They Sell Chicken Feet in the Grocery Store

I'm not kidding, the butcher counter in my local store has a lot of meat products and sausage all piled up.  Today I noticed one of the piles was chicken feet.  There were a lot of them.  That means a lot of people must buy them.  The line for the meat stretched halfway through the store.  Maybe that means those feet were on chickens this morning so they're still very juicy (or chewy or tender or whatever chicken feet tase like when they're good).  I have to buy some.

I had an eventful weekend.  Based on two Saturday nights and a Friday spent living here, I have concluded that everyone watches Star Wars dubbed in Hungarian on Friday nights.  On Saturday nights, then get really drunk, crank up their car stereos, and serenade me outside my window until 5 or 6 AM.  It's nice to feel involved in the community.

I mentioned in my last post that the theater was setting up for a performance, and boy was that a good one.  I didn't have a good view of the stage, but that didn't mean I didn't have a good view of the show.  I was sitting on a bench off to the side but there were a lot of people standing in front of me watching.  Before it all started, a rather heavy set woman came over and asked in Hungarian if she could share my bench.  At least that's what I think she said, she could've been telling me a new planet was discovered, but she pointed and I nodded and she sat down.  Keep in mind it was a small bench, so that's why I was very excited when her husband showed up and decided to sit between her and I.  This man was cool, because I had the unique ability to appear invisible to him. This made him comfortable enough to spread out on the bench, and why not when he had all that room next to him!

The show was boring, mostly just people singing and nicely dressed people giving speeches I didn't understand.  But there were three very entertaining parts.  First, I had noticed a man standing in a football mascot-type dinosaur costume waiting for his time to enter.  Also, a "honk" would occasionally come out of the hallway into the theater.  Eventually the dinosaur put his head on, stuck 4th of July sparklers in his nose (turning him into a dragon), and wheeled out a giant, old-fashioned bird cage with two geese in it.  They hung out for a few minutes, but one of the geese escaped on the way back so the dragon was forced to pick it up and carry it back into the theater.  I have no idea what that was all about, maybe it's a Hungarian thing...

Next, one of the ushers made all of the people standing in front of me move out of the way.  I was sure they finally realized who I was and were making sure I had a perfect view.  Not the case.  A big, fancy horse drawn carriage containing important people pulled up in front of the theater.  The people got out, and everyone cheered while they said more words I couldn't understand.  But, the carriage had to circle around the crowd of seats to get back to the road, and this is why the people had been made to move.  Suddenly, the carriage driver instructed his two terrified looking horses to head directly for the invisible red haired person sitting on the bench.  No one else seemed alarmed, so I tried to act calm as to not embarrass myself in front of my new community.  Fortunately, the horses saw me and swerved 6 inches before their giant legs would have crushed me (even though it was possible to turn much, much earlier).  I feel I won the fight though, because one of the horses was so scared when he saw me that he left a giant pile of horse apples.

This is when I learned that my bench neighbor was not just an ordinary member of the audience.  She grew tired of watching people give the horse's remains dirty looks, so she got up and went inside the theater (I remained invisible to her husband, however, who didn't see this as an opportunity to slide over at all).  She returned with a bucket, a dustpan, and a broom.  Not a fancy, horse cleaning up after broom, just a straw broom.  It was a little gross.  But I was happy that the mess was cleaned up because it had stopped being funny.  I decided this when a very in love, young couple were too busy holding each other close and walking face to face to notice the pile until they walked through it.  I wonder if they'll take that as a sign?

Finally, I was getting ready to leave because I was hungry and had a headache, but I decided to wait a few more minutes.  There were some guys in goofy white costumes that had been standing around the whole time and I was waiting for them to perform.  I was very interested because they were talking to a few of the most beautiful girls to ever walk the Earth, and I decided that I wanted to join their group, whatever it was.  Unfortunately, they just sang, and they song wasn't very good.  It was a let down.  But, while they were singing, all the lights turned off, and two groups of sparklers strung between the Greek columns above them ignited (a third group didn't ignite, so the attempt at symmetry was lost).  Someone hadn't been thinking though, because the sparks were falling right on the singers and they had to move out of the way.  Then, out of nowhere, a ten minute long firework show erupted from the balcony above.

It was an awesome ending.  Plus, there was smoke all throughout the small streets on my walk home, and it made it look like a really cool foggy night with the old street lamps and European architecture.  I was on the lookout for vampires.

Today was back to the grind.  I only had three of my four classes (surprise, surprise), but I really liked one class, and now I'm really looking forward to teaching that one.

So if anyone knows any good chicken feet recipes...