This is my last post this year, on Tuesday I’ll turn my second year ofwriting these music posts and none the less I know, that the whole blog is turning its second year, it’s still a big, pleasant result for me because many time I can’t do anything continually. And these 10 weeks since I’m writing my post make a whole series :). Where to go on New Year’s Eve is always a big dilemma for people at my age, (almost as big as the „I have nothing to wear, what should I do?” problem for the girls) where to see the old year out, should I stay or should I go? (Clash, of course) But whatever you want – my dear Ladies and Gentleman – you can find it in Budapest - and in any other cities, but I live in Budapest so I know it better, but you can google the offers of other places out – I’ve just heard this expression, „google it out” in a movie, our language is changing I’m pretty sure now; but back to the Teleshop rap. So my dear readers, I can’t offer you some specific party places to go, because there are oh so many possibilities, but I try to make a list.
”Where can I go, if I am in Budapest on New Year’s Eve?” (I could be the „howto” girl for the Cosmopolitan :). You know, „how to dress like Jessica Simpson”, „how to find your husband-to-be with five million dollars”, „how to talk about helpless things in your music posts” :) ) You can go to salsa parties; to rock and roll, dress like Elvis parties, to exclusive Indian-style parties; to back-to-the-past retro parties, etc, etc. or just go to pubs, party malls, boats, theatres, moreover I’ve just find a „Flight out the night” opportunity :). So I hope every musicfan will find the best choice, because New Year’s Eve without music likes ummm... you’d dance for the headline of a silent film:).
Have a great last three days of this year, and goodbye till next year. (Next week I’ll show you a new hungarian band indeed)
Today is Christmas Eve and every house is filled with the traditional Christmas Dishes. In Hungary the fish soup (halászlé) is one of the most popular Christmas dishes.
Fish soup (Hungarian: halászlé is hot soup prepared with mixed river fish, characteristic for cuisines of the Pannonian Plain and the Balkans, especially the wider region around the River Danube. The meal originates from Slavic cuisine.
Traditionally, fish soup is prepared in small kettles on open fire by fishermen themselves.
To be honest I've never cooked fish soup by myself, because my father and my mother-in-law prepare fish soup for Christmas every year. But I have another reason too: I never could cut a live fish, in spite of the fact that I like fish soup very much.
Every region in Hungary has its own fish soup recipe, hence when we go to restaurants in different parts of Hungary, I would order it as often as possible. If you travel to Hungary, try Szegedi, Bajai and Tiszai halászlé :)
Actually I like my father's fish soup the most, so now let me share with you his special recipe. He said that he has cooked the fish soup in this way for forty years. So if you would like to cook Hungarian halászlé one day and if you are brave enough to also clean the fish, then do not hesitate to try out my father's recipe!
Ingredients:
for about 6 person
a big carp (1, 5 kilo), some different types of small fishes (500 gram freshwater fish), 2 liter water, 1 big peeled tomato, 2 large chopped onion, 2 tbs Hungarian paprika powder, salt to taste, 1 green pepper, 1 dl red wine
Prepare:
1. Preparation: Clean the fish and remove its teeth, tail, fins and scales with a sharp knife. Cut out the eyes from the head. Wash the cleaned fish with cold water. Open up the carp at its belly and remove the chitterlings. Slice it up for 2 cm thick slices and salt the fish fillets.
2. Make a fish stock. Cook the head of carp an the small fishes in water until tender, strain and pour it through a sieve.
3. Cook the chopped onion in water and until soft, sieve and put it into the fish stock.
4. Place the salted carp slices into the fish stock. Add slices of green pepper and the peeled sliced tomato, some salt if necessary and bring it to the boil. If you find it necessary, add some water.
5. Add the Hungarian red paprika powder, the wine and cook until the carp is tender.
6. Serve by carefully removing the fish fillets with a skimmer and placing them in the plates, then use a ladle to scoop some soup until its covered.
They organize a christmas fair on the Vörösmarty square in Budapest every year. At the fair, folk artisans and craftsmen sell their goods which are handmade in the traditional way from natural and organic materials. The quality is guaranteed as all goods are checked by the Association of the Hungarian Folk Artists (Népművészeti Egyesületek Szövetsége).
But to be honest, I go there for gastronomy every year:) It was very cold in Budapest today. Like -4 Celsius but I felt like -10! I didn't care, I went there to eat the sausage (grilled one) with mustard, bread and with mulled wine. Beside us, a couple was eating the same and the man said to his wife:
- You know....I have been waiting for a week for this moment. Eating here this sausage!
