This Thanksgiving/Christmas season has giving me a new perspective on everything that I am grateful for. I am extremely grateful for my team and this wonderful opportunity I have had to play this sport I love with some incredible people.
This Thanksgiving, I was able to participate in a Thanksgiving dinner with some great teammates and friends. I didn't really have enough time to make them a real Thanksgiving dinner with the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, so I made them mac and cheese. Our assistant coach, Zsoka brought some kolbasz which made for a great turkey replacement. She and her boyfriend make some really good kolbasz.
But this dinner wouldn't have been possible without some pumpkin pie. (Huge thanks to my mom for making it all possible. She even sent me some runts and candy corn from the famous "blessing mix")
Part of our season includes a five month tournament called the European Challenge Cup. Each month is one round of the tournament. The round consists of two matches. One match at the home of the teams. Whoever wins both matches moves on to the next round. If there is a tie, then a golden set is played to decide which team will advance.
Our first round of the tournament was against a team in Godolla, Hungary. Before the matches began, we had a huge press conference in the city hall. The press conference was broadcast all over Hungary. I think. We didn't have to say anything fortunately. We just sat against the wall and watched the important people speak in words I couldn't understand.
We won the first match at our place in four sets. The second match was really rough. We dropped the first two sets to Godolla and then somehow we managed to pull out three won sets so that we will advance in the tournament. The next round will be played in January. The opposing team will either be from Serbia or Germany.
During our three free days, Lana, the setter was kind enough to take me to Novi Sad, Serbia. It was really incredible. In the picture below is Lana, me, and Doca (not really sure how to spell her name). We spent a lot of great time together that weekend.
This church is my favorite part of the city I think. It is beautiful!
This is a famous clock, the first of its kind. The hour hand is longer than the minute hand. They made it that way so that sheepherders could see the hour since it is more important.
This is at the medieval fortress just across the river from Novi Sad.
Kolbászfesztivál
This happened in October. It is the best thing that ever happened to Bekescsaba. Everyone from all over Europe comes to this tiny little city to eat sausage and get drunk. Here are some pictures from the festivities. We went on the first day of the festival so there weren't quite so many people. Thank heavens.
Everyone buys their sausage and beer and then sits down inside of one of the tents. You had the option of listening to music in one or watching some Hungarian dancers performing in the other tent.
This was my favorite sausage stand. They had sausage made in different shapes. Well mostly just different pig shapes.
These creepy scarecrows were all over the place. I'm sure that many drunk people mistook them for people at times.
These delicious things are called kurtoskalacs. They are mainly a Christmas treat, but they also had them here at the festival.
New food experiences:
My favorite soup is this pumpkin soup. It is kind of sweet so they probably put lots of sour cream in it. Those dark things on top are pumpkin seeds. They don't have as much of a love for pumpkin out here so I am grateful that my mom sent me some pumpkin mixes so that I can still taste the holidays here.
Spenotfozelek bundas kenyerrel translated as spinach stew and furry bread. I think this was one of the most interesting things I tasted. The furry bread was I think buttered and fried toast. Not sure why it was called furry.
kolozsvari rakott kaposzta. This is a cabbage casserole with rice and kolbasz, topped with sour cream of course. It was very filling and I could barely eat half of it.
Pozsonyi kocka- this was real good. Its a sweet poppyseed casserole with noodles and cream cheese type stuff.
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