My Ride in a Trabant

Another observation I made at that time (still today, but not like then) I noticed all of the eastern European autos on the streets and could not believe how people would fit their families into Trabants, Dacias and Polski Fiats, but they did! I even saw people fill them with merchandise and haul it around the city, as someone in the west would use a van! They would put a rack on top and stack it up high and fill all of the available space inside and still somehow carry people!

On my return from my first trip to Hungary, I also experienced an incredible act of hospitality. The receptionist called a taxi from the Regina Hotel in Budafok and had arranged for my colleague Mike, and me to meet the taxi on the main street below. We were in a hurry to get to the airport and did not want to wait for him to come up the hill to the hotel. Somehow we misconnected with the taxi and were left standing on the street with our luggage.

A little old man in a little old Trabant stopped and asked where we were going. We told him we were going to the airport and we missed our taxi (my colleague spoke some German and they were able to communicate this way). We stuffed ourselves and some how he fit our luggage also in the little fiberglass two-cylinder “keverék” (gasoline-oil mixture) engine car and took us all the way to Ferihegy airport. We tried to pay him for the fuel and he stubbornly refused to accept anything. He insisted that we were his guests and it was his pleasure to do this. He only asked that we remember this as Hungarian hospitality!

Eastearn European cars, trabant, dacia, polski fiat, hospitality, helpfulness, compassion, Hungarian Soul