Well, his words were not dedicated to me but I was nodding with full mouth. I know its not a fitness food, but very Hungarian and we have just once a year Christmas...haven't we?
The sausage is really very good there and you have to eat it just simply with plastic forks on paper plates as in the old fashioned Hungarian "Laci Konyha" in my childhood. Only the price is different but again....we have Christmas just once a year!
The mulled wine you will get in a "Budapest" cup which you can keep, or if you return it, you will get back some money.
And have you ever tried the Kürtös Kalács from Erdély? This special sweet Hungarian food you have to try when you are in Budapest!
Hey everyone, this is my last post before Christmas, and I wish all of you, all the readers, all the musicfreaks, all the visitors and the future visitors of Hungary a very peaceful, quiet Christmas. Yes, it’s Christmas time, and Budapest is so beautiful in this time of the year
but there are too many people in the streets, in the shopping malls and simply everywhere (go home and be with your family!). Last night I made gingerbread-teddybears (that’s why I missed to post yesterday), and I decided to show you something about Christmas in Hungary, you know with the assistance of music.
I tried to find a song about Christmas in hungarian or just from Hungary – and I’ve never thought it was such hard. I know two or three bands who made really good Christmas songs, but I didn’t find them on the youtube. So now, I share with you a very funny, and joyful video from a hip-hop duo, called Animal Cannibals (for more information click here)
And since digital technology is not enough developed yet, I can’t sing you my favourites (Last Cristmas, from the Wham, just to stay near by classics) (ok, I know, that I could record it, and publish on the youtube...), poor (lucky!) you. But at least I must show you somtehing from my very favourite Christmas movie, Love Actually. Yes, you are in right, here comes Billy Mack and the Christmas is all around:). Merry Christmas!
Even in early December the whole city is decorated for Christmas, the lights are up, the first Advent candles are lit in homes and in churches, the Christmas Market starts, the malls are also filled with Christmases trees and of course with shoppers. In spite of everything show that Xmas season is here and all the decorations look very attractive, to me the Xmas season just starts really when I bake the first tin gingerbread together with my children and my flat filled with the sweet smell of ginger, cinnamon, honey and clove :)
I bake gingerbreads every year, circa a week before Xmas. I usually bake more portions, one of them to decorate the Xmas tree, one of them to eat ( this portion I put in a metal box, that they soften for Xmas eve), and nowadays I bake one more portion to the kindergarten too :)
Ingredients:
250 gram honey
100 gram butter
500 gram flour
100 gram sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1 yolk
1 tbs mixed ginger, cinnamon and clave (mix them to taste)
1 white of egg and icing sugar for the glaze decorating
Prepare:
Warm up the butter with the honey and sugar.
Add flour, baking soda, beaten egg and the spices. Knead well and let rise the dough for 4-5 hour.
Roll out thin the dough and cut cake forms, if you like that the cake will be bright then smear with yolk.
Decorate before baking with hazelnuts, walnuts, raisins and drageé.
Bake at 220 Celsius, for 5-6 minutes.
After baking decorate with icing glaze, if you desire.
The Children's Railway is a special attraction of Budapest. The speciality of this 11 kilometre-long, 760 millimetre small-gauge 'little train' is that children between 10-14 years provide most services: they check the tickets, signal out and even conduct trains. I think its really fun and they look very cute there:)
The Children's Railway was built between 1948 and 1950 connecting Hűvösvölgy (Cool Valley) and Széchenyi Hill. At that time and indeed until 1990, it bore the name Pioneers' Railway (Úttörővasút). The Pioneers ('úttörő') was the only children's organisation in the Socialist Era, following the example of the Russian 'pioneers'.
On the third and last stretch of the line a 198 metre-long tunnel was built, adding still more excitement to the journey. The Hűvösvölgy Station building hosts a Children's Railway Museum (Gyermekvasutas Múzeum), which exhibits a collection of relics from the former Pioneers' Railway.
The Children's Railway runs every day from 9 am to 6 pm between 15th March and 23rd October, and hourly from Tuesday to Sunday from 9 am to 5 pm between 24th October and 14th March.
On summer weekends and public holidays nostalgia steam- and motor-traction trains also run; these can be enjoyed with a special ticket. (source: www.hungarystarsthere.com)
The best way to get to the Children's Railway is taking the Cog Railway from the Városmajor. This special train is part of Budapest's public transportation, so you can take it with a regular ticket or with your three days tourist card. The last station of the Cog Railway is at the Szechenyi Hill where you can find the station of the Children's Railway.
