Hungary: March 17

Monday, March 17

We started the morning with the tram and bus ride to the church and breakfast. This time we were served salami, hard boiled eggs foie gras, bread and the usual drinks.

Then we got a run down of the day’s activities which included some gardening and some building. We quickly learned that “gardening” and “building“ have different meanings over here. As you can see from the pictures, gardening entailed planting some bushes, but also digging a number of ditches for irrigation on the back of the church’s property. It also included stripping the walls and roof off an old container that will have to be rebuilt for the church’s use. I’ve seldom seen a bunch of more jovial and happy people than I did today.

Whereas the guys attacked the container, by removing the trim, the rusted rivets and eventually the roof, the girls, armed with every type of shovel dug, and dug, and dug some more. Every time we thought there was no more to dig… there was another trench to dig. And that pretty much summarizes today since we dug trenches before lunch and after lunch.

Speaking of which, we were treated to an unusual Hungarian delicacy for lunch: cherry soup.

If that thought makes you wonder what cherry soup is and how it tastes, I’d like to add that it’s a warm dish of a rose color with cherries floating on top. It is topped with cool whip. Just like the picture shows. Unusually good with a strong cherry flavor and a hint of cinnamon.

The main course was a rice and ground pork stew with red beans. Think of it as what happens when chili meets Mexican food. Very tasty and filling, served with bread. Some of us added paprika to it for added flavor and spice. After lunch we dug some more trenches, worked on demolishing the container and finished out by laying the rubber pipes for the irrigation.

Dinner was a repeat of lunch. Everyone is tired but happy.

The Mayles then took us to “Tesco” which is a grocery store / Wal-Mart / Target, where some shopped for some goodies. Then we went to a very high class coffee shop where the Mayles graciously treated us to dessert. Everyone had some type of specialty coffee or tea.

Tomorrow we’ve been told it will be a repeat of sorts. Hopefully the weather continues to be dry and warm, we might have reached 70 today by my estimation, so we can finish up the yard work and the container.