Choir trip part 2

We got there at about 8:30- and the first thing they did was break out sandwiches.  Shit.  I didn’t bring any sandwiches.  When you are a foreigner, you regularly miss out on the small announcements – though the fact that you need food (namely bread) with you at all times should be well engrained in my psyche by now.  How very not-Hungarian of me to not have brought sandwiches.  What the heck.  Now what – EVERYONE is eating… I was asked by three people if I wanted a sandwich – and I said no thanks, I was fine.  Though having been here over a month now, I think the Hungarian eating habits are rubbing off on me – at that moment (though I had eaten breakfast – and it was only 8:30) I was craving bread.  I wanted a roll so bad I didn’t know what to do with myself.  BUT – I tried to play it cool (which never works by the way).  After the “snack” we headed to a couple different museums.  We visited a school where Pefofi Sandor (I wish I could figure out how to type the accents on here- I will soon) went to school.  He was a great participant in the revolution (they have had so many I don’t remember which one- maybe 1848).  At any rate, he is a national hero and a well known poet.  So, we saw his grades and discipline record – along with a lot of other artifacts from Papa.  There was a museum within this school of local history, in addition to the tribute to Petofi.  As we moved through the museum, three or four people pushed me forward to someone named Eva – I had never seen her before, but she spoke English and would translate for me.  Eva is Hungarian, but now lives in California with her Texan born husband Bob.  Yeah – Bob.  Bob is about as American and as southern as you can get- we were quite a pair on the trip to Papa.  He has been married to Eva for 27 years, and has not learned a lick of Hungarian.  They own a house near Tata, and are friends with many of the choir members.  As we were going through the museum and Eva was translating – Julya (the Russian) came up to me and said “basically, what you need to know is that this stuff is really old-” got it.  Thanks.  After the tour of the school and library, we went across the street to the Blue Dye museum.  In Papa, they are famous for the indigo cloth that they produce.  The museum was fascinating – it showed the process for printing and then dying this cloth.  We saw the vats, how they printed on them, where they dried them – it was really interesting (especially for a history geek like myself).   You can see some pictures on my “mobile-me” site http://gallery.me.com/castaffa  After the tour- we had the opportunity to make our own blue dye cloth.  I chose a nice pattern and enjoyed the process. 

After the blue dye museum, it was time for lunch.  Eating- again.  Yikes.  I wonder where we were going to go for lunch? A nice restaurant in town?  To the local cocsma?  No.  Back to the car, because naturally, every Hungarian brought a wicker basket with enough bread to feed the Hungarian army.  Shit again.  I didn’t have a wicker basket, nor did I have any food to eat.  WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME TO BRING FOOD!?!?!  Probably because it’s just assumed that everyone knows they’ll be eating all the time.  Another cultural difference is that lunch is the main meal of the day – it’s HUGE! So as people were unloading their meat, bread, vegetables, wine, bread, palinka, cakes, cheese, cookies, bread, noodles and more bread – I felt like a dummy not having anything to contribute.  I was offered food by all of the choir members, but we always shun people at potlucks who don’t bring anything – so why would I start eating their food?  Of course, I’ve learned that if you say “no” to food, they just try more times to get you to eat – so you’d better just say yes.  I had some noodles that Jozsi made – “it is no problem, no problem with noodles” and they were very good.  Luckily Megan was meeting us at the blue dye museum so I didn’t have to stand there and watch for long.  Megan joined us for a bit and met the choir members.  We finished up lunch and went to tour one of the churches in Papa.  Papa is the city of churches, Tata is the city of water and flowers- maybe it’s like the walleye capital of the world or something like that.  These towns all claim something.  Eva pointed out that she wasn’t sure why we were touring a Lutheran church, since they aren’t very pretty – and she was right.  It was a nice church, but fairly plain.  Megan and I sat through the speech about the church – with no translation – and then all of the sudden we were singing.  Megan was in church – singing.  He he.  Welcome to my world.  After this church tour, we bailed and went to hang out at Megan’s place.  I need to learn to start asking more questions, because I had no idea when or where dinner was.  Kata was disappointed that we were missing the next two church tours – but we got over it.  We also missed the trip to the “Water park” which ended up being a thermal bath – and I was a bit sad about that, but again I forgot my suit.  Oh well.

I got to see Megan’s apartment and more of Papa.  We stopped for lunch at a cute place on the pedestrian walkway – and I had the most fabulous hot chocolate ever.  It was literally a hershey’s candy bar melted into my glass.  DELICIOUS!  Her school is beautiful – fairly recently renovated and in a nice part of town.  Her apartment is very cozy – nice new appliances and furniture.  She is very lucky to live in a cute place!!!  We relaxed a bit, and then headed to the Intersparr (grocery store) to see what they have that’s different than Tata.  After our trip to the Intersparr, we went to the hotel the choir was staying at for dinner.  We were told to be there at 7:30- so we were… and no one was anywhere to be found.  There was a big party going on where we thought we were supposed to be having dinner – but I didn’t recognize anyone.  Great. So I should just call one of them… hmmm that would mean that I had their phone number… well, let’s just hang out?!  OK.  Eventually people started rolling in – relaxed from their trip to the bath.  We sat at the “English table” with Katie, her boyfriend Norbi, Lotzi and his daughter.  They spent some time translating the drinks – convinced that we needed to try palinka again, but we resisted.  After dinner, Freddie brought out the guitar and we sang some songs.  There were some Irish ones, Hungarian ones, and some English ones!  Amazing Grace, Auld Lang Syne – it was funny.  After a couple songs, Megan and I left to meet Lisa and a bunch of people from Megan’s apartment building.  We went to a place called the “Black Hole” that earlier we had joked about – because it’s also a sex shop (we think… there are advertisements for a sex shop on the windows – but it was just a bar and nightclub.)  It was a happening place, but I was a little tired and quite honestly, nervous for our “performance” the next morning.  I didn’t dance at all, but Megan sure got down on the dance floor – I can’t wait until we are able to dance again!