Day 145: To Barcelona

When I awoke I could still feel my aches and temperature, but all in all I felt considerably more alive than the day before. My flight to Barcelona didn't leave until 8 that evening, so I had plenty of time to wash up and vegetate in the common room after breakfast. I had opted not to pay for a checked bag on my flights to and from Barcelona, so I cleared out my daypack (and learned that what had been making it so heavy lately was the multiple kilograms of foreign coins buried at its bottom). I replaced all my now useless currency and ticket stubs with a change of outfit, abundant underwear and socks, and the essential toiletries. It was a bit of a gamble, seeing that I would be "abroad" from Budapest for a whole week, but the 80 USD I would save in checked bag fees could easily be used to buy whatever I needed while in Barcelona. I arranged to stay at the hostel a week from now, when I returned, and they let me store my large bag in a staff-only closet.

To get to the airport was a 15-minute walk to the train station, where, after some confusion, I managed to dash onto a train 30 seconds before it departed for the airport. From the train, the Google Map instructions were easier to follow and I caught an express bus to Terminal 2. 

While waiting in line at security, some of the people behind me were let into the express security lane because its queue was dwindling. A friend to one of the lucky persons just missed the cutoff, and was being weirdly "bro-y" and adamant towards the security lady about letting him through into the express lane as well, though at this point its length was equal to that of the regular line -- less than 10 persons each. His berating continued until she pointed at the skateboard strapped to his carry on and told him those are only allowed in checked baggage. He claimed he had always been able to take his skateboard with his carry on "Everywhere -- all over Europe", so she fetched her supervisor, who came back and turned him around back towards the check in desk to check his skateboard. I have no idea if that's actually a rule specifically at BUD, but it was mildly amusing to watch the situation play out. (And now that I look more closely at the regulations governing BUD airport security, no such rule exists unless you want to classify skateboards as a "blunt object", along with baseball bats and batons). 

In the terminal I bought a coffee (or was it a covfefe?) and sandwich before marching out with everyone else to the budget airlines' human hangar to queue for the quick, 2.5 hour flight.

Is this budget airline heaven?

After landing in Barcelona I figured out how much of the national currency I needed to withdraw (it's the Euro, just a bit stronger than the USD) and took an express bus downtown, where it was a kilometer walk to the hostel. It appeared to be true that Spain operates on a later clock than the rest of Europe. I was walking through the streets near midnight and saw just as many senior citizens as young people. The hostel was easy enough to find and I slept around 1am.