Classes are going well. Wednesdays are still utterly long and overwhelming. However, my double period anthropology class that makes them so is not taking place for the next two weeks, which will be such a gift. I may even be coherent and fun on Wednesday nights. Unheard of!
On Tuesday, I went with Meghan to see if we could find the Hungarian folk dancing class that started...3 weeks ago. Initially a beginner's class, we scared ourselves on the way there, thinking of how far they must have progressed, and how we would be able to explain why we were coming for the first time. (The true reasons were laze and nervousness, but I'm not sure I know the words for those in Hungarian.) However, upon arrival, we only were able to find/disturb a (rather advanced looking) hip-hop dance class. I think we were both slightly relieved, but we would have felt awful if we didn't at least try to look for the class. In lieu of learning some sweet moves, we instead drank a beer in a little park (populated by several homeless men) and chatted. A lovely use of an afternoon. We then bought snacks at the nearby Spar: a bag of banana chips, a container of kefir (!), and a Sport bar (to try.) We walked home, dipping the banana chips in the kefir, a surprisingly delicious treat. I feel like I need to apologize to David and Casey for sneakily avoiding the kefir all summer.
Besides that evening, this week was surprisingly uneventful. I suppose this is mostly because it was a short week--we skipped classes on Thursday in order to leave for...Transylvania! eee! We went to the Kalotaszeg region, which was formerly part of Hungary before the Trianon peace treaty of 1920, when it was rewarded to Romania. It features Hungarian and mixed Hungarian/Romanian communities, as well as many Protestant/Calvinist churches.
On Thursday, we departed at 6:30 AM on a nice roomy bus, with our driver Imre. It was a long drive, but everyone welcomed the time to catch up on sleep and leisure time activities. We made a couple of pit stops, including one longer one. It seems that we can decide to stop anywhere and Elizabeth knows the best way to the nearest ruins/church/monastery. This time, we got a really nice hike in, climbing up to a beautiful view.
This one courtesy of Megan.
Eight others of us decided to hike down to the ruins--much cooler than a lot of the ruins we've visited. It was a bit of a journey to get there and back, with some steep parts, but it was totally worth it. Back on the road, we continued to our destination, Kalotaszentkirály, a Hungarian village of about 1300 people. Our first group dinner was a sudden introduction to the pattern of the weekend, pálinka shots at every meal! Pálinka is a fruit brandy that people in the village make themselves and are very eager to share. I am not a big fan of hard alcohol shots in general, but pálinka is not bad.
This is actually from the final dinner, because I forgot to photograph it earlier, but it was the same idea for every meal.
The food was wonderful--home cooked, filling, and delicious. We were certainly spoiled.
I stayed at the home of Babi and János and their two children, along with five other girls in the program. We were told to expect "camping" circumstances in our homestays, but every home was significantly less rustic than the expectation, especially ours. Four of us stayed in a little guest apartment, with a really nice bathroom and shower, while the two others lived in a room nearby. The shower, in particular, was much nicer even than our dorm shower. And the beds were extremely comfortable.
The only picture I really got of the house area, taken on the last day. I believe Tasha is looking in her bag for her camera to document the house as well.
The grounds were closed off by a gate, which Janos showed us how to open late Thursday night. We were basically chased home from the bar by several pretty drunk locals. We passed them all sitting on a motorcycle together, and one girl took a picture, so they started walking with us. It was fine and funny at first, but then they started touching us and coming very close, and were not responding to firm no's/nem's. When we got back to the house, we found the gate locked, and as they were all hanging around and still harassing us, everyone got a little panicked. Allie was ready to climb over the fence, but Janos came out in a bathrobe and pantomimed how we should have locked the gate, then pushed the key through the fence on the wall so we could reach it with our fingers. I felt bad for keeping him up, but very grateful that he was there to let us in.
A later picture of locking the gate.
Another highlight of the homestay was when Imre the bus driver, who spoke a little English and was also staying with us, told us that a dish on the breakfast table was "mice." Nervously assuming he was making a joke, we all politely giggled. (This was actually a pattern of the weekend...it was unfortunate. Our Hungarian skills are so limited that giggles were the immediate go-to as a response to most things spoken to us.) Eventually, we figured out that he was trying to say corn, which, apparently, is pronounced "mice" in German, and he didn't know the English word.
I appreciated having several other Americans to make the homestay experience less stressful, but I think a few fewer would have been more conducive to trying to bridge the language barrier. As it was, it was easy enough to just chat amongst ourselves at breakfast (the main time we spent with our families), instead of trying to communicate with our few Hungarian words and phrases.
On Friday, after breakfast with the family, we went to the big market. It was a BIG MARKET. Utterly overwhelming, especially as we were given three hours there. It was all right in the morning...I focused on doing a once-through of everything, and then coming back to make purchases. However, after one circuit, I was mostly too over-stimulated, tired, and dehydrated to feel inspired to go back for anything, unfortunately. Also, by this time, the crowds had arrived, including the beggars. It was interesting, because all the beggars were people with actual physical problems, unlike people who ask for money in the US. There, it seems legitimate if you're physically handicapped--people were actually giving them money. It was challenging, though, to have people with all kinds of grotesque physical deformities just plopped in the middle of the market aisles. Mostly, though, there were a lot of cool sites. Walking around, I thought repeatedly things along the lines of, "I am in freaking Transylvania. COOL." Some pictures.
