MostlyLost Adventures

Who would have thought, even just two years ago, that once that particular door opened before me, it would swing open so wide that the moment I stepped through it, it would mark the beginning of a never-ending series of adventures. After all, I’m slowly spending more time at airports than at home. The location is once again Terminal 2 at Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt Airport. I was already surprised by the check-in agent—just as I was about to toss my bag onto the scale with my usual brisk routine, the dear person started babbling something at me… in English. I politely replied, “

“Hello, we’re still in Hungary, so we can still speak Hungarian.” In the early morning rush, my half-asleep brain—still foggy from a quick coffee—wasn’t quite prepared for that response.

“I don’t speak Hungarian,” said the young lady with perfect Hungarian pronunciation…

Ah, I see. Okay, well then, let’s stick to English… may the devil make you drink cold water—I thought.

Still half-asleep and still feeling the effects of last night’s farewell party, having gotten through the night on just a few hours of sleep, I’m sipping my second small coffee in my usual airport lounge—because, yes, this time I’m about to embark on my longest flight yet, with three layovers right off the bat, just so my life isn’t too easy. The itinerary is Budapest–Amsterdam–New Jersey–Indianapolis, all with a mere minus 6-hour time difference. Well, what is this if not fun, adventure, and laughter, right?

Getting there wasn’t strenuous at all, even though I had my first layover at the Amsterdam airport. While I was still in Europe, I quickly had one last decent cup of coffee as a memento, since in America they don’t even know what that is—but seriously…I’ve never tried mop water, but it must be something like that, slightly heated—and then I threw myself into the kilometer-long lines and the multitude of checkpoints. When I got on the plane—I suspected it wouldn’t be a small one—but still. The sudden experience of a Boeing 747 can be described something like this: Oh my God, it’s huge! In the middle row there were four seats, with three on each side, where you could find a spot amid a makeshift sardine can of passengers—and up above, it was almost the same on the second level. A young Dutch couple was my first travel companions; it was quite pleasant chatting with them, although at first glance the guy was clearly hooked on weed and had already had several hits of his daily dose. In any case, he didn’t really get on my nerves, especially since he was mixing various alcoholic drinks he’d bought at the airport into his Coke. 😂

Finally, takeoff—so exciting! It felt kind of like a flying apartment building trying to defy gravity… but actually, I just now understood the meaning of “flying”—it’s just doing exactly that, literally. Since this was an approximately 8.5-hour flight, the animals… pardon me, I mean the passengers, were served two meals: a main course shortly after takeoff, followed by a light “breakfast” about an hour before landing. Regardless of which class you’re traveling in, everyone has a screen in front of them where they can choose from a huge selection of movies and music or play games—because, believe me, sitting on your butt for 8.5+ hours is incredibly long and even more boring. 🙈 Especially for people like me who can’t sleep at all on a plane, so the whole trip is pure torture. I can’t help it—everything bothers me: the noise, or worse, some ill-mannered kid doing gymnastics on the armrests, someone always sneezing, or coughs—with a little luck, not right into my neck—so the most I can do is sink into this half-awake, half-asleep state.

Anyway, just ignore my whining—the point is, I finally arrived at Newark Airport. As we landed, one of the flight attendants started singing the song “New York” over the PA—not Charlie’s version, of course, but Alicia Keys’s—which immediately set the tone for the whole thing. 🇺🇸🎶 My first stop was “Customs,” since—as cute as I am—they’re not going to let me in just because of my pretty eyes, right? Of course, I was prepared for anything, but I couldn’t get through the whole thing without a little Hungarian ingenuity. The first challenge was getting into the country on a B1 business visa (let’s not get into the details of that right now, hehe) and explaining that I’m just conducting training for the client and have a few meetings, but I’d be staying for about 8 weeks anyway, and as for that half-dozen tools in my suitcase… oh, well, I always travel like this—just ignore those, please. 🙈 In reality, the story wasn’t nearly that dramatic—nobody gave a damn why I was going or what I was bringing with me on my first visit; let’s just move on. I got a cute stamp in my passport… ahem, in my passport, had my photo taken and my fingerprints scanned, and then I was able to pick up my luggage, which I checked onto the flight to Indianapolis, hoping we’d arrive at the same time.

