Meanderer. Meandering is how I spend a good slice of my life. Some of it is quite noticeable–you might see me heading down a cobble-stoned street in Portland, Maine, or perhaps one here in Budapest, Hungary. I’ll likely be staring at buildings, or gazing at passers-by, stopping every so often to try a local version of café latte or pour-over coffee. I’m in search of the nooks and crannies that lay quietly, nesting between places.

I’m guilty of yet another kind of meandering. It’s when I stop for a moment, ask a question, trying to start a conversation with someone, whether a complete stranger, or perhaps a work colleague. After having lived in Korea for some seven years of my life, I am forever stopping people whom I think are Korean and starting conversations with them. Just the other day, we were in the Hungarian Museum of Art, and a smartly dressed middle-aged man passed by as we were resting on a sofa in the lobby. “Hello,” I called over in Korean. He turned, quite surprised, smiled, and said “Hello” in return. “How did you know I was Korean?,” he asked. “Nunchi,” I said, a word for which the closest meaning in English is “intuition.” He laughed and called his charming wife over, and we proceeded to have a brief, but pleasant conversation in both English and Korean. I learned that they are from Seoul, that he is an architect, and she is a music historian who lives in Vienna. 

Here in Budapest, I try to gently “pry open” conversations by asking Hungarians where they are from, or what high school they may have gone to here in the country’s capital city. I may compliment their English or, in the case of a young barista yesterday, let her know that she had just made the best café latte I had tasted in the past week.

Then there’s that Hungarian lady with the strangely dyed orange hair who checks out my groceries at the corner store near our flat. She’s always there, and usually angry about it. She’s got an axe-to-grind and I hope it’s just not with me when I swing by with my bottled water. I suspect she’s got an interesting story to tell, if we just found the right moment to share tales of what I might call our “inner courtyards.”

Back to my meandering. Nearly every building here in Budapest, plain or ornate, seems to be concealing an inner courtyard. There is the substantial and heavy front door with its accompanying electronic entry pad. You can barely make anything out about the world behind it. But sometimes when you pass, especially on weekends, the door might just be open a crack. When I find one, I often surrender to my temptation, slowly pushing it open and cautiously walking inside. There it is–the inner sanctum, the building’s courtyard–invariably interesting, sometimes mesmerizing. Occasionally, one finds curious trees and small gardens. In the day’s shadows, or near dusk, the soft light from the flats is as welcoming as a hearth in winter. The courtyards have their secrets, their stories, like people, nearly always well worth discovering.