Hungary?

Well. I've done something that I didn't think was humanly possible: In less than a week, I've been to...five countries. I started the week in the US, spent about an hour or so in Germany at the oh-so-irritating Munich airport, and roughly an hour (including transit time to the border) in Austria. Then I spent several days in Slovakia, obviously, and last night I added our lovely neighbor to the east to the list: Hungary.

It worked out like this: Petra invited me to dinner with her and a friend, Lucia (pronounced Loo-tsi-a). I happily agreed. When I got into Lucia's car at about 20:00, they informed me that we were going to a restaurant on "The Hungarian Side" (aka, the Hungarian side of the border), which was about twenty minutes away. After Petra and Lucia successfully managed to get nearly lost, and spent a small amount of time being very hectic, and trying to locate the exit on a map, we got to the restaurant. The whole business reminded me very strongly of my Prom night, when, deprived of my normal GPS, also known as my best friend, Catriona, I managed to miss the exit, and then the road, to my destination multiple times. Directions, I might add, are not my strong suit. At any rate, we arrived at the restaurant, took our seats, and began perusing the menu, which was in Hungarian, German, Slovak, and English. Eventually, we settled on what we were getting (we went for multiple courses. Petra got an appetizer and a meal, I got a meal and a desert, and Lucia got all three.) and ordered. I was under strict orders to try everything, because I needed to be introduced to Hungarian food. So, first came the appetizers, Petra's goose fat and liver, which was to be spread on toast, and Lucia's tartare. Tartare is this spread, which is essentially a raw egg and raw beef mixed with chopped onions, mustard, and spices, to your taste. Lucia's blend was a little spicey for my taste, but still. I am now a devoted fan of tartare. Now, goose liver I know, from my experiences with foie gras in France and Belgium, and my verdict remains the same: It tastes SO much better on bread than stuffed in a pheasant.
The main course involved halušky with eggs for Petra and I, and Hungarian ribbs for Lucia. Petra and I ate as much of our halušky as we could stand, which, may I add, was amazing. I really need to get a recipe for halušky before I leave. Not the point. Anyways, Petra and I made it maybe half way through our halušky, and had a nibble of the salads presented with it, in my case, purely because the salad dressing was Hungarian, and therefore, I had to try it. Meanwhile, Lucia, who is skinny as a rail, managed to eat all her ribs, and the vast majority of Petra's salad. Petra and I marveled at this. When desert came (we ordered it with everything else, or BELIEVE me, I wouldn't have) I was presented with cottage cheese pancakes, and Lucia got something of which, for the life of me, I can't remember the name. Now, so you aren't totally disgusted by my desert choices, in Slovakia and Hungary, they have a sweet cottage cheese, which is used in deserts and such. At any rate, my pancakes were more like cottage cheese crepes with strawberry sauce. I wasn't thrilled with them. The cottage cheese was pretty much tasteless. Petra and Lucia tried some as well, and both agreed that it didn't have enough sugar. The restaurant didn't seem to be doing well on deserts that night; Lucia and I weren't really fond of her.... whatever it was either.
So. After desert, we flagged down our waitress as she was passing, and got our check. After some careful configuring of how much everyone was paying, we paid up, and headed home. I was dropped off at the Veselý house at about 22:00, which drew my day to its close.

This morning, I woke up to the ever-so-very-wonderful roar of thunder. Yep, that's right; it was raining at an ungodly hour of the morning. Happily, most of the rain had stopped by the time I actually woke up and got out of bed at around 10:30, but the shower had broken off our lovely warm streak, and sent us plummeting to 20 degrees Celsius, roughly 68 degrees Fahrenheit. It seems I'll be needing warmer clothes sooner than I thought. At any rate, Miša and I spent the day watching the television, safely inside, away from the coldness, with the exception of our excursion to Horský park to walk Mattes. It's a very nice park, almost like a nature trail, and the hawking demonstration that we stumbled across near the playground was interesting, but it was decidedly chilly. And rainy. Not to mention wet. I think we were all relieved to get back to the nice, warm house. And that's pretty much all we did today. Not pleasant outside, but Miša and I enjoyed it.

And that's all there is. There isn't anymore.