3G in Hungary

When we left for Hungary, we were still waiting to hear back from a bank about whether or not they would accept our offer on a property they were selling. This meant that the first thing on our minds when we landed on Friday afternoon was, "How do we get 3G on our cell phones in Hungary?"

We found a T-Mobile store that looked promising at the Mammut shopping center in nearby Moskva Square. We punched a few options on a monitor, and the machine spat out a little slip of paper with a number on it. After twiddling our thumbs for a good long while and speculating whether the person who'd get to help us would speak English, our number was finally called.

Between wildly ineffectual gesticulations and increasingly broken English, we managed to purchase sim cards with pre-paid internet and local (Hungarian calls only) minutes. More than once, I whispered to J, "I'm confused. Do you have any idea what he's trying to sell us?"

Finally we got to the point where we shoved our new sim cards into the phones. I unlocked my screen expectantly and..... lo and behold, I had no internet. I nudged J and showed him the error. After futzing about with his phone, he concluded that he too suffered a tragic lack of internet.

Another bout of gesticulations and fragmented English ensued, the result of which, I gathered later, was that we had to set up our phones for Hungarian 3G. This, the person at the desk helpfully pointed out, was an easy task, but the service desk which did this only opened on Monday. Oh, he added, even more helpfully, but if we went to this other mall over there tomorrow morning, maybe they could do it right away.

Following his instructions, we arrived at the Westend City Center mall on Saturday morning. After wandering for a good 20 minutes with increasing confusion and ire, we finally found a directory that could tell us clearly where in the seven hells they hid the T-Mobile store. (Actually, it was what they called the "T-Pont" -- the store labeled "T-Mobile" didn't do that sort of thing, apparently.)

We went through the same rigamarole -- punch the buttons on the monitor, grab the number the machine spat out, twiddle our thumbs, and waddle up to the correct number of desk when called -- only to be told ... the exact same thing. Yes, it was easy to set up, but the service desk isn't open on the weekends. Come back Monday.

By this time, we'd heard back from our agent that the bank had gone with a different offer on their property -- with a caveat. The new deadline for hearing back about the state of affairs was Tuesday, so we had a bit of a reprieve. We'd get this thing set up on Monday, we told ourselves. Or maybe Tuesday.

Finally, on Tuesday, we find some time to go, yet again, to that T-Pont. The first person who helped us was only able to navigate the Hungarian version of the monitor menus, but that got us into the right lines at the service desk. Once the service desk got around to our number -- pretty quickly this time -- it really was a short and easy process. The procedure was comically marred by our inability to remember the code that unlocked our sim cards, so that when the service guy rebooted J's phone, we ended up doing a big ol' song and dance to reset his code. On the bright side, we can finally use the 3G we'd paid for 4 days ago.

Moral of this story? Forget 3G in Hungary. You don't need it! But if you really must insist, try to go early on a weekday (MON-THU, just to be safe).