Budapest Unscripted: An Audio Documentary

Week two. Cold, sunny, and a flat move coming on Sunday. A Friday night at the climbing gym ends in humiliation courtesy of a ten-year-old. A Saturday of decision paralysis. And a recurring question: how do you make every weekday feel like a Saturday when you've chosen to work for yourself? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit budapestunscripted.substack.com

Day nine. Snow collecting on fake pansies. A week of documentary films at a Budapest festival — culminating in 20 Days in Mariupol and the 13-year portrait Apollonia, Apollonia — cracks something open about storytelling, craft, and what it means to tell stories from the heart. Also: big heavy snowflakes, and what they meant when you were a kid. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit budapestunscripted.substack.com

Day six — and the first full night of sleep since arriving. Frost, a little snow, and the start of a groove. A badminton club joins the calendar. Crows on the balcony begin registering a benevolent presence. Things are finding a lane. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit budapestunscripted.substack.com

Day four. After eleven hours of sleep and a slow morning walk, something starts to lift. A Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's apartment turns into a late-night conversation in a parked car — about creativity, community, and what it means to be single in your fifties. Plus: a new flat in the running, a local bakery, and the first real feeling of turning a corner. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit budapestunscripted.substack.com

Day three in Budapest. Sleep deprivation, jet lag, and the strange weight of displacement. A first encounter with the Hungarian grocery routine. A solo Thanksgiving at a food court. And a question forming about the flat: is a constantly barking dog a dealbreaker for a writer's workspace? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit budapestunscripted.substack.com

November 22st, 2023. I landed in Budapest the day before. My bags landed in Munich.This is the first recording — made in a quiet flat in the second district on a grey November morning, jet-lagged and slightly bewildered. I'd been thinking about doing a daily audio dispatch since before I left Los Angeles. This is where it starts.In this one: the checkout lady at the grocery store asks me something in Hungarian. I stare at my receipt until I figure out what to do. A human rights film festival opens in Budapest that evening — first day in the country, first coincidence. And a houseplant metaphor that I'm still not sure entirely works.Afternoon update recorded at 3:45 PM: dusk already, banking headaches, lunch with a friend and her dog, and a nap before the screening.Day 1 of what turned out to be a long, strange, worthwhile experiment. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit budapestunscripted.substack.com

This is the one that explains how a three-week work trip to Budapest in 2023 turned into a one-way ticket a few months later. How a novel that started as 30 pages of character sketches in 2008 became the thing I moved across the world to finish. And how a goofy impulse to record my first morning back turned into this — whatever this is.It's also about what it really means to be an expat. Not the furnished-apartment, expat-bar, Instagram version. The version where you wake up and realize nobody in this city is expecting to hear from you today.The journal, the novel, the documentary, the move — it all starts here. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit budapestunscripted.substack.com

Recorded two days after Hungary's election, April 14th, 2026.Viktor Orbán is gone. Sixteen years of Fidesz rule ended Sunday night with a landslide that nobody quite believed was coming, even as it was happening. I woke up Tuesday morning, phone lit up with messages from people back home, and did the only thing that felt right — hit record.This isn't a political analysis. I'll leave that to people who are better at it. This is just what it feels like to be standing in Budapest on a day like this, in a city you moved back to two and a half years ago, when the Orbán cloud was still very much hanging over everything.It's also the launch of this publication — which I'd planned for later in the month. But the timing made the decision for me.What you'll find here: one audio entry a week, with a transcript alongside it. Expat stories, honest reflections, and dispatches from a writer finishing a novel about this city. The proper introduction comes in the next episode. This one just needed to exist today.Budapest Unscripted is free. The next entry is the introduction. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit budapestunscripted.substack.com