Things I'll Miss About Hungary

i'm leaving hungary very soon. while there are a few things i certainly won't miss about hungary, there are many many things i will. for example....

*statues

*parks

*statue parks

*kávézók (cafes)

*flowers!!

*80s and 90s music being played more often than current music

*folk music :D

*thermal baths

*csúnya szavak (bad words)

*magyar nyelv tanulás (studying hungarian)

*izé (the word hungarians say when they can't think of what they want to say)

*nénik meg bácsik (old ladies and old men)

*parasztok!!! (country people/rednecks)

*hungarian accents (i vant to leeave in oosha.)

*old school/traditional mentality

*vanity/immodesty

*kid-centered families

*people being proud of their sneakiness

*namedays!

*women's day

*teacher's day

*patriotism

*farsang! (dress up in costumes to scare away winter in february)

*people asking me if i'm cold all the time

*overdressed children/star children (children so bundled they can't move, they look like stars)

*overt staring

*churches!!

*so many umbrellas

*everyone always having tissues and using them as loudly as possible

*fagyi!!! ohh, the ice cream.

*cute little villages

*outrageous clothes

*super high heels (even in SNOW!) she's fine as long as she has pantyhose

*emo kids

*festivals every other week

*funny looks for singing along to my iPod

*megasztar (hungarian american idol)

*puszi (cheek kisses)

*ballagás (hungarian graduation ceremony)

*szalagavató (hungarian prom)

*JEGESKÁVÉ!!!! (iced coffee with ice cream and whipped cream and chocolate sauce)

*szamorodni wine :) and tokaj and eger (wine and wine regions)

*fanny packs, lol

*nicknames for most nouns, not just people(uborka = ubi = cucumber, paradicsom = pari = tomato, iskola = suli = school, zsepi = zsebkendő = tissue, meki = McDonalds, stb.)

*sandwiches everyday, everyone, everywhere

*keys, keys, keys

*compliments on my language skills (i'm sure i'll miss hearing them when i'm in china stumbling through chinese)

****most of all: i will miss my beloved hungarian friends. so many people have made me feel loved and welcomed and special and important and valued and relevant. i've been invited to people's homes, to their celebrations, and into their lives. i've been hugged and kissed and given flowers on more occasions than i can count. i've cried on friends' shoulders, laughed with them, swum and danced, drunk and eaten, cooked bacon fat on an open flame, ridden buses to far away cities with colleagues, gotten naked with them at the baths, learned and taught, shared and absorbed culture, language, and the human spirit. i'll miss hungary a lot, and quite especially my

favorite city, Nyíregyháza.

balaton

after the transylvanian adventure, i was in need of a REAL vacation. so a couple friends and i (minus one friend who couldn't make it) headed to *the* lake in hungary. balaton.

we live very very very far away from there (in hungarian terms) and it's even farther when you don't have a car because you have to take trains and buses to get there... and of course, a mandatory stop in budapest.

but we got there. and oh, how we loved it!!

(for more pictures with captions CLICK HERE.)

the pedestrian street

omg, adorable.

we took a little boat ride on the lake since it was still a bit too cold for swimming. here i am with klara and xander. rowin' away!

and here's kimmy! (kim) she saved us with her mad rowing skills.

we took turns taking pictures because it was just so picturesque!

ok, this is practically a post card.

church on the mountain with the lake and sailboat in the foreground... it's so balaton.

sailors sailin'

we took a ferry to the peninsula (tihany) where we had a lovely afternoon of sight-seeing, eating, drinking, relaxing, train riding, walking, and picture-taking.

the city center is pretty freakin' cute. there are people (german tourists!) everywhere and no grumpy hungarians in sight.... just happy, relaxed, rested people :)

kim and xander bonded so much. he misses her almost as much as i do...

i mean, really...

klara and swans!

me and xander! and paprika!

it was just the relaxing vacation i was needing! pictures really can't do it justice. that was possibly my favorite weekend in hungary. whenever you come here, you simply MUST get to balaton!

transylvania -5

last day. get me the heck home.

it was a lovely day and it would have been nice to have been outside of a smoke-filled car that was loudly jamming to folk music. but alas, that's where i was.

we saw gypsies selling bags of pears on the side of the road. i wanted one.

then we stopped at a touristy restauranty town to "have a bite to eat." i had been away from civilization for 4 days and was happy to be sitting in a restaurant and being served.

so we parked with lots of other tourists, i grabbed my purse, and was joyously heading toward the restaurant.

then akos whipped out a a picnic blanket and put it on the hood of the car.

i nearly wept.

then it didn't work out so well, what with the carving the chicken on the hood of the car, so we packed up and moved on to a better spot.

don't get me wrong, it was a nice place to have a picnic. it was pretty, had a view of the mountains and valleys, and was a beautiful day. it was just the last straw for this girl. we sat down, unpacked, ate the same picnic food we ate 3 days earlier, everyone but me peed, and we relaxed a bit.

then we saw a shepherd and some animals.

back on the road, soon to the border. my silly non-EU passport caused a bit of a holdup, but nothing unbearable.

road, smoke, folk music. that's all i remember.

i like this sign with a tractor, bike, and horse and buggy.

that kind of sums it all up.

it was a long, interesting, and hard trip. it was not at all vacation to me (hiking, mud, outhouses, more hiking, churches do not a vacation make) but i'm glad i got to see that part of hungary.

it was enough for a lifetime. mark my words.

transylvania -1

a colleague of mine from szent imre (the good school) invited me to come along with her family to transylvania for a pilgrimage (which is held once a year in the same town for all the catholic hungarians ... read about it here if you want). since i didn't go last year, i thought it would be worth it.

we left at about 3am. (strike one)

the four of us traveled by car for a day and a half, 50% of us smoking like chimneys. (strike two)

on the way to where we were going we stopped at some (gorgeous) gorge to hike around (strike three, but bearable). there was no railing or anything to keep us from falling off the ledges, but somehow we managed.

when they wanted to go hiking up to the top (steeper than i care to recall) i bailed and waited for them at the bottom. i amused myself by taking pictures of nature. ooh, ahh.

they came back and the husband (akos) and the 'son' (arnold) had to make a teamwork effort to get down safely.

we traipsed through the mud for another hour after they came down, had a picnic lunch, and hit the road again.

eger - with lektors!

we didn't choose the best weekend to go to eger, as it was wet and cold, but we had some fun!

here are tara and kim getting some kürtőskalács. kim is new to hungary this year so this was her first taste of the doughy goodness!

the eger castle

tara and megan playing on the castle playground

some pathway around the castle

castle roofy room thing

the castle and the city

megan peeped through the binocular thign

kim and tara were a little loopy

the skyline - that pencil thing is called a minaret. a skinny little tower

church and such

aww, hungary

the minaret (from the castle)

walking up the minaret's stairs

at the top. tight fit!minaret on a clearer day

xander came along. carla liked him.... but he didn't really like herthe church at night

the first wine cellar we went to (mold on the walls, coins pressed into the mold)

second cellar

third cellar, gypsy music to set the mood

wine lady pouring into my mouth, dry white wine (not my thing)hot wine is all the rage in eger. here is a bird... dispensing it through with his beak

this was us for most of the weekend
i'm glad we went. there was a lot of climbing and walking in the rain, but there were good experiences, good food, and good company that more than made up for it.