Erdély or Transylvanian travels

The buzz of four phones going off at 4:30am forced our eyes open, and our bodies drowsily out of bed. The four hours of sleep, not nearly being enough to greet the day in any sort of joyful manner. However, our holiday had begun. Bundled to our eyebrows with backpacks and winter gear, Lauren, Lyla, Rob and myself trekked to the opposite side of Budapest to meet the bus. Arriving in front of Eotvos Kollegium, we looked expectantly for a bus, and were met with a largish van decorated with a water motif. Soon enough the nineteen odd people had boarded and we were off the Debrecen to pick up the rest of the party.

Twenty-one Americans, our fearless leader Hajni, Marika our guide and Attila our crazy driver packed into a bus that couldn’t fit a herring more if we had tried. Of our six-day whirlwind tour of Hungarian speaking areas of Transylvania, most of it was spent packed into the bus. Herrings crammed in hopping from village to city and beautiful mountain peak and back to village.

A quick summary of events:

I fell in love in Torocko, the first village where we stayed. His brown eyes and large ears, effortless energy, while Tara and I shared a room with a wood burning stove and he slept on our doorstep. In the morning he walked us to breakfast, then chased the cows walking themselves to the town center. Hajni told me he was a Transylvanian Hunter.

We were greeted every night, and unlike many of our companions not at breakfast, with shots of strong palinka.

Seeing Art Nouveau with a Hungarian folk art twist.

Stalking the streets around Dracula’s birthplace

Watching Hajni stammer and then refuse to translate an excessively dirty and inappropriate folk song, whilst the folk singers stared at her daring her to repeat what they had sung.

Climbing the Rakozi Var, and staring across the boarder of old (pre-1920) Hungary.

Eating a “snack” which accounted for more than three people would eat in a normal meal (there were actually two courses to the snack, along with the obligatory shots of palinka), then two hours later eating a main meal.

Staring at spires of ancient trees emerging out of the water of the Killer Lake.

Learning Folk dances at the rose-hip festival in a tiny village without streetlights. Not having enough willing men in our company, I learnt the male part, whilst Hajni danced the counterpart. It was the difficult stamping and spinning one. Later, bemoaning the fact that I had only danced the male part, Lauren offered to dance with me, but only if I asked in Hungarian. Borrowing Peti’s contribution to my Valami fontosat dictionary, I asked. Instead of a yes, I was met with a demand to ask if she, pretending to be a boy, had a girlfriend. I did, and was then told that because she could not lead, I would have to be the boy.

Our bus, being predominantly full of girls, was stopped by the Romanian police, and checked to see that we were not being transported for human trafficking.

Drinking the wizened blueberries from the bottom of the blueberry palinka.

On Sunday night, having a last minute dinner party with Andy and Gergo, when I tried to convince people I was a grandmother, and the guys told us it was cute when we tried to speak Hungarian.

And finally my favorite, our fearless leader, suffering from a cold announcing that her alternate major in university, had been witchcraft and that if any of us would fall into a stream and die, that she would come after us in the afterlife, and ‘GET US’