Actually this is a perfect excursion for both summer and wintertime. The route of the train is among the hills of Buda with a great view. These videos can give you an impression:
Once upon a time there was an old king who has three sons. These three could nothing to do but music. (you know fairytales, what did they have to do? Fence with knights? Save princesses from trouble? Cut the dragons’s all the seven heads away? Come on, we live in the 21th century) So they decided to set up a band which plays acrobatic-rock ’n’ roll, and the Supernem was born.
They played together, got a million fans all over the empire, gave big concerts in the hugest wooden rings, and got two album recorded in a studio. In spite of playing golf or other regal sport like polo or dressage test, they wrote their songs by themselfes, the lyrics and all the instrumental parts also. Our trio selected the word Supernem to name the band. At that time Supernem could mean something funny, but the scientists are not pretty sure in this issue and it has not been cleared up ere now. The word SuperMAN is well known all over the world, the super hero in those sticky blue stockings. But SuperNEM is different. „Nem” means no in a forgotten language from Central Europe called hungarian. So scientists think this tricky combination was funny in those days:).
OK, ok, I found a tale with the same start on their website, and i couldn’t stand to write my version, I’m sorry:)
So they have 2 albums out (Hangosabban, Tejfog), and a few songs in english, and the music they do is perfect to sing in your car out loud when you’re sitting in a traffic jam, I mean this song:
and your neighbours will love you, if you live in a condominium and try to dance (stomp!) for this:
Believe me, me and my boyfriend did it :)
If you liked them, come and spend a few-day Christmas holiday in Budapest, they give a concert on the 27th December (at last but not least Budapest is beautiful nowadays, oh, those Christmas lights) :)
Fore more information click here: www.supernem.hu or leave a comment. And finally, one of their english songs:
Hungary is famous of spas, baths and thermal water. Actually we are very very rich of these kind of natural resources. In this article, I show you two examples of the most famous baths, but for more detailed information please feel free to browse the advanced search facilities of the www.hungarystartshere.com site.
Hévíz, meaning thermal water in Hungarian, is the world's largest thermal lake with a surface area of 4.4 hectares. The water temperature in the cave from which it springs is 39.8 degrees Centigrade. The temperature of the lake itself varies between 34 and 36 degrees Centigrade in the summer, but even in winter it does not dip below 26-29 degrees Centigrade.
The lake's mineral water gushes to the surface from a Trias-age dolomite layer into a spring cave 18 metres in diameter. At the spring the water is 38 metres deep. The water is in continual motion and thus the entire volume of the spring-fed lake changes completely in three and a half days.
The sulphurous water contains alkaline hydrocarbonate and is slightly radioactive. Benefits of the medicinal waters are utilised by a number of medical institutions and hotels but for the authentic Hévíz experience the visitor really must bathe in the waters of the lake itself.
A professor at the Keszthely School of Economics, Sándor Lovassy, began experimenting with naturalising 'lotus' flowers brought from India and Africa in 1898. A few years later Hévíz had become the only place in Central Europe where warm water lilies bloomed outdoors but only one, a pink variant of the India red water lily, actually became native to the lake. The flower became symbolic of Hévíz and was subsequently adapted into the city's coat of arms.
The unique chemical composition of the lake waters, its temperature and the gentle movement of the water mass combined with the floating peat and mud can speed recovery of patients.
Old bathing house
The waters are particularly suitable for the treatment of rheumatic and locomotor complaints. The physicians of the Thermal Baths and the Saint Andrew State Hospital for Rheumatology and Rehabilitation attend patients.
Address: Hévíz, Dr. Schulhof Vilmos sétány 1. Hungary Phone: +36 83 340 587
Hotel Gellért was built in the late-Secession style in 1918. The Spa, Swimming Pool and Lido complex are integral to the Hotel, making it one of Budapest's most beautiful baths.
The characteristic towers with their eastern cupolae and the bustling facade with its ornamental lyre and bird motifs on its balcony balustrades attracts the eye from a distance.
The baths' original secession furnishing have been preserved almost completely with their artistic mozaics, leaded glass windows and statues, which is not always the case with the Hotel's interior.
A stained glass window made in 1993 ornaments the staircase which leads up from the Hotel reception. It depicts the seekers of the mythical stag from an ancient Hungarian legend. Built at the foot of the Gellért Hill, the secession Hotel and Spa has a long history: the first reports of a medicinal spring there date from the 13th century. A hospital was erected here in the Middle Ages and a bath in the Turkish era.
The current Spa was built according to the plans of Ármin Hegedűs, Artúr Sebestyén and Izidor Sterk. It was damaged during World War II in 1945 and was then reconstructed and modernised, although the original treasures of its exterior were retained.
