Travel Tuesday-Story Time

Alright, today the story continues, last week we left off in Zakopane, Poland...today, we travel on into Budapest!

If you missed Part One of the story, you can read it here.

We left the restaurant and followed our group to a bar on the main strip of town. He bought me a drink and we continued to chat the night away. On the way back to the hotel, trailing behind the rest of the group, I told him how in university I took astronomy, and I pointed out different constellations that I remembered.
He replied, “you know what I always like about stars and the moons and all that? No matter where you are, it always makes you feel closer to the ones you love, because you know they are looking at that very same sky”.

Was this guy real? Never in my life had I come across someone quite like him. His next question came out shyly, like he was all of a sudden a small high school boy again.
“So, who do you normally sit with on the bus?”
“No one really, whoever has an open seat”
“Me too.”
“So, did you want to sit together tomorrow?”
And thus plans were made. We both went to our separate rooms, and I continued down the hallway with my two friends, Leslie and Deanna.
“Oh my god you guys, I love him!”
After they finished mocking me for a couple of minutes, Leslie said to me, “you know, he has been asking about you”
Swoon. I stopped briefly to think that I shouldn’t get so attached.
“We are sitting together on the bus tomorrow!” I squealed and headed off to my room.

I woke up in a panic. Oh my fucking god, I slept in. I’m not going to get a seat on the bus, and we won’t be able to sit together. Our tour group had become known for getting up extra early just to get a good seat on the bus. It was practically impossible to get a seat with someone you wanted if you got on the bus after 8am. I booted it out to the bus, and just as I suspected, everyone was there already. Silently cursing, I climbed on. I heard, “Megan!” from the back of the bus, and there he was, saving a seat with his photography bag.

We talked the whole bus ride, which was a good 7 hours. Through the bumpy backroads of Poland and on into Hungary, we talked. Every once in a while one of us would point at something out the window: “A poppy field! I’ve never seen a poppy field!”
You can cover a lot of ground in 7 hours.

Budapest is beautiful at night, it is in fact one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Paul was snapping away with his camera, and I was enjoying the free drinks provided on the boat cruise with the rest of my tour mates. When we got back to the dock, we all decided to walk together to a bar to experience some of the legendary Budapest nightlife.

Upstairs at the bar, one of the girls from my tour, Allison, was all over Paul. I felt irritated at her, but more irritated at myself for getting irritated at her. He wasn’t mine, he wasn’t my boyfriend, not even close. He was a guy that I had just met, who I happened to really, really like. Deanna told me to not worry about it, but I couldn’t help watching Allison. To his credit, Paul looked like he was completely trapped. With one arm over each of his shoulders, Allison had him completely encased. Her neediness made me cringe.

“So”, I heard her slur, “are you allowed to hook up with people on the tour?” My stomach knotted, and I felt something that I have never felt before, at least not so intensely: complete jealous rage. I wanted to run over to her, pull her hair, and scream, “hey bitch, that’s my man!”. But THAT would have be ridiculous on a number of levels, so I just told Deanna that I had to leave. As we walked past Paul, I said, “we’re going now, night!”, and he said, “I’ll come with you”, and he ducked out from under her arms. As we broke out into the Budapest night, Paul whispered, “okay, walk faster, she might chase me”. We hightailed it back to the hotel.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked him
“Wandering probably, talking photos”
“Me too.”
“Want to wander together?”
“Yes, I’ll meet you anywhere”.
Silly girl. Silly, silly girl.

I spent the entire next day with him and it was one of the most amazing of my whole trip. We wandered around Budapest for hours, going from one end of the city to the other, stopping for lunch, and stopping for ice cream twice. We played in fountains, saw the worlds biggest egg timer, took photos, met famous Hungarians and explored castles. We talked about meeting in Austria in a couple of days, and made a map of our travels. Because of this day, Budapest will always remain one of my favourite cities in the world: how could it not?

The next day, the bus was set to leave. Half the tour group was continuing on to Slovenia, half the group was ending the tour in Budapest. I was staying, he was going. Me and the other girls not continuing on the tour walked to the bus to see our tour mates off. Everybody hugged and told each other to keep in touch. I hugged him, and all I could think to say was “well, email me.” His reply, “so lovely to have met you”.

The bus drove away, and my eyes teared up. I missed Deanna, I missed Paul. I hated myself for getting in this situation, but I was just so sad. I was engulfed in hugs by the girls left over from my tour, and Allison, the one I was so irritated at the other night, simply said,
“Wow, you really like him, don’t you?”
I nodded yes and continued to cry. She had no idea.
Standing there on the bustling streets of Budapest, crying like a complete fool, I ached.
Silly, silly girl.

Okay, tune in next week for Part Three and the conclusion of this travel tale!