Hot. A lot.

(The dateline is right. Monday morning. 1:42 am. The city and I have become nocturnal in the brutal summer heat.)

Office Manager Reka asked last Monday how it felt to be 27. I gave the obvious answer, old. But I was wrong. I feels hot at age 27. Ridiculously hot. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday was the hottest seven-day experience of my life, bar none. Unbe-freaking-lievable. It's hard to know the actual damage, as i don't speak the language of the weather reports, but I've heard accounts that the mercury topped out at 43 celsius.

CNN says it's causing havoc.

Even the rhinocerouses need cold showers.

According to Pestiside.hu:

• A train carrying a load of yellow phosphorous crashed near Lviv, Ukraine, releasing a toxic cloud that some predict will travel west through Hungary. This would be a big deal, except that by the time it gets here, we'll already be dead from the fucking heat. [mno.hu]

The government is taking action.

Budapest Mayor Gabor Demszky told a news conference on Thursday the city would never again try to save money by buying buses or trams that were not air-conditioned.

The city of Szolnok has bought 1.2 tons of melons from local farmers, which it has been distributing to elderly residents and families with children.

It's a level-three heat warning.

In short, it was the hottest temperature ever in Hungary, since records have been kepy.

Cities were not designed for 43 celsius. I never really knew this, the incompatability of cities and summer. The past eight years I've had the privilege of summering in forests, mountains, islands, lakes, rivers and meadows. Occasional trips to Denver, Charlotte and Seattle were only rare adventures, where an afternoon of heat could be blown off as part of the adventure.

But living in a city of 2 million during the summer? Ugh. Sixth-floor apartments, with southern-exposure windows. Ugh. Each step up is a notch up the thermometer. The city smells like dog urine. Parks aside, there are 18 trees in the entire city. Suffocating trams. Smelly people. Stagnant air.

Of course, though, there are occasional respites. It's wonderful to take joy in simple pleasures. WestEnd is pleasantly cool. It's less of a pain to spend time in the office when the air-conditioning switch is enchantingly easy to manipulate. The Buda Castle cave tour is refreshingly 60-degreesed, even if the content is maddeningly unimpressive. And dusk and dawn are colorfully pleasant.

So the city, and I, have taken to modifying ourselves. We nap through the day. Accomplishing even one thing during daylight would be a highlight. The streets are deserted during the day. This weekend, an absolute ghost town. The only souls braving the sidewalkes were the same old cycle of revolving tourists, clutching their maps in the hopes of figuring Hungary out in 48 hours. Here for only a day or two, they marched through the sun and heat in the hopes of seeing all that they could. The regulars, though, either escaped the city or escaped the daytime.

At dusk, at dawn, at night, we move. Noemi and I went to see The Snows of Kilimanjaro at the square fronting the Parliament tonight just after the sun set. The website said it would be in English, with Hungarian subtitles, so I got bored after a while. Not before, though, Noemi earned a set of precious goosebumps as the evening breeze picked up. Afterwards, I went for a 10 pm jog. People were walking their dogs. Sitting on sidewalk steps, emerging from summer sun bomb shelters. Plus it's prettier this time of day, watching a parchment-colored half-moon set, just beyond the Buda hills, capped with stately stone buildings of the same tone.

But there's only so much playing with ice cubes I can do before I start to wonder if I would ever be able to acclimate myself to the idea, the terrible notion, of spending an entire summer cooped up in a city, when there are so many wonderful places to be and explore and see and do. and even if I were able to trick myself into that domestication, the urbanization of summering in cities, would that be any way at all to live? ahh cities. they push and pull...

Song and Dance

Once upon a time. Not so long ago.

Favorite moment of the first week back in Budapest:
A Saturday evening of make-shift fun.

Tommy used to work on the docks.

Janos was kind enough to host us at his favorite neighborhood bar, The Squirrel, if we translate away. An outdoor café spilled out of the wood-panelled interior, complete with a native group of young Hungarians who were kind enough to bring a guitar and sentimental enough to play Wonderwall. Liz would have made fun of me for faux British accents if she had been there. But as our conversation turned rowdier – as it has known to do – Janos ordered us on, lest we ruin his reputation with the help and regulars.

Union’s been on strike, he’s down on his luck.

A missed metro, the last of the night, left us wandering down a street we’d never wandered before, and likely will never wander again. Block after block of search for elusive night bus stops created inspiration or desperation, or some combination of the two. I was adamant that we take advantage of the first oasis of sorts that we stumbled upon. A sketchy karaoke bar.

It’s tough, so tough.

We ordered beers as two Hungarians battled their ways, surprisingly well, through Barbie Girl. When they reverted back to Hungarian favorites, I was nominated to kickstart the English.

Gina works the diner all day.

Harpswell handed the balding man behind the kareoke stand a request, a minute later he called Jeremos up to the front of the bar. that's when Bon Jovi's rhythm started to pulsate.

Working for her man, she brings home her pay for love.

I burst into song as Laura burst into dance. We were rockstars.

She says w'eve got to hold on to what we've got
cause it doesnt make a difference
If we make it or not
Weve got each other and thats a lot
For love - we'll give it a shot

Most impressed? The Hungarian lady who had sang Barbie Girl. She clapped wildly. She was digging me. By the end of the song, but voice was cracking and hoarse, but I managed a koszonom szepan as I handed the mic back. Walking back through smiles and high fives, the Barbie-singer jumped me. She thrust a new request sheet in my hand. A translator explained that she wanted to sing a duet with me. I didn't know the song written on the top, but i scribbled Jeremos down anyway.

Whooah, were half way there
Livin' on a prayer

But as I finished writing, scrawling myself into a contract of collaboration, she smiled. A bit of a smirk. Then the translator-du-jour told me why.

"She wants you to put your telephone nymber next to your name."

Take my hand and well make it - I swear
Livin' on a prayer...