Today was another day we could sleep in since we had the morning free. We got up around 7am and went to breakfast at about 8am. We had a nice leisurely breakfast and then went off to see the sights of Eger.
Our first stop was the folk art shop we had seen the night before and I found ,with the help of CL a pretty embroidered peasant blouse. Typically I probably wouldn’t have bought it but it was made in Eger and it’s a clean shirt I can wear at some point on the trip! We hadn’t been to an ATM yet, so we asked the shop lady to hold the blouse and went to the ATM, got some cash, and went back to get the blouse and some post cards.
We then walked through Dobo Square, the main town square, and to the castle. We took some fun pictures up around the castle grounds and then went back to town. We walked through the market checking out the flowers and produce and I bought some of the pasta we had the other night with the sour cream and cottage cheese. For a good sized bag it was just about $1.00!
After the market we went back to the hotel to meet the group for our afternoon adventure.
We went to a local elementary school in Recsk, Hungary to meet the students and a teacher who is friends with Etelka, our assistant guide.
We had lunch in the school canteen (aka cafeteria) and it was pretty good. We ate goulash soup, bread, fried pork cutlet, fried chicken stuffed with plums and ham, and rice pudding for dessert. At each place setting there was a postcard written in English by one of the students. They are ages 9-11.
After lunch we went to the language lab classroom and got to meet our student and talk to them a bit. I had a little boy named Csaba who was 11 years old. I brought some postcards from home to give to him so he could see where I lived and that went over really well! He couldn’t speak much English, but he really tried. It was lots of fun to meet the students and I think they enjoyed it as much as we did.
The picture to the right is me with Csaba my Hungarian student buddy!
When we were finished at the school we stopped briefly at a Gulag (work camp) for about 30 minutes. It still amazes me these types of places were in use just 60 years ago.
Then it was onto the wine tasting which was a lot of fun. There were 3 white wines and 3 red wines for us to taste. And it was not the tiny one sip type of wine tasting, the wine was really flowing and the glasses were being filled with healthy doses of wine!
The winery had great views of the Hungarian countryside and we all sat in the glassed in tasting area…a very pleasant atmosphere…especially with the Hungarian fiddle player creating more ambience with music!
Etelka, dressed in traditional Hungarian clothes and taught us traditional Hungarian songs and dances and we had a blast! But the most entertaining part of the wine tasting was the comical marriage proposal "event" performed by me and Ben.
The story goes something like this… the day before on the bus while doing buddy introductions, my buddy Joy mentioned several interesting facts about me. At least 2 had to be true and one had to be false and the rest of the bus was to try and figure out which was the lie, we had all done this as a way to break the ice, get to know each other and pass some time on a long bus ride. One of the things Joy mentioned about me was that I am an Irish Citizen and have an Irish Passport.
At the end of Joy’s dialogue Ben piped in by saying something to the effect of “What you all don’t know is that Marcy and I will be getting married so I can get EU status”…Ha Ha Ha, we all laughed at this and I thought nothing of it. However, several of the ladies took up the cause and proclaimed the wine tasting would be the engagement party. So, all in very good fun, Ben dramatically got up at the wine tasting and announced, “This is a very special day in 2 peoples lives”…then he twirled me in a circle, started singing some song, got down on one knee and really hammed it up by “faux proposing”…it was lots of great fun, and a good photo opportunity and it probably didn’t hurt that everyone had at least 5 huge glasses of wine by this time!
After we were all pleasantly full of wine, we headed back to the hotel and were “let loose” on the town. After such a big lunch, CL and I decided to set out to find a café on the main pedestrian street for a variety of sweet desserts. We met up with 2 other tour-mates and enjoyed several delicious desserts together. We had 2 different chocolate cakes that are specialties of the town and I had a cappuccino. It was a nice way to end a fun day.
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