Kalocsa, Hungarian Family, Prague

Hello again! Summer is here and I have officially started melting. It is a humbling experience to realize that here, we are subject to the climate. By this I mean we cannot run from the air conditioned house, jump in the air conditioned car, run into the air conditioned store, before sitting down at our air conditioned desks at work. No. Here, you wake up in the morning sweating, take a shower (while sweating through the whole thing), get outside and immediately stink all over again. Being subservient to the weather is just not an American view. Here, it is completely common to hear, "Oh, I don't like air conditioning. It makes me sick, it's just too cold." What!? The colder the better! Bring on the icicles... I would live in an igloo if it would last more than an hour! But this is the American nature. If it doesn't suit us, we should change it so that we are more comfortable. This is not a rant just for the sake of complaining, but rather just an observation.

Anyway, we have been busy the last few weeks trying to fit in everything we haven't gotten around to doing yet. Two weekends ago, Olivia and I joined our friends Rita and Kevin at Rita's family's house in the small town called Kalocsa (pronounced call'-oh-cha). We started our trip on the Hungarian bus company, Volan bus. This is an interesting story in itself, because that bus company, while offering low fares, doesn't exactly offer American customer service. We arrived early to make sure we could secure seats, even though we booked our tickets ahead of time online. When the bus finally arrived, a mob of people flooded toward the front door of the bus to try and push their way on, while we, still being stubborn to the idea of pushing ahead, politely waited in line. (Bear in mind, no line actually formed except for us - we have been told that this custom of mobbing and pushing to get ahead probably stems from the Communist period, when if you didn't "assert" yourself, you went without.) Finally we did get on, and did manage to get seats, which it turns out, was not the case for everyone. After all of the seats on the bus were filled, people kept filing on, and crowding the aisle. They would have to stand for the 3-hour bus ride. (Also bear in mind that there was no air conditioning on this bus, and only two overhead emergency exits that were partially open to allow some air in.)

Finally, we arrived in Kalocsa, and were greeted by our friends, who drove us back to Rita's family's house. When we arrived, we were introduced to her family, which included her brother, father, mother, and grandmother. The family was immediately welcoming, and it was such a treat! Most of her family speaks English pretty well, so we were able to communicate (sometimes with the help of Rita translating), although her grandmother speaks only Hungarian, so we communicated just with the basic human language - hand signals. That was a hoot! We took a tour of the house, and then returned to the dining room to have lunch, which began with a stiff drink - moonshine palinka, the traditional Hungarian liquor, made by Rita's brother.

Lunch was amazing: it began with pea soup, followed by cucumber salad, baked chicken (which came in the form of a whole chicken as a gift to Rita's mom from one of her patients), french fries, and finally followed by a delicious apricot pie. After lunch, we said good-bye to the family, and went with our friends to tour the downtown of Kalocsa (pop. 18,000). We toured an old church whose main attraction is the skeletal remains of priest Pious (imagine a 5-foot-tall skeleton dressed in ornate clothing with shriveling up feet... yes, it was frightening). Then we saw the town high school, located in a building flanked on either side by a juvenile detention center, and a female prison. Apparently the joke in highschool was to compare the smells of the lunch in the detention center and the high school to see who was being better fed. After that, we walked along the main street - a few hundred meters long. It was a Saturday so all of the shops except for restaurants were closed. (It doesn't seem that the small towns have quite gotten a hold of the idea of capitalism yet...) There are laws in most of the small towns that ban shops from opening on the weekends, so we window peeked, and then headed to the lake.

Kalocsa is a city about 20 minutes from Lake Szelidi. Rita's family also owns an adorable lake house a block away from the lake. So we finally dropping our things in the lake house, and headed out to get some sun. The lake was amazing, the perfect remedy to a hot, sunny weekend! After swimming and sunbathing, we settled back in the house, ordered pizza and played cards. Perfectly relaxing. We hit the beach again the next day, and then bummed a ride back to Budapest with one of Rita's friends, Miki, just in time to head out to watch the world cup final!

