Budapest 2018: What happens when travel plans go wrong

Budapest is lovely.. unless you break your bones

Although I will still say that I had an amazing time on this trip, at the end it did go spectacularly wrong. This story of course involves a lot of alcohol, mixed with a bit of carelessness and a lot of bad luck, which is basically a recipe for disaster.

It was the final night of the HistSoc Tour of 2018 in Budapest, which had thus far been a drunken whirlwind of a winter city getaway, where we dragged ourselves out of bed hungover to cram in seeing the historical sites of the city. Budapest really is beautiful by the way; that day we had just been to the stunning Széchenyi thermal baths. The plan was that after the tour of around 30 of us went home, a smaller group of 6 of us were due to catch another flight on to Prague to continue our rowdy tour of Europe.

The fun before the storm

Cut to 2am in some club, and we found a stripper pole. It was on a platform, and as I went to stand on it I fell off, my ankle curled under and I went down. My knee had dislocated. I managed to straighten my leg and relocate it myself, which I still think there’s no way I could have done that without the ridiculous amount of alcohol in my body. At this point my friends carried me into the first aid room of the club. After a difficult conversation with the Hungarian first aid people to explain to them what happened, the part which I think is funniest about this story is that I had to be stretchered out of the club and put in an ambulance.

Leaving the club in an ambulance lol

I don’t remember much at the hospital, other than me and my amazing friend who came with me making each other belly laugh, which was a brilliant coping mechanism for the amount of pain I was in. Honestly thank god I was so drunk when this happened, otherwise I would not have found it so funny. Also the nurse with me while I was waiting to get x-rayed was just playing Hungarian Farmville..? It’s safe to say I would not want to go back to a hospital in Hungary. After the doctor confirmed I hadn’t broken anything (little did they know..) we had to get back to the hostel at 4am with no brace, crutches or any type of support for me and no skill in the local language. This was very difficult and I was in a lot of pain, but with the help of a stranger who could speak both English and Hungarian, we managed to order a taxi and get back to the hostel to sleep.

She was really playing farmville when I was sat there in terrible pain??

When I woke up, the most stressful travel day I’ve ever had endured. It involved heading BACK to the hospital to buy the crutches and knee brace as the shop was now open, trying to contact travel insurance, getting me on the flight home with everyone else which was in just a few hours, and getting through an airport that had very poor provision for someone who can’t walk. Not to mention flying with a broken ankle with nothing on it! Don’t think I’ve ever seen a more swollen leg. I was exhausted, hungover three times over, un-showered and still in my pyjamas, and gutted that I’d missed out on going to Prague. (Bright side- when we landed in Gatwick we got to go on one of those carts that beep around the airport)

Finally in a wheelchair at Budapest airport

Needless to say, when I finally got to a hospital in the UK they put the cherry on top by confirming that my ankle was broken in two places! As devastating as this was, this whole experience was actually a huge learning curve for me.

What I learnt:

1- If an accident does happen, *touch wood*, RING YOUR TRAVEL INSURANCE PEOPLE BEFORE PAYING FOR ANYTHING AT THE HOSPITAL. Being in the drunk, tired, and in-pain state I was at 3am in that Hungarian hospital, ringing Tesco travel insurance didn’t even cross my mind; regardless I didn’t have the emergency number saved in my phone even if I wanted to ring them. However, I later learned that doing so would have saved me a lot of money! I had to pay through the nose for the initial treatment, the knee brace and the crutches. So, if I were to ever have an accident whilst travelling again, I’d remember to ring when at the hospital before paying for anything!

2: When things go wrong, it’s amazing how much your friends are there for you. I couldn’t have kept my morale so high without my mates around me. And it really is amazing to see how many strangers or people who you don’t know that well will step up and help you! From helping me get onto the same flight home as the rest of the group, to literally carrying me up and down stairs and across Budapest airport, I don’t know what I would have done without them! I’m so grateful to everyone on tour who helped me that day.

3: Travelling is going with the flow when facing challenges.

I could have easily let this deter me from travelling again, especially travelling by myself considering how much I relied on others. But instead it taught me that sometimes things go a bit wrong (or very wrong in my case), and that just means you have to adapt to the change to find a way around the problem. Also, you can’t take life too seriously! Yes, it was very stressful at the time, but honestly now it’s pretty funny, and it just goes to show that even when things go wrong you just have to carry on and stay positive.

I really learnt this lesson the hard way, but what a valuable lesson to learn!

Shepp x