Group run through a wine festival

It was an excellent weekend. Let's do some bullet points:

• There's one theater playing Tropic Thunder in English in the city. It involved a bit of an adventure to the Buda side, but it was hilarious and well worth it.
• I haven't ridden a bicycle in over three years (and as my father pointed out, I did so rather poorly at that time). On that fateful day in 2005, my younger brother nearly killed me on a moped in Bermuda. If Danny reads this, rest assured he will refute that statement. Anyways, I took my bike out for a spin in my new city of 1.8M people, through the major intersection I live next to, and up to Heroes Square to the Museum of Fine Arts. They've got a few Monets, a Renoir and a sweet Rodin so it was well worth it. I survived, and so it was a great success.
• On Saturday, I woke up to a 40-person concert band playing loud, moving, patriotic music about 50 diagonal meters from my balcony. The Renaissance Festival lasted all day, and it was hilarious to pop into my apartment in between errands and watch puppeteers, traditional dancers and very happy children from my third-floor vantage point.
• The ACC broadcasted the NU-Duke game online at 7pm Eastern. I managed to stay up for the first half, and was thrilled we avenged last year's loss to the Blue Devils.

Now, on Sunday I had lots of big plans to do something productive with my afternoon. I was going to head to a meeting of Budapest's Hash House Harriers in the morning, and carry on from there. I should have known it was a lost cause.

The world's first "hash club" was founded in the 1930's in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It's essentially a group of expats that meets to run and socialize. (Otherwise known as a "drinking club with a running problem.") The course is pre-set by a "hare," who marks out a route with flour the day before. The hare lays fake trails as well, which can make for a rather circuitous route. The hare may designate a beer stop along the way, but at the end of the track there's a big meeting where the group gathers, gets some drinks and the hash's "religious advisor" leads the group in a recounting of the hash's events and passes out punishments (drinks) for transgressions. It's similar to marching band in that there are wacky traditions - there are group songs and nicknames and all manner of funny things.

So, I went to the Hash club's meeting and was told that it was not quite typical. We had our first beer stop after 10 minutes of running, and then proceeded to run through a wine festival (2 stops along the way) before ending at a winery (final stop) for the circle. I got singled out as a newcomer, which was all in good fun. It was a preposterous way to spend a Sunday, but was a wonderful way to meet some fun, new people. I knew I was in the right place when during a conversation at beer stop #1, at least three other people mentioned that they'd had monkeys attempt to grab their belongings during their travels.