inside a hungarian home; a shot of champagne

This morning around 11 we were invited to meet Kati, the Hungarian woman who teaches the Hungarian language class for the students, at her house for an early lunch and to play scrabble. We first had to catch the subway to take us under the river to the Buda side of Budapest. Then we transferred to a bus that took us up into the Buda hills where Kati was waiting at our stop. A bit of greeting, and her realizing I've grown a few inches and lost the braces, and we were off to her flat.

Walking into her apartment was quite cool. I asked my mom for help describing it and she said "imagine the inside of a little cabin in the woods of a fairytale", but really that's correct. There was a large number of books along the wall, a mandolin, and right out on her patio type place a small garden area.

For lunch we had a selection of breads including: pogacsa, whole wheat, kifli, and these long harder pogacsa. Also we had salad with cranberries, tomatoes, almonds, cheese, and dressing (there was also ham but i picked that out - oops). Then after the meal Kati presented us with cakes from a local bakery and the option of coffee or tea. They were delicious.

Then we segued into scrabble. But first champagne. Kati asked how old I was and then seeing I was not 18 (the legal drinking age of Hungary) she said she had the perfect glass for me. Coming back with three full sized champaign glasses and one mini shot sized but champagne looking glass for me. Mostly the champagne tasted like bubbly white grape juice plus alcohol (obviously). I felt like there was a surprisingly large amount of liquid in my tiny glass and don't know if it really impacted me at all but I think it made my throat feel warm.

Okay, on to scrabble. The only woman with English as her second language proceeded to kill all the native speakers at a language game. We played two rounds. The first round I came in a close second to her 180 points with 153 (after gaining all of their subtracted points for going out first). But the glory of the first game came to a quick end when I lost pretty bad the second game not even breaking 100 points.

After kissing Kati goodbye (on both cheeks, a custom we've been getting used to again) we were on our way back with a little bit of sprinkle coming down on us. Running to catch the bus and we were out. The rest of the day has been spent chilling in the apartment as the rain continues, and there are currently pizzas in the oven getting ready to eat and Bastian is on Skype showing us the garden we are missing back in G-Rap.