Let’s begin with a truth: Glenda romanticized Budapest before we even landed.
She said things like “I’m going to find my melancholy here” and “Maybe I was Hungarian in another life.”
Darling. In that other life, you also didn’t understand the tram schedule.
Day one, she stood on the Széchenyi Chain Bridge like she was in a perfume commercial. Hair tousled, scarf gently menacing the Danube.
A local jogger nearly ran into her. She apologized. To the jogger.
We were off to a strong start.
She had a list: ruin bars, thermal baths, a vintage bookstore, and “a place where I can cry publicly but still look elegant.” (I’m exaggerating here).
We found three of the four. The crying happened in a bakery. The elegance was questionable.
Let’s talk about the thermal baths, because we must.
She packed like she was going to a spa run by angels: silk robe, hair oil, a book she would never open, and—yes—a travel candle.
“Just in case I want ambiance,” she said, placing it in her tote like we were going to a Scandinavian retreat instead of a 100-year-old bathhouse full of elderly men and questionable steam.
She lasted 11 minutes.
The water was hotter than her patience and smelled like ancestral regret.
“I don’t think I’m emotionally stable enough to bathe with strangers,” she whispered.
Outside, she bought a chimney cake the size of her head and ate it like it had insulted her.
I didn’t speak. I just handed her a wet wipe and silently judged the universe for letting her buy linen again.
Later, we climbed to Buda Castle. I say “climbed,” but what I mean is I climbed and she slowly reenacted every physical symptom of a woman at war with her own cardio.
At the top, she stood quietly, staring out at the Parliament building like it owed her money.
“Do you love it?” I asked.
She sighed. “I don’t know. I think I was hoping for something to click. But I just feel tired.”
I nodded. “That’s part of it, sweetheart. That’s the Budapest experience.”
She smiled. Barely.
And we walked down slowly—past statues, tourists, and the heavy, lovely weight of unmet expectations.
All Around The World 