Okcoasterfest 2006 part 1, getting there

Slowly over time, in my own plodding and methodical way, I've been recounting my experiences riding roller coasters during the summer of 2006.  As out of date as I am, I have finally come to what I considered to be by far the highlight of my 2006 coaster season, a trip to visit Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany.  It would be the third trip I'd taken to Europe for the purpose of riding roller coasters.  My first trip was with American Coaster Enthusiasts, a two week trip through a variety of countries.  The second was with a small group of friends through four Scandinavian countries.  But it wasn't getting old; I was as excited about a third trip as I had been about the first two.

A friend of ours, Derek, had come up with the original inspiration.  When he invited us along, we gladly accepted.  Eventually his job forced him to cut back on his travel plans somewhat, but another friend Tim took over the planning.  Tim had been responsible for the planning of the Scandinavia trip as well as another one to Japan that we hadn't participated in, so we were in good hands.  Janna and I wound up taking the trip with him, only meeting Derek in the middle of the trip.  Another friend, Greg, joined us for part of the trip as well.

Though the main objective of the trip was to visit Oktoberfest, we had a variety of other amusement and theme parks lined up across Germany to visit.  Tim actually extended the trip a bit by adding some countries and parks to the beginning.  His extensions included Budapest and Vienna.  Neither Greg nor Derek made this part of the trip (though Greg spent extra time on his own in Berlin), but Janna and I were eager to join in.  I had visited both cities before a few years back, but had not had a chance to visit their respective amusement parks, so I had some motiviation to return, quite apart from the inherent attractions of the cities themselves.  I was particularly interested in returning to Budapest, which I remembered as a very beautiful city.

Thus it was that Tim, Janna, and I found ourselves waiting to catch a plane from Pittsburgh to JFK, from which we'd catch our overseas connection to Budapest.  Or so we thought.  In fact, the trip outward was far more difficult and interesting than we expected.  We had hoped packing for such a long trip, particularly a foreign one where we would have to carry our bags around with us a lot of the time (and hence have to pack lightly) would be the biggest problem.  As usual, we put a lot of this off until the very day we left, which raised our stress level, but it turned out to be the least of our worries.

At the airport we had to take care of the ritual of exchanging for Euros.  The exchange rate was depressing, but not as bad as we'd encounter the next summer!  Since our first stop would be in Hungary, we also had to get Forint, which was less distressing.  (Apropos of nothing at all, the 1 Forint coin is surprisingly light.)

There's no direct flight from Pittsburgh to Budapest, so we had to go through JFK.  I'd only been there for the first time just a few days before, and my two experiences there have not made it one of my favorite airports.  The first sign of trouble came as we were beginning to taxi.  I overheard a stewardess mention something about a ground stop at JFK.  Fortunately, this was canceled, but they decided to take us back to refuel, then we had to wait longer to get out.  The overall delay pretty much ate all the way into our connection time.

We still had a faint hope of making our connection when we landed, but we were then delayed on the taxiway, apparently waiting for some other planes to land before we could proceed.  Even so we looked at the terminal maps in the in-flight magazine so that we could make a rush for it if we had to.  From my window I could still see a plane at our departure gate, but by the time we'd gotten out and were heading from one concourse to another, I could see it making its way to the runway!

We went to our gate nonetheless, thinking it was at least the best place to find out what alternate arrangements we could make.  To our surprise, there was nobody at the gate at all.  It's as if they had vacated it as soon as the flight had left.  We went to the nearest gate we could find an airline employee, and they directed us to gate 11 for service.  Here at least there was somebody who was helpful; she booked us on a flight to Paris, from which we could connect to Budapest.  To book us she needed some help from one of her coworkers, who was occupied with somebody else.  I overheard her saying to him the disconcerting sentence, "They are boarding the flight now!"  Obviously we'd have to hurry.  She offered to call a tram driver for us, but one never showed up.  We ran to the gate just as they were just calling our names prior to closing boarding.  Breathless, we were just about the last people to board the plane.

