I apply for a Hungarian visa in Belgrade in 1979

The Hungarian Embassy in Belgrade was located in a smart residential
building on a tree-lined street near to the Hotel Slavija. I waited at a
small curtained window in one of the embassy’s reception rooms, and
after a while the heavy green canvas curtain covering it was swept
aside suddenly. The lady on the other side of the window asked me for
my passport. I handed it to her. It was stuffed full of bits of paper that I
wanted to keep for one reason or another. She removed this extraneous
material, and holding it gingerly between the tips of her thumb and
forefinger, flung it back at me, saying,
“This, I do not need.”

Konak Ljubica, Belgrade

I filled in a short visa application form whose questions were in
Hungarian and English. One of these related to the colour of an
applicant’s motor car, should he or she be planning to drive it into
Hungary. The motorist was required to tick one of several boxes, each
labelled with a colour in Hungarian and also its English translation. The
form included a mysterious colour: ‘drab’. I imagine that this must
have been a mistranslation of the Hungarian word for ‘grey’. I paid a
modest fee in Deutschmarks rather than Yugoslav Dinars; the official
kept the passport, and asked me to return the next day….

After arriving in Hungary

…We did a lot of sight-seeing during our brief stay in Budapest (pic below). Not only
did we see the better known sights, but we also explored the lesser-known attractions, including the Museum of the Hungarian Workers’
Party and the Young Pioneers’ Railway.

Budapest

This narrow-gauge railway
line, which wound its way along the ridges of the hills behind and
above Buda, was staffed and run by schoolchildren. Dressed in the
uniform of Hungarian State Railways, these youngsters operated the
scenic train service under the supervision of a few adults. The railway
was high above the city, and to reach its terminus we rode the cograilway
that travels up into heights of the Buda Hills from its terminus
near the ugly but huge triangular Moskva Ter (Moscow Square), one of
Buda’s transport hubs.

Just as I had a yearning to shop for LPs, especially in the Hungarian
shops in Vaci Street and the fascinating East German Cultural Centre
shop in Deak Square, Peter also had a special desire. He wanted to visit
a Hungarian night club. We asked our hosts in Obuda about this, and
they suggested the Astoria Hotel in the city centre. One evening after
eating dinner in an enormous art-nouveau restaurant during which I ate
a portion of the amazingly pungent and highly smelly Pálpuszta cheese,
we turned up at the main entrance of the Astoria. We were directed to a
smaller side entrance, where we paid a modest entry fee to enter the
night club.

We were led upstairs into a dimly lit smallish room furnished with a
small stage, tables, and chairs. Most of the chairs were occupied by
middle-aged couples dressed-up for an evening out, but wearing
somewhat dowdy outfits. I felt that they did not look like city dwellers,
nor did their appearance fit in with my preconceived idea of typical
habitués of night clubs. I suspected that they might have been a group
of visitors who had come from the provinces to visit Budapest. After a
few performers had regaled us with folk-songs, to which many of the
audience joined in, a magician appeared on stage. He performed a
number of conjuring tricks, after which we left. I don’t believe that the
homely show that we had just observed was exactly what Peter had
hoped for.

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