Taking the Waters

Széchenyi

First we entered the indoor section, where pool after pool awaited us. Each one had a temperature written on a sign on the wall beside it. Each one was a different shape and size. I felt like I was taking a pop quiz, thrust into a new environment with its own culture and traditions, with everyone around me grading me. After a bit I realized I wouldn’t come across like a pro no matter what I did and I relaxed. And, as my thought process suddenly reminded me, my word for the year is “Adventure”, so I’d better stop being so self-limiting.

We went from warm to warmer to hot, cool to steam room, warm to hot, all through a series of doorways and hallways. Like a warren. Each room usually had more than one pool, always a different size and shape. Then we came across a room with a largish oval pool full of green water and everyone in it appeared to be running in a circle. “Ok,” I thought, “there is clearly an entire culture and logic to this place that I do not have any way of accessing.” We tried it, and couldn’t help but laugh. There were jets of water angling into the pool creating a fast circular current that was almost irrisistable. The kids loved it. Tias said it was the most fun he’d ever had. My theory is that that pool is there based on the idea that laughter is the best medicine.

Outdoors things were less inexplicable and much more wonderful for the eye. The blues and yellows played wonderfully off of each other. After an hour of hopping in and out and changing temperatures, I lay on the shallow steps of the warm bath and nearly fell asleep. Ahhhh.

The fountains, the men playing chess in the water, the warmth…I don’t know if the mineral content is as good for the joints and the muscles as they say it is, but I certainly feel much more rested and much more capable of running the 5k with the kids on Margaret Island today and the half-marathon tomorrow.

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