The Romas and Hungarian Wine...

Alrightee then....what a good day!
Morning was free - we stayed in Eger last night, a Hungarian town east of Budapest.  So I walked all over, found a great local outdoor market...fruits, veggies....and tables full of chilies, peppers,..paprika. 

At noon we drove into the countryside to a school where our guide knows the teacher.  40% of the students are Roma.....learned a lot about them, the difficulties between the 2 types of culture and how they just don't quite mix...who's to say one is better than the other?!   They are quite beautiful...dark hair, dark eyes....school means nothing to them, very hard for the teacher..   They are being taught English as one subject and they got to try it out on us and vice versa.   Was a treat to interact with them.   I hope they will do alright in the future, it isn't easy...

Back on the road, Etelka, our guide continued filling us in on history and personal stories of her experience in growing up under communist rule (they were so brutal sometimes...egads...)  Hearing these personal accounts are a real eye-opener...  Then we went to a Hungarian winery...Under communism, the lands of the winery were taken away and the owners, who we spent the afternoon with, had to gradually buy it back (well buy their grandparents land back actually).  They make fantastic wine...we had a full tasting sitting outside in their garden.  I felt like I was in Italy : )   The thing is...most wine tasting (in Canada anyway), is maybe an 1/8 of a glass at a time?  Well the owner poured us out 1/2 glass each time for 6 different wines haha!! We were pretty HAPPY by the end of it.....and they got us all up and taught us a Hungarian folk dance - it was pretty funny!  We laughed so hard!  He took us down into his wine cellars then and gave us a bonus glass of whatever we named as our favorite (like we needed another lol)   It was a fabulous afternoon, the people I am travelling with are just so much fun, it will be hard to say bye when it is time for me to go my own way in Austria!

Szechenyi Baths (going there tomorrow!)

After that we made our way over to Budapest, ...it is so big..there is SO much to see, we will only scratch the surface in 2 days.  We just went for a short walk this evening ...but i can already tell this is an beautiful city...tomorrow we have the chance to go to the hot springs baths - can't wait, brought swimsuit! : )

I am learning so much about this part of the world. These people are truly lovely...they have been so generous to us with their time and kindness. 

nity nite all, time for the Traveller to go back to the hotel and find a pillow zzzz
love, Patricia