Ordeal

I'm sauntering down Vámház körút, confident that I've left extra time to get to the train station and that I can just hop the metro without a ticket like I have every other time. I walk down into the station and there are two men flanking the escalator. Crap. I walk back to the main part of the station. No ticket counter to be seen. Back onto the street. Oh no, which way did I come again? Which way am I going? Everything looks the same. I ask a girl waiting for the tram if I can take a bus. She doesn't seem to understand and tells me to take the metro. Ok. Back into the station. Approach the escalator and ask one of the men how to get a ticket. He points to the stand on his left that I somehow missed before. I walk up. They don't take credit cards and I'm out of forints. The counter on the other side takes cards though. I get in line. The old woman selling tickets is taking her sweet time fumbling with receipts and cash and changing the numbers on her stupid little stamp. I bounce on my toes and look impatient for a couple of minutes. I'm hating the woman in front of me, in her black fur-lined cape like an obese Cruella de Vil, with every fiber of my being. This is taking forever. What the hell is she buying?! "Come on, you fat piece of shit!" says my brain involuntarily in the voice of Louis CK. I get to the front. My card takes four swipes to go through. I hastily chicken scratch my signature, grab my ticket, and hurry down to the platform. I have less than ten minutes until my train leaves and am on the verge of tears. The subway thankfully takes about five minutes. I'm darting between people on the platform trying to get to the exit. Asshole! Move! No, not that way! I'm clamouring up the escalator, lugging my stupid flimsy duffel bag on one arm, panting and sweating, feeling like I'm moving through molasses. When did I get so out of shape? "Come on, you fat piece of shit!" the voice chimes again. I have less than five minutes. Up another flight of stairs. The train station is unmistakeable - grand and huge and yellow. Thank God. I'm flying across the street, nearly slipping in the mud, and up to the doors where I ask the men in neon vests to identify the platform listed on my written-entirely-in-Hungarian ticket. They say platform nine and I rush away, almost sure they were chortling at me. I run to the closest platform. Why are there no numbers?? I ask more men in neon vests. They glance at my ticket and say this is my train. "Vienna?" I clarify. "Yes, Wein" they confirm. I heave myself up the stairs, red-faced and exhausted but relieved. I make my way to the first row of empty seats and collapse. The train then sits at the station for an extra twenty minutes past its departure time.