Jó barátok és a magyar vendéglátás

I owe a lot to my friend Rutai Géza. I stayed at his house and he fed me every day, despite the fact I told him I planned on feeding myself. Hungarian hospitality is syonomous with food. Even the word for invite also means to treat someone to food, and the word for resuraunt comes from the word guest. Géza was divorced not to long ago and gets a disability pension for a soccer-related heart condition, so he's recently delved intot he world of cooking. He is an amazing chef and makes good tradional magyar kaja. His chicken soups are full of things Americans don't even feed to their cats anymore and he cuts up all his vegetables from scratch. Starting a dish without a chunk of lard would be unthinkable. He loves distinctly Hungarian ingredients: mák, túró, and paprika. Unlike most Hungarian food, however, he makes everything spicy. From chicken noodle soup, to cucumber salad, everythng tastes better with a little spicy green pepper in it. He is an incredibly patient and humble man, a die-hard soccer fan, and one of the kindest people I've ever met. I consider it a privledge to be his friend.

Softie

You'd think a butcher wouldn't have any trouble slaughtering a pig, and you'd think that someone that mounts bugs for his his part-time job wouldn't bat an eye at dumping some rare specimens in alcohol, but I've found I just can't do it sometimes. I caught an awesome-sized beetle on the side of the road the other day (probably about 3 inches long, I'll post a picture if I ever get around to it) and kept it in my room till I could buy alcohol to kill it. The thing just tried so hard to get out that after a couple days I didn't have the heart to kill it, and let it go after a lot of internal delimna (after all, I came here expecting to catch bugs, didn't I?). Then yesterday I saw the coolest bug I have ever seen alive with my on two eyes, a massive male stag beetle, maybe five inches long, of that at least half a massive set of pincers, we're talking a genuine monster of a bug (my pictures didn't turn out great because I was on the landscape setting) and I didn't even have the heart to catch it. Seriously, this thing was monstrous. Even now, I feel sorry for the cserebogárs I caught today. Maybe I'm not cut out for this job...

-Rugó

Jó utat!

My journey has begun! I don't recommend a 12 hour over-night stay in London's Heathrow Airport, though, the airport closes and they kick you out into the street (well, the lobby place where you normally check your bags). I slept on a nice wooden bench with another guy bound for a 5 o'clock flight. I've found traveling to be much easier if you can sleep on a plane as well, the jet-lag wasn't such a big deal because I got plenty of rest on the plane. I'm staying with friend Kókány Gábor, an awesome church member I taught as a greenie. He has a wife, Mensáros Nóra, and a little one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Dominika, who happens to be adorable. He also has Skype, which makes my girlfriend very happy. I discovered today that my international student ID doesn't work for train tickets; I was trying to go to an old companion's wedding in Szombathely, but because 2nd class was full and I got no discount, it would have cost me 5000 forint, which I can't afford to pay, thanks to the weak dollar (it's about 160 forint per dollar these days). I spent the day instead getting myself a phone, cruising around Margit Sziget with Horváth János and then having paprikás krumpli and palacsintas at his house. I went to a YSA activity and met a ton of youth and missionaries I knew, and a ton I didn't (I've only been gone 6 months and already so many faces I don't know...). I'm excited for tomorrow, I've got tons to do!

-Rugó

U.I. Also, I have run into 2 old investigators since I've been here rather randomly, Sándor János, an Adventist theology student who was more interested in comparison and converting us, and Zeng, a Chinese guy more interested in learning English than hearing what we have to say. It was an interesting confirmation that I'm supposed to be here, a portent that I will yet have such encounters, and leaves me with the question, what does God want me to do with them?