two backpacks and a diaper bag

Tuesday, April 10th. Bratislava-Budapest. We left the apartment at 11 to catch our 11:53 train. We bought the tickets a couple of days ago when we arrived in Bratislava, but we bought the seat reservations separately about a week ago. Our train originated in Prague and, although you can’t purchase seat reservations online for the Bratislava-Budapest leg, you can purchase seat reservations online for Prague-Budapest journey for 3 euro each. Thus, we bought the seat reservations online so that we could guarantee 3 comfortable seats for us and Arthur.

We had reserved 3 seats in a 6-seater compartment on the bike/family carriage.

When we arrived at the train station at 11:30, the train had not yet arrived. Arthur was sitting comfortably in the car seat. 10 minutes later, though, he wanted to be taken out. So we did. He was being more fussy than usual. We debated about putting him to sleep, but we decided to wait until the train comes.

The train arrived only at 11:48. We only had 5 minutes to get on. I carried Arthur while Sean pushed the stroller to our carriage. Once we got to the carriage, I placed Arthur back in the car seat. He was screaming at the top of his lungs. We then got on the train. I looked for our seats. There were two people sitting inside the compartment. At first they didn’t want to open the door for us, but when I said that we had seat reservations, they quickly obliged. I went in, placed Arthur and the car seat on one of the seats, and looked for a place to put my backpack.

The man and woman were sitting on the window seats. Their bags had occupied the entire overhead compartment. They didn’t seem to want to move their bags even though they would have totally fit under the seats.

I placed my backpack on one of the four seats. Then Sean came in to the compartment to join us. He, too, looked confused. I suggested that we place our backpacks next to the stroller instead so we could have the four seats for ourselves. Sean agreed and he placed our backpacks next to the stroller outside.

We suspected the two people didn’t have seat reservations inside our compartment. They were sitting on our reserved seats. We didn’t bother conversing with them. They probably thought this compartment was empty since no one sat in it from Prague to Bratislava. Regardless, we were able to put Arthur to sleep and change his diaper in the compartment.

An hour before we arrived in Budapest, I got hungry. Sean decided to walk one carriage over to the dining carriage to see what they had to offer. He came back to tell me that the pancake I had on the Krakow-Prague train was available. However, we were not allowed to take the food out of the dining carriage. If we wanted it, we had to eat it there.

Sean also had found an empty compartment for us to have if we would like to move. It was as big as the six-person compartment but with only three seats because of the space for wheelchair. He had asked one of the train masters if the compartment was available, and he said we could move there since we have a baby with us.

So we moved. Sean then moved our bags and the stroller into the compartment.

5 minutes later, we took Arthur to the dining carriage and ordered some food. We sat there for quite some time.

I was still on my second plate of pancake when Arthur got sleepy. Sean took him back to our seats to put him to sleep while I finished my meal.

When I went back to our seats, Arthur had fallen asleep. About 15 minutes later, we arrived in Budapest.

Sean used the taxify app to call a cab. Traffic was quite bad. When we were finally only a block away from the Airbnb and because of the one-way and one-lane street configuration, it took us 15 minutes to do that one block.

When we arrived at the apartment, we settled in and headed out again to get grocery. We ended the day with a home-cooked meal of pasta, ravioli, and mixed vegetables.