EVACUATED!!!

Yesterday started out as a mostly regular day for us… got up early, got ready for the day… aimed to leave by 9:00 to go to a playgroup for the first time. Then, at 8:50, I noticed Lee had been trying to call me – 3 times on my mobile and once on Skype… odd. So, I called back, and he said we had to leave the building by 9:00 because there was going to be a bomb detonated in the area… WHAT?!!! Okay, shift into high gear! Brush Abigail’s teeth, get Elizabeth in the sling, grab the backpack and get out of the neighborhood! There was a sign in the elevator that read something to the affect of “Dear Residents, the area is going to be cleared, due to a bomb being deactivated in a nearby street. Please leave the building till 9:00.” What does that MEAN?! We thought it meant we had to leave by 9:00, and that we would be able to come home after they detonated the mysterious bomb a little later that morning… silly Americans.

So, the girls and I got on the tram, which I’ve done enough now to be comfortable with… transferred to a bus at a major public transport square – not quite as familiar, but still okay. On the bus, we ran into three other moms and their kids on their way to the same playgroup! One of them was my friend, Hilary. Yay! So, I had no stress on the rest of the way, because I just tagged along with them.

Well, after getting to the playgroup hostess’ house, meeting a bunch of new people and saying hello to those I already knew, Elizabeth was hungry. Okay, time to pull the nursing cover out of my purse… wait a minute… where’s my purse?! I had it on the tram, and the bus… uh-oh… I took it off in the bus… why did I do that?! Could I have really left my purse on the bus?!?! Our passports, our papers, my mobile phone, cash, DEBIT CARDS!!!!!! OH, GOD! HELP ME STAY CALM!! I know You have control over what’s happening. I have hope that everything will be returned safely. Please, Lord, keep me calm and clear-minded while I DON’T completely freak out in front of all these new people!...

Well, as only God can do, He provided so much in that situation. There was a native Hungarian speaker – Dorothy – in our midst, and she was on the phone with the appropriate office within minutes. One of the other moms (Claire, whom I had just met on the bus ride up to playgroup), her husband works at the US Embassy. She called him, and he had people calling the police department AND public bus dispatch. I called Lee (from Hilary’s phone) – he had to call both banks (one in the US, one in Hungary) to freeze my cards. One of Lee’s co-workers knows a bus-driver, so she called him, who also called dispatch… WOW! By that time, Dorothy decided she had been on hold too long and decided to walk to the bus stop (quite a trek) to hail down a driver, who also called dispatch and… she got my purse back!!!!!!! PRAISE BE TO GOD!!!!!!!!! Not only did Dorothy recover my purse, but she worked so hard to get it. She walked to the stop and rode a bus all the way back to the major public transport square, where the driver of “our” bus had received my purse from an anonymous woman; and then, of course, she had to make the whole trip back. And, yes, EVERYTHING was still there, even the cash.

Before we got the purse back, every Hungarian who heard about it said I’d never see it – nor its contents – again. After we got it back , they all said it was either a miracle or I was lucky… Lucky? No way. I am BLESSED! And I am under the protective care of the Creator of the universe! I simply cannot thank everyone – especially Dorothy – enough for going to such great lengths to help rectify my foolish mistake. I am most certainly aware that it is by God’s grace alone that anyone felt compelled to do anything at all. God bless them all!

Shew! I was mostly calm again, it was time to go home, and Abigail was exhausted; but because we were taking “public”, we didn’t have the stroller with us. I had to encourage her quite a bit to keep going, and she did great. So, we got off the tram close to home, and things were not normal… the streets on our side of the bridge were deserted. Buildings were closed, shut down completely. There were no cars, no buses going south, no more trams… Okay, well maybe everybody just decided to take the rest of the day off because of the whole bomb thing this morning. I mean, the official police-looking guy with the bright yellow vest didn’t stop us when we walked by to get to our building. So, we got to our building… thank You, Lord, I can open the door! Our building’s not closed! But we were intercepted by a friendly female building employee, who always says hello to Abigail… “I am so sorry, the building is closed because of the bomb.” Still? When can we come home? “I do not know. Tonight… 5, 6 o’clock, maybe 8. We do not know.” Can I at least go upstairs to get a stroller and come right back down? “I am so sorry. I cannot.” Okay. Thank you.

What do we do now? I pulled Abigail aside, and we prayed together for God tell us where he wanted us to go, to use the Holy Spirit to guide us. AMEN. So, we headed back to the bridge and attempted to talk to the guy in the yellow vest. Do you speak English? “No.” A kind but not-very-good-at-English bystander attempted to interpret. He seemed to be saying that the area would be closed on Wednesday. But that’s tomorrow! Are you sure? That would mean we couldn’t go home until tomorrow! Really? Okay, thank you.

