The glass house

I am the kind of person who gets lost in the best of circumstances. So while I thoroughly enjoy travelling and discovering new places, getting lost has become something of a pastime while I am on the road. While on a trip to Budapest, I left the hotel just as dusk was settling across the city. The concierge had carefully penned the directions to a small café where I was to be meeting my other trip mates. The route required me to travel through the intricate underground tunnels that Budapest hides beneath its wake. In my defense, I am certainly not the first person to get turned around in the cobblestone passageways, but I did fall prey to them nonetheless. When I emerged and began weaving my way through the streets it occurred to me that the directions on my map were no longer adding up. I began to look for a small shop where I could ask for someone’s help. I don’t speak Hungarian but I thought at least I could make hand motions like a small blonde monkey to try and be understood. The streets were fairly barren at this time of the day though, and most of the store owners had gone. It was then that a small glow of light shone from behind one of the gothic buildings. There, in the middle of a group of trees was a small house made entirely of glass. I had brief flashbacks of the fairy tale gingerbread house in the woods but my curiosity got the best of me and I ventured closer. It looked like it could be a greenhouse with different sized pieces fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle. There were bare lightbulbs strung around the ceiling casting a faint glow which reflected in the glass. Now, in the ideal situation a radio would have begun crooning Jim Morrison and I would have stumbled upon a Prince Charming right there in the middle of nowhere. That is not what happened. Sitting in this beautiful little architectural paradise were three men, somewhere close to sixty, playing the spoons. No, really. They weren’t playing them well either, as the utensils were uncoordinated and mostly made a jarring noise much like a rusty door. Yet each man had a huge smile on his face. They were looking back and forth at one another as though they had just tripped and fallen into something they had been looking for all along. It was a picture of complete irony which somehow made perfect sense. I never did make it to the café I was looking for, but that continues to be one of my most successful outings in Budapest. I learnt that happiness comes in so many unconventional ways.