Food for thought.

Pec's Szechenyi Ter


My biggest mistake today was not bringing my camera to breakfast.

I was thrilled to find out that there were eggs on the menu and so I ordered scrambled eggs with sausage. What came out looked like an egg pizza pie with thinly sliced hot dogs on top. Strange and unappetizing as it looked, it was pretty tasty. Then I reached inside the bread basket and found cinnamon bread in a Neapolitan swirl of colors: brown, white and pink! Pink bread! It was good, too! If breakfast was this exciting, who knew what the day would hold?

Pecs is a busy, albeit small city. There are tons of people milling around: students with backpacks riding bikes, school children walking in lines, mothers pushing strollers, men and women going to work, couples lounging in coffee shops. The sidewalks are narrow at times and sometimes I felt like I was back in New York City, weaving through the people traffic. My culture shock to Hungary was not as dramatic as it had been between Poland and the Czech Republic, but I can't help but notice that everyone is much friendlier here. People smile at me, offer help, genuinely try to communicate. I feel welcomed.

I mostly ambled about the city, taking in the sights. My favorite spot was the Csontvary Museum, which exhibits the major works of Slovakian-Hungarian artist Tivadar Kosztka Csontvary. I like a small museum like this, focused on one artist, so you can learn his history and visually see the progression of work through the years. While museums like the Met are brilliant, I often walk out over-stimulated. Here, I felt like I learned something and it will stick.

Csontvary, who happened to suffer from schizophrenia, became an artist late in life. He only has about 120 works total. When he didn't get the fame he expected, he delved into a depression and never painted again. Now they have a museum dedicated to him.

His paintings are large and bold landscapes and people painted with the most vivid of colors. I stopped and stared for a long time at "At the Entrance of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem." It was a picture of a crowd, there were so many people I couldn't count them, and yet all of them had such different expressions and colors to their faces. It was amazing.

I ventured across the street to the Dom Ter which is this beautifully ornate cathedral where parts of it date back to the 11^th century. What impressed me most was not the church, but inside the crypt, there were all these art projects created by children of the nativity scene. They were so creative--some were dioramas made of wood and tree cones, others were made out of clay, some were painted. I tried to take pictures of them, but they all looked stupid in pictures. In real life, they were awesome. I used to love doing that kind of stuff when I was a kid.

Dom Ter.

This nativity scene is awesome, I swear!

I must have been in a childish mood because I went into a hip-hop clothing store and bought some round pins that I would have adored when I was 14. I especially like the one with the monkey face and Darth Vader helmet that says "Dark Side." They're even made in Hungary. I have this feeling I might have to give one of them to my sister. But not the "Dark Side" one.

I love these!

My Lonely Plant guide book says that the town can't decide between two bakeries which one sells the better cake. I like solving these types of problems, so I thought I would try both. The first place, Mecsek, smelled absolutely heavenly when I walked though the door. There were so many different cakes to choose from, plus some luscious-looking ice cream, but I finally settled down on a block of crème sandwiched in pastry. It was good, but much too much. I could barely finish the whole thing.

I went to the other place Virag--which was more of a coffee shop than a bakery--at the end of the day. I wasn't really in the mood for a sweet, so I went for the smallest item, a linzer cookie covered in chocolate. I took a bite and it was cold. Cold cookies are bad things. And the rest of the desserts didn't even look that good. The first place wins hands down.

Aren't you glad that I go to these places and test these things out so you all don't have to?

The winner!