Well, December was a write-off: Christmas in Slovakia and my return to routine

December, much to my delight, was jam packed with companionship; the entire month turned into a festive adventure, made even more foggy and fun by regular hot wine (and other amazing drinks) stops along the way.

After my friend Lisa left in early December, two other friends from Vancouver arrived as part of their three B holiday: Berlin, Budapest, and Brussels. And again I had the great pleasure of seeing more touristy things I had yet to do in Budapest, including a very frigid wintery visit to Momento Park which houses a ton of old communist era statues that were transferred here after the cold war:

The glorious proletariat!

The Hungarian worker thanking the Russian soldier for 'liberating' them...yes I'm sure that's how it happened.

The old commie Trabant

Here I discovered Stalin (and all world war II Russian soldiers) and I are boot twins:

What's left of a giant statue of Stalin that was sledgehammered apart during the days of the short-lived yet violent Hungarian revolution... 

My boots...Roots boots...actually called Russian vamp boots- they actually, when on my person, look exactly like the boots on the statues of Russians.

I also finally had the opportunity to do a tour of the grand Budapest Opera House which, while smaller than the Grand Palais in Paris, does indeed hold its own when it comes to elegant details and, allegedly, acoustics:

Fresco in the opera house by Károly Lotz

And finally, I dragged my friends out to an open mic I had been wanting to check out since my arrival here which led to yet other "fun adventures" with some new friends.

Rockin' ooouuuutttt at one of the many open mics in Budapest.

Between touristing days with my Vancouver friends, I also went for a pre-Christmas brunch at my soon-to-be landlady’s house with the family…I’m very proud of this as it was my first true Hungarian invitation to a Hungarian home that I received on my own, without the help of another expat :-D

The final leg of an all day brunch at my landlady and landlord's place-- sütémény (cake) and port...the first of what would be a whole holiday with non-stop sütémény... If I learned anything Hungarian this holiday it was the cult of the holiday sütémény.  

Just two days after my Vancouver friends left, I was whisked off to a small town in Slovakia:

The frosty hills of Hungary travelling Northeast to Slovakia.

...to spend the holiday with my Brasilian friend Dani (whom I met in my Hungarian class) and her husband (Tomi, a Hungarian-speaking Slovakian) and his family, none of whom speak a lick of English (which is fine of course, we’re not in an English country so I never expect it). The three of us were the only ones that speak English. But somehow communication is always relatively successful in these situations AND it was a great Hungarian language learning opportunity... And oh how the mega tons of sütémény (baked sweets) were offered and consumed, along with much meat and other animal products, deliciously prepared... the hazi palinka (homemade palinka, Hungary's traditional fruit brandy) came out often along with, because we were only 3 kms from the Tokaj region of Hungary, goblets of Tokaji white wine.

The view from my lovely host family's balcony in Sena

The town of Sena, Slovakia has 2000 inhabitants, of which between 8 and 12 members of Tomi’s family lives on the same street, making for an easy exchange of the dozen different varieties of sütémény baked by each of the households of the family; each woman of the family bakes three or four different varieties in mass quantities and then the exchange of baking occurs over some drinks on the days leading up to Christmas.

Sena, Slovakia-- approximately 18 km south of Kosice (Kassa, in Hungarian)

Sena street scene

Dani and I, in a futile attempt to work off the the sütémény, headed out for a stroll to explore the town—we came across the town cemetery. Now, in the winter in central Europe, when the sunshine is hidden behind thick ice clouds, the world can look a little like a black and white. But here, in the cemetery, is where Slovakia hides all its colour in the form of an almost comical amount of fake (and maybe some real) flowers lying across every granite coffin:

Sena Christian cemetery

Lanterns at every sarcophagus

In contrast to the slightly less conspicuous neighbouring Jewish cemetery:

Dani relayed to me that making the tombstones like "a circus"(her words, not mine) is super important for the reputation of the family; if the tomb looks like it isn’t being looked after (ie. lanterns out and lit and a constant stock of flowers) people begin to 'talk'. The perception of how good a family is is reflected in how they look after the deathbeds of their dearly departed family members.

That evening we were to go on an excursion to fetch Tomi’s hazi palinka from an old family cabin across the border in Hungary. Here, he stows his precious homemade palinka (so far the best I've tried here in Hungary) from which he replenishes his palinka stock in Budapest. But first, Tomi also has a connection with a local Tokaji wine maker, Laci, who owns 12 hectares of vineyard (from what I understand) and has been making Tokaji wine for 40 some years (again from what I understand..could’ve been 25 years but it has eluded me now—regardless—long time). Tomi and his cousin loaded the van up with large plastic jugs that were to be filled by Laci the winemaker directly at the location where the wine is fermented, a small warehouse nestled in behind an old synagogue. The plan was that we would stop at Laci's and pick up our jugs of wine before grabbing the hazi palinka from the family cabin. After this, we planned a quiet night of pizza and beer. But nope. If traveling teaches you anything it is that sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

We (Me, Dani, Tomi, Tomi’s cousin Juszi and his wife Petra) walked into the wine fermentation warehouse and were greeted by Laci and three other older Hungarian men sitting around an electric fireplace, soaking up its heat and drinking bottles of Tokaji wine.