The Gellért Baths and Hotel is a complex that also offers medicinal and recreational services. It offers a wave pool, a Jacuzzi, indoor and outdoor thermal baths, and a kids' pool.
The swimming pool at the Spa
Medicinal services are available at the Gellért Baths for treating practically any complaint. A day-time hospital and inhalatorium operate in the institute, which provide all-round medicinal treatment.
The spa water is effective in the treatment of degenerative disorders of joints and the spine, chronic and subacute arthritic complaints, disorders of the vertebral disks, neuralgia, aortic stenosis, and impeded circulation. The inhalation therapy section treats patients with asthmatic and chronic bronchitic complaints.
The water erupts from springs inside Gellért Hill. It is sulphurous thermal water that contains sodium and is rich in calcium-magnesium-hydrocarbonates; it has a significant fluoride content.
Dumplings filled with plum jam or fresh plum, which are sprinkled with cinnamon powder and icing sugar and the dumplings made of potatoes, flour, egg, and salt. We call it "szilvásgombóc" in Hungarian.
I thought that plum dumpling is an authentic Hungarian food, because it is a well-known fancied dish in Hungary and there is also a Hungarian folk tale about it, and finally but not last it played main role in one of the popular Hungarian musical and there is a song about it, which you can hear here. (Choose Szilvásgombóc). But actually when I googled "plum dumpling" I found the Italian, and Croatian versions, too.
Well now I don't know exactly where is originated it, but I know that my children like it very much :)
Put 400 gr potatoes in their skins into a large pot of boiling water; boil for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove potatoes, and discard water. When cool enough to handle, peel potatoes, and place on a lightly floured surface. Mash potatoes.
Place mashed potatoes into a large bowl. Stir in (15-20 dkg) flour, (1) egg, salt (to taste), and (one tablespoon) oil. Knead well to form smooth dough. Then roll out the dough and cut square.
In a bowl mix cinnamon powder and icing sugar. Sprinkle the dough square with it, after place sliced plum in the middle of the square and create dumpling forms.
Cook a few noodles at a time in salted water for about 10 minutes. After cooking put them in toasted bread crumbs and finally sprinkle with icing sugar. The result will be yummy.
If you want to learn how to make the plum dumpling from step by step, then sit back and watch this short video!
Just like arriving by train, arriving by bus can be also fun from the surrounding countries mostly. Our advice is to choose bus only if you arrive from the west (Austria, Germany) or from the North-West (western part of Slovakia, Czech Republic). Arriving from these directions you will travel on fast highways. Though a lot of new highways are under constructions recently, arriving from east or south you may spend just too much time on buses.
International services of Eurolines and the Transdanubian services of Volánbusz arrive at the new Népliget station:
Click on the logo of the transportation companies and you will find all information you need. To compare to the train company or to the city transport company I think that VOLÁNBUSZ has a quite good website for English speaking users.
VOLÁNBUSZ
Eurolines is a group of Companies their services you can reach directly here or from the VOLÁNBUSZ site above.
Eurolines
Domestic buses use two other stations, too. Buses from East Hungary arrive at the Népstadion bus station, those from the Danube Bend at the Árpád Bridge bus station. Each bus station is connected with a metro station.
I love everything about Everlast. I love his music, love his voice, love the way he sings, love that mysterious way (oh, here is a gloomy commitment to U2, the whole world is about music) he do his thing, music, and everything connected with music. (ok, the next time I type „music” I’m gonna break the „the most music in a single post” all time guiness world record. I mean, the next time after this moment).
So Everlast is one of my all-time-favourites and if I were a journalist of some music (did I break that record?)magazine/radio station/televison or something (and I wanna be :)) I would say: Breaking news! We found Hungarian Everlast! In fact, the Kowalsky meg a Vega is a band, but who cares? We found Hungarian Everlast!
But since I’m just a girl who write about music I won’t make this stupid comparison between them, I just say: I love Everlast, I like the Kowa and I found some similarities. Let’s make a list :). No, lucky you, I’m just joking.
But this time I show you three videos, find that similarities (the groove, the bass, the same topics) -if the are exist- yourself, but I find very important to make it clear: the Kowalsky meg a Vega is a hungarian band, they are very talented, very popular in Hungary and all of my respect is their. Beacuse of their lyrics, because of so many things that I can’t write down (did I mention my 2000-character-captivity?). And first of all! They are NOT an Everlast-clone cute-to-hear band. They do THEIR OWN MUSIC perfect.
