We had planned this trip long before. In February, Kostia got a new camping tent as a birthday gift; in March, I bought flight tickets to Vienna. By July, we already had everything ready to go.
We were lucky enough to arrive just after a heatwave had left Central Europe – the kind of heatwave that makes Madrid almost impossible to survive. In Vienna, the weather was perfect, but Salzburg welcomed us with rain. I checked the forecast: thunderstorms and pouring rain were promised for the next few days. So, over breakfast, I pleaded with Kostia to change our plans and stay in the city instead. But as stubborn as he is, changing his mind was impossible.
“It will be a great adventure!” he insisted. “We’ll be back in Madrid soon with no rain until September, so let’s enjoy it.”
And I gave up. The word adventure always sounds attractive, doesn’t it?
The Wallersee lake is quite close to Salzburg. Just a short train trip and a 15-20-minute walk. At 5:00 PM, we were standing in front of the reception window, but no one was there. A contact telephone rang uselessly behind the closed door, even though they had promised to be open until six! Yet, I felt surprisingly calm. The best summer of my recent years was all around me. It was the kind of summer I remember and love. Not those deserted, burnt Spanish fields we’ve endured for the last few seasons.
The only problem appearing on the horizon was an upcoming thunderstorm. The sky was lazily covering itself with dark, heavy storm clouds, and we had no place to stay or hide. Kostia found an empty pitch (which, as we later realized, was actually the one reserved for us) and started setting up the tent before it got too late. By the time the downpour started, I was already safely inside the tent while Kostia was still outside, stretching the tarps.
When the rain let up for a moment, we realized that all the camping services (including the showers and restrooms) were accessible only with a client card. I set off to find someone in charge. On my way out of the campsite, I met some Austrian guys who told me the reception was closed until the next morning. However, they were kind enough to call a caretaker, who, as it turned out, didn’t speak any English. When he arrived, our awkward conversation – half English, half German – led us to the safe box in his office. Upon hearing my name, he retrieved an envelope with my name written on it. That’s how we got our client cards before checking in the next morning, and our short vacation truly began.
The rain calmed down for a while, and we went to explore the surroundings. Sitting on the lake deck, we watched the sky, the shifting clouds, the fish, the water birds, and the people and trains passing by. I couldn’t resist the enveloping, warm feeling of finding something sacred. Something I thought had been lost for good. The summer of my childhood was all around me. All the familiar scents were there: sweet meadow flowers, fresh green grass, and trails lined with wild raspberry bushes and hazel trees. Even the fluffy clouds looked exactly like the ones back home.
I remembered myself as a child, riding a bike to the riverbank with my grandmother. We would pass the neighbors’ houses, the wheat fields, and the old farm where cows and sheep rested behind fences. The houses hiding behind rustic wooden fences held the secret stories and lives of others, and back then, I felt like a meaningful part of a massive human society. Before my childhood world collapsed under the weight of family disputes, political regimes, and economic crises.
The fences in this small Austrian village were covered with wild grapevines, just like the ones from my childhood. My grandfather had grown them to create a leafy canopy, casting shade over our summer meals. All our breakfasts were eaten outside, with me dreaming of one day eating those grapes. But it was never meant to be. And not just because of the weather (vines need more sun and heat), but because the next summer after my grandmother died of cancer, my grandfather destroyed everything he had created for her. He even tore down the wild grapevine canopy I loved so much. That was our last summer there. We stopped going to the summer house entirely. After a while, my father’s sister, my once-beloved aunt, pulled some strings with the inheritance, and the house went to her. The whole place ceased to be ours. Even in our minds.
But at that moment by the lake, I was returned to my cherished childhood summer, feeling entirely calm and happy.
That evening, walking back from the only open café in the village, we got caught in the rain. As the downpour grew heavier, we crossed paths with a girl named Olivia, who was out walking her dog while visiting her mother. She happened to have an umbrella and kindly offered to walk us back to our tent. Wishing us the best, she disappeared as quickly as she had entered our lives fifteen minutes earlier.
We were left alone under the pouring rain, surrounded by rapidly growing puddles. With every flash of lightning and low rumble of thunder, I pressed myself closer to Kostia’s side, and he hugged me tight. And maybe for the first time during our almost unbearable emigration, we were truly, finally happy.
For a brief moment, we had returned to a place where the only existing problems were putting a plantain leaf on a scratch, oiling a bicycle chain, and finding Grandma’s secret stash of chocolates. It felt as though our childhood had never left us. Maybe, somehow, we had shared those summers long before we ever met. They had never really gone away; they were just waiting for us. And we were finally there.
Here Eventually 
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