Easter Adventures

Happy Easter Monday! Today is a holiday that the Hungarians take very seriously. The city shuts down its consumer venues while local men spritz women with perfume and/or water, and the women in return give men Palinka or painted eggs (as I explained in my previous blog). My friend Mate was very sweet and gentlemanly, and he recited a poem for me and sprinkled me with perfume. Mike, on the other hand, went the hooligan route and doused me with a cup of water instead – but I should expect this mischievous behavior from him by now. I am not entirely sure what Easter Monday commemorates since Easter Sunday is enough for American Christians, but I am not complaining about an extra holiday. Fortunately, since we live in an intersection of the Jewish District and the tourist district of Hungary, there are still some stores and shops open, including the Jewish coffee shop where I am currently writing this blog.

Although I missed my family, I did have a lovely holiday. On Good Friday, I visited my neighborhood church, called the Teréz Church, which chimes bells each hour. It was about time I went inside to pray, and even though I can’t understand the Hungarian mass, I find the ritualistic nature of many religions, especially Catholicism, comforting because regardless of what language the service is in, I can still connect to it. On Saturday, I tapped into my domestic side, and I baked homemade cookies and two quiches for the Easter brunch we were hosting. Normally I could make these dishes fairly easily with the help of American grocery stores, but since Hungarian shops don’t sell already made pie crusts or cookie dough, I made it all from scratch using our diminutive oven. The labor intensive meals were worth it though, as we had a lovely brunch and Michael got to eat meat again, which he gives up each year for Lent. Six of our friends – including two Americans, our Cypriote roommate, a Swede and a Hungarian – all came to our apartment and we feasted on scores of deviled eggs – the traditional American kind and the Swedish kind which has salmon or anchovies in it - Greek salad, lasagna, langos (a Hungarian bread) and my quiche. I was amused that the blend of cultures at our dinner table was reflected perfectly by what was served on our table. After eating, we spent the afternoon playing Frisbee on Margaret Island and soaking up the divine sunshine.

Here are some of our delectable dishes:

Starting from the back left corner, this is Tom from New Jersey, me, Aubrey from Boston, Ioannis from Cyprus, and Balasz from Budapest.


In another entertaining gathering this weekend, our friend Zsofia invited us over to her flat to meet her family and some of her friends. Zsofia is Hungarian, but her father’s job is to promote tourism to Hungary in Nordic countries, so he and his wife live in Sweden and that is where Zsofia grew up and where her friends were from (this also meant that at the gathering we were the only people who didn’t speak Hungarian, Swedish and English). I was incredibly happy to learn that our friend’s father is working to make Hungary more tourist friendly by fighting the Hungarian transportation controllers and the thermal bath employees. Encounters with these two groups of workers - who never became more efficient or friendlier after Communism – are some of the most stressful, unpleasant situations visitors can face. I hope they are slowly weeded out.

This weekend Michael and I had high hopes of renting bicycles to use for the summer, but the shop didn’t have them ready. We should get some this week, just in time for Critical Mass next Sunday, which is an enormous bike ride where people come together to promote alternative modes of transportation and celebrate Earth Day. Last year Michael rode in the sea of bicycles along with 80,000 other people! For the rest of the week, I’ll be writing away, apartment hunting and fighting the ants that have taken over our apartment. I have gotten bit no less than 20 times this week, so I have a vendetta against the “little animals” as our French roommate used to call them.