Breakfast in the Matras Mountains

I got up early: 9 a.m. I was quite proud of myself, as it looked like most of the other people had just gotten up as well. But two things showed me I just wasn't as tough as the rest of the crowd.

1) Several of them had already hiked over to the next village and back, just for something to do.

2) For breakfast, they were having.... yes, you guessed it! Fat on a stick!

Needless to say, I passed, eating instead a banana and some raw paprika. Paprika is what they call the yellow pepper that's part of every meal.

The hike today was shorter -- simply up a hill and down the other side to a nearby town. Miklos and ME stayed back to clean up and rest and to harvest apples, which they accomplished by spreading mattresses around the tree and having Miklos climb up and shake the branches. They probably got about 20 kilos and the tree looks like it's holding about 180 kilos more.

On the walk, we found a whole bunch of different types of mushrooms, including an albino species we called Gabor Gombas, and a bunch of puff balls, the first I've ever seen that were not at the Puff stage. Before they puff out spores, they're quite edible. So we picked 'em.

They drove over to the next village to meet us, and we climbed up this old town with a metal staircase inside and enjoyed the view.

In that village, there was an interesting church, fairly old, made out of stone. The stained glass inside had been redone in 1988, right before the wall of the wall, and it was done in a socialist-religious mixture of styles. Social realism, I think is what Gabor called it. It really has to be seen to be believed, and I'll scan in pictures of it ASAP.

The village had a nice hotel (from the outside) and was selling tourist trinkets made of wood for great prices. I bought some wooden cooking spoons for $0.20.

Then Miklos ferried people back to his place. We cooked up the mushrooms with, of course, paprikas, and I ate a bunch. It's about 6 hours later and my veins are not green and purple and I don't think I can fly, so they must have been OK.

The drive back was in two cars, 5 people in each. I was really tired, and there was no where near enough air, so I slept for most of the trip. Miklos dropped me off several blocks form my place where he could comfortably stop, and I sent home, had a nice bath, unpacked, cleaned up a bit and made dinner. Dinner was pasta with butter and garlic. I really must go shopping. Like, milk or flour or salt or some sort of perishable good might come in handy. I do have popcorn...

Then I went to the store, bought milk (Got milk!) and came back to write this journal.

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