Day 41 - Budapest/Vienna

Up early and to the train station. I got busted without a valid ticket on the bus. Everywhere I go, I use buses and trains and trams, and you always have to have a valid ticket. It usually involves some sort of stamp with the date. I knew this. I knew that my ticket was from the previous day but I was willing to take a risk. I can count on one finger the number of times I have been asked to show my ticket. Plus, the ticket that I had in my hand had the date written by hand, and I figured that the 15 looked close enough to an 16 that I could pull it off if confronted. I knew that it was a sting as soon as the guy got on the bus. I've learned to spot these guys. They try to look like the normal commuter and then as soon as the doors close they whip out their badges and citation books with great and exaggerated yet unimpressive gusto. But, there was nothing I could do. I was cornered with a giant backpack on my back and nowhere to run. He could easily see that we would not be having a conversation so he gestured for me to show him my ticket, which I did. He took a look. Then a second look. Then a look at me and back at the ticket. I could tell that he was trying to figure out how to tell me that I had an expired ticket. So he pointed at the date and shrugged. So I informed him, in perfect English, that that was

"a 16. Today is the 16th :)"

So then he covered up the 1 to highlight the 5 and gave me another look.

"Right. Thats a 6. Today is the 16th :)"

His next attempt was to reach into his pocket and pull out a small pocket calendar and point at today's date. I looked at my watch to confirm.

"You got it. Today is the 16th. It's a Tuesday. September 16th. And that's why my ticket says the 16th."

My strategy was to both stall for the next bus stop and confuse him with as many English words as I could. As long as I was talking, he wasn't talking, and I could see his frustrations mounting. This continued for a few more minutes until the bus began to stop again, at which point my plan was to get off the bus and thereby end my crime spree. Luckily for me, he was more frustrated and I think slightly embarrassed and he got off the bus. So I stayed on and rode the bus all the way to the train station, illegally, as intended, proud and ready to ward off any other foes who might challenge my ability to decipher the numerals of Hungarian bus ticket tellers. Bring it on.

I arrived in Vienna that afternoon to cold and rain. I made my way to the hostel and was surprised to find Brendan from caving there. I had planned to meet up with Bec but neither of us knew that Brendan would be in Vienna at the same time. So the two of us headed in to town to meet up with Bec and see the town. We went to the Albertina museum to see a van Gogh exhibit as well as all the other great works there, including several Picassos.

After a pizza we all went to see an orchestra perform inside the palace. It was mostly works by Strauss and Bach and the performance was phenominal. We fninshed the night with a beer from an Aussie bar and headed home.