Warm Water Under Budapest — Epoche A2
14 January Dear Diary, Aunt Ilona took me to the Széchenyi baths today. It was minus three in Budapest, and we went swimming — outside. Under this city the earth is warm. More than a hundred hot springs come up under Budapest, and the bath water comes out of the ground already hot. That is why Aunt Ilona does not call this a special day out. She comes every Tuesday and Friday, the way other people go to a café. There was an order, and it went like this: First a warm pool inside, thirty degrees, ten minutes. Then a hotter one. Then one minute in the cold pool — I made a noise, and Aunt Ilona laughed at me. Last the big pool outside: thirty-eight degrees, with thick steam standing over the water in the winter air. In the outside pool, six old men stood in the warm water around two chess boards at the edge. They played slowly and said almost nothing. A little snow lay on the wall behind them, and nobody hurried anywhere. Aunt Ilona's doctor sent her here for her knees: two visits a week, written on a paper like medicine. My hair froze a little on the way to the tram. Aunt Ilona says that is part of it. Eva