Click here to see my: short pieces of Hungary from Budapest

I'm not writing in my blog for ages right now, and it's a shame or a pity or maybe just a signal that summer finally arrived in Hungary! Yes! It's not hot, just pleasantly warm and cool during the night. I would like to stay always up, to enjoy and discover everything. Anyway...I also like dreaming all those beautiful thing, so now I'm going to meet Morpheus (yes, he's everywhere!). I'll leave you with a special gift. A top 5 of Hungarian peculiarities observed by me. I wrote them in a sunny Sunday some weeks ago, in order to participate to a contest. They judged them well and now they are published (in three languages: Italian, English and German)! Now I don't regret that Sunday at home! ;) Click on the title to reach the original page and to discover Néo, an interesting brand new on-line magazine to get in touch with cities and stories uncovered by mass media. Maybe you like writing too...Good night!
1. "Wine plus"
Hungarians love mixtures. One flavour is not enough; it has to be enriched, combined and mixed up so that it gets lost among other flavours. Take, for example, alcohol. Young Hungarians love sweet things and often drink Coca Cola mixed with wine or beer and fruit syrups. This creation is particularly beloved of the girls, but men are often quite partial to it as well. Young Hungarians have also acquired a taste for fizzy wine - called Champagne here - once it has been stirred for a while with a straw. The first time I saw this habit was in a club, where two girlfriends recommended that I do the same in order to get rid of the bubbles and make it lighter on the stomach. I thought about the fact that, even though Hungary contains vast areas of vineyards, the young people prefer alcoholic drinks other than wine, such as the locally distilled concoctions Palinka and Unicum. These are excellent products, among the best in the world. It must be because of this strong local link that these and other distillations or liquors have the honour of being drunk straight rather than diluted by the girls and boys.

2. House parties
In the film "La boum" ("The Party", 1980), the characters meet at a house party. While in Italy, America and elsewhere, parties at home were fashionable until a couple of generations ago, here in Hungary we are still riding the crest of that wave: twenty-fifth birthday parties that start at four in the afternoon and finish around eleven; Saturday nights spend drinking with twenty other people, crammed into a tiny room; evenings with the girls trying to imitate the American television series of the moment. The rules are simple. Bring a bottle of wine, claim it is the best wine in Hungary - at every party at least five different vineyards are honoured in this way - and then kick off your shoes, sit down and start drinking. Once at a birthday I asked for water and caused general hilarity, only saving myself by explaining that at that moment I was thirsty but afterwards that I would be happy to sample something stronger. In the course of the evening, you end up eating generally uncomplicated dishes in no particular order: savoury aperitif biscuits, toast, snacks, chips and desserts, all eaten while chatting and drinking. Around midnight it's time to call a taxi and go dancing until morning.
(Picture of one very nice house party. The girl in the middle, Henrietta, cooked for us bruschetta with tomatoes, pasta (fusilli) and offered us a delicious Hungarian cake with raspberries. I've learnt a lot that evening, since all the girls where so nice to speak with me despite of my poor Hungarian. I hope to never forget evening like that!)
3. A woman's touch
Hungarian women are very beautiful and are very careful of of their appearance. One aspect that always attracts the attention of visitors to Budapest is their nails. The Hungarian manicure is like an operation of self-renewal. They wear their nails at least two or three centimetres long, generally fake, varnished with brightly-coloured nail polish and embellished with all sorts of decorations, from simple spots to rhinestone polka dots. The most recent fashion, launched in 2009, is that of pointed nails. It's an extreme choice, as I am aware following continual observation, which renders human contact dangerous and the simplest of practical operations, such as holding onto a handle in the tram, impossible. But one must suffer for beauty...

4. Turo-Rudi: A symbol of Hungarian childhood
It's called Turo-Rudi and it's a delicious snack that can only be found in Hungary, a status symbol for the modern generations. It's something you keep in the fridge and it is made of Hungarian soft cheese covered in chocolate. Hungarian soft cheese or turo is a soft, coarse-grained cheese and is used in quite a different way from Italian ricotta. The Turo-Rudi is a cylinder about the size of a lipstick; there are natural or filled versions, and variations include cherry, apricot and hazelnut. It is a status symbol for the new generations, as well as something the whole country can boast about. There have been picturesque advertising campaigns and a song, but the Turo-Rudi is a product made by a number of different companies. The most important one produces only this. Characterized by unmistakeable red-dotted white packaging, it was voted the brand best loved by the Hungarians in 2010, surpassing even Coca Cola.

5. An oddity - Spring cleaning
One morning at the beginning of spring, I stepped out of my building and stumbled over a bedstead. I mentally blessed the nice man who had left it just in front of the entrance to the building, before realizing that the entire footpath had been invaded by furniture, books, clothes and all manner of knick-knacks. My curiosity was aroused and I explored the nearby streets, only to find the same phenomenon everywhere.

Around eight, the Hungarians started to arrive, in vans or on foot, pushing wheelbarrows. They rummaged, tried out, chose and brought things home. They picked out all sorts of things, even objects that I thought too worn-out to be useful for anything.

In the afternoon, excited by my discovery, I asked a Hungarian colleague about it and disovered that I had found myself in the middle of a legal, organized custom called Lomtalanitás ("clean-out"). Lomtalanitás happens between March and October, one district at a time, according to an established calendar.

Budapest is divided into 23 districts, large areas run by the local administration, which sends letters to inform residents and announce the annual Lomtalanitás dates. One weekend per year, each area is filled with anything people want to get rid of, which remains available to passers-by for over 24 hours. During the day, it's necessary to walk carefully to avoid the people busy searching in the piles of objects. Cars have to stop so that they do not interrupt discussions and swaps that have begun in the course of this community operation. For a few hours, the distance between the rich and the homeless disappears, in that moment in which even actors and wealthy tourists deign to handle the "goods". By now it's common knowledge that, a few years ago, the French actress Catherine Deneuve was sighted bargaining for a couple of valuable chairs in front of the Pest Opera theatre. In some parts of the city, however, the custom has become connected with brawls and illegal buying and selling, however strange it may seem to make a business out of rubbish. In reality, people throw out anything they don't need, including books, ornaments and frames, to the delight of treasure hunters, but also of criminals ready to pass off old junk for art. The remains, usually damaged bits of furniture, are taken away before dawn of the next day by the urban cleaning lorries. The street cleaners accompany them so that, by eight on Sunday morning, the streets are clean and clear again. It's a fantastic recycling system, simple and economical. This year I found a stuffed dog. I named him Rubbish.

In the picture: Rubbish, comfortably established in my bedroom, with Fulvio (on the extreme left) the Traveller Panda, surrounded by my Erasmusfriends' candles (an unforgettable present).