the review

It may not have been the greatest party ever -- but it was pretty darn fun. I finally succumbed to the inevitable and dressed as Pippi Longstocking -- people have been suggesting that costume for years. I have to say, the wire hangers in the hair are not especially comfortable. And it's difficult to go through doors and hug people! Also in attendance were Ms. Scarlet, a 50s sitcom housewife, a mummy, Samson, Wolverine and Rogue, and a host of others. It was entertaining, for sure.
We had cobwebs, pumpkins, leaves, "shrunken heads" (carved from apples), and TONS of candles for decor, and we borrowed the school projector to play Hitchcock movies on the wall. The Birds was a big hit. We also lit a fire outside next to a graveyard we constructed, so really we had all the elements of a standard Halloween party.
But the big attraction for me at least was downstairs. A few weeks ago, Heather was in the garage and for some reason pulled up a board out of the floor. To her surprise, the boards concealed a set of stairs leading underneath the house. We lit some candles and went exploring to find two pretty large rooms in a cave below our garage and driveway. Plus, there's a trapdoor in the floor of one of those that leads to yet another set of stairs going into two more rooms carved from the rock. This was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. So we kept it a secret, fixed it up with a few candles and a skull from Lisa's science class, and sent everyone down one by one in the dark. How cool is that!
We talked to our landlords (who, by the way are amazing. They not only gave permission for us to light a fire in the yard, but they supplied all the wood and lighter fluid!) and they told us a little about the history. Apparently Budafok sits on a huge mass of rock that was mined for years, especially during the construction of Parliament in the late 1800s. There are a number of caves left under the town, and up until about a hundred years ago, families lived in the abandoned caves. The people who built our house just built above one of the old cave homes, and we had no idea. We are thrilled to finally solve the mystery of the hole next to our driveway -- it was the chimney for the cave home!
I thought that was pretty amazing, and tailor-made for a ghost story, so I threw in a homicidal miner and concocted a tale of how he still haunts the cave. Pretty fun.
Last night was cool, too. It was All Saints Day, the day when Hungarians decorate the graves of family members with flowers and candles they leave them to burn all night. So the three of us, Austin, and Minkee took a stroll around the graveyard last night -- which sounds weird, but it's actually really beautiful. And it means no school! I love long weekends.