Tokaj

"The wine of kings, the king of wines." That's how Louis XIV of France described the sweet dessert wine Aszu, made in the region of Tokaj in Northeastern Hungary. For good reason: it comes in four levels of sweetness (3 to 6 puttony, or barrels of sweet, dried Aszu berries added to the recipe), and it's the wine that made the name of Tokaj famous across Europe, as a favorite of such as Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt, Goethe, Voltaire, Frederick the Great, Peter the Great, and numerous Popes. The third verse of Hungary's national anthem includes "For us on the plains of the Kuns / You ripened the wheat / In the grape fields of Tokaj / You dripped sweet nectar".

So yes, I just came back from an overnight trip to the village of Tokaj! Tom, Jim, Anna, took the 3 hour train ride on Saturday morning and stayed until Sunday afternoon. It was very exciting...



The first item of business was to find a hostel to stay the night in...I had looked up a couple online, and we just walked in one to see if we could communicate with them. When we asked for beds, they explained to us that there was a party going on that night, and it might be loud. Anna's response was "are we invited?" and the answer was "OK!" The price per person for the night was 1500 forints--about $7--so we were sold.

But we had things to do before the party. First, we walked around the town a bit. Tokaj is a very small town (about 4000 inhabitants?), and very cute and picturesque, ad the juncture of two rivers (Tisza and Bodrog) and with a huge hill rising above it, vinyards covering the surrounding countryside. The town was quite empty, as it's not a huge attraction, and it's still well before the tourist season. It was actually quite difficult to find things to eat, but we did find a certain coffee house that sold lots of different sweets for about 50 cents each--mmmm. The people in town were really nice--everyone we talked to seemed delighted to see us.


The rest of the group (Lauren, Jim, Anna, Tom) on the bridge over the Tisza, with Tokaj in the background


Main square


In town


This dog was following us around, and we continued to see him around town throughout our visit




The hill, covered with vinyards


River junction


Tom and I are no longer friends


RARE - Lauren allowed me to take a photo of her

Walking around such a small town soon grew a little old, though, and so we turned to Tokaj's main attraction: wine tasting! We first went to a cellar right behind the train station, which looked just like a tiny house until we walked in and realized the cellar continued into the hill behind. After a little looking around and observing barrels, they sat us down at a table in the cool, stone cellar and served us six of their wines. They were all delicious, even the dry ones, and it was quite an experience to taste the final wine, the 5 puttony Aszu, which was astoundingly sweet and smooth. The whole tasting cost 1000 Ft (less than $5), and the bottles we could buy were just as good of a deal: a 2-liter (plastic) bottle of Sweet Furmint wine cost 1300 Ft and the 5-puttony Aszu cost 2300 Ft for a half liter, expensive but very cheap compared to their price in Budapest. Delighted with the experience, after some desserts at the aforementioned coffee house, we went to another cellar and tried six more wines. This time we even got a taste of the 6-puttony Aszu (with something like 176 g of sugar per liter), which actually tasted remarkably like watered-down honey (I think the 5 was better).


The second cellar we went to




Tom in a cellar


Egéségedre!

Feeling quite happy, we returned to the hostel, where indeed a party was going on. I don't know if the group was connected with the hostel in any way, but in any case they were all staying there for the night, and took up pretty much the whole building (maybe 30-40 of them). Apparently, three people were having a birthday, and they were having a large party to celebrate. After rehearsing the Hungarian happy birthday phrase, "boldog sületesnapót," we joined the party in the lobby. It was pretty funny, because they were mostly middle-aged Hungarians who either had no inspiration or coordination to dance much, despite the weird Hungarian rock music being played. A few of the group were very friendly, though (not to mention a little drunk), and kept trying to get us to dance. Tom broke out some breakdancing moves, which he knows from back in the day, and even the rest of our lame efforts impressed the Hungarian crowd. So we ended up partying for an hour or so, celebrating the birthdays of some Hungarians we only knew because we decided to spend $7.50 on some cheap hostel in a small Hungarian town!


These guys loved having random American students join their party

This morning, Tom and I decided to wake up a little early and run up the big hill next to town. It ended up being a run/hike, because the whole way up was through about 6-8 inches of snow, and we have both been running less frequently than we should. Unfortunately, the view from the top wasn't quite as good as we'd hoped (it was pretty hazy), but we had a ton of fun sprinting down the hill through the snow. Also, the morning was a perfect temperature, cool but with a warming sunshine. We left after we got back, very satisfied with our short, but eventful, trip.


Tokaj from midway up the hill


Tom at the top


In other news, I know what I'm doing this summer! I got into the Iowa State math REU, and ended up opting for it. So I'll be in Ames from the day after I return from Budapest in early June until the end of July, studying Combinatorial Matrix Theory. Exciting!

I also went to a hilarious Hungarian production of West Side Story the other day, hilarious because it was ALL in Hungarian. That means words and lyrics. Lucky that I've seen it about 20 times before, and know the songs backwards and forwards! The choreography and the music were excellent, though, and we had a lot of fun.

Finally, I have found my lifelong dream: a map store. Yes, there's a map company called Cartographia in Budapest, and they have a MAP STORE! For those of you who do not know me very well, I really, really love reading maps. I spent about an hour perusing the selection, before I detected Tom getting bored and I allowed him to drag me out.