transylvania -2

you can't beat the scenery in old hungary (transylvania) as far as hills, foothills, even mountains are all around. big open sky, wildlife, villages, and hungarians. *smile*

the mountain that is the final destination of the pilgrimage.

what most of transylvania looked like to me

we got up at 9 and drove an hour to the mountain where we parked about a mile away and walked toward it (strike one).

no pictures of the hike up because it's just a big muddy, hellish hike up a stupid stupid mountain full of a bajillion catholic hungarians who are way to eager to be hiking up a big muddy mountain at sunrise. i was not at all happy, talkative, nor interested in scenery. imagine it, if you want. (strike two and three!)

here's the only proof i have:

but once we got to the top it was a whole different atmosphere. there was such a huge crowd that it covered the whole mountaintop. some bishop gave a sermon, and some other fancy people talked. everyone was reverent and attentive. see their heads?

soooo many flags! i looked and looked for an american one

but finally settled on this canadian one to represent the other side of the world

and this flag, sneaky little thing, kept tricking me into thinking it was american (it's actually old hungary's flag)

my favorite part of the whole experience was when it rained (go figure). all the magyars whipped out umbrellas and ponchos. there wasn't a wet person on the whole mountain!

hungarians are always prepared

every single one of them

have you ever seen so many umbrellas?!

even the flags had ponchos :)

these are the sweet old people we stayed with. they came with us to the mountain service. those are unhappy faces because we didn't bring any food and we were up there for like 4 hours (strike three).

judit and akos got tired of standing so they leaned against each other and listened.
("hey forest, you lean up against me and i'll lean back up against you. that way we don't have to sleep with our heads in the mud" came to mind)

obviously arnold is very cool

i finally saw an american flag!

after the long mass, a few chats with some friends and strangers, an akos potty break (i'm sure), and some pointless standing around, we started our descent. (the people wearing pointy felt hats would be my companions)

it was terribly muddy. judit bit it and slipped in the mud. akos was 20 paces ahead of us, so i'm sure he didn't know. then arnold bit it and sat down! in the mud. he was a good sport about it.

after the hike down (much easier, btw) we walked through the town that sits at the bottom of the mountain. old hungary to a tee!

in this stone mosaic you can see the shape of old hungary (the complete shape) and new hungary (hungary as it's seen on modern maps). hungary was divided and divvied out to the surrounding countries after WWI, in which it lost like 2/3 of its territory. hungarians still talk about it like it happened last week. *sigh*

trianon.