150 Identifiable Flavours

Gee, I’m not sure that I’m very good at this blog thing.

I’m leaving Hungary in less than a week. That kind of freaks me out. I wish that I had gone to the Hungarian Plain and seen the Hungarian cowboys. Apparently they can ride 9 horses at the same time (well, sort of). I’ve only seen them do 4 here in the city. That’s why you shouldn’t just rely on the city to show you everything you need to see, sometimes you have to actually leave it.

Last week, while I was waiting in a 3 million-mile-long line for train tickets, a homeless woman came by asking for money. The person behind me yelled at her, and the person in front of me turned his back on her. So I decided to give her some money, because she was asking politely, and it looked like she could use it. I thought maybe she’d appreciate it. 20 minutes later when I had finally got my tickets, I met Katie across the room. The same lady came up to me and asked for money. I tried to tell her that I’d already given her some. She called me some bad names in Hungarian and left.

This last weekend we all went to a small town in Northeastern Hungary, near the Ukrainian border. It was wonderful to get out of the city, and to see some hills and greenery! This area of Hungary is famous for its special Tokaji wine. Because of it’s volcanic soil and the micro-climate there, the grapes stay on the vines longer and begin to rot/ferment right there on the vine… but in a good way. To be honest, I don’t understand all the details about wine that I was told that weekend. But the wine’s good, and different tasting. We went into a 500 year old wine cellar and wandered around the maze-like corridors. At the end was a wine-tasting room. We tried 5 special wines. 2 had won international awards. One of them had “150 identifiable flavours” I didn’t taste that many, but maybe with a second try…