Coffe at Kati and Istváns

I have wanted for some time to connect my friend Megan with Kati and István (the 67 year old private student and artist) and the holidays was the time to do it. Megan came to visit for a couple days - and instead of taking an entire day to have a lunch or dinner with them, we settled on coffee one morning. It was really nice because their "daughter" Jee was here visiting too. Kati and István met Jee in Portugal when they were doing an artist workshop one summer. Jee is Korean and a dancer/choreographer. So all three are artists, as is Megan, it was perfect.

István was in (not so) rare form again - though this time he was not drunk when we arrived :) We sat down after introductions and they told us about their christmas at a castle with other artists. It was difficult to converse because István struggles to get his English out, and Kati never stops talking, even if you're talking to her at the same time. Insert Jee who is telling us about life as a dancer and poor Megan who didn't know any of them. I felt like it was possible to get whiplash while trying to follow the conversation.

After a while, István produced Christmas gifts for me - AND - Megan. It was quite a surprise. One of them is a felt wall hanging that is hand embroidered - it was taken off the wall of Kati's parents' home. It was beautiful, but an odd gift I thought - from her childhood house. Megan and I both received plates also - that clearly were also removed from the walls of someone's home. While thoughtful, it was unnecessary. We had a nice chat and the morning was well spent. When we had to get going, I told everyone I wanted to take some pictures - and it was quite a funny ordeal! Check 'em out!

Some sort of weird photo shoot - I told them to "get together" and this is what resulted...

Jee, Kati, me and István

the "cookbook" István made for me - he (as a graphic artist) made the design on the to. He told me that the middle of the swirl is my heart "part Hungarian, part American"

the "cook book" is bound and has only four recipes in it, and I don't know that I'll be actually able to make any of them. If you look at the writing - the translation is a bit weird, but SO sweet that he took the time to do this for me.