Oh, the weather outside is frightful!

So, ladies and gentlemen, it is officially the winter season that I hate. Now that we've had snow, we can quit and move into spring. At least, that's my feeling. Who else is with me?!

So, things are a little crazy around ye olde "flat of the girls" (Timothée's poor English has become our slang!). Andrea leaves in 10 hours, Silvia leaves in 12 hours and Silke leaves in 17 hours. Kristy should be arriving any second. The heat went out for a few hours today. The kitchen is in complete disarray (and I'm gonna put money on it not being cleaned before everyone leaves and even though the only dirty dish *I* have in there is a plate, I will be doing dishes tomorrow... again... okay, done complaining, thanks for listening). And there are suitcases lining our hall where Christmas ornaments should be.

I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow - I'll be heading to the ÖDÉ office whenever I wake up to deliver cookies and do a mail check. Then to the Otterness' flat to deliver cookies as well... then grabbing some grub with Kristy, then onto the tanoda, where we're having a Christmas party for the kids :) CUTE!
Then Kristy and I are going hunting for Christmas décor: tree and decorations, wrapping paper and either eggnog ingredients or mulled wine ingredients... and the rest of the ingredients to make our own palacsinta (crépes) for dinner. It should be a great time and it will be fun to hang out with Kristy.

Then, her sister gets into town on Saturday and I'm not sure what the plan is from then on.

*pause* I just asked out loud "Kristy, hol vagy? (Kristy, where are you?)" and Silke responded, "somewhere... probably over a rainbow."
I love my flatmates. I really do.

Speaking of baking, I kept up a tradition my family has always had - baking a bunch of treats and giving them to neighbors/friends/family for the holidays. I 'baked' a HUGE batch of no bake cookies (recipe below) and gave them to all the volunteers as either travel snacks or just "Boldog Karácsonyt" (Happy Christmas) gifts. They're different due to some different ingredients, but all in all delicious.
And now, for the recipe!

1 cup cooking spread, melted (i'm just assuming it was butter, really)
4 cups sugar
1 cup milk
1 1/4 cup cocoa powder
bring these items to a boil, stirring constantly. allow to boil one minute

stir in:
1 cup walnut cream (dióskrém) because peanut butter is MIA
6 cups csoki muszli (oats, corn flakes, some sliced nuts, pieces of chocolate) because plain oatmeal is also MIA

drop out by spoonfuls onto ALL the clean plates you can find and proceed with a plate Monopoly so that until your cookies have hardened, there are NO empty plates in your flat... then when they harden, wrap up in pairs and give away to friends :)


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These first three pictures are of Ho"sök Tér (Heroes Square), within which are statues of every hero of Hungary.




These are pictures of the time the Romano Glasow Band came to the Ferencvárosi Tanoda, where I work. We had a great time dancing and singing gypsy music, especially when some of the older women, who knew the songs well, got into it with their grandchildren - what an awesome sight to witness!