How I got robbed

When I travel, especially at night, I take steps not to look like a tourist. I keep my camera in my pocket, and when I check a map I do so surreptitously. I do not carry much with me. I do not have shopping bags. Mostly this keeps me out of trouble, even the people that hand out flyers to tourists ignore me. However, my first full day in Budapest I didn't do much of that, and it cost me 17,000....forint.
It was a little after 11AM local time, it was a cool morning and bright with the sun. I had set about exploring the Buda side of Budapest. Budapest is actually the joining of two cities, Buda and Pest, creating a massive sprawl to this city. From the top of St. Stephen's you see that the city fills the horizon on all sides but the East where the mountains lay. Budapest is spectacularly attractive, byzantine domes, neo classical architecture, Roman ruins, lights everyplace along the river which is guarded on all sides by high rocky hills. It is also cheap, the hostel where I stayed was 9 euros a night, it was clean and comfortable.

Listening to my ipod I was cutting across a park near where I thought the Parliament building must be. I was mistaken. My awareness was very cut off from the music I was listening to, and I stared at a map for several minutes trying to figure out which way I had gone. Generally I have been carrying my laptop bag and it is filled with all the things I consider to be too essesntial to never have locked up or guarded, laptop, ipod, wallet, passport, and since my camera was stolen in Helsinki I have been extra careful. Having consulted the map, I realized I needed to head back the way I came. The park was seemingly empty, cars would drive passed occasionally but it was a very sleepy corner of the city for nearing midday. The first person I saw in the park was a girl who was of a very young age but impossibly to pinpoint, she could have been fifteen or twenty five. Her left cheek had a smudge of grime on it, and she had very dark brown eyes, I saw her walking towards me and I stopped and waited. I knew she was going to want change, and I actually started to reach into my pocket for spare forints that I wouldn't need anyway. I also turned down my ipod but did not remove the buds from my ears.

As she reached me with her had out she was speaking very fast in Maygar, and I shook my head to let her know I didn't understand. She repeated herself and I leaned forward to see if I could pick any word and that was when I felt the point of a knife against the back of my neck.

I have been followed a few times, and I have thwarted many germinating robbery attempt on me in my life. As I write this, I am frankly annoyed that these are the idiots that finally got me.

I think he said "Your wallet." But honestly I can't recall very well. It was very fast, and I didn't have time to be afraid. Outraged is more a good description, or enraged. I pulled my wallet and when he grabbed at it I pulled it away, and so he pushed the knife slightly harder so that it broke skin. I pulled the notes out and handed them back to him. He reached for the wallet again and I said "No." I was ready to fight him over everything else. I had the sense he was unsure and nervous and so I was less so. The girl had run off and she was shouting something, and then he ran as well. It might have gotten more confrontational at night, but they were scared and hurried due to the good light. I found a cop, and filed a report, he seemed bored and it took way longer than I would have liked.

It was abrudpt and not nearly as exciting as it sounds when you simply say "I was mugged with a knife." Everytime I thought of it through the day I would get angry, not at the money which was little, but the violation. The humiliation of having something forcibly taken from you, it didn't sit well with my pride and so in the night I walked back to the place where it happened and looked for them. I wasn't there for what they had taken in a material sense, but emotionally. I saw him when he ran, he would be no match for me.

They were not there, but the park had filled with sleazy looking people and so I left and resolved to let it go. I do not feel unsafe in Budapest or anyplace else, I think what happened was a confluence of circumstances that ended up being unfortunate for me. I looked up crime statistics, its not really a problem here, the wrong couple people got the drop on me because I was basically walking around with a big 'T' on my forehead for tourist and I wasn't aware of my surroundings.

What I am saying is, for the all the times I have heard people reminding me to "be safe", I am assuring you that despite this...I very much am.