Excuses, Excuses

Yes, I've been a bad blogger and probably will continue to be so for a while. It's still way too hot outside and in our house. (Most days in the high 90s, if not 100.) I've been suffering from headaches on pretty much a daily basis whose severity I attribute to the heat. If I run the AC in one of the few rooms that has it, I get a sinus headache. So it's a lose-lose situation at this point. Oh ya, and today I woke up with the left side of my face looking like a swollen, hot tomato. The point of all of this whining? To 'splain to y'all that I don't feel like doing anything, least of all sitting at the computer because this room is probably the hottest of them all!

I thought the second trimester was supposed to be the best.... I read millions of tales about how women are supposed to feel better than they did before they got pregnant. When is this going to kick in?

In other news, our oven blew up on Monday or the element in it or something. We're lucky there was no electrical fire.... especially considering the stove-top is gas.

Well, I'm off to the gym and the pool.... the only two places that give me a moment or two of relief.

The Misadventures of Scurvy Steve

As you know, my friend Jim spent a few days with me before we both flew to Budapest. Because of one-way vs. two-way issues, we ended up booking different flights on different airlines. Not a big deal as they landed only 1/2 hour apart. He, having been to Budapest several times, assured me that there was only one terminal, and it being small, we would have no problem locating one another.

Fine. Normally I don't trust such details to mere mortals, but since he is somewhat of a Hungarian expert and I was nauseous and tired, I went with his plan.

After sitting in my plane for an hour on the runway in Rome, my flight landed in Budapest 20 minutes late. (After a harrowing descent to which my Israeli seat buddy said, "F***ing Hungarian pilots!") After retrieving my luggage I perused the board to see if Jim's flight had landed. Hmmm, no flight listed. Perplexed, and somewhat nervous, I went to the information desk to ask. "Oh, SkyEurope flights land at terminal one." What?!? "Well, how do I get there.. where is it?" (Thinking with my logical brain that it would be attached to terminal two or accessible by a shuttle bus.) "It's approximately 6 kilometres away and you can either take a city bus or a taxi."

Is it just me or does that seem like the biggest scam ever?

Long story short, I took a taxi to terminal one just as Jim and our ride were driving to terminal 2 to get me. I guess I should have stayed put but since he hadn't been able to figure this out before our trip, how could I trust him to figure it out before I did upon landing?

So I waited in terminal 1.... and waited.... why? Because though Jim had finally reached me on my cell and promised to come collect me, our ride's car broke down en route. So for a few hours I was stranded in Budapest, waiting outside in the 40 degree heat. Why outside? Because I kept getting calls saying, "ok, we're on our way... wait for us outside."

Not the best start to our trip.

You're probably wondering about the whole Scurvy Steve thing. About mid-way through the camp in Szentivany, Jim started going to bed early and complaining of congestion. Within a few days he had a full-blown illness complete with a very disturbing, lung-expelling, cough. After having lived with him and hearing him make fun of me for buying fruit all the time stating, "I never eat fruit!" I decided that the only logical diagnosis would be..... you guessed it.... scurvy. You laugh, but that guy really doesn't eat fruit.... ever. Or drink orange juice. So for the rest of the trip we called him Scurvy Steve... J came up with the Steve part.

Vajdaszentivanyi/Voivodeni

This was in the first village we attended a camp, spelled out in the title of this post.* Jim (left) and Elek(our teacher on the right) are giving an attentive J a lesson on the bratsche. (The instrument Jim is holding.) Yup, J jumped straight into bratsche lessons and did very well, especially considering he hasn't had any musical training.

Elek is a sweet, sweet man who would offer palinka and coffee as soon as we arrived for lessons in the morning and afternoon. Sadly I had to decline the palinka offer but probably learned more as a result. He spent most nights playing until the wee hours of the morning at the tanchaz so was very tired during our lessons and near the end of the week, there was more drinking than playing. Though he found it difficult to slow down tunes in order for slowpokes like me and an aussie girl (Jim is a whiz so was probably a bit bored) I still managed to learn quite a few tunes and learning by ear got easier the more I did it. Maybe it was my early Suzuki training coming back to the rescue!

The pace of the week was quite pleasant. I would get up, go for breakfast (sausage, peppers and bread, oh my!), go to the lesson, eat a lunch of nasty oily soup and some sort of meat and potatoes, sleep, go to another lesson, eat a dinner of nasty meat and potatoes......again (we ate mass-produced camp food and not with our host family), hang out for a bit on the camp grounds and then head home to, you guessed it, sleep! Because I couldn't drink, I did a lot of sleeping.

Our host, Etta, was very hospitable and would ramble at us in Hungarian, knowing full well we understood nothing. We were fortunate enough to have a shower and a sink but since the village has no sewage system, my many nocturnal toilet trips involved a trek through a chicken coop in the dark with two barky dogs rabidly trying to break away from their chains.... oh yeah, and the outhouse was right next to the pen of a certain huge, squealy, pig. I have now perfected the art of breathing through my mouth.

Being in the hills of Transylvania was a welcome break from the heat of Sicily and Budapest, for that matter. In fact, we were rained on almost every day. Though this meant muddy shoes and pant cuffs (no paved roads) I welcomed the moisture knowing I would miss it once I was back in Sicily. Sho'nuff she's drier than, well, something really dry, and B ain't diggin'.

*Transylvania used to belong to Hungary and many villages are still largely Hungarian in population. The Romanian government gave each village a Romanian name (Voivodeni) but most 'city limit' signs have both the Hungarian and Romanian names.

Squirmy Squealer

We arrived safely back from eastern Europe yesterday. So many stories and pictures that I promise to share once J goes back to work and I get bored. For now, a picture of baby G that is actually starting to look like a baby. And from what we saw today, a baby that can wave its hand and do flips. In this shot a leg, an arm, a huge head (inherited from his/her mother I'm afraid), and a huge tummy are visible. A tummy that must be pure pork fat since in order to avoid starving to death in Transylvania I consumed many a piggy. It was quite horrible and I am vowing to go without for at least a few months, if not the rest of my life.