How to stay in harmony on a „Budapest September morning”?
Anyone who lives in Budapest can hardly wait for June 15 when school ends and from the following day you can reach the city in half the amount of time than even the previous day. And everyone is mortified by the thought of the fact that September 1 will come again and school will start...well...it has started. If we put the question „is travelling in the city a big challenge?” to a vote, I guess the „yes” response would reach 100%.
Well if you manage to get into the city after several different attempts, you can easily go anywhere, but until then…?
Every morning I reach the intersection of Heroes Square and Dózsa Győrgy Street by way of the M3 where the left turn in front of the Museum of Fine Art is a huge challenge each and every day. Why? On the one hand, it takes centuries to get through it because even when the traffic light finally allows you to turn, there is never any space left. On the other hand, it is really surprising that if, from the three available lanes, drivers would be willing to utilize the zipper method in the outer two lanes, then overall more cars could fit through each green light in the same amount of time.
A whole study could be written about different behaviors...You don’t even know if you should laugh or cry. I chose to laugh when the lady sitting next to me in her jeep, rather than let me in front of her, chose instead to scrape her beautiful car along the curb railing on the side of the road, or when the man sitting in the big expensive car with similar motivations drove so close to the car in front of him that if that car braked then he would definitely have crashed his flashy car. But even that is not enough and the swearing and cursing begins accentuated by full on honking and hand gestures. And all this is really good practice to keep your harmony and balance until you reach your work place or your first meeting! :o)
This “amazing” situation is enhanced even more during the summer months when you can never know which road on your journey is suddenly and unexpectedly under construction. During the last few weeks, my dear friend, who is blond like me :o), was in a similar situation. She was driving home on her usual path when a lane she always used was suddenly closed due to construction. What does a polite driver do in such situations? Signal, try to merge and hope that the other driver is polite enough to let him/her in.
Well, let’s be honest – in Budapest this doesn’t usually happen and this is what didn’t happened to her as well. The lady in the car next to my friend instead of letting her in, gave her an incredibly hard time, calling her every name in the book. How can you maintain harmony in such situations?
Well, my dear friend looked at the driver and simply said the following to her - “I’m so sorry, but I just don’t care about it” and rolled up her window. :o)))
What do you do in such situations?
