Easter weekend was pretty frigid no matter where you were, and Borsod County was no exception. Even so, Richard, Magda, and little Alex and I had a good time, eating and drinking well. After Richard chopped some wood, and I got the sparhet and cserepkalyha going, we got to work on the turkey burgers and David Wilkinson's turkey sausages, as well as baked potatoes. For desert, Magda stuffed bananas with chocolate, wrapped them in tin foil, and baked them in the embers. Since 3.5 year old Alex is really into horses these days, we went to Perkupa on Saturday to visit some friends that have 6 horses in their field. Alex had a great time as Aniko patiently introduced him to her charges. We had some ice cream at the friendly ice cream stand on the main road in Perkupa, then visited Varboc, one of, if not the the most beautiful villages in Hungary. Dinner was chili in the bogracs, followed by marshmallows. Richard also put together some salsa and a creamy avocado dish. Jeroen, Lennard, Benno and Gita were in the area and dropped in for drinks and dinner. The normally very good Weninger Syrah-Merlot 2007 was disappointingly Portugueiser-like. However, the Puglia Ogio Primitivo (Zinfandel) 2010 was good and surprisingly full - a bargain at 990 HUF. I also made some banana pancakes for breakfast on Sunday.

Richard's mom had a big birthday on Monday, so we came back on Sunday. This allowed me and John G. to go on a hike in the Pilis. We started in Pomaz, and were happy to find the Bika Pub just opposite the HEV station. The Bika and its sister fast food business next door were very welcoming on this blustery Easter Monday.  Our plan was to hike to Csobanka, then around to Pilisvorosvar and get the train back. We more or less managed to do this, but it involved mostly walking on asphalt, since the paper map, posted maps on signs, and google maps could not agree on anything - and ALL the legends were incorrect. Even so, it was a pleasant day, ending with a not so sneaky beer at the train station. The pub here deserves a special mention for their amateur Hungarian train and MAV exhibit. We were stumped by the tri-lingual street signs. Hungarian and German were easy, but the third seemed a combination of Dutch and a Scandinavian language, and eventually turned out to be Schwab (in fact distantly related to Danish).

Along the way, my backpack's zipper was damaged beyond repair. So much for the Samsonite gorilla. Luckily the small friendly zipper repair shop at Ferenciek tere 7/8 in the courtyard was still operating, and it will be ready in a week for 3000 huf.