Category Archives: Family

Eger

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Just east of the Mátra mountains is the lovely little town of Eger. While it is recognized for its castle and baths, our main purpose for visiting Eger was to go to St. Andrea winery for a tour and tasting. The region is well known for its wines, but is particularly famous for its “Bulls Blood” red wines. In 1552, 80,000 Turks were advancing toward Eger. Just 2,000 Hungarians, led by Dobó István and including women and children successfully defended the Eger castle. The story goes that during the battle, the Hungarians were drinking the Eger red wine for strength, but all the Turks could see was that the Hungarians had dripping red beards, stained swords and faces. The Turks thought that the Hungarians were drinking bulls blood and were so shocked and scared that the mighty magyars were able to defeat them.

St. Andrea winery is located outside of Eger on a beautiful hillside. We were all very impressed with not only the incredible wines, but with the philosophy of the owners and winemakers. Our guide, Tamás, spoke about how they are searching for the truth in the process, or as he said “the way”. And that more important than selling a million bottles of wine, they want to make a great wine that people appreciate. The tasting was wonderful in addition to the wine, cheese and bread with oil and balsamic vinegar. Inspired by his wife and muse, Andrea, Dr. György Lőrincz’s wines are (like the name of one of his white wine’s suggests) blessings in bottles.

And finally, after the wine tasting, we went back to Eger for dinner right next to the castle at a great restaurant called Imola. The restaurant was recommended by St. Andrea herself, and the food was wonderful. We ordered ham and cheese plates, gulyas soup, beef cheek, stuffed peppers, trout, veal stew and duck. And we were so stuffed from the wine and food that we couldn’t even order desert. So despite the trickling rain and cool weather, it was a beautiful September 1st in Eger.

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First Pálinka

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Last night we went to Náncsi Néni, which is a fantastic little Hungarian kitchen in the Buda hills.  I will write more about it in another post, including some tempting food shots, but this post is about something more important: my Mom’s first pálinka shot.

Pálinka is a very common welcoming drink in Hungary.

It is fruit brandy, and can range in flavors and strengths. At our table, Györgyi ordered us plum and apricot pálinka.

It took a minute for her to react.

I call this the pálinka shoulder shake.

And you probably wont’t believe me,

but after it was over, she had another one. And liked it!

The Visitors

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My family has finally made it to Budapest!  Naturally a 2 day rain-binge has begun, ushering it a pre-fall dose of water and chill. But they are here and we are already having a great time.  Last night we went to a restaurant near to the basilica, and today, despite the rain, we toured around the city seeing some of the major sites. It’s almost happy hour so I will save a little time by posting a slideshow of a few pics from today.  They will be here for quite some time so there should be much more to come, so stay tuned.

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Back to the Grind

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Now that Brian has left, we’re all (well some of us) back to working hard. Or harder than anyone should have to in the summer. There are only nine more weeks until my family comes for a visit and those nine are going to sail. I’ve got about a billion articles to write and another billion documents to edit. Ms. Györgyi Sára is in the middle of an office move. And Barnabás is, well, exhausted by everything. So exhausted, in fact, that he can’t even haul himself into his bean bag bed to sleep during the day.

His photo shoots have been pretty demanding though. Several different counties. New tricks. And on top of everything it’s foxtail season and danger is everywhere.

Since my last attempt at growing herbs failed miserably (well they are growing very very healthy looking non-native weeds), György bought me these little idiot-proof pocket garden packets in Vienna. One cilantro and one pepper. I have really followed the directions to a T on these so I hope they are going to produce lots of salsa-making ingredients.

Despite our disparate schedules, crazy hours, and lack of sleep (well, for most of us), we’re still managing smiles.  It is summer in Europe after all.

The Visitor

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As I mentioned in my last post, my brother, Brian, came to Budapest to visit me for two weeks.  He just went back to Colorado Springs yesterday, and I finally had a little bit of time to take a look at the pictures we took. It was a fully-packed two weeks and we all had a great time. We spent the first part of the time exploring Budapest. And since he is a History teacher, we made sure to see the relics and museums of the various conflicts, occupations and revolutions.  We did some touristy things and some non. By the end of the trip, he knew his way around the market, how to order a cappuccino and scones, and the value of sausage and palinka.  We had a wonderful party with friends in Szeged, and at the weekend he was even able to eat a shnitzel in Vienna.  We ended our trip with a four day adventure in Bovec, Slovenia, which is by far the most beautiful place I’ve seen. He went mountain biking, while Györgyi and I went on a white water trip. The next day we all went on ATVs in the mountain passes. I know I could drag out a blog post all week long and the next, probably, just to tell every detail of his trip. But I think the pictures will do a better job with the story. To see the set from the last two weeks, just click on the picture below.

