tokaj

in hungary there is a famous wine region that produces famous wine. the city is tokaj, the wine is tokaji bor. i had heard about this wine and this place, but never visited.

until this weekend...

annamari, zoli, eszter, and dani were taking a day trip to the town because the weather was so lovely. i was invited to tag along and jumped at the chance. so we headed to the town about 20 minutes' drive from our city.

one of my fist glimpses of the mountain which would be our destination (see the tower on top?)through the town on the way to the mountain

vineyards

mountain

mountain and vineyards

the town, mountain, and vineyards

on the way up the mountainview from the top!

the tower up close... and zoli, of course

view from the top (on the other side)

we walked down the mountain a bit, just because

after the mountain we headed back into tokaj to see a wine cellar. there was a tiny hitch as it was a sunday and a lot of stuff was closed. luckily we found a cellar that was open. it looked like a regular little house on the outside, but inside there was a whole world under there! the one we went in has a restaurant in there.

here is a private room for a wine party. ooooh.

here is the most delicious wine i've ever tasted

the walls of the cellar are lined with centuries-old mold. it makes for a unique (not in a good way) smell, but it's also the reason the wine is so great. so, mold on! they keep the wine in huge barrels and when you want some, a guy, much like the one in this picture, syphons some out with that glass thing he's holding, and pours it into your glass.

see all the barrels and the mold??

zoli and annamari even bought me a bottle of the good stuff. :D


there are two rivers that meet in tokaj, so we walked along them and enjoyed the spring. i'm not gonna lie, we should have eaten before we tasted the wines because we ladies were feeling a bit dizzy/happy on the walk.

here's the bridge we hung out on after we got some ice cream

hungary family 3

(she's gonna hate this post)

here is anikó trying to pose like i do for photos:

one of my colleagues, Anikó, and i have become pretty good friends. maybe it's because we're single women, maybe it's because we're english teachers, or because we're so funny. i like to think it's because we're kindred spirits. either way, we spend some quality time together each week and i couldn't be more thankful for it, or for her.

when liz came here for christmas, we were invited to spend christmas day at anikó's house with her and her mom.

anikó's mom, marika

liz and anikó

marika took this picture, that would be her finger in the upper left

anikó and her pretty tree (they are customarily not as full as the trees we have in the US)

then for easter anikó invited me over again. not just anyone gets invited over to people's houses for holidays, do they? so she picked me up and took me to her house where we joined her mom, her sister, brother-in-law, and niece for a lovely easter lunch. the following day was her mom's birthday, so i even gave her some birthday kisses and wishes. after lunch i was happy to help clean up with marika (her mom). we tag-teamed the dishes and had them done in no time. (it's nice that the language barrier isn't a problem while during chores.) then anikó and i pumped up the tires in her bikes and went for a long bike ride through her village to a lake and back. it was a lovely spring day and i was happy to be out enjoying it. on the way home we stopped in at her sister's house and chatted with her for a bit. in true hungarian form she couldn't resist offering us food (though i was still stuffed from lunch, even after the bike ride). she also showed me her greenhouse and the billions of lovely flowers she and her husband grow. i was given a freshly picked bouquet of carnations and calla lillies. i asked anikó if her sister always gives her flowers, but she said no, in fact she doesn't, they're just for you!

about once a week anikó and i have coffee in the teachers' kitchen together. on tuesdays (not every tuesday, but most) we go to the YMCA-type place and swim laps together and steam ourselves in the sauna (which she enjoys much more than i do). we also take semi-regular shopping trips, gas runs, and she has driven me home more times than i can count. when i was homesick and really sad she postponed her plans for the evening to come have dinner and a talk with me. i was so touched.

the other day at a store we ran into our vice principal and his family. she introduced me to his wife as the english lecturer and her half sister. that made me smile for two reasons: one was because i could understand it, and the other because it's nice to know the feeling's mutual.