We were of course immediately offered wine from the fermenting barrels and yes we sat and had our first drink while I tried to talk with these old Magyar men (with much success, surprisingly!)… and then they brought out the good stuff and continued to fill our glasses to the brim. In this place, I received the best service I've yet received in Hungary where, if my glass was half empty, they would refill it back up to the brim. These non-stop glasses of wine were even more exciting given it was Tokaji Aszu wine, allegedly the wine of kings.

Tokaji Aszu, sweet wine-  'the best wine in the world'- local man, Bela, owner of 12 horses who went to the market that day at 9 am and had yet to go home.

Zsigmond Moricz, one of Hungary's literary masters, wrote about this specific Hungarian wine in the early 20th century:

"Our family owns a bit of a vineyard...and there a wine is produced of which no one in the world has so much as the slightest conception...those wines can't be bought or sold. To tell the truth they don't cover the cost of cultivating the land, because it produces such a luxury item that for ordinary mortals it's so dear that there are no takers. Only emperors and kings can drink it... for example, there's that little 64 litre barrel. If it were to be weighed in pure gold even that wouldn't pay for it..." - From Very Merry, Zsigmond Moricz, 1928

Googling it, it looks like it goes for around 80 CAD a bottle. So yeah, not something I'd usually buy to make a potato and leek soup with.

One of the men then invited us all to the restaurant he owned down the street and fed us more Tokaji aszu wine and some homemade pizza pocket type things and more hazi palinka.

And finally, the grand finale of the evening, we were taken to Laci’s wine cellar, where he stores all of his barrels of wine as they age. This was perhaps the most special event I have ever experienced as a foreigner in a place. It was simply a 400 year old wine cave, down the road from the restaurant in this little Hungarian Tokaji village, nestled between family homes and apartment buildings:

The entrance to Laci's wine cellar

We entered in and made our way carefully down the stairs into the cellar, or cave really.

The stairway to heaven

Rows of barrels containing the delicately ageing wine lined the walls of the cellar.

The walls draped with a three inch thick spongy-fluffy black fungus that hung like thick curtains.

This, I was told, was the canary in the coal mine for Laci; that this fungus, and it’s health, was how Laci determined the health of the aging process in the barrels. A beautiful, elegant, miraculous feat of nature and display of ecosystem magic.

And of course here we were given more wonderfully sweet Tokaji wine to drink—no tourists, just us and Laci’s crew, and the Tokaji eukaryotic fungal universe. Magical.

We had set out pretty early on this excursion so we, after all these hours and drinks, were able to be home by about 8:30 or 9 pm…I loves me some early drinking.

We spent a quiet Christmas eve and Christmas day decorating the tree, eating Tomi’s mother’s delicious cooking and sütémény—oh god the sütémény!-- and watching made-for-tv-movies of old Czech and Slovakian fairy tales.

Trouble with the tree stand--a universal phenomenon in the x-mas celebrating world

A quiet Christmas eve dinner with the family--including Tomi's 89 year old grandmother who had just spent two days baking the shit out of sütémény, much to the chagrin of the family.

And my last night in town was spent going to the town ‘buli’… or the town party. Held in a local town hall kind of building, everyone pays a couple euros, gets a table for themselves and their friends and family, brings their own booze and food and dances the night away to a live band.

The gang-a-lang

Petra and Juszi, Tomi's cousin and wife

Not sure but these may have been the best sandwiches ever that Tomi's mother made for us to take--and it appeared that open-face sandwiches are all the rage for these types of events.

My friends, Tomi and Dani

Dancing the night away in Sena

After a late night of many fröccs, palinka, and shots of a Slovakian liquor called Borovicka...

Central Europe, they love their shots.

....I woke up the next day and prepared to head back to Budapest on the evening train, only about a 3 hour ride (train rides are never long enough, truly..well India can be a bit… “much”, I guess). There is something surreal about travelling in the dark, sitting in your own train cabin, chugging along through central Europe, something romantic, something old and sad and serious, like a Russian novel. One feels transported back in time. Eventually a well-dressed Hungarian business man joined me in the cabin and proceeded to help me with my luggage upon arrival in Budapest…yes, definitely transported back in time.

Arriving back in Budapest, I was happy to be alone again, after all the wonderful company that December provided. I am still an introvert afterall. Not to mention I am a highly routinized human being (which December did not provide space for). I cringe at the sound of the word 'routinized' but without my routines, my discipline disintegrates and all chances of dragging my ass off the couch, away from Netflix or other reruns of my favourite shows, falls away. I have too much love for doing nothing and everything so routine and discipline are absolutely necessary for me. I’m talking robotic, focused routine. If I think too much about my task-list for the day I will just plop down and watch another episode of Game of Thrones…and then another…and then another (a show I’ve watched a million times). I transform into a couch potato mostly to avoid uncomfortable feelings of uncertainty about life which are evoked, often times, by thinking about my research stuff.

Basically things got, admittedly, out of hand in December (and arguable November) when it comes to my major priorities: health and dissertation. Now, as I move into my permanent apartment this week, it is time to finally settle into this frigid Budapest winter and get down to the business of destroying my dissertation.