A Rainy Day in Budapest, Then a Walk When It Finally Stopped

Rain met me at Kelenfold and didn't let up. I got to Wombat's City Hostel Budapest that first night already resigned to it, and spent most of the next day the same way, watching weather I had no way to argue with from a window that faced a street with almost nobody on it. I tried going out twice and turned back both times, not dramatically, just quietly deciding a wet hoodie and cold hands were not worth whatever I thought I was going to see.

By evening it was raining again, or still, and I had mostly stopped checking. Then a little after half past six it just stopped, the way rain sometimes does without any warning that it is about to be polite about it, and I was out the door before I could talk myself out of it.

Budapest at night after rain is mostly reflection. Two yellow trams sat nose to nose at a stop near the hostel, numbers 49 and 47, headlights doubled in the wet tracks under them, red brake lights bleeding into puddles like something had been spilled. I followed the promenade along the Danube from there, past a restaurant built onto a boat, its gangway strung with warm lights in a tunnel I walked straight through without meaning to stop, past a building lit gold enough that I stood in front of it longer than I needed to, just because it was the first properly dry-looking gold I had seen in two days. Dinner was langos, fried dough the size of a dinner plate, piled with sour cream, shredded cheese, and raw red onion, eaten standing at a counter because sitting down felt like it would take longer than I had patience for. I was back at the hostel a little before nine, and somewhere in that walk I had decided I was not ready to leave Budapest yet, so I booked a second night before I went to sleep.