Thank you to everyone who didn't let me die at Lake Balaton

At some point last weekend, in a moment of clarity in between the tears and snot and so on, I realized two very important things:
(i) My day could have been a lot worse and in a lot of ways I was incredibly lucky it wasn’t and
(ii) My day was so crappy that, all things considered, it was kind of hilarious.

The weekend started out promising. The plan was I'd take the train down to Lake Balaton, around which two friends of mine had been spending the last few days biking. I'd meet them Saturday morning at some point halfway around the lake and finish the tour with them on Sunday. It was a foolproof plan. One might even say unsinkable. My friends had even found me a bike to use, a professor's bike from the program. On Saturday morning, my saddle bag packed with food, my helmet strapped, and my spirits high, I set off for Déli Palyaudvar to begin the journey.

Déli is a simple subway ride away from Keleti (no transfers needed). The station is across the river and some very busy streets. I left the house an hour ahead of the 8 am train, which was fortunate because (foreshadowing!!) as it turned out bikes are not allowed on the Budapest metro system. 

After I was kicked out of two different subway stops on the M2 line, I realized that there was no help for it; I would need to ride my bike to Déli. The prospect was unexciting. In addition to my complete lack of knowledge about where the bike paths were in the city, the roads to Déli both in Pest and in Buda (in an area of Buda I am very unfamiliar with) are quite big and busy. And it was raining.

But, despite all odds (and a very nerve-wracking bike through a tunnel), I made it onto the 8 am train with two minutes to spare.

I arrived at Balatonfüred right on schedule at 10 am and begin the bike ride around the lake. 

On Saturday morning, I started where the red star is, my friends at the two blue stars.

My route was a simple out-and-back. My two friends started at Keszthely at 8 or 9 in the morning and were biking towards where I got off, Balatonfüred. I'd bike backwards and meet them, then we'd bike together to our accommodations in Örvenyes. 

It was raining at Balaton, too, but the lake was beautiful; the water looked pearly under the grey clouds, and I was biking too much to be chilly.

A view of lovely Tihany

The trail, too, was a pleasure to ride on. Well-maintained and completely independent of the road, it was marked clearly by signs that told you which towns you were headed towards so there was no chance of getting lost. For the first three or four hours of the ride, I was having a lovely time along the lake.

Signs like the one on the right littered the trail.

I was just passing a tiny town called Zánka when I saw that I would be riding through some kind of bike tour finish: participants in casual athletic gear were pedaling into the town where I could see some sort of finish line + loud music + announcer. Seemed interesting enough. 

Pedaling over an increasingly narrow road, I rounded a corner heading downhill when I saw four people pedaling up the hill in front of me; two tour administrations in bright red jackets, a young man, and an older woman. I slowed down at the downhill and moved to the far right to let them pass. 

Then, without warning, somehow, just as I was passing him, the young man swerved into me and, in slow motion, we both toppled over in an epic fall, him and his bike on top of me and mine. 

I was dazed, but other than a sharp but fading pain in my jaw and what turned out to be several large bruises on my legs, I was unhurt. The young man seemed fine as well. He got up, inquired to see if I had died (I had not), then promptly biked away. The two tour administrators, who had seen everything, stopped to help me prop my bike back up. 

I insisted I was fine, wanting to bike away from this incident ASAP, but something was wrong-- my bike wasn't moving. I checked again, and my heart dropped. The front wheel had somehow gotten bent into the fork and was no longer turning. 

A photo I took later of the damage. 

Thankfully, the race administrators helped me carry the bike to the finish line of their tour, where I was informed that the bike was probably too damaged for their mechanic or for any bike repair shop on the lake to fix (the entire fork needed to be replaced), which effectively meant that I'd have to return back to Budapest having spent only four hours on the lake. 

I was not a happy camper. But I cannot emphasize how lucky I was that the accident happened in the middle of this organized bike tour. The hero of this story, a wiry tour administrator named Tamás, drove me and The Bike in the van to a bike repair shop at Balotonfüred to confirm what we already knew-- that it was unrepairable. Back at the tour finish, Tamás and the other administrators tracked down the guy from the tour who had hit me in order to ask about reimbursements for repairs. Thankfully, the young man seemed willing to give his contact information to help pay for the repairs of the bike. I even got fed goulash and Hungarian pancakes at the finish line, courtesy of their catering services for the participants of the tour!

If the accident had happened somewhere random on the lake, with someone who was not affiliated with some larger event, I have absolutely no idea what I would've done. 

Anyway, as Tamás and another administrator were driving me and the broken bike back to Balotonfüred (me wistfully watching the bike path I had labored down that morning unfold in reverse), I asked about the subway situation back in Budapest. I couldn't bike back home now from the train station. 

One of the administrators helpfully told me that the M4 line allows bikes on the weekdays, and if I got off the train at Kelenföld, a more remote station far from downtown, instead of at Déli, I could just take the subway directly into Keleti. Ah, I thought, how easy! It was 1 pm now, the train ride back was just shy of 2 hours-- I could be back in my warm house by 3 pm! (Having not biked for over an hour, I was nicely chilled now) 

I got off at Kelenföld, exactly as planned, and when I dragged the bike to the subway, the guards reacted as if I had tried to take a bomb into the metro, angrily gesticulating that I was not to bring my horrid bike on the underground. A passer-by informed me that I had to buy a bike pass for my bike. But it made no difference. The subway guards were not impressed with the bike pass, told me it was for the bus, and kicked me out of the subway.

So I went to the bus. Luckily, there was one that would take me back into downtown. When the bus finally pulled up, as I was hobbling through the double doors with my Great Burden, the bus driver angrily started using the word that was becoming the theme of the day "nem, nem, nem, nem, NEM!" pointing to my pride and joy, this lovely, broken bike. 

In defeat, utterly out of ideas about how to get back into the city, I went to the public transportation information desk, where I was informed by a very frustrated lady that I had to buy two new bike passes, take another train to another station outside of the city, then take yet another train back into the city to Keleti. Exasperated, she asked why I "didn't just ride my bike into the city." 

On the final train, when the conductor came to check my ticket, I was sweating in fear, sure that he was going to tell me that I wasn't allowed to ride this train, either. The conductor gave me and my bike and cursory glance, and like my own personal holy savior signed off on my ticket. 

The relief was so palpable that I wanted to fall upon my bruised knees in joy.

So, back at Keleti five hours later, the last leg of my journey awaited: the twenty minute walk home. Arms heaving, feeling like a Spartan warrior trudging through the rain with my poor broken steed, I finally made it home. 

So not a great day. But a week later, thinking back on it, I was incredibly fortunate that so many people were so willing to help me. Even though they'll probably never read this, thank you to Tamás and the other tour administrators for not letting me, well, die on Lake Baloton (and for feeding me!). You guys really went out of your way to help me out. Thank you to the three ladies at Kelenföld who independently patted my back in sympathy when I was trying to stop crying next to the escalators. Thank you to the information desk lady, who, while a little crabby, got me back to Keleti. Thank you to that last train conductor for giving me what was undoubtedly the happiest experience I've ever had on a train.

And thank you even to the other guy in the accident. Because without you, what would have been a routine biking excursion turned out to be one of my most important and memorable weekends in Budapest!