When I arrived in Indianapolis, the first thing that surprised me was that it was bright and sunny and about 30 degrees… or 86, right? In Fahrenheit, but who the heck uses that anyway… Here in America, they come up with all sorts of ridiculous units of measurement anyway, like “one toddler’s toe” or “a gun barrel” or whatever—just so they don’t have to use the metric system. As far as time goes, the only interesting thing was that when I left Amsterdam, it was already around 3 p.m., and when I arrived, it was 5 p.m.—the date was still the same, but I’d traveled for a total of about 12 hours. I’M A TIME TRAVELER 😱

As I exited the airport, my future project manager—with his typically German-sounding name, slightly weathered face, aviator sunglasses, and and a baseball cap—who, by the way, I think only worked at the company as a hobby; his real full-time job was as a master of the art of living, and he was a walking legend. But seriously… there are stories I would never have believed if I hadn’t been a part of them or known the man… the stories are coming soon, don’t worry. 😉

We were trying to reach each other on the phone, and after he saw someone fumbling around with some lousy phone—which obviously had to be me—he just said, “Oh yeah, servus, ich bin am Flughafen, sehe dich schon, ich bin hinter dir,” and then he slammed the phone down. Well now… I understood about as much of that back then as most of my readers do now. I called him back and told him that, by the way, I don’t speak a damn bit of German. After clearing up that little misunderstanding, I was in the car a short while later, and we were zooming off toward my hotel. Or rather, we would have been cruising, since during our little “small talk” the question came up: if I was hungry, there was a little restaurant where his coworkers “sometimes” went after work, and if I felt like it, we could stop by to say hello, but if I was really tired, of course, he’d take me to the hotel. I smiled at him and just said, “Listen… I’ve been awake for about 30 hours… I really don’t care where you take me anymore—let’s go to the restaurant.” And with that, it was settled; we continued on our way to a sports bar called Twin Peaks, which later became our regular hangout. (If anyone isn’t familiar with it, feel free to look it up—it’s worth it, hehe.)

We arrived, parked quickly anywhere, anyhow—after all, this is a free country—and then headed into the establishment for our first look around. High-fives, hi everyone—most of the staff had been sent over from the Austrian parent company; many Austrians were already part of the American subsidiary, while the true American colleagues were fewer in number. No big deal—before long, a pretty little waitress, authentically underdressed for the place, came over, and I placed my order. A hamburger and a local beer couldn’t do me too much harm—I thought—but the 30+ hours of sleep deprivation quickly took their toll, so I said I’d better head out soon if that was okay, before I had to shovel snow from several places in the morning. “I’ll pay then…” And that’s when I first encountered the real America. No, not because of the prices—those were still acceptable—but when I handed over my credit card, just like in Europe, you’d expect them to bring out the terminal, you’d pay, and that’d be it. I think everyone can guess that’s not how it went… The young woman disappeared so quickly with my card in her hand that I just stood there wondering, “What’s going on now?” The others just looked at me like, “Ah, relax—this is totally normal; that’s how it goes here. Afterward, you scribble on the receipt—preferably with your signature—and you’re done.” Well, okay… I guess I’ll just have to go through this baptism by fire.

When I got back to the hotel, after a quick shower, I collapsed into bed and tried to get used to the idea that when I wake up, I won’t have been dreaming—I’ll be in a different time zone, on a different continent… damn, I’ll be in a completely different world. But it’s exciting—it’ll be great to win from here. Or as the English say: “Get used to it.” 😄

The next morning, thanks to the time difference, I woke up completely groggy and took a good look at the hotel room. I could describe it in one word…and the whole country, for that matter. Everything’s fucking huge. Starting with the kitchen area, there’s a fridge big enough for an 8-person family, a small stove, and the rest—you can tell the furniture isn’t exactly brand-new, but the basic room comes with a huge bed and a decent-sized “living room.” Later, at the front desk, I naively asked how much it cost to use the pool, since, yes, there was one downstairs. Instead of an answer, I just got a surprised look in return, and then they told me, “This is America—it’s free here; it’s included with the room…” Oh, okay, sorry… well, I’ll just have to deal with it. Stepping out of the hotel, I was greeted by a setting that was also quite “American.” Whatever isn’t paved with concrete is paved with asphalt—but then again, that’s what you need for cars this size. The Ford F-150 is an average “small car” in American households. Similar-looking, lightweight-frame buildings are everywhere, with neat, garden-like surroundings—at least they want to keep up the appearance of how disciplined they are.

