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 -4

we traveled to some small village in old, old, old school hungary where we were to spend the night with some nice family. they weren't home, but the random guy in the street we asked knew them, of course, and where they were. so we snatched him up and he showed us to the party. he smelled like booze and B.O. :)

the minister who was opening his house to us, calman, was cooking up a storm for everyone. meat and meat and other meat.

arnold pretended it was weird, but that fool ate that meat in less than a minute.

there were some pentecost festivities to choose a king.

a gypsy kid won the race and was crowned with his hungarian (non-gypsy) girlfriend. in that part of the world hungarians and gypsies don't hate each other's faces and guts. it was so refreshing to see everyone of whatever color getting along together. more like home than i'm used to these days.

arnold, who is skilled in nearly everything, joined in... well, showed up the teenagers

a cow showed up, too

while at the BBQ, i had to pee.

i had to use a dirty, icky outhouse.

which locked itself after i went in it.

i was stuck in there with other people's poop.

for 5 minutes.

i whined to our hostess that i'm a city girl and i wanted to pee in a real toilet.

she promised they had internet at their house, plus a real bathroom.

arnold and i took a walk ('cause we hit our time limit of partying at the BBQ - 4 hours)

and we saw this fence while we translated songs from english to hungarian and from hungarian to english together

then home to the minister's house. dinner, drinks, talking, internet, bed.

all she promised about her house was true!

plus chickens!

transylvania -3

the touristy day (with sarcasm) was spent hiking around some city center visiting two churches and an old storage place for villagers' food and stuff. historical. my favorite.

600 stairs or something great like that... guess what was at the top!!

a church.

i'll spare you the pictures of the boring stuff and just show you some cool things. there was a sundial that showed modern hungary's time, 'cause you know... it used to be part of hungary.

here i am faking a smile in front of the church at the top of the stairs. i had to have one or two pics of myself to prove i've actually been to romania.

for the days we were there we kept seeing pilgrims walking back to wherever they came from. that's right, people walked for days and weeks to get to this mass! they sang along the way and, of course, carried their flags.

there were "pentecost roses" (which i'm told are not actually roses) all over romania that time of year. they were very impressive and come in rich, deep colors.

the trees in the whole country are painted white for the bottom meter. historian judit says that's because when people invaded and were sneaking around town, the hungarians wanted to see them if they were hiding in front of the trees, so they painted them white for contrast. judit's husband said it was to keep bugs away. i don't care enough to find out, just thought it was odd.

we went to the touristy place (like where normal tourists go to see/do dracula stuff) for a few MINUTES. cute, huh?

this is all i saw of the dudd, though we were in his birthplace

*i need to travel with people with like interestes*

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.