busó carnevals warning

we retraced the walk on the "Mohács island" that is not an island, remember the mosquitoes? Well, none of them this time, just general dilapidation of all those holiday homes on the Danube bank. still enjoyed the ferryboat (free for Alan!) the drink in the little also seen-better-days canteen and landlady still on the other side of the river. Lovely sunny if at time chilly days, the busó festival was mad and noisy, the little hotel comfy enough (and should be for the rather large seasonal price, who cares) hope to put fotos on the blog one of these days. If new laptop cooperates. just back home, Alan is out chasing sheep that fancied the greener grass on the path. xxx

(Some history as requested) The monument on the way to Szigetvar is of the sultan Suliman, the Magnificant about the greatest of Turkey. And the one he'd overcome, that of Zrinyi Miklós (who famously "run out" of his Szigetvar and got heroically slaughtered rather than giving up, like a realistic person would) He, like most Hungarian heroes in fact was of a different ethnic origin - croatian. The only real ethnic hungarians are the ones the Austrians claim their own, like Liszt Ferenc. Going on to kifli, it is actually comes from a German word, kiffel or some such, so it was probably Viennese origin as you said, as the turks were beaten back from there successfully. Not like the Hungarians, who as you know, couldn't get themselves together at and after the catastrophic defeat at Mohács. Also the Mohács "busójárás" festival/carneval was started by the Sokac people (type of Croat) who were settled around Mohács in the 17hundreds, quite a bit after the turks gone - probably brought it with them rather than inventing it. So again, it was not heroic hungarians frightening the turks away with their satanic masks... still, it is very good fun. I bet they'll stay friends with you, like everyone tends to who spends even a few hours with you!! Even if you are basically a curmudgeon, together with my awful husband, who is doing his morning round outside in the unseasonal beautiful not even cold sunshine. He dug up the garden with his little machine that started easily this year, and I can see he is bursting with the pleasure of doing some onion planting today... the pigeons are probably eyeing his effore twith interest. We got a really noisy cockerel, well, we have two, but the boss is obviously the noisy one. often starts 4am - even did it in the middle of winter when the sun was at least 3 hours away yet dammit. It's too beautiful creature and seems appreciated by the hens, otherwise it would be for the pot. ps. never believe anything of Alan stories, you should know that by now!! A few Budapest/Kassa/Venice fotos got mixed in the Mohács ones just to confuse you.

made it into February. Ping-pong crisis resolved with a compromise; monday and thursday mornings the place will be opened, we'll see. Cannot check it out till Thursday, we'll have busy times coming. We have two appointments in the Siklós hospital, one for my heart - just to make sure it's doing a proper enough job - and Alan's gallbladder, which sometimes is bothersome. Thursday evening is puppet theatre time (http://www.markuszinhaz.hu/), we found them one day by accident, after re-discovering the Apollo movie-cafe, in an odd little shop, and invited in by the spectacular moustached owner, who told us about this next for-adults performance to do with a Rejtő novel, and apparently lucky, as there is only room for 40. And for sunday 15th we booked two posh hotel days for Buso festival in Mohacs, which Alan has never seen. The sun is shining as I type on the old keyboard which goes with our New Laptop we getting through the usual not-quite-as-it-was hiccups - Marc barc I suppose the Hungarian character arrangement will have to wait - meanwhile I have to toggle and use the new keyboard for one and t'old for the other when writing longer or official texts. Otherwise it is marvellous - much quieter than the old box, which the Siklos people refused to put together again, which is sad, because it worked if Alan kicked it in a the friendly way. Temperature around zero. silly racka - the one with the twirly horn - gone to freezer - no kids for 2 years and hurting other sheep and dangerous for hopefully expected new arrivals. Lots of big rabbits gone to the same resting place I'm afraid. Yum-yum. got fotos - showing this year's xmas tree facing the outside world, winter raspberry and grapewine corner, the new laptop setup, and Bears! The orange-tree is flowering!!! I forgot to mention in the last blog - after long years we met up in Budapest with Julianna and Roy - very pleasant hours spent partly in Alan's fav cafe and lunching in their fav eatingplace, very reasonable and very nice food, name escapes me as per usual, near Corvin on Blaha Lujza.