I think I must have picked up a bug yesterday since I’m feeling rather poorly this morning. We had a lovely time at the wedding yesterday, the people were friendly, generous and very hospitable. The bride (and the bridesmaids) were beautiful.
The pálinka flowed freely and it was rude not to accept since people were constantly offering toasts. I may have had slightly more than I should.
The food was excellent, particularly the mutton pörkölt, cooked in pots on open fires. There were lots of opportunities to socialise in between course, Maria chatted a lot to the grooms mum, a very nice and generous lady. And of course the wine flowed freely.
Eger is of course famous for it’s red wine. By about midnight we were flagging, the party was going to continue until about 7am when they were going to move onto one of the local wine cellars. We just stayed to sample the brides cake (lovely) and take part in the selling of the bride. Not as bad as it sounds, it is a Hungarian custom that rather than buying lots of (sometimes useless) presents guests pay (whatever they want) for the privilege of a dance with the bride. Before we could leave, the grooms mum very kindly loaded us up with a bottle of pálinka, some savoury snacks and stacks of cakes. We won’t need to buy any cakes during our stay here.
John was fast asleep by 1.00am but Maria kept me awake for ages singing along with the gipsy band and the revelers downstairs. Luckily she eventually fell asleep so I could too.
She woke me up far too early, apparently we had to fetch Claire and Robert from the airport. I told her I wasn’t feeling well but she insisted I went along, and she kept muttering something about a hangover. I was rather surprised since I didn’t think she had that much to drink.
We have now picked up Claire and Rob. We haven’t done much today, eaten and drunk a bit and then planned the rest of this week.