Category — Out and About

With our respective families 6000 miles apart, one thing Valerian and I have done together a lot is travel. And with two kids added to the mix now, we arm ourselves seriously when we head out to the airport: books, toys, changes of clothes, and of course, snacks. Lots and lots of snacks. When your kids start to get squirrely, sometimes a treat that would normally be off-limits is just what you need to get through the last hours of a 14-hour flight.

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Once a year every town and village has its fair. In the town they are called “vásár” and villages have “búcsú”. Fairs were always a big part of the social life. If I have to use modern terminology then I would call it “social networking on a high level”. That was the time when the most important news were announced, the best gossip shared and the most vital items bought. Unfortunately socialism killed the vásár spirit and turned it into a big drunken party with boring rides for the kids. The situation after the Velvet Revolution did change, but not for better. The rides and beer stands were supplemented with cheap clothing stalls and companies presenting miracle knives, peelers and waxes. People want more, and things are changing again, for better this time. Fairs start to look like the ones my grandfather described, with stands offering honey-cake hearts, pottery, kitchen supplies, traditional food, candies, crazy guys selling charms and “flea circuses”. Many things are modernized, like never-ending stands with gummy sweets, but these things keep the Central European fair spirit alive.

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