We had the most amazing experience celebrating a traditional Hungarian Easter with two very lovely, warm, friendly families in the little town of Eger with our friends Daniel and Tamas. When we arrived at Daniel's family's house (an immaculately decorated traditional home) we were greeted with Palinka, Jagermeister (in the morning!), cheese, bread and puffs (it's a Hungarian thing). The celebrations started off with a 2 hour long, 4 course meal. The first three courses each consisted of salads, vegetables and meat dishes and the final course was a carrot cake which was, without exaggerating, the tastiest carrot cake we've had. When we were finished there was enough left over food to keep the family fed for the rest of the week.

After touring the city we were then invited to Tamas' family's house to see a slide show of our friend's recent trip to the USA. This was accompanied by a lot more eating and even more drinking.

On Easter Monday we took part in the Hungarian tradition - the boys have to say a poem to the girls and then they ask if they can sprinkle the girls with perfume. If the girl accepts then they return the favour by presenting the boys with chocolate or painted eggs. After a huge breakfast spread put on by Daniel's family, Daniel and his father, Steve, recited a poem to Sonja and chose a very nice perfume to sprinkle her with. It was then Jansen's turn to say a poem to Daniel's mother but they were both much too embarrassed by the idea, skipped the poetry and went straight for the egg exchange.

At Tamas' house his two adorable, little cousins recited poems to Sonja and they were very excited to receive even more eggs to add to their huge baskets. Somehow this turned into an almighty argument between the two boys which ended in tears and eggs being stolen and thrown across the room.

Our trip to Eger was not without its adrenalin rush, ending up in a good old fashioned car/train chase after the train left without us but with all our bags.