Thirty Flames

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So yesterday was my 30th birthday.  It’s shocking to even type that now.  I remember when I was 10 and thought… in just six years I’ll be driving.  I was in the car with Mom on Misty Lane in Copley, Ohio.  And later that night she pulled to a stoplight on Route 18 (this was way before it became an eyesore of commercial development)– and she turned to me and said Don’t EVER do this!– before drag racing a black truck next to us, then pealing onto the interstate.  She won. I hope ten years from now, when I’m the age she was then, I can be that cool.  These might help:

Woo!  Ray-Ban Wayfarers. Györgyi got me these for my birthday.

And my parents sent me the most beautiful turquoise bracelet:

Györgyi also gave me a beautiful ring (story to come in another post):

It’s white gold and ivory and has a Hungarian folk-inspired design to the pattern. It was created by a very rad local jewelry artist, Bence Fördős. His pieces are very unique—think jewelry journeyman meets 22nd-century metallurgist.

So it’s just the beginning of the weekend here and tonight we’re going out for “Mexican” food and margaritas with some friends. And then I suppose I’ll get back to the business of starting my 30s.

It’s off to a bright start, I think.  Györgyi paraded out the cake with 30 candles last night.  And I bowed my head and shut my eyes tightly to make my birthday wishes for the decade ahead of me.

Then I set a little bit of my hair on fire.

Yellow

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Easter weekend has come and gone, and though it’s just Tuesday, I’m a little behind on my days. We had a day-off for the Easter Monday tradition, which frees up a full day for Hungarian men to throw water on women in a fertility ritual that pre-dates Christianity altogether. (We stayed inside with movies and Turkish food).

On Saturday we went to the Hungarian National Museum (me, Györgyi and her nephew Máté). I’ve never been to the National Museum. It’s beautiful, and an emblem of many freedom movements for Hungarians, since it is where poet & revolutionary, Petőfi Sándor, recited his famous call-to-revolution poem).

They have a huge Hungarian collection, which I’d like to see on another day when I really have time and energy to explore. On Saturday we were there to see the collection of photographs from this year’s Hungarian Press Photo exhibition.

After the exhibition, we went to the castle district (District I) to walk around. And of course to take the required parliament-in-the-background group photos.

To be completely honest, I’m really not a big fan of the castle district this time of year, or day, or holiday. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen these places in all of their quiet loveliness that I really can’t stand to be there fighting through the crowds. This is, I admit, a curmudgeonly view. But it’s where I am with my love/hate relationship with city tourists.

I was happy to look up and see that the top portion of scaffolding has been removed from Mátyás Templom. Which means that they might be nearing the end of renovations–hopefully by the time my family arrives this summer.

My crusty outlook improved when we went to the back of the castle wall, where there is a walkway overlooking the Buda Hills. There were almost only locals back there, doing what locals do best in the spring sunshine–enjoying it.

We admired the universal language of spring holidays, documented in chalk.

And what’s more Spring than PUPPY!  And the real 2010 Easter Miracle? — That these two gentlemen didn’t get their dog dognapped, by me.

The Castle District is about colors.

And contrasts.

Which are never more apparent than in the eye of an easy, afternoon sun. It makes you wish that window was your window, that bench, your bench.

As the shadows follow you through the narrow alleyways, you imagine the history of afternoons here, and a kind of gentle time passing.

With loving family.

And loyal friends.

Better Than Expected

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I took about fifteen pictures and I still couldn’t get my little dinky camera to focuson the onion and not the pot, but I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.  Still, as you can (almost) see, we have onions!!! Well, maybe they’re still too small to call them onions, completely, but the fact that this little white onion that is now the size of half a pea actual grew, under my care and supervision, from a seed, is really kind of cool, I have to admit.  I haven’t seen any peppers yet, but there is so much going on in that little pot, I’m sure something will bloom soon enough.

