Sunday May 18th

3:00 p.m.

Woke up not too long ago. This jet lag shit is kicking my ass. Írisz called me around 2:00 but I was still asleep. She is my friend that I’ve known for…quite a while now…8 years? We keep in touch and I consider her a close friend. She is Japanese and Hungarian. She speaks Spanish, Japanese, English and Hungarian. She is the bomb. I just called her back, we are meeting at 4:30 at the tram stop at the foot of the bridge.

I ate lunch/breakfast when I woke up. It was the delicious Hungarian chicken soup. It has thin pasta, soup (that yellow watery substance) and then various parts of the chicken are served on a plate, and the people at the table pick at the parts they want. My mom called the two feet, which I find disgusting. Hearing her slurp and suck on them was not very appetizing but that’s Hungarian table manners for you. After the soup, I had a cottage cheese bar. They probably sound disgusting, but they are too legit to quit. The cottage cheese in Europe is different. The texture is dryer, and it kind of crumbles and it is delicious. The bar is just 5 inches of cottage cheese, with .75 of an inch in diameter, covered with chocolate. You put it in the refrigerator and it is so good cold. Perfect way to finish off any meal.
I read some of Naked last night. It is getting pretty good. I couldn’t fall asleep and I thought that Teri néni’s ghost was walking around our flat. Teri néni is the lady who used to live here before my grandparents bought the place. She was so old and couldn’t take care of herself that she rented the apartment out to my grandparents, but kept to her room in the corner. My grandmother ended up taking care of her until she died. She gave some really nice items to my family, and there is a portrait of her in the “pink room.” Most of the rooms in my grandmother’s flat have a theme. I’ll have to take some pictures and include them in here, but I still need to shower and what not. So, I got up, and realized my mom wasn’t sleeping either. I went over to her bed at 2:00 a.m. and we talked until 4:00 a.m. about how strange our family is. Other families are strange too though so whatever.
This is Teri néni. I’ll take a picture during the day so you can see it without flash.

10:27 p.m.

Just got back from hanging out with Írisz. It was pleasant. She came over first because her brother dropped her off (it was raining). After talking about random experiences in both of our lives, we decided to go get coffee somewhere. We met up with one of her friends; I have no idea what her name is, because usually, when I meet people, upon introduction, I don’t remember their names. In fact, I have no idea what they have just said, its like I don’t hear anything. In one ear, out the other. With her friend, we talked about the politics of Hungary, the increasing prices, being gay, smoking cigarettes and hookah which apparently is called “water piping” here. It took us a while to match terms. I realized today how pathetic my Hungarian is compared to everyone else. Thank god they can speak English. Írisz is learning Spanish, but she is really shy and thinks she is not good. She has been studying it for four years and studied in San Sebastian for a month. I think she qualifies for mediocre at the very least. I felt like shit because they paid for me because I only had a 10,000 HUF denomination, which is like a $50 bill. We got cappuccinos. A box of cigarettes here cost 520 HUF. That’s like $3. My cappuccino was 320 HUF. That is like $2 but the exchange rate is really bad right now because the American economy sucks. It’s like 155 HUF to 1 USD right now, but usually its like 200 or 250 HUF for a USD. HUF means Hungarian Forint and USD means U.S. Dollar if you didn’t catch on with that. Here people tip 10%, but I feel like that is fair considering the prices and what not.

I have been listening to the music I got from Giorgi. It is pretty legit to say the least. I didn’t see my dad at all today, kind of strange considering he is next door. I got a lot of UT gear for him, at least he pretended to like it.

I e-mailed Írisz telling her I would be coming. I asked her what she wanted me to bring. She always asks for gum. I bought her a few packs of Extra and Orbit peppermint flavor. Two packs of trident, the fruitful and tasty kind.
Earlier I totally remembered this one particular tradition that is very Hungarian. It occurs on Easter. It is called sprinkling. Men walk around and spray women with water, perfume or cologne, and get rewarded with Easter eggs. Here is a better explanation of what happens that will hopefully clarify:

“Today women wear casual dresses for sprinkling, not folk costumes. Also, men sprinkle with cologne, not with water. A couple of decades ago men poured water on women in rural areas and women changed their clothes after each sprinkling. Boys often dragged girls to the well and poured water on them with pail. Sometimes they washed them in creek.

The possible reason for this very old tradition is that people believed in the cleaning, healing and fertility effect of water.
Sprinkling Easter is a 2-day holiday in Hungary. On Monday boys and men visit all of their women relatives, friends, neighbors, often even if they are not close friends. Boys in small groups, fathers with their sons, or single men leave early in the morning and their "tour" last all day long. They greet girls and women with shorter - longer poems (mostly with a funny poem about "Eastern sprinkling") and sprinkle them with cologne. Women must be well-prepared, they treat men with dessert and beverages - and with hand-painted eggs. Women usually prepare in the previous days by cleaning up the house thoroughly, decorating, cooking and painting a couple dozen eggs.

There is a competition among young girls - who gets the most "sprinklers" wins. It is a shame if the girl is not ready early morning when the first visitor rings the bell.
The result? Women wear more then a dozen of different colognes by Monday evening, and sometimes the alcoholic beverages are harmful for men also. Many times, sprinkling continues on the next day in the working places and we, women wait the evening desperately to wash our hair. “

We should have things like this in the U.S. although it not a homogenous society/culture.

So, they called my cell today when I was out with Írisz. They being my mom and grandmother. They wanted me home already because it was getting dark. I know they want to protect me and all that good stuff but seriously that’s not why I escape what is Houston, TX. I want to go out at night sometimes. They are supposed to take me to a club called ZP which stands for Zöld Pont, or, Green point. Cover charge is like 200 HUF but the dranks are expensivo.

Today, Írisz and her friend were telling me about these ridiculous Absinthe drinks. I thought they were illegal here. Apparently there are various colors: black, white, green, red…There are traditional ways to serve it too. Here is one:

“Place the spoon on top of the glass and the lump of sugar on top of the spoon. Slowly pour the cold water on the sugar. This will slowly dissolve the sugar into the absinth, continue until the glass is full.”

And another:

“Another way to serve absinth is using a common everyday spoon. Have the glass filled 1/5 as before with absinth. The spoon is also filled with pure absinth and a lump of sugar is added. The sugar will absorb the alcohol. Light up the sugar until it is caramelized. Mix the caramel with the rest of the absinth in the glass. Usually this makes the absinth light up as well. Put out by adding cold water until the glass is full.”

Going to sleep soon. This blog thing has taken me too long with all the pictures.