Style points to Margaret today

I walked outside this morning to find one of the best letters ever written in our mailbox - THANK YOU MARGARET! Your postcard is being written.

In it she mentioned that ever night I don't post, her heart breaks a little, so I'll try to write at least egy kicsit while I try to fall asleep from a hard day's growing.

Soooo.... Today I woke up before noon! Last night Jack and I passively made the decision to watch whatever came on after soccer at 1am. It happened to be Cops in Hungarian. That show makes Americans look ridiculously stupid. It was fun watching the high speed chases, though.

Our adventure today was sub-par, to say the least. We've both accumulated dirty clothes and it was time to get them cleaned. Jack decided that a laundromat was the best course of action. Even though I knew we had a washer/dryer and a clothesline in the apartment, somehow my mouth said, "OK sure." (???) We packed up our linens and stepped outside to waste the next two hours of our lives.

My handy-dandy Lonely Planet guidebook to Hungary lists one laundromat in the city. We took the number 2 tram (frisco trolley, remember) along the river a few stops and got off at the Erzsébet bridge, where a quick walk brought us to Ferenciek tere. Having found the laundromat, I realized we couldn't communicate to the old Hungarian women who washed clothes there, we could easily purchase detergent on our own street, and all this could be done in half the time in our own apartment! Giving myself a kick in the head, I explained all this to Jack. I think he's a fan of the laundromat - it's the New York in him - and he reluctantly agreed.

We did get some groceries from this debacle, including a kilo of potatoes and a box of eggs... both of which we already had. Another oops.

Anyone have any great and easy recipes for stew? We've got 3 kilos of potatoes, a bunch of big carrots, peppers, onions, some meats... we are fans of hot, filling food. Doesn't need to be fancy. I don't know what tomato paste looks like here, but could probably figure it out easily enough. Mom and Grandma Metzler, I'm counting on you for these.

Do I have a third "oops" for the day? YOU BETCHA! For dinner tonight we had pasta and a mystery meat we picked up on our last shopping crusade. It comes in a plain green can with a red and white label. The budget brand here comes from the Spar grocery chain, and is marked "budget" which is Hungarian for "budget." It has no pictures to give non-Hungarian speakers a hint as to what it is. For the Hungarians, it is clearly labled "Pacalpörkölt Kuttelgulasch."

Well, it had the words 'pork' and 'gulasch' in it, so we figured it had to be tasty. I eat various gulasches at Frici Papa all the time, now, and man it's good! I cooked tonight. Everything came out hot at the same time, but that was easy because both just had to be heated stove-top. Dinner time!

We sat down and Jack said, "Oh. I know what this is." Uh oh. "I'm pretty sure these are pig guts."

I ate it. I'll leave you all with that thought for today.