Olivia celebrated her 30th birthday last Thursday, so she had planned to spend it with our friends Kevin and Rita at an amazing sugar shop near our apartment. Unbeknownst to her, I secretly planned a surprise birthday celebration and invited her students to join us at a place called Holdudvar - which means Moongarden. It was very stressful to plan, especially because we share one cell phone, and keeping a secret with her students calling the phone was a tall task. But it was a great hit! She was totally surprised, and I could finally breathe again, and not stress that the surprise would be blown.

On Friday, after our classes, we packed a few things and jumped on an overnight bus to Prague, Czech Republic. We arrived early in the morning on Saturday, and headed out to see the city. We managed to see the Charles Bridge before the mob of tourists woke up, and then stumbled into a bagel place for breakfast. Amazingly, they had bottomless filter coffee!!!! What a treat! Then we headed to the Prague castle, and saw the changing of the guard. After that we met up with Justin and Sara, friends from home, and tooled around the city for a few hours, sampling some of the Czech food and drink. We then headed back to the hostel, and made it a relatively early night. We were exhausted from the overnight bus ride and long day of sightseeing.

The next day, we started early, had breakfast (again with coffee!!!!) and headed out to see the sights. Olivia hit the Alfons Mucha museum, while I opted for the communist museum. Quite an interesting history. We met back up after the museums, and stumbled upon a Hare Krishna demonstration in one of the main squares in the city. They were handing out free vegetarian food, so we stopped to try it out. In the same square, Old Town Square, stands an astronomical clock dating back to 1410. It has seen many of the most significant events in Prague's history, such as the "Prague Uprising" which took place in May of 1945, as well as the burnings of 27 town leaders that took place in 1621. After sampling the food, we headed over to watch the clock strike. The clock is flanked by 4 figures representing Vanity, Greed, Death, and the Turk infidel. These were all ideas hated at the time the clock was created. Every hour, when the clock strikes, two doors above the clock open up, and each of the 12 apostles appear. Following this, a man at the top of the clock tower plays the trumpet and waves a flag. All quite interesting, although we had our hopes up for quite an amazing show. It may not be something I would stand around long to see again...

We left Old Town Square, and found a small market where we bought some treats. After that, we had dinner at a typical Czech restaurant, and then stumbled upon a pub called "Propaganda" which displayed all kinds of propaganda from the previous eras. It was quite a unique place, but I couldn't help wondering if the guy who was running the place (decked out in old Communist style hat and jacket) didn't have some nostalgic feelings for that era... Then we headed for another place where, we were told, we could try some of the famous Czech beer. After finding ourselves in the wrong part of the city for that place, we asked a local to recommend a good local pub to try the infamous beer. He directed us to a place near our hostel, but quite far away from the touristy center. Then, after a drink, we headed back to the hostel for some shut-eye.

Yesterday (Monday), we started out after breakfast, and wandered around a few parks with the few hours we had before our bus. The first park was an unsuccessful attempt at seeing a famous fountain. Instead, I almost got run over by a car who was in a big hurry, and we saw a somewhat depressing complex of enormous, beautiful, but now unused buildings. So we abandoned the quest for the fountain, and went in search of the remnants of an ex-statue of Stalin, built in 1955. The statue was given as a gift from Bratislava to Prague, and completed in 1955 after 5 years of construction. It was an enormous statue made of marble, about 100 feet tall, depicting Stalin leading the nameless "worker-heroes". One year after its completion, Kruschev revealed some of the attrocities that Stalin had committed. The statue was torn down in 1962. All that remains is the platform on which the statue stood, still quite an amazing sight. Now, envision two girls, luggage in tow, running all around a park looking for said platform. We walked for about 2 hours between the two parks, to see a fountain that no longer runs, and a big concrete block. Somehow, it was still quite an interesting sight.

After that, we headed to the bus station to catch our ride back to good old Bp. We got home at about 11, and hit the sack! We were exhausted.

So that it just about it, I will try and keep you all informed about the next few weeks. We might try to take it easy before Spain (?).
Hope all is well at home, hope to hear from everyone!