A Weekend with Crazy Sheep Monsters

Lately, I'm not finding the patience that's needed to sit down and catch up on the blog, but I have just encountered a new favorite song, which may or may not be new to everyone...however, I need to download "Gold Lion" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. This is one music video that has a female singer who does not feel the need to throw her hair around and dance all seductively in front of the camera, but just does some crazy dance instead in which her eyes flicker wildly while smashing guitars. So anyway, I figure now is the time to recap the weekend...

I had quite a voyage from Szerencs in northeastern Hungary to Kalocsa, then Mohacs located in southwestern Hungary. After 5 hours of traveling on Friday, Jillian and I met Harpswell who prepared us a nice casserole for dinner. The next day, we lounged around and watched the Olympic exhibition figure skating of which we were more critical than the judges themselves. Tara arrived after waking up at 4:30 that morning to get to Kalocsa and she walked through the door bearing cookies! Wonderful cookies! Eventually we made it to the Kalocsa pool and bath...afterwards we had a nice dinner and retired fairly early that evening. The next day, we set off for Mohacs, the sight of Busojaras 2006 (I can't insert accents...I don't know how). This is a unique festival in which men dress up in sheepskins and wear really fascinating wooden masks with horns (even more interesting are the doughnuts that have been punctured by the horns on the masks). These men sport bells and huge flasks of palinka. They turn heads and they make small children put their heads down in fright when they march down the street. See for yourself on my picture link (Kat's Photos)....if you were a six year old, would you be scared or fascinated?

Jillian, Tara, Harpswell, and I took a Chinese man's (Lee) car down to Mohacs. Harpswell had gone to a store to buy a pair of jeans and the Chinese owner asked her if he wanted to borrow one of his cars to take to the festival. Undoubtedly, we cruised down to the festival listening to CD's, going our own pace, and not having to stop at bus stops!!! Woo hoo! But, yes, the cost of gas was quite a chunk of change...

We arrived and got some food, forralt bor (hot wine) and started wandering around. It was rainy, gray, cold, and dreary outside, but that didn't stop a decent crowd of folk to check out the day's and night's events. As we made it to the center square where an enormous pile of pine trees sat ready to be lit for the night's bonfire, I was pummeled in the shoulder by a small gypsy boy. He had some kind ball in a bag. I was too shocked to do anything, so we just continued about our business and I tried not to let it bother me. Throughout the day, our group walked around, bought some masks, ate, drank, periodically went inside to warm up with cappucinos and (ice cream??) Tara had a craving, and thus I had one. We watched dancing on the stage and one of the highlights of the festival was the Buso parade. Several Busos walked down the street, or sat on decorated tractors (parade floats?) They chased after women and waved at little kids...at one point, Jillian got sucked away into the parade, only to return a moment later. It was great fun seeing all the different masks and costumes (it was like Halloween only 4 months too late).

That night, the huge pile of *CONIFERS* was lit and due to the amount of precipitation, the actual fire *BLEW*. But it was cool to see all the sparks and the silohuetted scarecrow standing at the top. We danced around the bonfire in a non-graceful circle while Busos swung their wooden noisemakers around. Apparently, this festival was designed to scare off the Turks and winter as well? What a great idea! At one point, immediately after the parade, the sun made a short appearance and then disappeared. I thought the plan had worked and winter was gone, but twas not the case, as snow fell on Kalocsa that night.

As I was making my way home to Szerencs on Monday, I awoke from a nap on the train only to see absolute white (unable to see the tree-line, I thought I was going back in time to a few weeks ago when I thought I was living in the North Pole). Not again! I thought. I'm through with snow for this winter. So the festival didn't work, but then again I got a lot of great pictures and a pretty cool mask to take home with me.