
The capital with the eye of an expat
Coming home
I have a weakness. I have several weaknesses in fact, but more than any of the others, this one I find impossible to resist. You can keep your wine. You can have your chocolate. You can save your flowers. What gets me every time ...

The capital with the eye of an expat
The other Balaton
I'm writing this from Balaton. Not the Balaton but the one and only Balaton in the United States of America, a small town in southwest Minnesota. I'm not quite sure how I found the place but once I discovered it existed, I couldn't not ...

The capital with the eye of an expat
In abstraction
On 20 August, Hungary celebrates its foundation and remembers St Istvan (St Stephen), its first king, who was inducted into the ranks of Hungarian saints by Pope Gregory VII on 20 August 1083. Let's fast forward to 20 August 1993, when Scottish painter Jim ...

The capital with the eye of an expat
Adding some Scottish to the mix
French philosopher Voltaire is reputed to have said "We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation". Presumably he was talking about the French. Some three centuries later, the British in Hungary are looking in that direction too, this time for ideas on ...

The capital with the eye of an expat
Living on a battery
Eons ago, I hung out with a guy who, as a teenager, lost the use of his legs in a shooting in New York. Wrong time + wrong place + stray bullet = life in a wheelchair. Cursed as I am with a brazen ...

The capital with the eye of an expat
My Budapest
Hardly a week goes by without someone asking me for advice on where to eat and what to do in Budapest. Usually it’s friends asking for friends or colleagues with different interests and requirements. In anticipation of a raft of questions coming as the ...