For all our rushing about, we then had to sit around for quite some time before the plane left.  We were in a queue to push back--apparently due to limited trucks--even before we could begin taxiing.  Then we had a further half hour delay in the taxi queue.  Our flight, originally due to leave at 6:50, actually left at 9:10.  By this point many people were walking around even after we were actively taxiing, and complaining that we weren't getting food.  Janna as always had brought snacks for the flight, so we had no trouble ourselves.

Much to my surprise there were no individual entertainment systems for our seats.  I think that may be the first international flight where I haven't had my own screen to watch.  They also only provided one complimentary alcoholic drink, the one that came with dinner.  For other drinks we only got a small cup of water (later Janna would raid the cart to get us some more) and the meal itself was pretty pedestrian, at least by standards of prior international flights I've been on.  On the whole, Delta did not seem to be up to the standards of the other international carriers I've taken.

Not surprisingly I had trouble getting any sleep on the flight.  Having the meal served late didn't help; by the time we were finished, it wasn't all that long before they had to begin preparing our breakfast.  Even so I do enjoy seeing a plane "wake up" as morning approaches.  Like the dinner my breakfast was also pretty ordinary.  I remember that the orange juice tasted typically "European".  There's an odd, almost fermented taste to European orange juice that I've never tasted in America.

Fog caused further delays for us getting into Paris, but finally we landed at Charles DeGaulle at 10:25 AM.  Had we been able to catch our original flight we should have landed in Budapest at 8:55 (local time).  Not very close to plan!

DeGaulle must be one of the very worst major airports in the world.  It's at least the worst I've ever been to.  It was made worse by the construction it was undergoing while we were there.  This meant we had to ride a bus just to get to our boarding terminal, then board a crowded lift to get to yet another bus to take us to our departure terminal.  As we were waiting in the crowded room to board the second bus, a woman came up to me and tried to ask me something about her ticket.  She could only point at it--clearly she spoke no English (and apparently no French either).  As best I could tell, she was Serbian, and was trying to get on a flight to Belgrade.  I could see from the departures board that boarding for her flight was already closed.  The best I could do was tell her that she was taking the bus to the right terminal and hope that she could get better help from there.  For all the troubles we had, I always thought back to that poor woman (who seemed to be with her elderly mother) and realized that our travel troubles could be far worse.

Even so, our DeGaulle experience was pretty miserable.  As we rode our bus I could see one terminal completely under construction.  This made the entire airport look like a mess and probably made the other terminals more crowded.  Our destination terminal was a long, cramped linear building, clearly very archaic by modern airport standards.  On the other hand, I don't recall ever having seen foie gras for sale at any other airport I've been to.

We were confused by the security system.  The security restrictions were a bit unfamiliar.  A display case showed what was prohibited, but apparently unlike the US, water bottles were permitted.  It appeared we had to go through a security screening just to get into our gate area, where our tickets would be again checked before boarding the plane.  This might not have been such an inconvenience except that we weren't let into our gate area at all at first, then we had to go through it all again when our gate was switched.  It didn't help that there was some uncertainty about which gate we were supposed to go to--the people at the gate we were sent to didn't know anything about our flight.  If somebody in our line hadn't known French, we might not have been admitted at all.  The seating areas also hardly looked modern.  The seat bays were bright and multicolored, with a vibe that hearkened back to the 70's at latest.  We had to wait there for some time, while a flight to London boarded, then for our plane finally to arrive.

We were on Malév airlines, Hungary's national carrier.  We were seated near the back of the plane.  It was crowded but the seats were probably more comfortable than the ones on our overseas Delta flight.  At least, I was able to easily nap almost as soon as I sat down, though being as tired as I was surely helped.  I missed some sort of announcement that made everybody groan.  I suspect it was a further delay, but by that point I barely cared.

