Stories from the ground.
Every dispatch from here, in one place.
The Hungarian Wine Valtteri Bottas Can’t Stop Buying
It is Formula 1 weekend in Budapest, and Smike keeps replaying the day Valtteri Bottas walked into his…
How an American Actually Gets a Hungarian Residence Permit
An American who has been in and out of Hungary since 2001 almost lost his legal status over…
The Stories We Write About Strangers
On the day of Budapest Pride, a walk through the city turns into a question about the looks…
Ready Before the Moment
The most important decision of that night on the Danube was made hours earlier, quietly, at home. A…
How a Beer Guy Fell for Tokaj
A self-described beer guy who did not take his first drink until 28 gives a full day to…
Trieste: Hungary’s Long Way Back to the Sea
A landlocked country is quietly buying its way back to the Adriatic, in a city it lost an…
Hungary’s Hidden African History: The People Who Have Always Been Here
A stranger's Tupac shirt on a Budapest tram sent me down a rabbit hole that runs back three…
Why Budapest Has a Statue of Ronald Reagan, and What Embassies Actually Do
On one Budapest square, a bronze Ronald Reagan strides past a Soviet war memorial toward the American embassy.…
The Measure of a Community: Raising a Son Who Stands Out in Hungary
A small thing left in the comments under a video about my son turned into a larger question:…
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