Good Luck?

Supposedly, getting crapped on by a bird is good luck. Whoever came up with that must have been the eternal optimist. So unlike Hungary. As it is not such a pleasant experience, you've got to tell yourself that some good must come out of it!

What better place for this to happen than in the town of luck (szerencse). On Friday, I went to yet another barbecue held by Etelka and her husband George. We've discovered only too late how much of a pleasure it is to get together and talk for hours. After relaxing a bit on Friday afternoon after my lessons, I walked two minutes up the hill to Etelka's house. George was monitoring the grill in the backyard and I immediately noticed a little table set up with chairs, tablecloth, a jar full of three different kinds of mustards, and smoke billowing up from the cooking meat. The smell was intoxicating...I don't cook myself much meat, because I really don't know how to go about it...especially here. So, my mouth was salivating.

We had a nice fruit salad with chocolate ice cream and Etelka pointed out the apricot and pear trees in the yard. George offered me all kinds of alcohol from a little "booze basket" sitting on the ground. And when Etelka was whisked off to the kitchen for something, I tried my best to piece together sentences in Hungarian for George. The next plate of food was full of sausages that reminded me of bratwurst. There were "Debreceni" sausages among others. I helped myself to sample all. Then, after watching turkey and pig skin simmer among potato coins on the grill, George brought it to the table. That's when it happened.

Out of nowhere, a white substance landed in the impressive medley of food, courtesy of a bird overhead. Etelka and I both stared at it, looked at each other, and then burst into tearful laughter. That's what I love about Etelka...even though she's always running off somewhere with something to do...she's always got time to laugh at the world and the curveballs it throws us once and a while.

I left their house with some of Etelka's fabulous palacsinta cake about 5 hours later. Next morning, I was off to Tokaj for the May wine festival. The day started off rainy, but miraculously turned sunny just in time for me to catch my 11:46 train to Tokaj. I met up with my Tokaj buddy, Liz, on the train. We had gone to a similar festival in Tokaj in November...just the two of us and stayed until the last train home to Szerencs. This time, we planned the same.

As it was only noon when we arrived to town, we decided to walk around a bit and take in the sights. The streets of Tokaj were bustling, unlike several weeks ago when we had made a few appearances in March. Today seemed to be the opening weekend of tourist season. There were booths everywhere selling candy, wine, toys, maps, etc.

Liz and I had packed ourselves sandwiches so we didn't overspend on lunch. So we sat down at a fountain (which we later dubbed, "The Fountain of Life")...it did in fact turn out to be a popular fountain, one that adorned a statue of a Bacchus-like figure indulging in too much wine falling over backwards, and one that was the object of many photographs. As I finished my sandwich, something wet dripped into my eye from above. At first I thought it was the water from the fountain, but instead, it was....drumroll...bird crap yet again, making its second appearance in two days. Apalled and alarmed that it may have gotten into my eye, I flicked it off like a tiny girl who's deathly afraid of a spider crawling up her arm. And I flicked it right onto Liz's leg.

We just sat there and laughed, not doing anything. Then Liz, calmly told me to "get it off please...I'm not going to touch it!"

A while later, we met up with several other CETPers: Yerik, Jenna, her mother and sister, and Janos, Laura, Mariah, and Erik. By this time, we had purchased a wine glass and five tickets to sample the local vino. As the afternoon wore on, I had seen many of my students (ranging from my 3rd graders to my 10th graders). We holed up in a cellar for a few drinks and then re-emerged only to say good-bye to the majority of CETPers who decided to head back to Nyiregyhaza for the night. My trooper, Liz and I stayed on into the night. Janos was there with his parents and cousins, so we decided to listen to the band on the mainstage, which was playing everything from Creedence and Beatles to Flashdance music.

I ended up running into one of my private lessons and his entourage which is another story in itself...but in the end Liz and I caught the 11:23 train back to Szerencs where we crashed into my beds, waking the next morning to gray skies and rain pattering outside.