We’d arranged to meet in front of the hotel at 7 a.m. the previous day, but before that I popped out for breakfast—after all, you can’t start the day without a delicious American hotel breakfast (seriously). Well, it’s nothing to swoon over—it won’t make you throw up, but don’t expect Michelin-starred cuisine right off the bat. It’s mass-produced fast food. Not to mention that everything is sweet… yes… the bread, the bacon, the sodas, the muffins, the waffles, the syrups, the eggs—I don’t even want to know what they’re made of, but it’s definitely not eggs. All the food is loaded with sugar—all these “healthy” things. No wonder that since I left the country, I’ve hardly eaten anything sweet—seriously.

With a lukewarm brown monstrosity in my hand—the smallest serving of which is 6 oz., which is about 2 deciliters (but the taste, hmmm… well, it’s literally crap), I waited for the others at the entrance, since I didn’t get my own car—we have to save money, so we’re scraping by, with four of us crammed into one at best. After a short while, the others arrived in the rental car, where smoking is, of course, prohibited, so everyone lit up inside, and the ash, naturally, was blown back at me by the wind as it should be. The smoke drifts beautifully… too ☺️

When we arrived at the company, I was stunned to see that the newly constructed building itself was practically endless. An enormous warehouse/distribution center with hundreds of loading docks. I think there’ll be plenty of work here. At first, the situation was a bit interesting—I was practically surrounded only by Austrians who, since they were in the majority, didn’t really want to speak any language other than German—but in the end, I managed to fit in quickly.

But I’m repeating myself… who the heck cares about the work part? 😄

Luckily, practically the very first weekend was July 4th, which, as we know, is the Fourth of July. Everyone across the country celebrates it with tons of fireworks and some beer, so we did the same: in the evening, we went out to a clearing and, like well-mannered Europeans, lay down in the freshly mowed grass. It was pretty cool to start off like this right from the beginning and be part of such a national holiday. That evening, everyone ventured outside to wait for the fireworks display.

The following weekend, I was invited to my first-ever outdoor escape room. For those who aren’t familiar with it, all you need to know is that you form a team, download an app, and explore the city using GPS. In our case, for example, we had to solve a murder mystery through word puzzles and various challenges, but of course, we didn’t skip out on getting ice cream along the way either. It was really interesting to see that people who didn’t know what was going on in the area just looked at us with strange, disdainful glances, wondering what the heck a bunch of idiots were doing running around in a group, staring at their phones. Today, this is probably a much more common sight. Later that evening, we headed out to the part of town called “Downtown” and looked for a place where we could sit outside for a bit. Of course, we found a place with live music, so the whole thing turned out to be really cozy—especially since my coworker and I ordered a Bacardi and Coke, which we didn’t find very strong, so I asked for a Bacardi shot to be added to it. Well, that did the trick 😅

The following weekend was also a team-building event, courtesy of our project manager. Let me put it this way: totally free 😎 He came up with the idea that the whole team should head out to a little lake about 80 miles away, where we’d rent a boat, paddle out to the middle with some provisions, and then splash around and enjoy life. In the end, that’s exactly how it went—even the trip there was interesting, since—because drinking alcohol in public is prohibited—a few of us were already downing our morning refreshments from suspicious-looking bottles wrapped in paper bags. We finally arrived after quite a struggle, took over the two-story boat, and then sailed out to the very middle of the lake, where we wouldn’t bother anyone. At first, no one really wanted to take a dip, even though there was a slide leading into the water from the upper deck, but a few soft drinks were enough to lighten the mood. There was music, food, drinks, and good company—by the end of the day, it had turned into a real party boat. Of course, even that evening wasn’t very pleasant, since I, being an idiot… thought, “Ah, why bother with sunscreen or anything—I’ll be in the shade most of the time anyway…” Haha, I just didn’t account for how much the water reflects the sun’s rays. I got so badly sunburned… every part of me hurt and burned, and later I peeled in palm-sized patches. It’s painful just to think back on it.

Shortly after that, having healed up a bit, I headed home for a two-week break, but I still couldn’t sit still for long, so after finishing the garage roof, I headed to Szilvásvárad and Hortobágy. But more on that in the next part 😉