People claim a new part of the city (temporarily)

Extreme weather brings a lot of bad things - people die, crops are destroyed, infrastructure disappears - but it can also let people claim something new from their environment for a while. Snow keeps cars off the roads so we can run and play in the frozen streets and a flooded river turns embankments into beaches.

So this evening, as the Danube reaches hopefully its peak, Budapestis strolled along the rakparts, enjoying the warm evening sun, watching the huge river surge through the city. People sat on the walls looking, swam from the steps that normally lead down to the busy roads that line the river and sat and chatted about the new dimension to the city.

They even sat on the parapet of the Varhegy tunnel, gazing out across the river and just possibly commenting on the hundreds with their cameras, recording the scene.