Ez a muchka?

Now that hockey is over the touring part of the trip can begin. This morning I woke up to my morning wake up call from Marika at 8am (no one is surprised) and after breakfast we went to what is called Tupoltza or a cave bath in Miskolc. Basically it's an indoor lazy-river type thing. It was relaxing and nice to be in the water and then we got a short massage which felt great after a week of hockey. It was slightly weird because you just strip down and there is no towel covering you anywhere and a guy that works there randomly walks in and out of the room, regardless of whether or not you have clothes on. So much for modesty!

After that we hopped on a train for the 2 hour ride to Budapest. Some of us unloaded our crackers and wine and others unloaded their whole grain no taste bread and we all had a snack. When we got to Budapest we were met by Janosh, his wife Ildi, and Mark. Janosh is my Grandfather's first cousin and Mark is my age AND he speaks excellent English. We went to The Great Synagogue which is the largest one in the world. It was built in 1859 and is absolutely amazing. It's a great mix of past and present. It serves as the border for where the Jewish ghetto was during WWII and you can see a cemetery that holds many of the people that died while in the ghetto. The synagogue itself is so beautiful. It's HUGE. There are two levels of balconies all around and the pulpit is so bit and extends so high up and has a huge pipe organ and....it's so hard to explain. I'll put pictures up soon. All I can really say is that it took my breath away. It was easy to imagine the thousands of people the must have gathered there for services each week.
One thing that I did notice was that on the tour of Budapest that I took earlier in the week and in all the tour books the synagogue is never mentioned. The Jewish quarter that used to be so impressive is long gone and it's almost as if no one noticed. They said 400,000 Jews were transported out of Hungary is 53 days...or maybe it was 35 days...Either way, it's hard to even fathom this number. The family we were with had never been inside the shul, so we joked that it was a good thing the Americans came so that they could go on a tour of Budapest.

Onward....to The Gerboud! This was my Grandfather's favorite place. It's an old pastry shop that has been around for 150 years. We all sat ourside and picked out a few pastries that were delicious. Actually, I'm not sure it was even that good, I think I've just heard so much about this place that it could've tasted like glue and I would have loved it.

I've realized that the food in Hungary is not just food to me. It's my family. The Hungarian food we eat is really one of the main connections that I have to Hungary and that I associate with family events. So when I'm here and I get to eat palacinta or chicken paprikash it really makes me think of my family.

...Next we went to Fatal (Fuh-tahl) "wooden spoon" for dinner. I thought we got huge portions in America, but the plates here were humongous. Mom and I split cherry soup (cold) which was great. It was really nice to talk with Mark, Janosh, and Ildi. They are all very sweet.

Now we're at Agi's house for the night. (she is also a distant cousin). Tomorrow we'll go back to the open market and then we'll hop on the train to Gyor.

In good news, after a long lesson, Marika now knows how to send email on AOL all by herself. So don't let her give you any excuses. And, i'm pretty sure she ate a small bite of my paprikash AND a bite of chocolate cake to supplement her fish soup and steamed veggies.

Love you all and miss you!
Uhn-dray-uh, Ay-vuh, and Muh-ree-ka