We took a trip to Dombovar last weekend, a city I had never even heard of until I started going out with Kata, and met her sister and friends from her hometown. Dombovar is quite pretty, with a huge number of chestnut trees and beautiful courtyards and gardens. They even maintain a "tiszta udvar" system of plaques for award winning clean and pretty courtyards. It is strange that in Hungary they have their wild (inedible) chestnut trees planted in the town and city centres, but the normal edible chestnuts in the forests. We walked around and I got to see where Kata was born, went to school, ate her school lunch with friends every day...We stayed with her sister and her family and of course ate until we could barely move. Evi is in possession of an interesting kitchen artefact. A local wood toilet seat factory did not know what to do with all the toilet seat holes they cut out, so decided to decorate them and sell them as cutting boards. It reminded me of American football player Rosie Grier and his donut hole idea that later took off with Dunkin' Donuts. Looking into this, I just discovered that he was also the one that tore the gun from Sirhan Sirhan's hand after the Robert Kennedy assassination! Personally, I always wondered what the Hungarians did with all their flag holes in 1956 and after 1989...Evi's husband Jozsi is an auto mechanic and we brought the winter tires down to be changed. As it turns out, the winter tires have been on the car all summer and we brought down the summer tires! There was a grape harvest festival, but again, just as in Szögliget the week before; there was little evidence of grapes, grape juice or even wine. One local winemaker was in evidence, and was giving away "the first cup for free and probably the second as well, and, well, OK maybe the third." There WERE grapes decorating the many carriages in the procession. These were quite creative, and filled to bursting with fancily dressed children. We planned on visiting the Gunaras Thermal Baths the next morning but were far too hung-over from our visit with Csilla and Bela the evening before. Kata also informed me of a Hungarian Christmas tradition, that you can pay a bit extra at the post office and have your Christmas cards sent via Nagykaracsony (Big Christmas) and stamped there. Apparently, all you need to do is write the secret word "Karacsony Posta" on your holiday postcard and it will be routed through the Nagykaracsony post office and get a special stamp.  I guess it is the Hungarian version of the North Pole.

We visited Kata's godfather in Szakaly on the way back to Budapest, took a tour through his garden, and ate some fine grapes and hazelnuts.