Familiarity breeds contempt...

...or so the saying goes. But sometimes, being amongst familiar does exactly the opposite. Today is one of those days. 

I'm currently in Györ; I got the train here from Tata. I had planned to get the train from Tovaroskert which is the station that was closest to where I was staying the last couple of days. I'd walked there yesterday as I hadn't seen ticket office when I'd arrived (hadn't looked to be honest) so I knew where to get the ticket as I'd be cutting a bit fine wth the train I had planned to get, but when I got to the station this morning, the ticket office was closed ((I know, I should have bought it yesterday...). There were notices on the windows which I think were trying to tell you what to do in this situation but google translate converted it 'you need to deposit a son-in-law which isn't redeemable'. Given I have no children enable me to have a son-in-law I figured this could be a little tricky!

Now everything I have read told me not to get a train in Hungary without a ticket as you are pretty much guaranteed to be fined. The distress of the other two people at the station (who were Hungarian) on finding they were also unable to purchase a ticket reinforced this view. So rather than brave it and board the train and try to use google translate to explain the ticket office was closed, I decided to walk the two miles to Tata station. Bear in mind, I have a rucksack on my back, a rucksack on my front, and thanks to the many miles I walked in Budapest, blisters on both my heels. Needless to say, it wasn't one of my better ideas! However, on the plus side, it did mean that I got to see a bit more of Tata, including the Hungarian Olympic Training Camp, although I don't have any pictures to show you as I couldn't at that point be bothered to get my camera out of my bag. Apologies. 

And so, I got the train from Tata to Gyor and then went in search of food, walking on very painful feet that I figured weren't going to keep me going for much longer. Whilst every time I have the realisation that I'm in Hungary, I am amazed and feel really lucky, today's foot situation meant that I was feeling a little sorry for myself too and in this situation, what I really wanted was something familiar. On my last trip, Starbucks always filled that need. In Hungary it's Costa (they're everywhere) where I achieved this, with an iced americano that was served in a glass. I've never had one served in a glass before (only ever a plastic cup) and so it really made me smile that the unfamiliar within the framework of the familiar inside the wider unfamiliar gave me a renewed respect for things reassuring and couldn't be further from contempt if it tried.