Tuesday July 29 Day 14:

Where are my glasses ? I had to ask my friends if they had seen me wearing them last night. They seemed to disappear. Gyorgyi suggested they had fallen into my luggage bag. Well, she was right. Found them. I do have a back-up pair too, but the new ones are nicer.

Next I realized that I had forgotten to phone Gyongyi and tell the relatives I had safely arrived in Budapest. I did this about 7 am as I figured someone would be up. Gyongyi answered the phone and I offered my apologies. When I got off the bus there was a lot of commotion and then a large rain storm. Anyway I made the call.

Breakfast was large as usual and Gyorgyi cooked virsli (veal hot dogs). They do give me gas but I ate them anyway. I still had left over gas form the fish soup and fried pork.

Gyorgyi took the bus to go shopping for more food; but she forgot to get some bread crumbs. Jancsi and I went to get them. This was a mistake. Walking down the hill and up the hill is quite strenuous and I was still feeling the effects of the fish soup.

The door bell rang and an older lady from up the street was there. Irma has lived in Canada since the 1970's but came back to Hungary with her ailing husband. He had a stroke and is in very poor health. She speaks good Canadian English and uses many familiar words... She is very energetic for someone near 80. They have children and grandchildren in Ontario. She has 2 lake-front lots on Georgian Bay not far from Wasaga Beach. One lot has a small cabin and she hopes to knock it down and build a permanent house with 3 bedrooms etc. Quite a lot of work. Her husband will not be going with her to Canada. When he passes, she will go back to Canada.

She enjoyed quite an interesting life. Many trips in the Winter from Toronto to Miami or the Bahamas or Hawaii and cruise trips. We will visit her at her home in a few days.

Ebed or lunch will be very large today. There is a bogracs planned with gombots (these are plums surrounded in batter, cooked in boiling water and tossed with nuts and bread crumbs. Then to eat they are sprinkled with icing sugar and cinnamon. Irma and I help a little with the preparations.

Jancsi prepares the bogracs. The ingredients are different in that pork is used instead of beef. This is a quicker meal. Onions as usual start and then a tomatoe is cut up with a pepper and added. The meat is added and after a few minutes cooking water, salt, pepper and a lot of paprika is added. Then cut up carrots and parsnip is added. A branch of 'loveage' (a plant available all over the world, I have a lot of it) is added. More water and after that has cooked for some time, cut up potatoes are added (½ hour before the end). Finally, dumplings are made in the pot.

Meanwhile the gombots are completed and lunch served with cold beer and bread.

We are then off to Tata.

Tata is on the way North to Vienna along M6. It is a small town smaller than Whitby. There are some nice shops and we dropped into one that makes chocolate; apparently world renowned.

Then it is on to the Falglat (ice cream store). The price is ½ of the usual – 200 HUF for a double scoop. I didn't think it was up to the usual though.

Here it was overcast for most of the morning and cool 23 C. But in the afternoon it warmed up to 25 or 26. It is very humid because there is a lot of low pressure around.

The rain started very quickly and we ducked into a small restaurant. The menu was unbelievably low; and we notice people eating large servings. We regret cooking before out trip.

There was a lake and it was kind of a tourist area but my rear end was acting up so walking became very painful. (not hemorrhoids)

We came back to Budafok, I took a quick shower and put on some polysporin and felt better. We then went food shopping at INTERSPAR; not like COSTCO but like the average METRO.

We made a quick stop at Orsi and Gabor's because they had extra figs to give to Gnorgyi. I tried a fresh fig but I did not care to try a second one. Fresh figs are completely different.

Back at the house we had a cold cut and vegetable supper. I ate too much, or maybe it was the milk (which I don't normally drink) and suffered from gas through the night. At 1 am I woke up Gyorgyi because I was looking for the UNICOM. There wasn't any so she gave me a ½ shot of a brandy. This helped and I fell to sleep quite soundly.