"Documenting the life of the Hungarian community in New Zealand"
- Az új-zélandi magyar közösség lapja.
We flew into Frankfurt airport early that morning after a very long uncomfortable overnight flight from Singapore. We had a two-hour wait before we flew out to Budapest. My mother stood sleepily beside me as I rummaged in my bag for our passports, tickets and bits of paper. We'll check in, tidy ourselves up, put some lipstick on and then we can sit back and relax. My mother found a seat by a large green plastic pot plant and sat down.
I walked up to the counter. The young German, yes, he was blonde, looked at our passports, flicked through our tickets and handed the bits back.
"Do you haf baggage?"
"Yes, it's been checked through to Ferihegy Airport in Budapest. I asked to have it checked from Auckland, New Zealand."
"No, it has not been done." He clicked on the computer and rechecked.
"No, it has not been checked through" he repeated very, very patiently.
My heart sank, they were big heavy cases, not the pull along trolley kind.
"You vill haf to get zem to bring zem up, zen ve vill put zem sru."
"Where is the baggage section?"
"Go ze end of ze foyer, turn left, und you will see the big sign."
I told my mother the good news.
...
I've lost my mother - can you help me?
The man behind the desk looked at me-goodness knows what he was thinking and I didn't care.
He picked up a phone and after what seemed like hours, he turned and looked at me.
"Your mother is at counter four, she is waiting for you, she has been looking for you and she is very worried."
"I'll take you to her, is this your trolley? Yes is all I managed to say.
He walked briskly pushing the trolley. I scuttled behind him trying to keep up, his legs were longer than mine.
There was my mother, two hostesses stood on either side of her smiling, a wonderful, wonderful sight.
"Ve vould not haf gone visout you but now ve haf to huury ze plane is about to take off- ze pilot iss happy ve haf found you."
They pushed us onto the walk escalator and waved as we slowly moved up the passage way.
"What happened?" I asked.
"I'll tell you when we're on the plane - it's a long, very long story-