“Lucacska, hogy érzed magad?”, my grandmother asked me, looking back from the passenger seat of my uncle’s car.  

Nausea rolled through me as I shook my head no.  I was still jet-lagged from the 8-hour flight. Back to my birthplace. I cracked one eye open and watched the endless farms of the Hungarian countryside rush by -- nothing like my suburban utopia. The car lurched forward as we bounced on the noisy cobblestone roads. I recognized my grandmother's apartment complex outside of the car window. A small smile emerged on my pale face as I suddenly remembered the last time I was here...

I had seen this very door for the first time as an innocent seven year-old. The building had loomed before me as I nervously followed my parents through the front door. I saw the stairwell, its rickety steps reaching toward the unknown. I was burning with curiosity, but I didn’t forget my manners. I slipped off my blue slippers on the doormat and bolted up the stairs like a racehorse out of the gate. Hurried as I was, I slipped halfway up the stairs and proceeded to slide back down.

My mother ran over to me and demanded, “Lucacska, are you hurt? What were you thinking, running up the stairs like that? And put your shoes back on, for goodness sake!”

I stood up from my clumsy tumble and plopped down on the floor. “I’m ok, Mommy. But isn’t it rude not to remove your shoes inside other people’s houses?”

My mother began to giggle and explained to me that my grandmother didn’t live inside the entire building; she lived in a small section of the building called a flat. I had been completely mind-boggled at this notion, for I always lived in a house, and so did every other person I knew back home. Upon entering her flat, I realized that her entire home was the size of my living room. So different.   

Now, as I reflected upon my childish naivety, my grandmother interrupted my thoughts, suggesting that she could take me and my younger brother for a walk while my parents and my uncle unloaded our suitcases.The sidewalks were as large as the streets, paved with brown bricks that jutted out every which way. We passed old gray buildings covered in green blemishes. Windows with cracked frames. Walls covered in faded graffiti. Old men with uncanny, yellow eyes and gap-toothed smiles. And an eerie silence that coated every corner from the lack of motor vehicles. I once again found myself feeling out of place in this strange other-world, just as I did when I was younger. Perhaps irrationally, this ancient, tired town felt slummy and unsafe. I stared down at my shiny, white Nike shoes, contrasted against the crumbling, mossy bricks. How can I be Hungarian yet feel uneasy in my own country?

After what seemed like ages, my grandmother asked if my brother and I wanted a treat. Weary from so much walking (there’s nothing more un-American than walking), we were happy to let her lead us into a small store with some sad, plastic tables out front. Our grandmother explained we were at the Százéves Cukrászda (meaning “one hundred year-old confectionery”) that was built in the 1700’s and was still standing. I couldn’t think of the last 300 year-old building I’d stepped into in the United States.

We walked in and I felt my heart skip a beat. The walls were lined with detailed murals. The ceiling was covered in a fresco, which I’d only ever seen in churches. A chandelier hung in the center of the room, giving the place a warm glow. My grandmother let us each pick one morsel from the glass display. There were millions of small pastries, lines of macarons, and tons of ice cream flavors to choose from. After a solid ten minutes of debate, we finally made our choices. My grandmother gave me 100 forints (about 33 cents in U.S. dollars) and let me order it all by myself. I asked the man at the counter for my ice cream, speaking my best Hungarian. The man smiled at me and asked where I was from. Darn it. Although I was perfectly fluent in Hungarian, my heavy American accent gave me away.

For the first time in my life, I felt apologetic about my American-ness. In that moment, I wanted to be fully Hungarian. I desperately wished to fit in. I explained to him that I was born in Hungary but moved to America when I was younger. The man nodded and handed me my ice cream, but not before he snuck an extra scoop on top of my cone. He whispered that he loved that I still spoke Hungarian and hoped I loved it here in my home country.

Home. I liked the sound of that.

I licked my dribbling cone on the way back to my grandmother’s house, noticing the friendly bikes zipping past me. The families talking. The smell of fried bread lingering in the air. The watermelons growing in a nearby garden. The sound of a fiddle from a dark-haired street performer. The cloudless sky. The door of my grandmother’s familiar apartment complex growing closer and closer till we finally arrived home.