Quarantine, Castles, and Ruin Bars

It feels like it has been forever since I have made a post here. Its been roughly seven months since I packed my suitcase and left Korea for home in the United States. Once I had resettled into my parents house, I quickly began looking for jobs. Soon, I was having interviews and eventually accepted a position in Budapest! How exciting! It was also convenient as we planned a trip in April to go to South Africa and do a cross country tour! Everything was falling into place.

Then COVID-19 struck. Like many other Americans, I thought "oh it won't be as bad here. We are more spread out than most asian countries so we will have it easy." As we now know, that thought process couldn't have been more wrong. My trip to Canada got cancelled only a few days before leaving. Soon after, the trip to South Africa was also cancelled.

Thus I was stuck at home. I was still teaching online through VIPKID at this time and was making good money. However, as time came closer and closer to our start date in August, it began to feel like the school in Hungary may back out. The HR department was not sending messages, things in the United States was getting worse and worse by the day and I started to get the feeling that even if the school did want me that there would be no way for me to travel to Hungary.

Finally, I heard back from the HR representative for the school and was set to leave for Budapest! I only had about a weeks notice to book the ticket and pack my bags but it was still exciting! I had to get special permission to enter the country due to border restrictions. The Hungarian police sent an email that explained that I was allowed to enter their country. I was buzzing with excitement! This flight was going to be so much easier than when I flew to Korea! I couldn't have been more wrong.

I have been fortunate in the past. I have never been stopped by border control, never had a flight cancel, and have never lost my luggage. It was a fortunate streak that had to come to an end sometime. I flew from Kansas City to Detroit with no issues. Then I flew from Detroit to Amsterdam and everything was going great until I reached the international section of Amsterdam's airport. Yes, I got off an international flight and then had to go through security again which I thought was a minor nuisance. When I got to the front of the line I handed over my passport and my Hungarian, government issued permission slip. The woman took one look at my American passport and called over her superior. I was then pulled aside and placed in the airport security waiting area. It was similar to waiting at the doctors office. As I waited, I soon realized that my flight was due to leave within 45 minutes. I went to the man, and kindly told him that I had a flight leaving soon and asked if there was anything I could do to speed up the process. He told me that they suspect my government issued papers were fraudulent. They were waiting for a response from the Hungarian Government to allow me to pass through. This is all happening at around 9:00 am. I assumed that the Hungarian government was probably at work and ready to respond to these kinds of issues. I was horribly mistaken. I sat and waited as my flight boarded, and departed from Amsterdam. Several hours later, the Dutch airport security let me pass. They told me I could just get on the next flight. I was happy with that answer, and carried on with my day.

When I got to the ticket reimbursement counter, I gave them the stub that border patrol handed me and asked for the next flight to Budapest. Again, I thought there would be another flight in a few hours. I was wrong. The next flight was the next day! I asked if I could leave the airport as I have never been to Amsterdam but Americans were not allowed into The Netherlands. I asked if I could at least go to a hotel or if the airport had a hotel or sleeping area. Nope and nope! I spent the next 24 hours in a sleep deprived, zombie-like state of mind.

Finally, I was able to board the plane and get on my way to Budapest.

Upon reaching Budapest, I was picked up by our HR representative and brought to my apartment. Thus began the two week quarantine. The rules for quarantine were very strict. In fact, we were not even allowed to be out on our front balcony as it is "shared" with our neighbors. Within the first day of quarantine we ordered a television. Most of quarantine was spent catching up on sleep, adjusting to time changes, chatting with family or friends, and sitting on our balcony.

Quarantine was like a little taste of torture. We were in a new city, one that I had never seen and there was almost no form of entertainment. The television we ordered on our first day in quarantine did not arrive until the 12th day of quarantine! It was a rough time.

The highlight of our time in quarantine was the old man across the street. He would come out while we had dinner or drinks on the balcony and show us his dog and was an overall very sweet man. He did not speak any English but that did not stop him from hollering to us in Hungarian!

Then, we were finally let loose. The first day out of quarantine, we walked to the Citadella. It was about an hour walk and then it took us an hour or so to climb to the top as we kept stopping to take pictures of the Danube and the city.

Once we finished the hike, we went for a bite at McDonalds and then went shopping because Zoe had to leave all of her clothes in Michigan. After, we walked back to our apartment to relax as we had walked a whopping 34,297 steps. We were sore the next day, but that did not stop us! We went to Margaret Island and then we went to Fisherman's Bastion and The Buda Castle. That day we covered 27,318 steps.

The next week we had orientation which was incredibly long and quite boring. However, that weekend Zoe's friend Colin came into town. We booked a pub crawl and we were all very excited to go out and drink. We did think about Covid. We were constantly checking the Hungarian government's covid statistics. At that time, there were 4 or 5 new cases per day. We felt pretty safe. People went around town without masks and everyone seemed pretty relaxed about Coronavirus in general. So we went to the pub crawl and there probably 50 people in this one pub crawl and it was quite crowded. After the night, we decided that it was not a good idea to do pub crawls until the world had Covid under control.