Inside the festival gates, there was a children's area with all kinds of crafts.
Charlotte chose to sew a little pouch made of muslin:
Threading the needle (her first time, we think). Love the concentration.
All done!
Then the kids made a little flat bread. But before they could start, we got a prime example of Hungarian bureaucracy. Nicholas did not want to make a muslin pouch, but we were informed by a very serious Hungarian woman manning the bread booth that apparently you HAD to make the pouch before you could make the bread. (Why??) This explains why so many parents were frantically sewing pouches...which I had thought odd. I think our look of confusion and lack of Hungarian language skills got us off the hook!
Anyway...back to the bread making:
Bit of elbow into his sister?? The dough was premade. The kids just rolled it out and chose a design for the head baker (the serious woman...) to roll into it.
Then onto the stove it went.
It was a bit more cracker-y than breadlike, but yummy nonetheless. The kids scarfed them down.
Candlemaking, with a much more relaxed guy who didn't care that Nico hadn't made a pouch!
Silly Daddy was in full force.
The kids didn't want to leave the kids area!
Now onto our favorite thing about festivals...the food!
I translated this sign when we got home. The stand was called "House of Pies"...though there were no pies. Only big doughy circles, coated in oil, then grilled on a flat top. Maybe that's what they call pie here?
Once cooked, the dough was filled with chicken and veges or leeks and magalica (pork from the Hungarian furry pigs) and folded in half. We got one of each type and were in absolute heaven. Oh how I wish the fantastic scents could be posted on this blog!
Next, we were drawn into standing in line to play this game. It was like something you'd see at a carnival in the US, with ducks or something moving across waiting to be shot. But in Hungary, you don't shoot at them with guns, but with walnuts and a slingshot. Awesome.
After a certain number of shots, the carni guy would take the sling shot from the child, and direct him or her off to the side.
The person who had just been the shooter then becomes the person controlling the ducks. By pulling on the ears of the horse, the ducks inside the booth would move back and forth. And it works so much better in costume!
Where can we find a pair of these goggles??
Then off to try another Hungarian treat. Boldog is a Hungarian city, apparently famous for their nagyrozsa, or "big rose" cookie-type things.
An iron is dipped into a bowl of batter, then into a pot of hot oil How could that be bad?? It was crispy deliciousness.
But how could we neglect our favorite Hungarian treat, the chimney cake?
Mmmmm. A canoe filled with cinnamon sugar!
Trust me. We did not force her to eat her piece of chimney cake despite how this picture looks.
Past the food stalls, we entered a courtyard of the castle we hadn't been in before.
This statue cracks me up. It looks like the angel is blowing the trumpet in the man's ear...and he' not happy about it!
At the far end of the courtyard was the entrance to the Budapest Historical Museum. We hadn't been in before. It was great!
Peeking out towards Gellert Hill and the Danube.
Love the turret!
One cool thing was getting to explore some of the oldest excavated parts of the castle.
Really neat original chapel.
Now that Budapest is our home, this picture was really shocking. The bridges across the Danube have been destroyed during every war and rebuilt. I knew that already, but had never seen pictures. Seeing our beloved Chain Bridge like this is terrible!
While we were inside, the skies darkened, then opened up. We hung out inside the museum and watched until it blew over.
The rain hadn't deterred the stilt-walkers.
The festival was a fun way to finish out the holiday weekend. Perhaps a new Easter Monday tradition??
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