The Day of Hungarian Weddings

After winning our match in 3 on Friday against Nyíregyházi Főiskola SE (25-8, 25-21, 25-9), we were given Saturday off from training. I slept in that morning, resting up from the previous night's match and festivities. Adam, Niki, and I met at the college to go to lunch at, you guessed it, Holsten's. On the weekends, they have a sit-down restaurant-style dining, which is different from the typical cafeteria self-serve that can be found there during the week. The menu listed újházy tyúkhúsleves (hen soup), which is apparently a traditional Hungarian wedding dish. We ordered natúr csirkemellfilé sajtos-sonkás mártással, burgonyakrokettel (natural chicken covered in ham and cheese sauce with potato croquettes) as our main dish and a round of mineral waters. We sat there chatting as we waited for the food to arrive. The waiter came bearing our first course, the traditional wedding soup. Eager to begin my meal, I grabbed for my spoon, looked at my dish and, to my horror, found what appeared to be a foot floating in my soup. Upon further examination, I noticed that this was, in fact, a whole chicken talon. As you could imagine, a look of sheer terror and confusion came across my face. Niki began laughing and just as she was about to comment on my shocked facial expression, Adam began to beg "Meghan, please, oh please can I have that?"

I was more than happy to hand over the claw. Apparently, the chicken talon floating in the soup is a very big deal, and that I gave it away for free was somewhat unheard of in the Hungarian culture. You are supposed to nibble on the foot skin and suck the toes to get the "full experience". Niki had the almost equally as high honor of the chicken neck or, as my family likes to call it, the acrobatic wiener--a little Thanksgiving inside joke. The rest of the meal was less than adventurous, yet still satisfying.

I returned to the hostel, and rested up a little more, still exhausted from the day before. Upon awakening from my almost 2 hour nap, I contacted Timi (one of the middles on the team) and asked what her plans were for later that evening. After some facebook chatting, we decided that we, along with Barbi, would head over to the Csaba Center to hang out at the mall. Walking into the mall, we were overwhelmed by white dresses and tuxedos.

There was a wedding expo in the Csaba Center. I was officially being stalked by weddings. Wandering through the many dresses, party favors, and reception set ups, we found our escape at the escalators. After making a few much needed purchased at Media Markt and Spar, we left the mall for our dinner destination: McDonald's. A shaker salad and nugget meal later, and we were off, wandering back to the hostel in the freezing weather. My day of being stalked by weddings had finally come to an end. Tomorrow we would head to Nyíregyháza, beginning our second half of this round of matches. Until next time...