Jeff Bridgforth :: Webcraftsman

Crafting Web sites since 1999

I am a Web designer passionate about creating elegant, inspiring, and usable Web experiences that connect with an audience and fulfull business objectives.

In Search of a Hungarian Train

April 1, 2006

Hungary · Random

Hungarian TrainI have now been to Hun­gary 6 times in the last 16 years. One “sou­venir” that I would like to have but have not yet acquired is a model or toy Hun­gar­ian train (like the real one pic­tured on the left).

Dur­ing my first visit to Hun­gary in 1990, I rode trains up and down the north shore of Lake Bal­a­ton every day of the four weeks I lived in Hun­gary. Seven years later when my wife and I lived in Debre­cen for 9 months, we rode a lot of trains as we vis­ited Budapest at least once a month. So for me, rid­ing on trains is part of my “expe­ri­ence” of Hun­gary. And being a mela­choly, I like to col­lect phys­i­cal objects that remind me of a mem­ory or experience.

On my most recent trip to Hun­gary two weeks ago, I decided to ven­ture over to the trans­porta­tion museum in Budapest to see if I could find a toy train or small model train in their gift shop. I thought that was as good a place as any to try to find one. I had wanted to ven­ture over there while in Budapest this sum­mer but it did not work out. I ended up hav­ing some unex­pected free time on my recent trip and decided to go for it.

I did not find what I was look­ing for but I did have quite an expe­ri­ence. After walk­ing for about 15 min­utes across City Park, I made it to the museum. When I entered, they wanted me to pay admis­sion to visit the museum. The lady at the desk did not speak Eng­lish so I used the Hun­gar­ian for gift (ajan­dek) and ges­tured. She did not under­stand me and I was stumped at how to com­mu­ni­cate because I have a very lim­ited vocab­u­lary in Hun­gar­ian. I was tempted to aban­don my search.
But I did not want to give up after ven­tur­ing all the way over there. I then tried to com­mu­ni­cate with a man that had come over to the desk.  After a cou­ple attempts, he was able to fig­ure out that I wanted to see the gift shop. Sev­eral dif­fer­ent peo­ple pointed me in the right direc­tion. I finally made it to the “gift shop.“  They did not have any mod­els or toys. They did have some big­ger “mod­els” of engines but they were about $200 and not what I was look­ing for.

Although I did not find what I was look­ing for (not sure I ever will), I am glad that I tried and I now think fondly about that adven­ture and how per­se­ver­ance paid off.

Comments are closed.