A home-cooked meal (or, "Call the locksmith!")

This morning, I stocked the apartment. I'd been warned about the lack of one-stop shopping, so I was not overly surprised that this process involved stopping at five different stores. (Everyone who was on the Park City 2008 ski trip should know I learned my lesson then and diligently ventured to-and-fro to find non-hand-wash cleaning liquid.)

This afternoon, I thought I would re-tape the video of the apartment to include some footage of my courtyard. When I stepped outside my front door, the wind coming in from the open balcony doors in the back of the flat blew the front door shut, locking me out. The only things I had on my person were jeans, a tank top and a camera (no shoes, phone, wallet, etc).

So, I made friends with my neighbors. While the mother didn't speak English, her son in high school did, and he was awesome. I hung out there for about two hours: we watched a lot of Hungarian kayakers and canoers and I helped the son work on his English. (Hungary got a gold, whew! People have been pretty up in arms about how poorly the country has done at this Olympics.) The mom also insisted on feeding me, which was delicious.

It turned out the owner of my apartment was in the countryside (NOTE: when used by someone from Budapest, this term describes anywhere in Hungary that is not Budapest), so we called the locksmith. He had a fairly difficult time opening my door, which was rather reassuring.

I was still able to catch the end of the Karen Carroll & The Mississippi Grave Diggers set at the wine festival. My first glasses of wine weren't so good, but I realized this was likely because I was only sticking to wine types I'd heard of before (merlot, etc.). I then stumbled upon a wine I absolutely had to try:

BULL's BLOOD (Hungarian: egri bikaver): "As the story goes, back in 1552 the Eger fortress was under attack, and [its Hungarian] defenders were badly outnumbered. To fortify themselves and give themselves courage, they drank the local red wine in large amounts, and the wine spilled on them while they did so. When the [Ottoman] attackers saw the men running towards them with red liquid all down their chests, they thought the locals had been drinking bull's blood, and they fled in terror."

To wrap it up, I'll just paint a quick picture - I was hanging around, looking at Hero's Square tonight, drinking a coffee and having potentially profound thoughts about immigration, Emma Lazarus's poem on the Statue of Liberty, America and what it means to be a welcoming society. Then, a normal-looking young man wearing shinpads and riding a tiny unicycle cruised by. Hahaha.... (Incidentally, I don't think I'd ever read the full poem on the Statue until I just looked it up.)