Hungarian Bar Food

While in Eger I had my first taste of one of Hungary's most popular snack foods: Fatty bread.

This is a slice of thick white bread topped with red onions and paprika, then melted pork fat drizzled over the top.






I ate it cold, so the fat was a bit like crisco. Not that appealing, but still tasty...and oh-so-good for the heart, I'm sure.











While visiting the Eger wine caves (and there were about 100 of them in the so called "valley of the beautiful women") we ran into this pair of men. They paid three musicians 10000 ft (about $50) to trail them around the circle while they sang songs...quite a sight!








Chad buying a liter of Egri Bikaver, or Bull's Blood, a Hungarian red wine made by blending multiple grape varieties. Total cost for a liter: 1000 ft, or just under $5.







After we got our wine, we had musical accompaniment as well.

Quick update

I didn't have as much time tonight since returning from Eger to write a detailed post, but I wanted to give you a peek at the great weekend in Hungary's wine country.

First, the terrain is reminiscent of northern California with rolling hills and patchy vegetation. Certainly the climate is different (much colder winters and cooler summers than northern California) but it still works for grape growing).

I hope to provide more details tomorrow, but here are a few shots to hold you over.



Emily, Chad and I pause for a picture. In the background you can see the wall of Eger's Castle. This defensive fortress allowed the Hungarians to withstand Turkish soldiers in the 16th Century.











Oh, look. Here you can see a Hungarian soldier (the man on the left) dealing a blow to a pair of Turkish invaders (I don't know the two women in front, but I waited for what seemed like an age to get a picture with as few as two people in front of the statue...at one point there was a woman actually riding the horse)

The Egerites withstood a Turkish attack for 39 days in 1552, turning away 40,000 Ottoman soldiers with the strength of just 2000 men, women and children holed up in the castle, shooting arrows, throwing rocks and pouring hot out on the Turks. About 40 years later the Turks came back and that time easily defeated the Egerites.


From left, Juli, Chad, Emily and I sample our first Eger wines (Inside, two middle-age Hungarian men had obviously been there a while as evidenced by the volume and quality of the Hungarian songs there were belting out).




By the way, I have moved into a new flat. This one is owned by the school and will cost me near nothing over the next two months. The previous flat, while okay, ended up costing a lot more than first thought. I'll get some pics of this new place posted soon.

More flood pictures

The Tisza isn't rising any longer here in Szolnok...but it isn't receding either.

A few kilometers south of Szolnok the Tisza is joined by the River Koros, and a Hungarian friend of mine, Julia, lives in a village near the confluence. That region is being hit hard by the floods and many people have been evacuated. I've told Juli that if her family needs help sandbagging, she can call me.

Meanwhile, Sunday I captured some good pictures of the Tisza at flood stage: Efforts to create mini-locks by sandbagging (note the tree in the distance underwater)

This home has been underwater for weeks. The windows you see are on the second story!

If you didn't believe me that the windows are on the second story, look on the left of the home...that's a basketball hoop!

I think the "Parking" sign should read "Mooring"

Hungary like Iraq?

Hungary's second round of national elections took place Sunday and the outcome in the race for controlling party and Prime Minister remained unchanged from the vote two weeks ago.

In a commentary posted in the Brussels Journal a link is drawn between Budapest and Baghdad, with respect to the Hungarian people opting to reelect an incumbent even during a time when the nation's economy is fast falling behind those of nearby countries like Czech Republic, Croatia and Poland.


If your interest in geopolitics has been piqued by that article, give this one a try. Russia controls one of the world's largest supplies of oil and natural gas, and in the past few years, and especially in the past few months, Vladimir Putin has put the squeeze on former Soviet countries like Ukraine and Belarus, raising gas prices until those country's leaders are essentially forced to make deals with Russian supply companies allowing them to build or control miles of distribution networks between Russia and the European Union. All this sets up the potential for Russia to hold a very powerful trump card over fledgling Democracies in the east of Europe, and economic superpowers in the west.
If you study the European map through the ages, you'll be hard pressed to find a period lasting longer than 50 years in which political boundaries didn't change and national monuments weren't felled. We shouldn't be so foolhardy as to think that this everlasting struggle for power has ended. We should instead be looking forward to realize the next source for a global shift. It seems likely energy will be the flag-bearer of change.

Laundry

As much as I disdain laundry day in the States, here in Hungary it's a real chore.

Saturday I spent the day doing laundry, using the machines in my flat. I have a washer, and a "drier," which is essentially a centrifuge. Now, this is more than many people have. Most have a washer similar to mine, only some have the centrifuge. A handful of people are starting to purchase full size washers, but I haven't met anyone yet who owns a drier as we would call it in the States. However, I strongly believe that during the next five years full sized washers will be nearly ubiquitous, and "American" driers will start to enter the market.

To give you an idea of how long it took me to wash all my clothes (all is a relative word. In my case, it's a week's worth of shirts and two pairs of pants, along with socks and underwear...not that much), while I was washing them I watched Road to Perdition. Then I watched it again with the director's commentary on. Then I watched all the deleted scenes. Then I went back and watched a handful of my favorite scene again. Finally I was done doing laundry. The next day I had to fold all the dry clothes and put them away.

Laundry starts off with the unsuspecting victim having to place the washer in the bathtub, or somewhere where water can be easily added to and removed from the machine (the beach is another nice place to do laundry in Hungary I suspect). Then, using the shower nozzle, the machine is filled with water and just a small amount of detergent (Beware! Use as much detergent as you would in the States and you'll be walking around smelling like an alpine prairie).

Then the clothes are added. On average, I can get one pair of pants and two shirts into a load, or, four t-shirts will fit at once. In other words, "don't overdo it." I made that mistake the first time and the amount of time I spent "unclumping" the clothes cost any time I saved by having larger loads.

Once the machine is full, it's turned on and small disk at the bottom spins, hopefully encouraging the water and the few articles of clothing to spin with it (Again, too much clothes and they aren't going anywhere).

I leave the machine on for about 10 minutes, then return to empty it and start over with a "rinse" cycle. Here you can see how I drain the water (simply lower the hose and gravity takes over).

After two cycles like this, I've learned that it's best to rinse each piece of clothing under the shower head to wash off the remaining detergent.

I then load the centrifuge. This unit is about one-third the size of the washer and can handle 2 or three t-shirts or one pair of jeans. When you close the lid, the tub in the machine starts to spin. About two-thirds of the time it "tilts" because the clothes are not perfectly balanced and I have to open it and reposition what's inside. Once I achieve a good balance it enters high speed and water starts to trickle out of the drain (into the well placed wash tub). 60 seconds of spinning leaves clothes a "light damp" and then to get shaken out and placed on the drying rack or over chairs in the flat.

It's a painfully slow process and one that leaves your dried clothes misshapen, haggard and crispy. It also changes how I dress. At home I never wear a shirt twice without washing it. Here, a button-down might get a third trip around the block before it sees my bathtub.