Tombstones & Cakes

Oh wow! 2 posts in one weekend! Something great must be brewing in my future!

I think my life blossomed from the depths of winter into a hopeful Spring mode this weekend! With the trip to the caves Friday I remembered that there's a huge Hungarian world outside my dorm, and now I want to see it all! Which is potentially a problem, considering all the work I have left to do in the 18 days before I head back to the states! Oh well, you're only twenty-something in Hungary in the early spring once (well, next year too - but I'll be knee deep in thesis writing by then, so I don't know if that will count!)!!!

It also helps that we don't have school today! It's the celebration of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution. It's one of the few national holidays here that involve days off from work/school. I'm using it to get a lot of work done, go for a run, and eat cake :)

So, I have two reasons for posting today: the second excursion of my weekend and that delicious cake I told you about on Saturday. We'll start with the excursion and end with the cakes :) Have patience my dears, the sweets will come, I promise!

Yesterday I went with a friend to explore the Kerepesi Cemetery. It's like the who's-who of Hungarian notables. Built on 56 acres of land, it houses (?) an incredible number of famous, infamous, and regular Hungarians alike. And, as with many of the older cemeteries in Europe, the bigger the name in history, the bigger the monuments. And let me tell you - some were HUGE.

I love cemeteries. I find them incredibly relaxing and peaceful. I mean, a lot of things creep me out about them still (monuments of people in anguished states, etc - OH! A friend mentioned this new trend in cemetery adornments in Europe - apparently in some places people are having small LCD screens in their headstones that will loop either photographs or videos - and some people are even making small videos before they die for this purpose! Talk about creepy! Have any of you heard of this being done?), and you won't find me in one after dark (thank you Buffy The Vampire Slayer for that phobia!).

But they are, especially the older European ones, full of exquisite piece of artwork. I love the older monuments, covered in vines with candles and other mementos left behind. It's like history just froze and you're able to walk around between time periods. This cemetery especially - you have incredibly old stones which you can barely read the names and dates off of up to new ones made out of etched glass with photographs of the people in their lifetime (which is another of the things which creep me out).

So let me just share some of the best pictures I took there yesterday, I think they speak for themselves:

And, even though the pictures of my desserts should speak for themselves as well, I feel the need to put my two cents in on them.

They.Were.DELICIOUS.

Actually, that may be an understatement. Let me put it this way - it's a near 20 minute trip to the bakery from the dorm. It may become a weekly trip. For roughly $1 a cake this seems like a reasonable use of both my time and money. They are totally worth it. I bet when dad comes for another visit and I take him there it may be a trip we make more than once!

Here's the breakdown:

Cake #1: Raspberry topping, vanilla cream inside, cake/crust layer on bottom. Cake #2: Raspberry cream & fresh raspberries between two cake pieces.

Oh, I also might not be lying when I say one of my goals in life is to be a food photographer/journalist :)

Happy Monday!