The island when it's not THE island

It might be a bit surprising that in 10+ years of living in Budapest I’d never been to the island when it wasn’t THE island. I guess I never thought of it as anything else than a loud, hot, beatiful chaos of people and sounds. So it was quite startling to see it as, well, not really just another park, but almost.

Every empty space here is somehow inhabited by a lovely ghost. Oh look, A38! I say looking at a patch of uneven grass ungraciously crossed  by a sausage dog with tiny legs. Press area! That’s an islet of yellowing trees shining through the thin fog. Main stage! Well the main stage is right now an incredibly big nothing blown by the light autumn breeze.

In nine months' time this will all be normal again- weird thing to say, since it’s only one week of normal, and fifty one abnormal ones then, when the Danube trickles peacefully by and the trees wait quietly to be adorned with lights, beer cans and Dutch shoes.  But it’s a good wait. And worth it.