Buying sweaters.
LOTS of shoes.
This woman suckered Sam into buying a second big spoon after she had already purchased one somewhere else. She kept promising a "cadeau" if Sam bought it.
Our market snack, a kürtőskalács, or "chimney cake." Sam, Tasha, and I shared a very hot one. Delicious.
After the market, we went to see a chess-maker, undoubtedly the coolest thing I saw on this trip. I'm not sure why it was so mesmerizing for me. Just like in the porcelain factory, rotation was crucial in making uniform-ish pieces. He was so experienced and good at making them, too. He made two of each piece while we watched, telling us (translated by Elizabeth), that this was so we could see that he actually could make them look alike. He could.
We also visited Kata néni, a woman who lives in the "fancy" region of Kalotaszeg. Her daughter moved to Hungary a couple decades ago, leaving her dowry behind. In this region, the dowries are displayed in a room of the house until they are used, so we were able to see the preserved dowry. All the furniture was beautifully decorated. Matt and Allie modeled some of the clothes for us.
Kata néni also served us a surprise lunch, which followed the pattern of the food this weekend...delicious. Another pattern was followed here--I bonded with her kitty!
Picture courtesy of Alli Friedz.
After that, we went to Cluj, the historic capital of Transylvania. We were supposed to visit a big church, but it was during mass, so they set us loose on the city for an hour and a half instead. It was very trendy! It seemed like a lot more people spoke English than in Budapest, and many people could have been described as "urban granola." I would have liked to spend some more time there.
Post-Cluj, we went back for dinner. Pretty soon after lunch, you say? We thought so too. Delicious, anyway. A highlight was the unofficial doughnut eating contest. I represented my roommate Audrey--although she didn't eat the most in the end, she ate valiantly. That evening, we stayed at home and played Pass the Pigs before an early bedtime.
On Saturday, we went to see three churches in the area. The first two were former Catholic churches that had been redecorated during the Protestant reformation, but you could see the old paint and decorations right under draperies, which was pretty cool.
Church 1: my favorite. It was up on a hill, and had an apple orchard very close by. We also went up into the tower of this one, which had a really pretty view.
Audrey posing, as she does.
There were a ton of ladybugs in Transylvania.
Alli and me after picking and eating delicious apples and one fruit that we later found out was a type of apple used in baking, but never eaten raw. Oops.
Church 2.
Example of hidden Catholic decorations.
Church 3. This one was a Greek Orthodox church, I think. I was taking fewer pictures and listening a lot less by this time--churched out.
We got back to our village in time to catch the parade for their harvest festival...all 30 seconds of it.
Next, we spent a very enjoyable hour and half sitting at the outside table at the bar.
Documentation of the activities.
That afternoon, our anthro class had an in situ make-up session. Right before, I got to see Megan and Máté, which was such a pleasant surprise! We knew that we were all going to be in Transylvania, but didn't make plans to meet-up, but they apparently were driving through our village and saw me waiting for class to start. Love the small world.
Class was long, but interesting--nice to get the chance to talk about things and see them at the same time. We explored one family's property, walking all the way to the back of it. All the land segments there were long and thin, as they started as big square plots, then were divided. There's only one main street of the village, so they all needed street-front property. Some sights:
The second part of class was held inside. Love class on couches!
At dinner that night, our last dinner, we had some celebratory singing. They passed out the music and lyrics to a traditional folk song, and our anthro teacher, who was with us all weekend, sang it for us, then with us. The lyrics:
A short video of us singing. I caught an awkward bit, because she hadn't told us to repeat the last two lines before, but you get the idea.
Then, one of the daughters performed for us...I caught a short segment of this, too. I couldn't see her, though, so I just recorded black.
That evening, we went to the dance for the harvest festival. It was folk dancing until 11, then "more modern dancing." The folk dancing was cool too watch, but not as accessible and circle based as the stuff I've been doing on Thursdays, which was a little sad. I got a couple pictures, though, as well as some videos of when different boys/men started performing/showing off. Instead of uploading the videos on here, I put them on YouTube--feel free to check them out. The first four are the dancing videos.
I really liked watching the kids dance. They weren't silly about boy/girl dancing like American kids are--everyone needs to be able to dance, so they practice from young ages.
There was a creepy man (we decided was the town crazy) who really wanted to dance with all of us. A priceless picture of Monica as the victim.
And one of him waiting to pounce...he totally knew I was including him in the picture.
One more thing...I loved the cats at our homestay. These are just a few pictures from the several photoshoots I had with them.
For some reason, my creepy faces always emerge when I try to take pictures of myself with cats. Case in point...an old picture with Louise (love that kitty.)
On Sunday, we got to sleep in an extra hour, then met and took off for home. We took pictures with our host families...when I am able to steal it off of facebook, I will post it. (I think there may be several of those this week--everyone needs to post their pictures for my blog!) The drive home was great, and we got into Budapest four hours earlier than we expected...divine. Great Sunday, great Monday so far...love it.
Until next week,
A
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