It's been a relatively quiet couple of weeks for us, partially because we are extremely lazy and partially because we are trying to conserve our financial resources, so forgive me if this post might be a little thin on content. What I lack in words I will make up for by swamping your bandwidth with pictures, so enjoy.
A couple of weeks ago, B and I were walking through the city when I noticed huge piles of furniture, and dare I say it, plain old rubbish, were lining the streets. Budapest is a fairly clean city normally so naturally it took me by surprise. I questioned why this was happening, and B told me about lomtalanítás, which literally translates as 'clear-out'. Apparently, once a year in Hungary, on a specific date, you are allowed to dump anything you don't want or need on the street. Opportunistic Hungarians will get up very early in the morning to find the best 'piles', and then in turn try to sell the stuff on to passing foot traffic. Honestly, most of the stuff is trash as you would expect, but as luck would have it, as we walked by one of these opportunists, B spotted a rather old, but cool, wooden rocking chair. We had discussed before about buying an armchair for the living room, but our budget is low and we have become quite thrifty since neither of us is working at the moment. This seemed like a good chance, but standing between us and our new rocking chair however was a worldly old gypsy. Clearly this guy got up the earliest this year. B asked how much he wanted and he came back with a whopping 5000 forints. 5000 might not sound like a lot for a chair, but this thing was battered, and looked to me like it was allergic to furniture polish. Me and B put our heads together, and discussed tactics. As we were a good half an hour walk from home, I was reluctant to carry the thing back, and certainly to part with 5000 forints, but B isn't the type to pay over the odds for something like that, so she began to haggle on the street.
'We'll give you 1000 for it' B said.
'I'll take 4000' the (ahem) vendor returned. We looked at each other and I gave B an encouraging nod to go on.
'1500 is our final offer' she said.
'Give it a coat of paint and it's worth 50000 forints' the guy chanced.
'Well, it's your lucky day then isn't it?' B shouted back as we walked away, hoping he would break under our superb (if I do say so myself) negotiation technique.
Alas, it wasn't to be, the street seller held his nerve, and we walked away the losers of my first experience of lomtalanítás.
After our titanic defeat at the hands of the wiley old gypsy, B began to search the internet for a bargain armchair (or fotél). Being the persistent creature she is, she soon sniffed one out (two actually) and we are now the proud owners of two of these:
Now we do understand they are not the most attractive chairs in the world, but it's now B's project to paint the weary arms and find a new covering for the rather dated fabric. Well, I didn't want to feel left out and not have a project of my own, so I decided it was my task to do something with our old toybox we bought here from England:
Unfortunately when this got transported here, I had to tape it closed, as well as labelling it, and when I removed these it left some rather unpleasant marks on the wood, as you can see. So my idea was to sand the thing down, and stain it with a dark woodstain to match the rest of our walnut furniture in the flat. Here is a piccie of phase two, after the sanding process:
And finally, after the first coat of woodstain:
It's going to need a second coat, and at some point I'll get round to that, but for now we will live with it. Not too shabby, for a self confessed DIY dyslexic.
Yesterday, we went out for an Autumnal hike with our good friends Br and Cs. We agreed with them that we would catch the 8.57 train from Budapest to Szob, a tiny town approximately 1 hour away from the capital. We were getting ourselves ready in the morning, having a little breakfast before we had to leave, when I noticed a rather strange and unpleasant smell emanating around us. Usually, when there is a bad smell in the flat, we blame the cats. Sometimes it is their fault, and sometimes it isn't, but they can't defend themselves so it's an easy option. This time, the blame lied entirely with them though. As I searched around for the source of the unpleasantness, I noticed it getting stronger as I headed towards B's much treasured handbag, acquired in Vietnam.
'I think Cosmo crapped in your handbag' I said to B, trying my hardest not to do a Frank Spencer impression. It was then we realised we had accidentally shut the bathroom door overnight, blocking the cat's access to their litter tray. Oh dear, we won't be making that mistake again. As we were in a hurry to catch our train, I quickly picked up the bag at arm's length and slung it out on to our kitchen balcony. Always nice to have something to look forward to when you get home.
We made our train fortunately, and headed off to Szob. There wasn't much to the town when we arrived, but we stopped off at the local convenience store for some supplies (wine) and headed off into the wilderness. Our first point of interest was this small church and graveyard we passed through to get to the hiking trail.
Having spent over 2 months in a big city like Budapest, I have to say it was delightful to be out in the countryside. One thing I have missed so much about England is the beautiful countryside around Beachy Head where we used to live. Maybe I didn't appreciate it as much when I lived in Eastbourne, it is hard to when it is right in your back yard, but I miss the windy walks over the rolling green hills and white cliffs.
Of course, as with my earlier escapades with eating bone marrow, it was quite delicious, and I highly recommend it to anyone who gets the chance. I'll even give you the recipe:
Bread
Lard
Onion
Paprika
Salt
Sounds good, no?
After we polished off our banquet, we headed off once more. The reason we decided to go on this hike was so B and Br could forage the countryside for mushrooms (not magic ones, don't worry mum) but sadly this little fella was the only one we came across:
The afternoon session was filled with some beautiful scenery, and some interesting old relics of an abandoned old farmhouse and cowshed. There was no way of telling when this place was last lived in, but judging from the dilapidation and overgrown grass and plants around it, it would have been many, many years ago.
We took a walk around the buildings, and inside too, and we only left once we spotted a nest of rather large hornets in the chimney of the farmhouse. You might just be able to make them out on this picture, just above the square hole:
On the last leg of the journey, I heard some strange grunting noises coming from one of the fields. On further investigation, we found (and made friends with) these awesome piggies:
This is a common type of pig here called a Mangalica, a very cute yet very delicious variety I have met before. We fed these guys some apples which were growing tantalisingly out of reach for them, but not for us. They seemed to appreciate the gesture.
It was time for us to head home, so we started to make our way back as the sun began to set on us.
We did deviate somewhat from our desired route, and with some help from a lovely local lady we managed to get back onto a known pathway, but not before she tried to indict us into what I can only describe as some sort of cult. She told us that a change was coming in Hungary, the government was going and a new Kingdom would come, and if we should accept the change we could all be very rich indeed...well, we decided to sleep on that one.
We estimate we walked approximately 20km before we got back to the train station in Zebegény. Legs aching, we were all quite happy to sit down for the hour's train ride home. On the way back, we even saw Gőd. Not God of course, but Gőd, a tiny village B assures me I'll probably never need to visit.
We had a fantastic day, it was wonderful to see some Hungarian scenery and breathe some hearty lungfuls of fresh country air. We would like to thank Br & Cs once again for suggesting the walk and we look forward to our next adventure together!
Finally, after all that exercise yesterday, we had to get up early again this morning as we were having some friends over for brunch. B of course went into usual hostess mode and whipped up an outstanding table full of delicious treats, including a winter vegetable frittata, a squash and orange bundt cake, kakaos csiga, and an aubergine cream, and I chipped in with some blueberry pancakes. All this washed down with a budget version Mimosa cocktail.
We rounded it all off with a couple of games of Scotland Yard, it's been another enjoyable day.
Ok, I have to finish this off now, as we head off to the cinema tonight. It was a bit more wordy than I anticipated, so apologies if I bored you all half to death. As always, it's great to hear any comments or even just a hello from distant friends, so please feel free to leave comments below. Until next time, sziasztok!
