Things are going well. Hungarian life has become normal life. I still don't know many words but I've gotten used to it and I've figured out some important things like which kind of yogurt I prefer (it says Kefir, but it's not Kefir, it's regular plain ol' yogurt so you can eat it with a curry or you can eat with muesli, which is what Hungarians eat because they don't have granola) and NOT to buy generic ketchup (because it tastes like duck sauce). I spend too much time doing errands - walking, and carrying. Sometimes I wish I could just get in the Subaru and run to the Acme.
I've also fallen in love with two separate cheese products:
Túró Rudi - it's cheese covered in dark chocolate. Apparently it is "typical Hungarian" and I really love them. When I first got here, my Hungarian classmate Eva had us try them. She said most people who aren't Hungarian don't like them. And she was right, I don't like them. I LOVE them and I keep them in my fridge at all times.
Túrós táska - it literally means "cottage cheese backpack." My friend Anton calls them "cheese buns" and I like that too. I couldn't find a good English language description online but basically it's a pastry filled with cheese and a lot of times there's a raisin inside. I imagine the raisin is for good luck but I have to imagine explanations for lots of things these days. Maybe they put a raisin in there in hopes that I'll choke on it. OOH. And there's powdered sugar on top! They're best when they're hot and I usually buy myself one as a present when I've been doing errands for hours and I'm tired and think I deserve a treat.
I think it goes without saying at this point, but my appetite has come back! However, when it comes to cooking I'm a bit uninspired. I don't know where my creativity went but I mostly just cook curries. This is fine with me, but I know I used to make a lot of other things - what were they?
Enough about food.
Last night I went to the Opera House for the first time. It was nice. 11 of us went and tickets were only 400 forints (that's about $2.5). Granted, they were so cheap because we were in the second balcony and way to the the right and you couldn't really see that well but it was totally worth it. We saw a ballet called "The Karamozov's" based on The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I read all of this book (except the trial) earlier this year and was actually inspired to FINISH it by the existence of my ballet ticket. I was curious to see how anyone could make a ballet from a 1000 page book as dense and philosophical as this one and was actually surprised at how well they pulled it off.
In short - the book was reduced to the lover's quarrels between Dmitri and Fyodor over Grushenka and Dmitri and Ivan over Katya. Alyosha was there too- trying to be reasonable. Smerdyakov was nowhere to be found, nor was the envelope. Ivan was tormented by demons that acted a lot like zombies. The "Grand Inquisitor" scene was also included, and a narrator said some things but I couldn't understand since I don't speak Hungarian. My friend JM, who does speak Hungarian, told me two very funny things as this was happening:
"I can't really understand, they're speaking in Shakespearean Hungarian"
and
"They keep saying 'free, free, free'"
Also, the music was totally ripped off from people like Mussorgsky and Wagner. The ending was all done to the last movement "Dreams of a Witch's Sabbath" of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. I love that movement with the Dies Irae, and of course, the kick-ass bassoon part. I wasn't even watching the dancing at this point. All in all - good times.
Today, I walked to a part of town I've never been, which is something I try to do, especially on the weekends. Also, I'm trying to get outside as much as possible before the weather gets any colder. I went to the Kerepesi Cemetery and walked around there for a couple of hours alone. It was beautiful and old and so, so quiet. All I could hear was the sound of my feet crunching on leaves and the sound of birds. I could hear birds! I even saw a squirrel and it was reddish and had funny ear-tufts. Silly Hungarian squirrels. The weather was overcast and chilly. It was the perfect day to explore a cemetery.
I had a really nice time - it was so peaceful. I did my best to be reverent. Many stones were grown over with ivy and the dates has faded from the stone. However, many other stones, equally as old, were well-cared for and had flowers laid on them. I thought of when my mother and I went to all these old family cemeteries around Columbus to see where some relatives are buried. I thought about how nice it would be to have people visit your grave a hundred years after you died and I thought about how I wouldn't mind if mine grew over with ivy either. I thought about how cool the big sculptures of the graves were and I wanted one (a naked lady please) for a minute but then I decided that I'd rather just be cremated or buried in one of those natural burial sites where you're allowed to decompose (there it is, in writing - just in case).
I guess I spent a fair amount of time being morbid but that's bound to happen when you spend your Saturday afternoon alone in a giant Hungarian cemetery.
Now my feet are tired and my eyes won't quite focus so I'll go home now and read and eat and be just as boring as I was in Ohio and just a little bit more lonely.
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