A "Christening"

Let me begin with a most recent event: I just spent 20 minutes washing flour out of my hair. Yesterday, I helped set the trail for today's Hash run. The other "hare" and I took the suburban metro about 15 minutes outside of Budapest, and we marked a trail with flour dots through the hills, by a quarry and to a lake (view from trail pictured). Budapest is an interesting city - you don't have to travel far out of town until you're in the middle of the woods. (Versus Chicago, where you sit in traffic for 1.5 hours and you're still in suburban sprawl!)

Given that I set the trail, I was eligible to receive a "hash name," one that the runners will now use to refer to me instead of Jenny. At the end of today's post-run ceremony, I was christened with my new name as the 15 other hashers ceremoniously sprinkled beer and flour on me. It was all in good fun, and I looked absolutely hilarious coming home.

I got a ride to the tram, 3 stops from where I live, and disaster struck. Undercover ticket controllers lurk on the Budapest metro system. I have never been stopped by one before. My monthly pass expired on Friday - On Saturday, I had tried to buy a new monthly pass, but the ticket seller said I needed to provide a different type of passport photo. I then tried to buy single tickets from her, but she had a long line and didn't want to deal with me in English. So I gave up and figured I'd get my new pass on Monday. Figures that today I got stopped by the controller, smelling of beer and with very cakey-looking hair! :) The ticket was only $35, so not a big deal, but still kind of silly.

A few posts ago, I mentioned that co-workers were trying to persuade me to eat fried fat, a Hungarian delicacy. One of them brought a really tasty fried fat pastry to the office on Thursday morning for me, saying it would be a good introduction. It was really good! We had some wine Thursday night in the office (woo hoo!), where they continued to tell me about traditional Hungarian pig killing. They eat some parts of the pig here that I was simply not familiar with, and there were some questions about what exactly to call them in English. Later, I received a call on my office line asking, "Jenny, do you know what greaves are?" I thought they were part of a knight's armor (they are), which conflicted with their research done on Webster's online dictionary: "Membraneous tissues remaining after pig and other animal fats have been rendered. Source: European Union." We may go back-and-forth on what exactly to call the different pig parts, but I am thinking I will be exposed to all of them eventually while I'm here.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't express my utter thrill that the Northwestern Wildcats are 5-0! Woo hoo! Go 'Cats!!