What happened to my holiday, what happened on my holiday

So here’s what happened to my holiday, namely what happened to all my grand holiday plans: it turns out that for my opportunity-laden 10-day vacation from teaching, I will be traveling... nowhere. I was a little peeved about it, but eventually my good-naturedness won out, as it usually does, and I began to see the humor in the situation, specifically a phenomenon which I’ll dub “Emily’s Law:” if x = days until vacation and y = miles to planned destination, then x and y will decrease in equal fashion. Here’s what happened:

At about T-minus four weeks, when we began to plan (planning ahead like good citizens), we talked about going to Tunisia or Egypt. There wasn’t anything cheap, and after a few hours cruising the internet we got distracted and forgot about it.

Two weeks before vacation, we decided to try to go to Croatia. These seemed pretty feasible for a long weekend: drive down on Friday, enjoy the scenery for three nights, and come back on Monday. Unfortunately, both the car and the long weekend fell through, so that idea was out.

The last-ditch effort on Saturday (T-plus two days) was deciding to go to Debrecen. Our mistake was deciding to go the next day, because by the time Sunday rolled around we were half sick, half lazy. And it was raining. So, meh.


Anyway, what happened on my holiday: instead of doing what I do best (aka being a sad-sack, sitting around the flat all day, lolling in bed watching MTV and obsessively checking blogs), I decided to make my break all about the Accomplishments. Meaning, that I would do/make/create/discover one thing to write home about every day. Most specifically, one thing which involves getting myself clean, dressed, and outside of the house.

Friday: Tesco. Actually, you can read about my Friday adventures in the drunken entry below. The extended story is, I discovered (okay, remembered) that Tesco has a free bus (’cause it’s way outside the city) and made the effort to navigate the all-Hungarian website in order to discover that the point of departure for said bus is none other than my own Várkonyi tér, not 50 meters from my front door. This made me happy, even if the Szolnok Tesco is the devil’s version of K-Mart and I couldn’t find a single one of the things I wanted to buy.

Saturday: Mexican food. For some reason, mid-Saturday afternoon, making Mexican food became an all-important objective. This necessitated a trip to Interspar for ingredients, and since we had to walk past the Mexicana bar on the way there and on the way back, it seemed only right to stop for a beer on the way there. And a beer and tequila on the way back.

Even slightly tipsy (and later, more so), I still managed to channel my inner Gaines and whip up some awesome burritos for Saturday supper. And, since I’m incapable of cooking in small portions, they also served as early-Sunday-morning snack, Sunday lunch, and Monday brunch and lunch.

Sunday: ha, me, work on the Lord’s day? Frankly, my biggest accomplishment was getting clothes on. Damn straight.

Monday: After reading 5penny’s Carrot Cake Recipe, I was feeling ambitious and decided to try it myself. This involved a trip to Spar for various ingredients. Sidebar: I think I’ve written before about how much I can love food shopping in Hungary. Especially for in-season fruits and veggies, because they’re ridiculously cheap and that appeals to my New England stinginess, I mean thrift. Today: a kilo of apples for 199Ft and a kilo of carrots for 79Ft (which at about 4 forint per carrots makes them cheaper than baking soda, ha!)

I also bought what I thought was a 9 x 13 pan (okay, 22 x 32 cm), but when I got home and opened the box, I discovered I had actually bought three pans, nestled sweetly inside each other. The excitement of this discovery, combined with the cheap veggies, nearly blew my mind and I had to go calm down by reading blogs... um, all afternoon. Well, there’s still this evening to actually get around to baking.

But I did do one thing that needed doing, which is washing my quilt. Since I decided that the living room fold-out is a better place to sleep then the board in the bedroom, I’ve been eating, drinking, napping, drooling, and everything else on, under, between, within and near this quilt. So it was bath day. And if you don’t see how washing a quilt is an Accomplishment, I challenge you go find a quilt - not an afghan, not a duvet, not a comforter, not a bedspread and not a blanket (and if you don’t understand the difference, stop reading this blog right now and don’t come back until you’ve looked it up) - right, where was I? I got distracted from one rant by the other one... so, if you can’t see how washing a quilt is an Accomplishment: go get a quilt, get it sopping wet, and then try to lift it onto a drying rack at approximately shoulder height. Ouch. I’m sure the groans emanating from my bathroom provoked a raised eyebrow or two among my neighbors.

Whew, long entry. This is what happens when I have too much time on my hands: I become too easily amused by boring things in my own life, and then feel the need to share them with you. Watch out, more is coming.