hungary family 2

in december i went to a teacher party to celebrate christmas and the end of the first semester. there i met an english teacher from my school who is on maternity leave (which can last a few years) and has two small children. her name is annamari and i found her fun, charming, and un-hungarianly friendly. we talked for a while and she invited me to come to her house and play with her 3 year old daughter, whom she is teaching english. i agreed to do it sometime, why not.

a while later she called to set up a meeting with her daughter. since then i have gone to their house almost every weekend to play with her kids, eszter (esther) and dani (donny). eszter has just turned 4 and dani is a cute little 1 year old. when i visit eszter and i read books, play outside, dance, watch movies, play silly games, make up stories, and just have a ton of fun.

one thing i like about going to their house is that it's like being part of the family. in the house there is annamari, her husband zoli, her mom (whom i just call grandma, i think), eszter, and dani. we all gather for a homecooked hungarian lunch each weekend. i like that i get to eat delicious traditional food without cooking or paying for it. :D i also like listening to the hungarian being spoken but having annamari there to translate if i need it.

silly

getting ready to go to the playground

readin'

the little cuties (this was my desktop for a while)

dani likes to read upside-down, i guess

eszter just likes to BE upside-down (i was wearing her hat)

slidin'

we went to "salt lake" together and saw some fish

and walked around

brother and sister - in a box

there's dad! zoli is so good with them

aw, eszter was helping grandma make some food

grandma joins in the fun some times too
box dani

eszter dressed up for farsang at school, little butterfly

there they are! isn't this a fun hungarian family?

hungary family 1

i helped joe with the ipod he got for christmas from kathy

in 2003 when i came to hungary there were some missionaries who coordinated everything for me and my teammates as we worked and lived in refugee camps. these missionaries are joe and kathy. they live in budapest. now that i'm back in hungary i reconnected with them, as i really liked them a lot when we first met. when i first got here in the summer, i met up with katy. when liz came for christmas, we spent the night at their house and hung out with them some, and for easter i went to their place again. they are my american/hungarian family here. i'm so glad to have them!

i had a few days off from school so i headed to the capital to see them. we went to the skanzen (an open air museum full of farm houses from all over hungary that have been transplanted to one place) and walked around the village. the weather was fantastic and i was feeling spunky just being outside in it. we walked around, tasted yummy foods they make there (old-school style), talked and took pictures.

joe and kathy have a friend, edina, who is in school to be a pastor. she was there visiting them too so we met and made fast friends. she lives closer to me than joe and kathy do, so it's likely we'll get together without our common friends some time soon. she spent 8 years in america so her english is great, her accent is more american than british, and she gets a lot more of the cultural differences than most of my students or even coworkers.

joe waters himself

sweet lady in one of the houses posed with me and joe

there is a horse drawn wagon that goes around the place

there is also a train and you can get on and off it all day long so you don't have to walk if you don't want to (we wanted to walk)

omg, these goats were so fun! we fed them some grass and they baaaad and baaaad

little sweet faces

there were, of course, some free range chickens and roosters

that little girl was giggling so much. time of her life, i think

joe had to ride the barrel horse, he just had to

look how pretty it is in this village suburb of budapest (szentendre)

there are random crucifixes everywhere. they were supposed to have been destroyed in the past few centuries, but many have endured in true hungarian fashion

they were making gingerbread cookies. i asked the lady on the right if the dough tasted good too, so she pinched me off a piece of the warm gooey stuff. it kind of tasted like apples, in a good way!

edina bought one of those for me, joe, kathy (who didn't come with us) and herself. delish!

this was a typical hungarian bedroom several decades ago. in fact joe and edina both said they remember their grandmothers' houses looking like that

joe wanted us to take a shortcut. across the creek. he was helping us girls by offering us a stick to hold as we hopped on the stones. i was wearing sandals.

pretty church. old, too.

edina made joe and kathy an apple pie (well, the hungarian version) and i got to taste it.
i must have the recipe, MUST.

dead or alive?

hello all!

i'm alive and well and have been happily busy lately. i apologize for the long blog drought. i'll remedy that today and tomorrow, as i still have a couple of days off of school. please enjoy your easter holiday!