Dear Hungary,
Tonight you celebrate your birthday, you turn a thousand and something.
Fireworks bloom over the Danube, bells echo from St. Stephen’s Basilica, families break the first bread of the harvest. I can almost smell the warm crust, I can almost hear the crowd gathering along the riverbanks, even though I’m at the far side of the world. I’m still trying to learn how to live with the two halves of my heart that split the day I left you.
This isn’t that “solveable” distance you close with a car ride I used to do. It’s not my well-known “three months here, three months there.” It’s oceans, time zones. A separation that reshapes your whole life.
When I see the photos online, it’s morning where I am, and Budapest is alive at the night.
You are celebrating, I’m watching their tomorrow from six hours behind.
I remember standing there as a child, holding my father’s hand, feeling the ground tremble with the sound of fireworks. Back then, I thought they were just colors in the sky. Now I know, they are more than that, they are the desperate screams of memory, of belonging, and longing.
But the reality is, the pain runs deeper. It’s present everywhere. It’s in the tears after hanging up, when words can’t soothe, and you’d trade anything for a hug that never arrives. It’s in the guilt of leaving, of abandoning, of not feeling happy, of not fulfilling unspoken expectations, and of thriving despite the suffering.
Despite the sorrow, I’m grateful to be here rather than there. It’s a form of revenge, as well as an aching, brutal sort of freedom. ‘Kettéhasított, megszakadt szívvel,” as my beautiful mother’s language says — split-hearted, you are broken into two, and you know you never be whole again.
I’m grateful there was always someone there to catch me, but I’m also proud because here, 8000 km away, in a city the world calls dangerous, as a woman alone, I planted my feet and started to grow roots.
You can take the girl out of Hungary, but you can’t take Hungary out of the girl.
You’re every sarcastic eye roll at a forced “ammaaazing” captures a moment of irony. You find yourself eating vegan bread on a New York subway, enduring an hour-long ride just to share fröccs with friends who understand what a házmester is. There’s a fleeting but powerful sense of camaraderie—the Hungarian magic—where strangers quickly become like family. I would trust them with my life because we share the same pain, the same exile, fears, and pride. We understand each other deeply.
And you find yourself caught in this intense contradiction—the almost euphoric joy that dances within you against the backdrop of a soul-crushing absence. Both feelings coexist within me tonight, each one true. Being an emigrant means living with this contradiction: holding onto euphoria and devastation simultaneously, creating a life in one country while never fully abandoning another. That’s why I left, and why I stayed away. It’s about building a new home without erasing the old one.
And tonight, as you light up the sky, I’m celebrating, too, with tear-filled eyes, calloused hope, and a chest so full it hurts.
Happy birthday, my home, my love, my past, my wound, my witness, my miracle, my mistake.
I may not be there with you today, but you’re still here with me, in every breath, every bite, every scar, every win.
The other day, I saw a mother taking her daughter’s temperature on the street.
She spent minutes explaining gently how the Withings thermometer would touch her forehead, how it might beep, but it’s all okay, nothing to be afraid of.
And I couldn’t help but remember: my mother tossed the mercury thermometer onto the bed and told me to check my fever, but don’t you dare break it, because if I did, we’d all die. 🙂
Thank you, Hungary. Thank you for awakening that resilience in me—the kind that keeps me afloat even as this wild, bloody city tries to drown me. But it can’t. This is Withings versus mercury. It can’t drown a Hungarian.
HISTORY LESSON
Every nation has a day that feels like a heartbeat, when history, tradition, and celebration flow together. For Hungary, that day is August 20th. Ask any Hungarian what it means, and you’ll get a handful of answers: the day of King Saint Stephen, the foundation of the state, the blessing of new bread, or simply the evening of the most spectacular fireworks over the Danube. All of these are true, and together they form a thousand-year-old story still unfolding every summer.
It begins with Stephen I, crowned around the year 1000 as the first Christian king of Hungary. He wasn’t just a ruler but an architect of the nation: organizing dioceses, building churches, and setting the framework for a kingdom that could endure in Christian Europe. After his canonization on August 20, 1083, the day became a religious feast in his honor. For centuries it was marked in churches and villages, a reminder of the saintly king who gave Hungary its roots.
Over time, the meaning of August 20th shifted with the country’s turbulent history. Under communism, the feast of St. Stephen was rebranded as Constitution Day, tied to the 1949 socialist constitution. The relics and religious ceremonies were pushed into the background, but the state kept the day as its showcase holiday, complete with parades, concerts, and fireworks designed to dazzle. After 1989, when Hungary shook off the regime, the day regained its full spectrum of meaning: both sacred and secular, both about continuity and survival.
If you happen to be in Budapest on this day, you’ll see how the past and present meet. The morning starts with a flag raising in Kossuth Square and solemn processions from St. Stephen’s Basilica, where the king’s mummified right the Holy is carried through the streets. Farmers bring the first wheat of the harvest to be blessed, and the country symbolically breaks its new bread together. By evening, the atmosphere turns festive: families and friends gather along the Danube embankments, waiting for the enormous firework display that lights up the sky over the bridges and Parliament. It’s one of the biggest shows of its kind in Central Europe, and for many Hungarians, it’s the most emotional moment of the summer.
There are also charming modern touches. Bakeries across the country create special loaves for the “Blessing of the Bread,” while pastry chefs unveil the Cake of Hungary, a title contested each year with creativity and pride. Food, family, faith, and fireworks come together in a way that feels very Hungarian, practical, symbolic, and deeply communal.
What makes August 20th stand out is not only its longevity but also its layers and colors. It’s everything at once, a thousand-year-old tradition and a modern street festival, both a holy day of a Christian saint and a secular celebration of statehood. Few national holidays carry such dual weight, and few are lived with such joy. For Hungarians, it is the reassurance that their story-through centuries of invasions, occupations, and reinventions, always had an anchor. For visitors, it’s the perfect day to understand the spirit of the country: rooted in history, proud of its endurance, and never without a reason to gather by the river and look up at the night sky.
