Travelling by coach

Travelling by coach

Reflections On Hungarianness 

When Hungarians hit the road, they usually choose to take public transportation to carry them to their destination. We use different kinds of vehicles, for instance, buses, trains and so on to travel from one place to our final destination. Nowadays, more and more people are forced to move outside their hometown because of their studies or their career; however, there are many people who choose to commute everyday, which could be very tiring and time-consuming. As a student living approximately two hours from Budapest, I have had a chance to encounter many forms of travelling. Most of the time, when I want to go home, I take the long-distance bus. Throughout the years, I was lucky enough to observe people during these journeys.

To begin with, if I should categorize the travelers on the coaches I would set up three groups: young people, adults, and old people. Each of them has their own unique style and habits. First of all, young people, who are between the ages of 12-25, are usually travelling to their high school or university and their final stop is mainly the capital so they are on the bus during the whole journey. Some of them tend to be always in a hurry and burst into the station at the very last minute, arriving from their last class with their fully packed suitcases. This is particularly true for the university students towards the end of every week. High school students are usually the ones who commute from the nearby small towns to Budapest daily. The members of this category usually pay with lots of small coins and are situated at the back of the bus. Everyone in this category is travelling with their smart phone, tablet, or laptop in their hands and they are listening to music, reading, or they are about to sleep the stress of the day off.

The second group consists of adults between the ages of 26-50. They are the ones who get up early in the morning in order to catch the first bus just to get to their workplace in time and travel back around 5 or 6 p.m. You can tell just by the look on their face that they are also forced to choose to commute on a daily basis as a result of their career goals and it could be very tiring and time-consuming. Unfortunately, these people often wear a worried look as they live a stressful and demanding life.

Last but not least, the members of the third group are the senior citizens. They usually travel with a big pack of groceries or with a huge backpack. They are always calm and relaxed. Furthermore, they are eager to share their life stories with the person sitting next to them quite loudly so the whole bus gets to know what they are up to on that particular day. They sit near the back door of the coach so that it will be easy and quick to get off the bus. When they are not talking to their neighbors, they are speaking to their relatives on the phone for a long time and quite loudly, I might add.

To sum up, we could see that there are many different Hungarian people who are forced to move outside their hometown either because of their studies or to pursue their career goals. Each of them fits into an above described category and has some kind of characteristics during their stay on the coach which says a lot about the Hungarian travelling style.