You speak English, don't you!?!

I am inspired to post a story of one of my favorite overseas adventures. For those of you readers who are actually characters in this story, forgive me if I get some of the parts mixed up. And try not to take any of this personally.

A month after I graduated from college, I moved to Eastern Europe to work with a Christian college ministry. My ministry team was made up of around 15 people. All of us were new to the long-term overseas mission scene, but we'd all done multiple short-term tours of duty and had gained something of a handle on the culture. Or so we thought.

One of our first "missions" as an entire team was to travel, by train, to Budapest, Hungary, for a week's stay. Though we'd only been living in our particular flats for about a week before this trip, we'd all traveled by train and used public transportation in a myriad of locations. In short, we saw ourselves as seasoned travelers.

From my flat, one could choose among a handful of buses and a tram in order to get to the railway station. The buses in question all followed roughly the same route and took about 10 minutes to make this particular trip. The tram took almost twice as long as the buses. However (and this is a critical detail), almost everyone in the city used the buses to get to work in the morning.

I shared a flat with two girls; and, as is usually the case with roommates, our personalities varied a little. This was especially the case when it came to travel preparation. The night before this particular trip, I packed very carefully. Though I didn't have the bus timetables memorized yet (not that I ever did get them memorized), I figured out how much time we'd need to make it to the station. Most importantly, I'd figured in a cushion of a few extra minutes, in case we had to wait for a less crowded bus; I had seen what the buses were like during morning rush, which was the time we would be headed for our train.

Please bear in mind that my roommates and I grew to be very close during our year together, and we parted as dear friends.

Nevertheless, on the morning of the trip in question, I could have strangled my two roommates. They were, in my mind, taking an abominably long time getting ready. I don't actually remember what they were doing; all I can recall of the morning's preparations is a fog of red mist, accompanied by the sound of my blood rushing in my head. They seemed to be completely disregarding all my careful planning! Fools! It's a good thing that God doesn't grant all our desires, or those girls would have been reduced to smoky little ash-piles.

Finally, finally, we walked out the front door of our apartment and dropped the trash that my roommate had insisted on removing from the trashcan (then re-bagging after the original bag broke during the removal process), with no time to spare. We had to leg it to the busstop in a hurry and pray for a fast bus. Of course, we were also transporting a week's worth of clothes and necessities on our backs, at the same time.

At the last possible moment, a railway station-bound bus hove into view, and our hearts were momentarily cheered. Of course, it was already filled to over-capacity with local residents, packed cheek-to-jowl. A few riders disembarked at our stop, and in the ensuing confusion, I somehow managed to shove my roommates onto the bus. As the doors closed on my hands, I yelled out the name of the bus stop closest to the railway station. "Jakobov Palac!" I cried. "Get off at Jacob's Palace!" Then the bus was gone.

According to the schedule, another bus wouldn't arrive until after our train was due to leave. The only other possibility I had was to hoof it over to the nearby tram stop and pray that 1.) the lone station-bound tram would simultaneously arrive, and 2.) the tram would miraculously have a jet engine strapped to its roof.

As I recall, the train's departure time came & passed before the correct tram arrived outside my flat. I got on the tram anyway; if anyone had found it in their hearts to wait for me, the lone straggler, they'd surely be waiting at the station. I believe I closed my eyes for the first minutes of the ride, as I thought up an alternate plan of action. After a couple of stops, I looked up and noticed that one of my male teammates had joined me on the tram. As I shot him a questioning glance, he muttered, "Yeah, it turns out the #9 tram goes to the opposite side of town as the train station."

For the rest of the ride to the station, I entertained myself with fantasies of my roommates missing their stop and riding the bus to the end of its line on the edge of the city, where Gypsies would surely kidnap them and force them to panhandle.

Imagine my surprise when we arrived at the station to find that 1.) not only had a pair of our team leaders waited for us, but 2.) my roommates had actually made it on the correct train in time.

Much later, after the 4 of us had taken a later, much (much) slower train, and after we had gotten mind-bogglingly lost in Budapest and walked around for something like 3 hours, my roommates told me of their own adventures.

After I pushed my roommates (let's call them K & S) on the bus and yelled "Jacob's Palace!" at them, K & S were struck full-force by the uncertainty of their situation. They had never gotten off at the stop in question, and there was no way they'd be able to see the name of the stop from their wedged-in position. They immediately began a whispered conference to try and sort out a plan of action.

Now, buses in that part of the world are places where personal space is not really recognized. However, as though to make up for this, they are almost always deathly silent. Any talking is done in the lowest tone possible. And when one does hear someone talking during a bus ride, the voice in question is hardly ever speaking English. As if this were not enough to make K & S the center of attention on their bus, there was also the fact that I'd screamed the name of a city landmark at them as I'd pushed them on the bus. So all eyes were locked on K & S as they began to sweat.

One set of eyes, however, caught K's notice: a teenaged boy was staring at K & S, just like everyone else, but his eyes had a spark of understanding in them. K knew that this boy was following their conversation and understood every word. K locked eyes with him and hissed, "You understand English, don't you?!" At first, it seemed as though the boy would play dumb, in order to avoid admitting that he actually understood these flamboyant, uncouth individuals who'd shattered the peace of the morning commute. But then, slowly, he just nodded his head.

K & S made it safely off the bus at Jacob's Palace, thanks to their gangly, adolescent, bilingual savior.

Despite the fact that this was the last time any of us took public transportation to the railway station (pre-scheduled taxis are the way to go), K & S experienced a very similar adventure a few months later, which involved their leaving their passports at home, and ended in their leaping onto their train as it accelerated out of the station. That time, I was able to laugh.