Two years ago, I spent a semester abroad in London. One of the best parts of these trips for an American student is that it’s plausible to travel to other places in Europe without breaking the bank too much. Of course, now this isn’t as true because of Brexit and all that nonsensical jargon, but it wasn’t really relevant for me two years ago. Anyway, when I lived in London, I lived in a large flat with about 18 other students. This was enjoyable, but at times it was mainly infuriating.
My story begins on a particular Monday while living in this flat. It was quite rainy, so most people stayed inside the flat after classes. I remember I was sitting in the kitchen, eating two pieces of plain grilled chicken when a girl named Bailey* entered, complaining that Carly* didn’t do the dishes. Then Amelia* wandered into the kitchen to have an argument with Bailey about the dishes Claire* didn’t do and somehow other people were involved. By the end of the night, two people had been brought to tears, over dishes apparently. The truth was probably just that some young-adult tension had finally surfaced, but I was blissfully an observer of all of it. Nonetheless, it was frustrating to be in a house with rising tension, so I decided I would escape the house for a weekend and travel to Budapest. I opted for a sketchy airline and managed to get a round trip ticket for less than $70. I even found a fairly cheap hostel.
So, on Friday I headed out to Budapest on an oddly seated plane. Entire rows near me were empty, yet I still had to sit in between two muscular men, one of whom had a face tattoo of a snake and ordered a beer I’d never heard of halfway through the 3-hour flight. Once the flight lands, I stagger behind the crowd a bit as I’m trying to collect myself. I end up being the last one to pick up my luggage. Still naively bright-eyed, I head over to the nearest ATM in order to pick up Hungarian Forint, as I couldn’t use my British pounds to pay a taxi to my hostel.
I go through the process as normal, putting my bank card in the ATM and pick withdrawal. I get to the screen that I expected to list how much money I could take, when all of a sudden the screen goes blue and a message pops up. It reads “This is a stolen or misused bank card. The ATM will withhold it.” I was desperately confused, as I had informed my bank beforehand that I would be travelling, and all of a sudden my bank card had been swiped from under my nose by the same machine that was supposed to give me money. Along with all of this, my phone had died on the plane trip, and I didn’t have the appropriate plug for a charger.
So, I go to the small electronics store in the airport and ask if they accept pounds. Luckily, they do, and I just happen to have a 10 pound note (and nothing else) on me. I buy a plug for my phone charger that works with the Hungarian outlets, and sit in a chair of a basically empty Hungarian airport (It was around 1 in the morning in Hungary at this point).
Once I have gathered 10% of a battery, I call my bank and end up having a long-winded conversation with a woman from Chase bank named Michelle. After some back-and-forth, we discover that when my father, Paul Vincent Ippolito Sr, requested a new bank card, the bank ended up administering me, Paul Vincent Ippolito Jr, with a new bank card. Therefore, my old card was inactive and deemed trash. Now growing nervously aware of my situation, I asked Michelle what I could do. She recommended I use Apple Pay, as most major taxi companies and food chains would accept it. Perfect, I thought. Problem solved. So, I hung up and began to set up Apple pay, luckily using a picture of my old bank card to get the card number correctly. However, Apple Pay also would not work. If I tried to set it up, it would say “Card information error” or something along those lines and stop me in my tracks.
So, I called the bank back one more time and got in contact with another kind representative. This one, after hearing the bare bones version of my situation, informed that I would need the NEW card to set up Apple Pay. He then informed the new card was still in the mail, so I couldn’t even call someone at my house and get them to give it to me.
So, now reaching desperation, I call my mother. I describe to her the entire situation. Her answer is simply to “borrow money from one of my friends who I’m with”. That is when I inform her that I am there by myself. So, my mother, god bless this genius move, calls me an uber in Budapest from America on her own account. The uber takes me to my hostel. Normally at this hostel, you have to pay before you can lodge, but I managed to convince the lady at the front that I would give her my Passport and pay her tomorrow (I don’t know how this worked but it did).
Anyway, the next morning I woke up with a long text from my mother, explaining that she found one Western Union in Budapest, and she wire transferred me 350 U.S. Dollars. However, this building was about 7 miles from my hostel, and due to the time difference she was now asleep, so I had to make the trek on my own. At this point, it had been about 14 hours since I arrived in Budapest, and I hadn’t eaten since before i got on the plane. 18 hours without food doesn’t sound like a lot, but it can be brutal after all the stress I’d gone through.
I eventually made it to the Western Union after a bit more than 2 hours of walking (some unfamiliarity with the city combined with my hunger probably made this walk longer than it had to be). I approached the front desk and asked for the form from the woman, who gave me a 2-page form to fill out. The only problem now was that the form was entirely in Hungarian. After waiting another 40 minutes for an English translator to be available, and then spending another half-hour filling out the form, I finally received the money I would need to survive my weekend away.
After I received the money, the very first thing I did was go to the pizza place right next to the Western Union and devour a slice of pizza. It was spiritual. I’m not sure what the lesson is from this other than that if you go to a different country, get the currency before you get on the plane. With that said, Budapest was one of my favorite trips I’ve ever taken. So, I suppose the true lesson is that just because something begins out of misery, doesn’t mean it has to continuously be miserable.
