Anyway, thank you all for some really positive comments about last week’s email, which I hope painted a more realistic picture of life in a Psychiatric hospital. This week's email can be about nothing else than yesterday's Hungarian wedding that I was lucky enough to attend...
...without boring you all with the details, I will just say this, I met the groom (who's family live in our street) just less than six days before the wedding, but with the truly warm and open nature of people here, I was duly invited to the wedding, and treated like one of the family.. read on......
Actually I will give a quick bit of background... I met Sari, (16) who is one of the parents 11 (yeah 11! ) children whilst taking to some kids on the street about a month ago... (See picture of the family above) I then met one of Sari's sisters, (Rebekah 22) two weeks ago, at the internet cafe. After meeting a third sister (Judith,19) with the fore mentioned sisters for a beer, they arranged for me to meet their brother (the groom), last Sunday eve, so I met him (Szilard, 21) and his bride to be (Judith), who is Austrian, for a beer. He then invited me to the wedding, but asked me to be the photographer!!!.... This is absolutely true, and whilst I think I do take a nice picture, I am no expert photographer, which I pointed out in vain. He stated that as his sister had seen some of my pictures, and thought they looked nice, because I saw things differently, he thought it would be good if I would take pictures of things I found interesting... so I agreed. Why not eh? I then met mum and dad, and brother of the bride on Tuesday after being invited to go to their house and watch the champions league football... I ended up being sat with their dad in the couch watching Steau vs Arsneal... very surreal!!! Wednesday night, I ended up going for drinks with all brothers and sisters I have just mentioned, plus yet another older brother (Daniel)......
So the wedding.... I will try and surmise best I can here... it was set in a countryside restaurant about 3ks from this village... after tying balloons on the cars I got a lift with the groom, and 3 sisters in the lead car of the procession which beeped its horn (as is tradition here) all the way to the wedding.... the bride being Austrian meant that the wedding was translated into a second language, unfortunately for me that language was German... however, my understanding of German is poor, but far better than my Hungarian!!!! the service was short, and felt informal, without being church based, and this led to people being sat randomly on two sides of a large room... it was so informal in fact, that as the service started I found myself sat between the bride’s parents, so I quickly excused myself to sit next to yet another sister (Andrea) who I had not yet met... after the translated service, guests congratulated the couple, and champagne was passed ar
ound... (I must add here that all guests were present for the entire day... including 3-4 courses of food, and free drinks all day!!!!) I led the photograph taking... though many people had their own camera's, picture the scene... trying to organise 50+ Hungarian / German speaking people (in broken English) to move closer, or put their arms in certain positions... it must have looked bloody hysterical, and I'm sure some the guests wondered just who the hell I was...then there was the food... 1st course-, folded meat including salami, with stuffed tomatoes, peppers, cheese, and salad. 2nd course-, a noodle based soup with carrot. 3rd course - main meat dish with leg of chicken, beef, potatoes, vegetables. 4th course, cake!!!! But the best was yet to come... at about 23:00 there was a FULL ROASTED PIG, being cooked in full view of all guests, which was served outside with bits of bread and mustard!!!! It was truly amazing!!!!! (sorry to the vegetarians amongst you).Then after the fourth course (pre pig roasting) the dancing commenced with the famous Hungarian poet, who just happens to be the grooms uncle... dancing to ‘Chardish’ (Hungarian folk music) by throwing his arms around, in what looks liked hysteria, but turned out to be the style of dancing... people spun each other round randomly, in no specific musical rhythm, either in pairs of big circular groups... I loved it!!! For all you salsa groovers out there, you'll be glad to know I threw in some sleek salsa moves for effect!!! my personal theory for such extravagant dancing, I think was just to make room for the pig roast that was to come!!!! only joking! also in between dances there were some party games... honestly..
. first they sent the groom out of the room, and had the bride answer several personal or funny questions about him, he then had to come in the room, and answer the same questions.... then second game was much more surreal... both the bride and groom were given a wooden spoon (symbolising the women) and a slipper,(symbolising the man) I'm not making this up... the couple then were blindfolded and sat back to back. Questions were then asked about who does what / or who decides what in the relationship... each of the couple had to answer by raising the corresponding item, representing either the man or women, and of course the funny part, is they cannot see each other and then usually answer differently... it was really funny!!!I think I'll stop there because to be honest, I don’t remember too much after that, possibly due to the large amount of alcohol I consumed, or that my head is still recovering from the violent shaking it took, during the mass dancing session....I hope some of you will get chance to see pictures of this, as I am hopefully going to be able to download some of my camera's memory card this week...This has been one of my best experiences here so far, not just for the wedding day, but for the warmth and friendliness shown to me, by the entire family during this week. Even the grandmother sat talking to me for a good half hour, it was in Hungarian, she could have been telling me to bugger off for all I know, but whatever she said, it sounded friendly and she was smiling!!!
Have a good week!!!
Regards from Romania
Dan
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