Hunting in Slovakia Part I

Last Sunday at 7 am, we were in southern Slovakia, meeting one of Th's Slovakian colleagues to hunt with a larger group. I was encouraged strongly to go, and decided it would be an experience I should probably have--not to mention meeting new and, shall we say, different people.
Since moving the time back one hour (right?) we have early mornings, but it gets dark here on cloudy days around 3:30pm. Dressed all in green, waiting in the trusty blue škoda outside a little Kneipe. Across the street were people waiting for a bus. I am amazed at where busses will go. This was a small town, with a beautiful church steeple of green and white tiles.
Every man (everyone except me) is wearing a certain uniform, marked by (often) camouflage, thick, mountainous boots, rubber boots, safari hats or green hunting hats with special pins and feathers or other merits acquired, some dogs, and, of course, shot guns...and the jarring, but somewhat sexy shot gun shell belt (mostly adorning round bellies) with leather accents such as long leather loops from which you can hang your kill by the neck after you wring it.
I shook hands with every one of them, saying "Jo reggelt kivanok" over and over. (I have gotten so good at looking at people in the eye. It's so much easier when one knows it could be an insult to shift the eyes.)
Working and studying in the department of Gender Studies in Budapest, I am keenly aware of the utter masculinity, masculine signals, signs, understandings, being passed back and forth...and I am like a fly on the wall...a fly gradually getting intoxicated by herbal liquor (which hasn't numbed me to the cold yet).
(Little did I know that I would become HIGHLY involved and the opposite of a fly on the wall by the end of the day.)