Transdanubia Trip Day 2

Sign at the park.

The second day started with us piling into the bus and heading off to a park to go hiking. We walked around for a long time observing the day go from foggy and cool to sunny and warm. In typical Ben fashion he climbed to the highest points and waved down at the rest of us bellow. Many of the teachers got a kick out of seeing Ben climb so high. At one point in our journey we crossed a river--some people used a fallen tree to cross the river and some used the bridge to cross. 

Can you spot Ben?

After the hiking half way one of the teachers decided that we should all do some yoga. So there we all were in the middle of the forest doing yoga. It was fun trying to keep up with it--considering everything was said in Hungarian.

After hiking we headed to a tiny village of Fehérvárcsurgó to see the Amerigo Tot museum, he was a famous Hungarian artists and actor. 

Museum of Amerigo Tot.

The artist and his art.

Sitting in one of his chairs he made.

From here we went up to a little church on a hill that was originally built in the 13th century. 

The church.

A famous sculpture of Mary and Jesus done by Amerigo Tot.

Inside the church.

After visiting the church we went to the Károlyi Palace in Fehérvárcsurgó. This Palace is an important relic of the capital’s neoclassical architecture, only the outside walls of the present Palace originate from the 17th and 18th centuries. The Palace is now used as a cultural meeting center and museum. 

This side is still under construction.

After we finished our tour of the Palace we were invited to the house of one of their old work colleges. At her house they had set up tables outside for eating dinner. (Ben called this our "Anthony Bourdain" moment.) They cooked traditional hungarian goulash, but before we could eat we had to do another round of palinka. Ben tried not to get any, but they shoved the tiny shot glass into his hand anyway. He looked at me with pleating eyes and said he just couldn't do it. In normal situations I would have told him to just throw it away, but in this situation there were too many people around. If they had seen him throw it away it would have been considered very rude. So being the good wife that I am...I took one for the team. So in the span of 5 minutes I had 2 shots of palinka. Palinka is not just your ordinary alcohol - it has 50% alcohol content. Needless to say I was feeling very drunk before I even had my first bite of dinner. On top of the palinka, I was also encouraged to drink some wine with dinner. 

After dinner we went in small groups and walked around the neighborhood. It was a beautiful day and the sun was just going down when we reached the top of the hill in the village. Only Hungarians would go hiking after dinner we thought! :) One of our hosts said as we were walking around that this village is considered by some (Hungarians) to be the center of the world. And in my palinka induced state of mind I could see why. It was beautiful, peaceful and off the beaten path. 

When we went back to the house after the walk we had some dessert and some of the teachers started singing Hungarian folk songs. After the songs were sung, we kissed our hosts goodbye and headed back to the hotel. 

At the hotel we had late night snacks and play Hungarian charades again. This time they put all the English speaking people together in a group so the game was a little more understandable. We wrote down things for the other groups to act out. We came up with some good, but embarrassing ones like act out "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Pregnancy Test," and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." 

We laughed a lot that night and yes the palinka eventually did wear off, but I told Ben that he owed me one!