Weekend of the Tata

... Must resist more immature jokes ... That's right I was in a town called Tata the weekend of November 2nd and 3rd. We went to Tata for an orienteering competition and to visit nagymama (Hungarian for grandma; literally big mama).

Nagymama was so sweet. The perfect image of trying to overstuff me while making me feel very welcome and comfortable. I deemed this very cool clock in nagymama's house blog worthy, if off topic. I am confident I could have watched the weights turn back and forth for hours Had I not had other things to do.

November 1st is the Day of the Dead celebration in Hungary. Everyone visits the cemeteries and remembers their loved ones who have passed away. I think we need to do this more in the US because when they remember their loved ones they aren't sad they are honoring them. Everyone brings flowers and candles to the cemeteries and they are still colorful and beautiful from that day almost three weeks later. I accompanied the family to visit their nagypapa's (bet you can't guess what that means) cemetery but the other cemetery visits were made by my host parents and nagymama without the young people.

So while they were doing that the young people went to walk around the castle and lake in Tata.

I think this duck is very handsome and consider myself lucky to have gotten such a stellar picture of him.

Yes the sheep was chasing the donkey in case you were wondering.

On Sunday my host family and I left Tata and headed to Esztergom to visit Mexican inbound Carlos and be tourists :) Esztergom's main tourist attraction is their basilica. It is the third largest in Europe and is quite magnificent.

For an idea of scale on this door I came up to exactly the top of the bottom square.

The interior was quite something as well. I only saw a few of its many rooms but they were beautiful.

And even in the distinctly Eureka weather (plus wind) the crowning jewel of Esztergom's basilica is the view from the top. Worth all 400 dizzying and excruciatingly tightly spiraled steps.

Just across the river there is Slovakia. My sisters, Carlos, and I wanted to walk to Slovakia for a coffee

just to say we did but it started raining buckets which dampened out enthusiasm a bit. We did have a very nice lunch though before heading home. I had my first authentic plate of Chicken Paprikas.