Hungarian Heartburn and Other Love Stories
By Morris Heney
What do you get when you combine a communist pharmacy, a wave pool, and a dodgy metal shower stall? If you said “a honeymoon to remember,” you’ve clearly met my wife, Rina.
Our European honeymoon was a three-week sprint across the continent — Paris, Munich, Zurich, Budapest, and beyond — powered by Eurail passes, baguettes, and the occasional burst of stubborn love. But nothing, and I mean nothing, compares to our time in Hungary.
It started in Budapest, a city split in two by the Danube — Buda and Pest, like a geographic odd couple. On one side, castles, churches, and old-world charm. On the other, concrete block hotels and communist-era plumbing.
Our first hotel was a dream. Picture fish spreads for breakfast, caviar-like it grew on trees, and a wave pool that gently rocked you like a Hungarian lullaby. Rina was in heaven.
But then came hotel number two — what I lovingly refer to as the “steel pod.” This hotel had a literal shower stall made of metal plopped in the middle of the room, like a spaceship crash-landed in our budget accommodation. Add to that Rina’s digestive protest from a questionable meal, and you’ve got the makings of a comedy sketch.
Late one night, Rina groaned and asked, “Can you get me something for my stomach?”
“Of course!” I said, heroically stepping out into the unknown.
I found a pharmacy a couple of blocks away, confident in my ability to secure Tums. After all, how hard could it be?
Turns out, very.
I asked the pharmacist for “antacids,” miming heartburn in a gesture that probably looked like I was dying of consumption. The pharmacist, alarmed, kept asking, “You need a doctor?”
“No! No doctor!” I pleaded, increasingly desperate.
That’s when a Hungarian angel behind me translated, and the pharmacist finally returned with a small cardboard box that looked like something used for hamster snacks.
Back in the room, I presented my prize. Rina took the pills, smiled weakly, and said, “I don’t know what’s in them, but thank you.”
Reader, she survived.
Budapest wasn’t all indigestion and metal fixtures. There was romance, too. We dined in a six-course restaurant for twenty bucks, laughed across bridges lit by a golden sunset, and explored crumbling war ruins where wildflowers now bloom. One night, tipsy from paprika and cheap wine, I peered over the Danube bridge, and Rina — terrified I’d fall — sat down right there on the walkway, laughing so hard she cried.
“I’m not dragging your American body out of that river!” she said.
I laughed back, “Then don’t push me in!”
We left Budapest with linen, paprika, and one metal shower story to last a lifetime. But more than that, we left with a sense of resilience. Even when the food goes wrong, the bed is tiny, and the language is foreign, love translates. It laughs through it, walks beside it, and finds the humor in the chaos. So if you’re ever stuck in a strange bathroom, just remember: there’s always a pharmacy — and maybe a metal shower — just around the corner.