Wine from a Siphon? Enya? We must be in Northern Hungary.

Another of my culinary escapades; the girls and I had a dinner party last week! Ali and I managed to create a pasta dish and salad, Steph made garlic toast using an oven that we all have yet to decipher, and the boys brought wine and some fabulous desserts! I would say it went well; we managed to keep up the façade of being mature adults for about 5 minutes, and it was certainly entertaining. There will be a repeat performance, with some role reversal this week: The guys are cooking, and we are bringing the wine and desert! Vin apparently knows how to cook, so it should be quite tasty, although you never really know with this group.
This weekend we went on our third excursion, this time to Northern Hungary. I really appreciate that the program takes us on these trips. Although I enjoyed Western Hungary more, we still saw some very interesting sights, and I know I experienced things that I would never have done myself. This time we had to meet at Hero Square at 6:45, but luckily, this time I had the foresight to bring a pillow. Annoyingly, we had a completely incompetent bus driver and drove for probably 45mins more than necessary. Even Elizabeth, our very patient director, was showing signs of possible violence. But, we finally reach our destination, Aggtelek National Park, a system of astoundingly beautiful caves that run for about 20 kilometers. We got a guided tour through the cave and previewed a choreographed light show to Enya in one of the larger caverns, it was priceless. Also it’s a constant 10°, so we were pretty darn chilly after our hour underground.
We then went to see the Lipizzaner horses, which have a long history in Hungary. They were absolutely beautiful, however after about 5 minutes I had to get out of the stable before I my asthma really kicked in and I couldn’t walk back to the bus. I did manage to pick out my favorite though, Pluto XXXII.
After the quick Lipizzaner stop, we finally made out way to the final destination, Eger. Home to Hungary’s wine region, we unloaded from the bus, and then walked into the Valley of Beautiful women; where all of wine the cellars are found. Our group walked into the first and cutest cellar we found, taking over three tables and immediately having a wonderful time. The old lady running the cellar was incredibly sweet, although I’m sure it made her night when about 20 American kids all walked into her cellar. We tried a variety of wines, and best of all, most of us got a drink out of a wine siphon. This pretty much includes wrapping a cloth around your neck, tilting your head back, and having the wonderful old lady shoot a large gulp of wine directly down your throat. It was great! Then we all had a nice dinner in the restaurant down the road, had another glass of wine, and called it a night. The next day we trekked around Eger, saw the cathedral, camera obscura, and the fortress.
After leaving Eger, we made two stops on the way home. The first was a rather somber visit to the communist death camp, which most people never even knew existed at the time and even now it isn’t well known. Afterwards we had a much cheerier stop at the highest point in Hungary! Very impressive at 1014 meters! (Basically 3000 ft) It was a beautiful view, and a reminder than Hungary is basically a flat country.
We got home—home being Budapest—and a few of us decided that we needed to finish our night the proper Hungarian way, at the first annual Palinka and Sausage festival! Held at the royal palace, we overlooked the lights of Pest, the Danube, chain bridge, parliament, and St Stephens basilica. All sights everyone should see once in their life. Budapest is an impressive city, made all the more beautiful by the lights at night. It was a nice ending to the day, tons of Palinka and Sausage, how could it have been anything but amazing?

Bor “wine” Sör “beer” Viz “water” Uditö “soda”