have these frenetic runs for seats. We are traveling on an Austrian train (ÖBB), but the internet in it doesn't work. :-( Bugger. Oh well, there's always our mobile internet, which I have to give to my boyfriend shortly before we get to the Hegyeshalom, where the border between Hungary and Austria is located, and from where on the fee for internet goes on roaming standards.
I can't wait to see my friend, meet her in real life, and I can't wait to see what Braunau looks like... and how should I actually pronounce it.
If everything goes well, the next post will be from Austria.
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