UPDATE: Back from Rome...can't believe we got to see all the stuff we did. Currently in the midst of planning our trip to Bratislava (capital of Slovakia) and Prague (Czech Republic). We leave in a week.
Our bikes work now (and by work I mean "are aired up") and we have tooled around Gyula quite handily the last month or so. We are now just one of many bikers on the street but, while it is not dangerous per se, we are still learning the ins and outs of road rules for bikes (watching Meliss do hand signals for turning cracks me up).
Also, Spring has sprung here in Gyula. In the 60's and 70's everyday (15-25 degrees C) -- which is great -- except it has brought the spiders out of their cold, dark, winter homes...most of which, apparently, were in our walls. We have killed two or three spiders a day since the beginning of March. So, yeah, that's been fun. At least Zoltán, Melissa's director, told us that "Hmmmm, Hungarian spiders...very nice, very nice." I take that to mean they aren't poisonous -- not that they won't bite the hell out of me whilst I sleep. No matter, we may have to quit killing them if they eat all the mosquitos we are going to have since there are (again) no screens on the windows.
Ok then, on to the blog....(had some trouble getting all the videos in and so some of the text is kind of screwy looking, but so be it).
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Our first big school break was coming up in late October (there are no little breaks -- Hungarians do not have 3 day weekends). We got a week off surrounding Halloween. Meliss and I had decided on Vienna, Austria as our vacation target for the week --- but prior to that we had been told that Békéscsaba was having their annual Kolbasz (sausage) Festival the weekend before we left.
Now, Hungary has festivals for everything throughout the non-winter year. Every weekend there is some festival happening somewhere for something. A few weeks before this, we had missed out on the Uborka Festival (cucumber) in one of the small towns that feeds into my school because no one told us about it. The Kolbasz Festival, though, is a big deal and we knew it was coming. My contact teacher, Sylvia, told us that they no longer kill the pigs in public anymore -- but there is a lot of food to eat.
We were leaving for Vienna on Sunday, but we figured we'd pop into the festival on Friday and check things out, take some pictures, and then head home...no big deal. Turns out, it was one of the best evenings we have had here in Hungary.
We hopped on a bus to B'csaba at around 3 o'clock on Friday and took the 30ish minute trip.
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| Fall in between Sarkad and B'csaba |
Luckily, a few of my students were on the same bus because we didn't exactly know where we were going...and we still got off at the wrong bus stop...and had a little bit longer walk than we thought we would. That was fine, though, because as we stood on a street corner looking bewildered, an old couple came along and helped us (pic later). I am not sure how they helped us exactly...all I remember is that between the four of us we were able to communicate "kolbasz" and they pointed off down some dirt road. We headed that direction and eventually ended up in the right spot.
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| Something like, "we like to thank you to the kolbasz festival!" |
This was much bigger than we were expecting.
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| I think this lady had enough sausage already |
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| I can't really explain the flying motorcycle in this picture |
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| Huts for cheese and sausage and spices and palinka and all kinds of other stuffs |
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| Dried Paprika |
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| No vampires here |
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| Cheese and Sausage |
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| Palinka! I'm sure it's homemade and delicious |
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| Other stuff -- Jam/Jelly |
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| Other stuff part II -- trinkets -- yes, that's Elvis |
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| Sweets |
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| Loaf of sweet...or the worst fruitcake ever...or the best, we don't know, we didn't try it. |
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| And sweet-ass head gear! Meliss was real close to buying this one-piece stocking cap/scarf ensemble. Actually, after just getting thru the Hungarian winter, I wish we both had bought one. I would also like to commend my wife for not throwing a hissy fit when the purveyor of these fine cloths just forced it on her head. It took exactly one beer and one shot of palinka to make her quit thinking about the lice that might have been on that thing...and she still almost bought it. |
After walking by these stalls for a bit we realized we had walked into a pretty big party here -- then we came to the food stalls. OH...MY...GOD!
(Tangent -- In Hungarian,"Oh my God" is "Ú Isten" {oo eesh ten}, and my students say it all the time. Every time I hand out homework I hear, "Mi az, ú Isten" {What's this? Oh my God}. Well, that's what I hear now. What I thought I was hearing was "Ú Istvan" {oo eesht van}. So, one day I said it back to them only I said the version I thought I was hearing. When I finally got them to stop laughing long enough to tell me what I said, they informed me that I basically just said "Oh my Steven." Got it. Isten is God but Istvan is Steven. Big difference there. However, we say it all the time in class now. Ok back the the festival.)
Pork of all types -- cooked in all different ways
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| Hey, those kind of look like... |
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| Oh yeah |
This was our lunch. We said we were just gonna eat before we left--but we weren't there for 15 minutes before Meliss had bought some cheese and I had one of these in front of me.
And there were pigs roasting everywhere...we were keeping a mental checklist of where we were going to come back to eat later.
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| Don't forget the sides -- pickles (Hungarian pickles are very sour -- it was quite a shock when we first bit into one), cabbage stuffed peppers, and slaw |
It was at this point that we joked about canceling our trip to Vienna and just staying here for a few more days.
Ok, so the huts lining the streets were leading towards a biggish sports arena where a bunch of tents were set up in the surrounding area. Along the way, we ran into this fine artisan.
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| Weapons and roses -- I didn't buy Meliss either
Also, more food -- like this Hungarian specialty (Kütrtoskalác) which we have never tried (because we only see them when we are out walking around and they look sticky as hell) but they smell tremendous.
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| And the finished product |
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| And more cheese |
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| And, lest we forget why we were here -- more sausage! There were hundreds of these types of huts. All with a different brand of sausage and we got to taste them all.
