Back in Budapest, and then Nobu

On a vacation back home in Budapest, I simply couldn't make myself return to Ottawa. So at 30, I stayed and moved in with my mom. At least I wasn't alone, and I wasn't destitute.

Then, out of nowhere, things turned around. I asked friends where to look for hospitality work, and they said Nobu was coming. I had no clue what Nobu was, but I got hired at the last second, and when they mentioned four weeks of training, I knew it was serious. For the opening, the whole area around the Hotel Kempinski was blocked off, red carpet everywhere, and literally every Hungarian celebrity I knew of was there.

And that's not all: Robert De Niro, a part owner of Nobu, came too, and by coincidence so did Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie with their kids. I couldn't believe how much my life had changed in just a couple of months.

A typical RP moment. Around that time, while I was at Nobu, I started dating the general manager's best friend, a lady from Miami Beach. She invited me over to see Miami, a city I had never been to, and it sounded super exciting. Our relationship was pretty crazy too, as you can imagine. A few days into my visit, a fight broke out. I don't even remember what it was about. The bottom line: she told me, in no uncertain terms, to get out. I did, immediately, forgetting one small detail: I had no spending money. So I spent the night on Miami Beach, and I mean literally on the beach, on the sand. The next morning I had to call my mom in Hungary to Western Union me some money, so I could check into a youth hostel. There I met some wonderful people, the crappy situation turned out to be awesome, and I even made a few friends for life. Of course, that lady and I made peace, and we're still in touch online. To this day I think back on my homeless Miami nights and just laugh at my unfortunate self. Little did I know I'd be back in Miami dozens of times: about four years later I moved to the Cayman Islands, and Miami became, quite literally, my shopping center.

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