When the flight got underway, I noticed how talkative the passengers seemed to be.  It was as if everybody on the flight but us knew each other and was happy to talk.  Tongues might have been loosened by the several rounds of drinks they brought around.  As tired as I was, I thought wine would be a bad idea, but I did have a nice hot sandwich, kind of like a hot pocket with some kind of meat and a pickle.

After my pre-flight nap, I was awake enough to watch the countryside beneath us.  We started out over cultivated country that gradually gave way to wilder, hillier, woodsier landscapes, eventually mountains.  I expected to see snowy mountaintops, but there was no snow.  My window faced southward; I think perhaps the northern view was better.  I did see one interesting phenomenon, the shadow of our contrail on the clouds below us.

The ground flattened out again as we approached Budapest.  The landscape seemed green and unpopulated near the airport.  As we landed, the guy sitting next to me clapped.  After our travel travails, I felt the same but was too tired to be quite so enthusiastic.  Our arrival time was 5:20, about 9 hours behind our original schedule.  The entire day we'd planned to devote to tourism was blown...and it wasn't even over.

The crowded bus from the plane to the immigration area, and long lines for our passports to be checked were by this time minor inconveniences, but we had one major one left to face.  Our wait for our luggage to arrive was in vain.  It barely surprised us after everything else that they'd lost our luggage.  We dealt with the forms we had to fill out, let them know where our hotel was to deliver the luggage, and decided the best thing for us to do would be to get to the hotel ourselves.

A minibus was available to take us there for a fee.  The sun was setting as we rode into the city, another reminder of all the time we'd lost.  Our hotel was the Best Western Grand Hotel Hungaria, located near the train station (we'd typically try to stay near train stations for the sake of convenience, as most of our transportation for the trip would be by rail).  The lobby was bustling as we came in.  I got the strong sense that our hotel was used by many tour groups.  It was 6:55 by the time we finally got to our room.

We still couldn't relax all that much.  With our bags gone we had no toiletries so we had to go find someplace to get some.  Since the hotel was near the train square, we didn't have too much trouble finding a "Drógeria" to get some necessities.

Done with this errand, it was time to find someplace to eat.  The drawback of being near the train square became apparent.  The restaurants nearby were very uninspiring, many gyro shops, and even a KFC, but very little that seemed unique.  We continued walking down the street and just about at the point we were going to give up we found a little pub called the "Old Freight House".  It was the most interesting place we'd seen so it wasn't hard for the proprietor to talk us inside.  He was most accommodating, even opening up a room for us.  We really had no idea what was on the menu, but between his broken English and my broken German we managed to communicate well enough to get by.

We all got something to drink; we felt we needed it after the day we'd had.  My choice was a Gösser beer, and Janna got one--which we though at the time was Polish but turned out to be Slovokian--Zlaty Bazant.  (Special character limitations prevent me from putting all the proper diacritical marks in the name!)  Along with our ordered drinks the proprietor brought us some schnapps (peach, I think) along with our drinks.  I have no idea whether it was complimentary or whether he actually added it into our charges, but I really was beyond checking at the time.  I'll just enjoy the memory and assume it was all on the house!

In spite of our best efforts to get translations for the menu items, we were a bit nervous, and all ordered fish.  It turned out to be a good choice, as it was a very tasty salmon with a slightly spicy sauce.  Perhaps it was my relief to be finally having a good meal, but I can't remember ever having had better salmon.  In addition I ordered what I thought would be a Greek salad.  It wasn't quite what I'd have gotten in the US, it was more like sliced vegetables with feta pieces--no lettuce at all.  The vegetables were fresh and the feta was very creamy.

Finally, before we left, the proprietor offered us some sweet red wine.  Whether it was complimentary or not, our meal came out to around $60 for the three of us, even with the decline of the dollar that had already begun by that time.  We couldn't have asked for a better, more relaxing and satisfying way to end the day.  We'd get a chance to get some real sleep, then start out the next day fresh and ready for the real beginning of the trip!