Now, let me make the whole scene a little more clear… it was hot outside. I was carrying Elizabeth in the sling while toting a back pack AND my little pink purse. Abigail was seriously dragging behind. I was getting blisters from my new flip-flops. And I was trying to be patient while waiting on the Holy Spirit. Hmmmm – I read a devotional on that this week. Okay, off to the park – on the other side of the bridge – where Abigail could play and forget how tired she was, while I fed Elizabeth. I called Lee for the second time today with bad news. Could I BE any more disruptive to my husband’s day?!?!

Lee called on his helpful, Hungarian-speaking co-workers once again. They checked the news sites and found out we had been evacuated because an old WWII bomb was discovered during construction in our neighborhood. It was a TWO-TON bomb, capable of damaging everything within one kilometer! (Here’s a link to the article I didn’t read that morning: http://www.caboodle.hu/nc/news/news_archive/single_page/article/11/budapest_dis-5/?tx_ttnews%5Bswords%5D=budapest%20bomb&cHash=66491077bb

The frustrating thing is that we found out the official evacuation time was from 9:00 to 11:00 that morning. So why did the sign in the elevator read “leave… till 9:00?” Just another example of why there should be a class for expats on how to interpret “Hungarian English.”

In between calls to Lee, my phone rang… it was a nice English mom I had met just the day before; she was calling to check on me! She even offered to let us wait it out at her place. Wow – God is so good! I sincerely thanked her for such a kind offer, but Lee and I had decided it was best for us to go to his office, where by the way, his boss had offered to let our family stay at his house overnight. His family was out of town, so there was plenty of room. Great! So, we couldn’t have stayed in a hotel even if we wanted to! To turn down such a generous offer would be an insult; and we certainly don’t want to do that to the boss!

Okay, the fun was not over yet… we walked back up the stairs to catch the tram on the bridge. At the top, there was another guy in a yellow vest, who upon seeing us said, “Nem andidontknowwhatelse;” which means “no” about something. I looked around… no tram, no people. I did manage to get out of him that we had to go to the next stop. Oh, yay! More walking. Back down the stairs. Through yet another public transport square. Back up the stairs to street level… and those blisters! Back at the street level, there was a small crowd gathered at the entrance/exit we passed through, most of them with confused looks on their faces… “what’s going on?” they seemed to say. As we walked away from Detonation Zone Budapest, everyone else seemed to be going about their day as if absolutely nothing unusual was happening!!! What’s wrong with you people?! Don’t you know that part of this city could blow up at any minute!?!?! Is the news media so inept that you actually don’t know what’s going on?! Oh well, we were outta there! We crossed the street to get to the tram that was already sitting there… Can you run, Abigail? Come on, baby, I know you can do it… hang on, Elizabeth! We don’t want to have to wait for the next one! Whew! The doors closed right behind us.

We had a short break on the tram, then it was off to the Metro… underground. Down more stairs and an escalator. Just a few more stops, and we were almost there. Up another escalator, where I bought some water and a few mini cheese biscuits. Up more stairs. Crossed one more street, walked around the side of the Citi building, through the doors; and before I could even say the name of Lee’s assistant, the guy at the front desk said it for me. How does he know I’m here for Timi? She must have told him to look out for a harried, English-only-speaking-lady with two kids!

So, we got to Lee’s office… sweaty, exhausted and hungry. (Did I mention we never had lunch?) We waited around a couple of hours, so Lee’s boss could take us to his house and show us where everything was (most importantly, diapers, pajamas and maybe some deodorant for me!). In the meantime, Abigail charmed Lee’s coworkers while I tried to get the latest on the bomb. Oh yeah – and I put bandages (called “plasters” here) on my blisters. Ahhhh.

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but after talking to Lee’s coworkers and my new friend, Meredith, this is what we now know… there is no telling how many more of these WWII bombs will be found! The one that caused all our excitement yesterday was a British bomb. There were two others found just a few weeks ago – one in another part of Hungary, the other in Budapest. The Budapest bomb was American! Whaaat? Why would Americans have put bombs in Budapest? I’m still not sure… guess I’ll need to look that up someday. Anyway, there are an unknown number of these WWII bombs in the Danube (along with airplanes and who-knows-what-else from the war) and are occasionally discovered on land as old buildings are torn down and/or rebuilt, which is happening all over Budapest. “So,” Lee asked, “who signs up to operate a digger on these construction sites, anyway?” I sure do hope they get paid well…

Finally, around 6:30 p.m. we headed off to the boss’ house, following him in our car, with no car seat for Elizabeth. It was back at home. I sure did hope we didn’t get caught without it… we’ve heard they’re just as strict about child safety laws here as they are in the States. Then, before we even crossed the river, Timi called to say that we could go home. Thank You, God! After another 45 minutes in traffic and an unsuccessful attempt to order delivery from Pizza Hut, we got home and ordered Don Pepe (another pizza delivery place). For the first time all day, I was able to decompress. The authorities had successfully defused the bomb, and everything was pretty much back to normal again.

In the end, I can honestly say that the whole day was a blast… pun intended.