Right above the pig on that banner is a stack of Hungarian bacon (the thick yellowish/white stuff). Supposedly, the big thing to eat at the festival was the bacon after it had been slowly roasted on a grill. I guess the bacon fat melts and then is spread onto bread. We couldn't find it...or didn't know what to look for...but that is one of the questions we get asked all the time by Hungarians, "Have you tried the bacon fat yet?".
So, I am guessing we'll run into it one of these days.
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| Our favorite sausage hut. Way to go Grandpa Pick! I wonder if we have any Hungarian bloodlines. When we were filling out Visa forms and whatnot, our teachers found out my mother's maiden name was Pick. They were all very impressed -- it's like the top of the line Hungarian sausage company. |
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| Sausage Queens -- they did not know Abe Froman. |
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| You know, like pretzels with cheese |
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| And potato chip kabobs |
And funny t-shirts!
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| Oh no he di'int! (yeah, we don't know what this says -- you can check google translate for yourselves). |
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| Awesome and impractical at the same time |
Then, we got into creepyville...
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| They look so innocent...til they come alive at night |
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| What's worse for nightmares...that roasted pig's head or this thing |
As we neared the sports arena, the road opened up into a bigger area (kind of a parking lot, kind of a field) full of tents with more food and drink and general merriment. Before we started to explore the tents, we walked around the rest of the outside area and ran across...the old couple that helped us get here!
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| Oh boy! What luck! Que Suerte! The nice old couple that helped us get here was selling stuff. So, Meliss bought a bracelet thing. |
With Melissa's new jewelry securely stored we continued on towards the stadium but did notice a few more photo-souvenirs (yeah, that's what our cheap-asses are calling them) along the way.
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| It was the first real cotton candy we had seen -- for Sarah |
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| And a train! For Larry...and anybody else that happens to like trains, I guess. Choo Choo! |
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| Hungarian snowmen (and assorted gnome like creatures) for Melissa's mom |
Oh, and then we found the famous Hungarian sausage elves. Ok, there's no such thing -- but it wouldn't have surprised me if there were.
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And this guy, whose face is all melty but he is sporting a traditional Hungarian outfit -- which, I have to say, looks pretty comfy.
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After getting our fill of the outdoors for the time being, we headed into the tents. We were trying to soak up every bit of the festival and so we just wandered in and out of each little area sampling sausages and cheese.
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| More stuffed and pickled veggies. |
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| This seems like a grand idea. It also seemed like something out of the 50's |
We kept hearing music coming from one (or a few) of the tents and so we were just kind of meandering in that direction. After an hour or so of walking around the innards of these other tents, we finally made it. This was definitely one of those, "I can't believe we are here moments."
We now present traditional Hungarian folk dancing...
If you go to the following link, it should take you to one more video. It's longer and for whatever reason we couldn't get it to load on the blog, so hopefully the link will work. If you can't click it, then just copy and paste it in a new window.
http://youtu.be/jRNZPV_zEo8
We pretty much drained the camera's battery trying to capture all of this. Crazy slap dancing fools! A lot of our students learn these dances and then go around to festivals like this to perform. So, we have seen this dancing a few times since then but this was the first. All I know is I need someone to get married back home because I am gonna slap dance the hell outta that reception!
We sat and watched for quite awhile before we just shook our heads, laughed, and headed to the next tent...where this was happening...
Pretty sure that was palinka in the middle of his speech...have no idea what he was saying, don't really care. It kind of seemed like a sausagey version of Groundhog's Day. Whatever the case, we were now seriously considering skipping our trip to Vienna.
We grabbed a glass of hot spiced wine to split (Meliss says the wine smells like a Christmas candle...which is true, but it also tastes like one -- so a few sips is enough for both of us) and sat around to see what could possibly happen next.
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| Forralt Bor (hot wine) |
We drank our wine (well, most of it), watched these folks have a good time, bickered because I wouldn't go dance with Meliss, and then decided that we needed to figure out whether or not there was a bathroom anywhere in the area.
We had yet to change our clocks (in fact, we had to change them the next day which we were freaked out about because we had train tickets and bus tickets for our trip to Vienna on Sunday and didn't know if we or everything else was going to be on time. Taking our first international trip the day after daylight savings was not our best plan) so it was still light outside for a bit longer. We decided to check out the sports arena, surely it would have bathrooms, yes?
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| Dusk |
Along the way, we saw this woman selling her wares and she just looked exactly like what we pictured Hungary to be. Meliss "asked" her if we could take her picture and she smiled and sat up, fixed her hair, and posed for us.
We saw her walking around just a bit later...
We also saw more roasting pig and were starting to get hungry again.
The arena did have bathrooms but like everywhere else in Europe, they aren't free.
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| 100 photons is like 50 cents, maybe. But who do you pay? |
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| The lady whose job it is to sit by the bathrooms all evening, of course. |
Back outside -- it was dark now and it was also time to eat. I had a plate of sausage with gravy and potatoes all mashed up together. Meliss, however, found this stand that was serving something that looked a lot like sour cream...
Hungarian Bambas?
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| No spinning rides for me, thanks. |
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| Sausage Fest at night |
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| People still shopping around |
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| We thought this was a giant bug zapper -- it wasn't. |
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| Attila the Hun |
Sadly, it was getting late and we still had to make our way back to the bus station. And, we still had packing to do for Vienna so we began our trek home. We had an amazing time though -- and can't wait for next October!
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| See ya in the fall, creepy sausage people! |
Next up: Vienna
