Seven observations in and around the Train station Budapest Keleti (on route to Pápa)

I have arrived in Hungary, in Budapest. After reporting my luggage as missing (if all goes well, my suitcase will arrive tomorrow. The joys of flying!), I took a MiniBud bus from the airport to the Keleti train station. That's definitely a big wow. What a beautiful building! It looks like it's straight from a movie; I´m thinking Agatha Christie here and her fictional character Poirot. He would fit right in here, solving a murder mystery at the station.  

Sweet little sweets and newspaper kiosks.

The side of the Keleti train station. I guess there was only to renovate the front of the building. 

A train station with a past - and a present.

 If I may stereotype a little? Women wear this type of faux leather tights, 

men wear camouflage pants with side pockets.

Pinch me, I´ve been teleported to 1990.

Cheap, friendly and convenient. Travel by train when in Hungary.

Anti-Orban posters next to the train station.

I had about an hour and a half before my train left. I took a walk in the Keleti neighborhood and made a few quick observations:

1) Facades are cracking, paint is peeling, windows are broken. Everyone keeps telling me how different Budapest is from my last visit here in 1990, but I see plenty of things that look more or less the same. 

 2) Young women wear a lot of make-up though: thick foundation and insanely long fake eye lashes caked with mascara. Lip fillers, pony tails and lycra leather imitation tights seem popular. It´s a little like attending a Kardashian look alike festival (minus the tights).

3) There´s Macdonalds, Burger King, Starbucks and KFC opposite the train station, but I have lunch at a Turkish café as I´m trying to avoid all things American and Isreali until there´s a two state solution in place in the Palestine. I have chicken kebab. It´s delicious. I make conversation with a man sitting next to me. I ask him what's up with Prime Mininster Viktor Orbán, but his English doesn´t reach beyond recommedning Goulash and langos: "You must try". I do a quick google search on Orbán. In July 2022, he claimed that Hungarians "are not a mixed race... and we do not want to become mixed race". There´s also an article from a democracy institute that suggests that Hungary is currently the most right-wing nation in Europe. It seems like they just replaced their last communist leader, János Kádár, with a fascist. 

4) I also read that Romani people are fighting for their survival here. There´s a new wave of persecutions. Romani have been murdered. It's crazy. First the Jews, now the Romani - and the Muslims and anyone else that do not look like us. 

Not far from the train station, I see a big poster on a wall. I think it says that Orbán is a paedophile. That´s bad, of course, but at least there´s opposition. That makes me feel a little better. 

5) A total of four people ask me for money outside the train station. They look dirt poor and have bad teeth. One man has a rugged dog. Another man has the saddest eyes. I can´t help. I haven't changed Forints yet. It´s remarkable how much Hungarian sounds like Finnish. 

6) Traveling by train in Hungary is cheap and convenient. The other passengers and the conductor are friendly. I found my track and train, no problems at all. There´s a number of nice kiosks at the Keleti station selling newspapers, sweets and bread. There´s also a section called "Government Window". It has closed down. I wonder what it once was.

7) Referencing point six: I missed my connecting train to Pápa in Györ. I had seven minutes to change, but there were many tracks and no information available in English. A friendly railway worker, I loved him because he looked like a conductor from the 1950´s, pointed at a brown and orange train on track six. I was alone in my compartment, but I didn't let this bother me. I was busy taking a selfie when the conductor and another man came running to tell me that the marvellous retro brown-orange train was not destined for Pápa - and that the Pápa train had just left. It wasn´t a train smash as trains run every hour. The two railway workers accompanied me to the right track and from there it all went smoothly. 

I booked my train tickets on-line with MÁV-START. The tickets were e-mailed to me, ready to print with barcode and all. Domestic and international trips available, as well as an app. 

It´s lovely, but still the wrong train.

Selfie with alarmed conductor in the background.

This is the train that finally took me to Pápa.