Sunday, September 10, 2006

random slices of life from Hungary this weekend

These are not connected in any way, but oh well...
1. So I'm in my apartment trying to figure out my cell phone (the menu is in English, but all of the voicemail stuff is in Hungarian. I still have a message I can't listen to!) when all of a sudden I hear this crazy honking from tons of cars. My kitchen window looks out toward the highway to Budapest, so I run to it, thinking there's some massive wreck or traffic jam. Nope. All I could see was a long line of cars with balloons tied to the mirrors. Every single one was honking the horn. Apparently, it's a Hungarian custom to celebrate weddings by being as loud as humanly possible!
2. My oh-so-modern shower consists of a showerhead that attaches to the faucet pipes in my sink. There's no holder for it, so if I want to have both hands to shampoo my hair, I have to get a little creative. I figured out that I could prop the showerhead on the shelf in the corner, if I anchor it with the conditioner and body wash bottles. This worked great -- until mid-shower yesterday, when the showerhead suddenly decided to detach itself from the pipe. It was ridiculous. I didn't know I had that much water pressure, but it was like a geyser, and there was water everywhere, except in the tub! Fortunately, the bathrooms here are completely tiled, floor and walls (perhaps this happens a lot?), so I just had to grab some towels and accept the loss of my box of tissues.
3. I went to a wine festival in Budapest last night. It was really fun! They blocked off this huge area next to the Danube, and wineries from all over the world put up these beautifully decorated booths so people could sample their wines. It was very laid back and European. We saw all these people with bread and cheese, so we went looking for some. Our lone male last night, Austin, is certainly not at all shy, so he just walked up to people asking for cheese. He knew the Hungarian word for cheese, because it's sajt, pronounced "shite" which is really pretty funny. The first time someone asked if I wanted a shiteburger, I was a little taken aback... anyway, Austin walked up to this woman, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Shite? Shite? Shite?" She looked at him like he was crazy and said in a strong Southern accent, "What are you looking for, son?" She was American! It took a little explaining to make her realize we just wanted cheese! When we finally did get it, they gave us a sampler including sheep and goat cheese. All of it was pretty tasty, except for one French cheese, which kind of smelled like armpit. It wasn't pleasant! But the rest of the evening was greatly entertaining.

Tomorrow I'm off to Slovakia to get my visa. I still can't understand why I have to go to a separate country to get a Hungarian visa, but I'm told this is much easier than waiting for it to be mailed off for several weeks... so i'm doing my first sight-seeing trip tomorrow, starting at 5:30 am! in light of that, I think it's time for my Sunday post-church nap...

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