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Even though the city is fully buzzing with tourist season and summer  in the air with the smells of warming bricks in the castle and blooming lavender, it’s still seemingly taking forever for July to work its way past me.  Probably because I’m so furiously counting the days until I get to go home for a little bit.  I keep asking myself, when did I become such an Ohio girl?  I can’t remember ever loving Ohio when I grew up there.  And then suddenly when I became an adult I felt such a draw back to it.  Some people call it the curse of the Cuyahoga, that if you ever live in Ohio, you’re doooomed to live there again.  But I don’t think of it as much of as curse.  And a lot of people I know would agree.  Sentimental people like me, probably, with a little nack for the melancholy, or perhaps the poetic heart that feels calmed by family dinners outside in the clean air, bike rides in the valley and beers at the Lizard to follow them.  Farmer’s markets and farmers.  And I could go on, which is why I’m so looking forward to my trip.

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Until then, I’m going to try to occupy my brain with other tasks, first and foremost with surviving the incredibly hot weather (about 100 F the last few days).  I have to plot a long run for tomorrow, buy some clothes for the trip, and maybe, by next week, have everything in order so that I can start the slow and hopefully stressfree process of packing.  Not much for weekend plans.  But it’ll do for an early summer day.

They Killed Our Queen

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As we neared the end of our tour of the Elisabeth’s summer castle in Gödöllő, we came to the last room, which housed some of her letters and two of the original newspapers from September 1898.  For some reason I couldn’t help thinking about my great-grandparents, whose parents certainly were among the shocked masses of people who picked these papers up on the morning of September 10th to read the headline:

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THEY MURDERED OUR QUEEN

Sisi was actually in Geneva, Switzerland at the time and getting ready to board a ship for Montreux.  It was there, while she was walking along the promenade, that an anarchist Luigi Lucheni approached her and stabbed her in the heart with a file.  She was sixty years old.

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At first it wasn’t apparent how serious the wound was because like most women at the time of a certain class, she was wearing a very tightly pulled corset.  She actually boarded the ship.  It was only when her attendants undid her corset that it was clear how serious the bleeding was.  She died soon after.  Her last words were “What happened to me?”

Even though Elisabeth didn’t play a very significant role in politics, she was a bonafide celebrity in Europe, and because she supported many Hungarian causes (to the dislike of the Hapsburgs) the Hungarian people truly adored her.  She was the Princess Diana of 19th century Hungary (adored by the common people, fought the strains of a loveless marriage bound by tradition, rebelled against the strict rules and forms of the royal class, etc.), and when Sisi was murdered, the country was truly devastated.

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I find myself really drawn into this tale, perhaps because, as is all the rage in cellular biology circles these days, my genes hold a little bit of the memory of that time.  I imagine Sándor and Viktoria as children in the Austro-Hungarian empire, paused in their childhood play when the news came to Budapest about their dead Queen.  It’s not that many years ago, but it seems so far away from my own American experience.  And yet, when I am here among the same streets, or see the same artifacts that they saw, I feel closer than I did before, that, she was my Queen too.

Flavors of Home

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holy gushers!

So I recently told my mom that I was really missing the most odd food from home.  It’s been eight months since I came here, since I’ve been on US soil, since I’ve eaten a proper taco or oreo.  But my nostalgia went a little further back than eight months and so I asked her if she could send me a few things that she found that would give me a little flavor of the home front.  And she came through for me in flying colors.

Exhibit A:

it was like lifting an angel from a bed of white lilies

it was like lifting an angel from a bed of white lilies

Exhibit B:

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Exhibit C:

dreams do come true

dreams do come true

Exhibit D:

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what's a Midgee?

Some of these things I would never eat at home.  Never did.  But for some reason I was insane with missing them since I got here.  Clam chowder.  Cheese crackers.  Vegetarian re-fried beans?  I had to laugh at the fruit roll-ups and gushers.  My dad used to buy my brother and I gushers and put them in our lunches every day for like seven years until we had to have an intervention about the gusher-buying via my mom.  I haven’t seen a gusher since, until now!  I didn’t even know they still made them.  God bless you Betty Crocker.

I made the Mac&Cheese two nights ago for dinner.  Of course Györgyi had never had it before, but can anyone really dislike it?  The hypnotic mixture of powdered cheese and butter and milk?  We’ll see how she reacts to the tropical fruit gusher today.

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And of course I have to thank my mom for all of this.  She really is the best.  And on top of all of the great goodies inside, there was a really typical Mary Jewell addition, which she added unknowingly to the box.

Exhibit F:  The label:

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Look at how efficiently and honestly she recorded the contents of the box on the customs form.  I can imagine her there at the post office taking the inventory in her mind and then writing with those Catholic school printing letters:  Soup, Candy, Crackers, Cookies.  If it were me I would have written something like “gift” or “food”.  But that’s why I love her.  And of course I was smiling way before I even opened the package.  Thank you so much Mom!