Wine tasting time!

Hiya friends and family!

This week has been pretty relaxed, of course I have done more shopping - what else?!  We had one field trip this week, the Hungarian National Bank.  Not Balassi's finest pick, we just saw a heap of old money.  However I did learn a bit about the Euro in order to have my photo printed on some fake money.  

My roommate has been as sick as ever so I have been keeping far away in order not to catch anything before moving on the the rest of my holiday.  Which I am now getting super excited about.  I am looking forward to seeing my blisters, Amy in just a week!  The time has really started to fly by but once we have done our tours of Buda Castle (which is tomorrow) I think I would have felt like I have done everything I needed to for my first time in Hungary!

We had a day trip yesterday out to Lake Balaton, nipping out of the city and getting to see another side of Hungary was fantastic.  The lake was packed as it was one of the hotter days we have had reccently, the sun was shinning and all the tanned people were out.  So I had been complaining/surprised that I have spent so much time in the sun and haven'r worn sunblock once or been burnt once.  Ahh classic "don't speak too soon" situations here.  I didn't wear sunblock yesterday and yes I got burnt!  Not too badly, not anything near as bad as it would have been if I was in NZ.  But enough to give me a wee bit of colour before I see my sister who has been living in Spain all summer so I don't feel like a polar bear next to her.

We were on the "nicer' side of the lake so we had to pay to get on to the waterfront.  there is a little bit of fake sand - and I mean a little bit a meter and a half from the water.  The rest of the place is grass and it was packed.  It isn't anything like what we have at home, and the lake is shallow for about 5 meters before you can actually cool off.  I didn't end up swimming myself - bit of a water snob I am.  After years and years of swimming in Taupo my lake standards are pretty high and a combination of the mossy green stones all on the bottom and the colour of the water just had me reading my book on a nice wee grass patch all day.  There are shops and stalls selling food clothes and traditional Hungarian stuff all along the waterfront in between all the trees what a sight!  Most of the people around here are Hungarian or German speaking so I managed to pull my socks up and use my Hungarian to order food and buy some stuff, all the classes appear to be paying off BOOM!

After this we jumped back onto our bus and set off for a vineyard where we could do some wine tasting.  We walked up a hill in a small town to reach a restaurant that looked out over Balaton and a heap of vineyards.  It reminded me of all the picturesque scenery we have at home.   The wine tasting had to be translated for us by but it was such a blast!  They use a Glass blowen utensil to suck the wine up from the jars and then pour into peoples glasses.  We were able to have a go ourselves at doing this later on.  They brought out a sweeter wine which ladies tend to like better so they had a glass blown lady in which the men had to suck through the boobs of the glass lady and then pour the wine out from here too.  It provided many giggles from the crowd.  Later on the even had one for the ladies to try but I will leave to to guess what shape that was in!  After a few too many wines they finally brought us out some food a traditional Hungarian dish that I do not remember the name of - oops!!  We were then able to purchase the wine before we headed home on the bus.  All in all it was a fantastic day and I wish they had done something similar to this sooner in the trip as it would have been a great icebreaker for everyone to meet each other!  

And now for a photo overload!!