Easter, well i tried, and it sorta worked

G Y O" R SCULLS AND BOATHOUSE

SOUTH AISLE OF GYOR CATHEDRAL

FACADES IN THE OLD SECTION OF GYOR

Where to start? Well in the middle, why not? in media res. The middle would be the beginning of the 10 AM service at the cathedral in Gyo"r, it is o with two dots over it, which my computer cant or wont do or rather which i cant be bothered to do, so for this blog its just Gyor--ANYWAY

So here comes the smoke pouring out of the thurible and the altar party starts up the aisles, bishop in mitre (no crozier now that i think of it) [hah i just realized that Google spellcheck has no vocab matches for mitre, thurible, and crozier, so the words appear with red underlines, stupid secular program, go get a life!] and an altar floozy [oops, male, can a male be a floozy?] walking behind him carrying his red beanie. Organ roars, and a hymn shouts out, very renaissance, minor key, four lines per stanza, second line always AL LE LU IA, would work well in a grand space like this one if everyone sang, but they dont, first of all i think there is law against singing in a hungarian church if you are not in the choir (maybe that's wrong, but it seems plausible), or maybe they dont print hymnals or mass leaflets or whatever, but anyway the choir sang everyone up to the high altar, whence more clouds of smoke welled up as the bishop swung his way around and about.

I was at the very rear of the church, SRO, but this was service #2 for me, as i will explain in a bit. So after an opening exclamation and a prayer of confession (even a crypto calvinist like me knows what it means to strike your breast three times,) through my fault, through my fault, through my greivous fault, but here it was GREAT fault, I heard the hungarian NAGYON = big, and knew exactly where they were in the prayer and then everyone sits down and up starts the orchestra (yes, organ and baroque orchestra, strings, winds and french horns, and they launch into the KYRIE followed immediately by the GLORIA, and i couldnt tell who it was by, sounded like it might have been haydn or mozart, anyhow very 18th century. I left after the Gloria, had been there done that at the 9 am service, so was not going to double dip. Not that i could have dipped, there being no wine to dip in, but still....

All this after the 9 oclock mass that i attended, which was semi=full but not overflowing, and i noticed that as that mass was drawing to a close people were coming in to stake out seats for the next mass, so i figured the next one at 10 had to be the big one, and so it was, bishop and all and orchestra, plus the smells (earlier one had bells, which was no big deal).

Mass as spectator pastime, homily seemed canned (but what do i know i didnt understand a word of it), and as i mentioned with the big mass that followed no one actually sung, just the cantor (early mass) and the choir (later mass). This was also a come forward and stick out your tongue communion, which I did not follow, I went forward and held up my palms crossed, and the priest was taken aback but did not refuse, so I was fine.

Of course as a liturgy junkie i quibble. But I did not carp overmuch. I was subdued somewhat i think by my earlier visit to a side chapel, where rests the mortality of a man who struggled to save the Jews of Gyor from the execution camps and who himself was killed by Russian soldiers on Easter of 1945 as he tried to keep the schoolgirls of the cathedral school safe from their Soviet "liberators. " Of course that is the church's version of things, and we know how the Church (any Church, whether it be religious or secular) will sanitize its heroes for public consumption.

Other than the people in church, downtown Gyor was pretty empty today, cool and windy, i walked around the old section of town for about 3-4 hours in all, taking a few photos (3 above , rest on facebook, look here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037170&id=1251511141&l=b40087040c

Things to reflect upon. Tata railway station, very run down, broken benches, passenger shelters have huge holes so no shelter from wind, dracks, peeling paint, what appear to be nearly bare wires running up light poles. Could be incredibly charming, would take some elbow grease, but a cleanup, a sweep of all the goddam cigarette butts, and a few containers of geraniums would work wonders.

Landscape on way north and west to Gyor, mostly flat, farms, some orchards, a couple of abandoned factories not unlike the Watlow electric setup in Wellston that you see when you take the metrolink to Lambert. overall reminded me of Illinois on the way to Springfield.

Train makes local stops. No way to know where you are, there is no sign anywhere. I guess it all works by telepathy.

Downtown Gyor reminded me of how Dresden is laid out: Bahnhof, then Stalin-era 5-

6 story buildings, then the old city.

Remembered while i was sitting at open air cafe in the thin sunlight and thick wind that I had dreamed of Hundertwasser last night, in particular about Regentag auf Liebe Welle, and I had definitely dreamed it in color, those strong reds against the blacks.

The old area of Gyor has been blocked to most auto traffic, and it seems to work. Of course I need to be there on a weekday to see if it really works, but stores seem to be viable. Not that many for sale/for rent signs.

There was another church I stepped into, not just the cathedral. This one was a little jewel, a model of late baroque, early rococo, round central nave with 5 windows in the dome, the 6th being take up by the apse, light and airy. Too much statuary and too much dark blue, but still.....

And then the highlight of the day, or lowlight, depends.... I had not paid attention to return times for the train, just noted that they ran every hour, so got to the train station at about 12:40 just missing the 12:35 train, an hour to kill, not really interested in retracing steps, so just lolled around a bit, got a cup of coffee, was strolling in the almost totally empty main corridor of the station, and i see someone waving and calling HOO HOO to me, it is a woman i would say late 40s with a cigarette, waving it at me, and i shake my head, then she gets up to me and asks me something in hungarian, and i know she is asking for a light, and could have probably said nincs dohanyi or something similar, which would be sorta like saying me nothing smokee but instead i said (in passible hungarian), Sorry, I dont understand Hungarian, whereupon she started speaking in German, Nicht Rauchen? and then made a suggestive move, whereupon I said Nein, ich bin schwul (no, not interested, i'm gay) whereupon she made a comment like CANT BELIEVE IT, NICHT ZU GLAUBEN, SO EIN SCHOENER MAN, GOOD LOOKING GUY LIKE YOU, NO WAY and was grabbing at my crotch, which really made me think she was really just trying to lift my wallet, so I backed out fast and went outside to escape.

Rhetorical question: should i be flattered? Trying hard to think of the last time I was propositioned. Maybe in grad school when i was still in Houston. Fresh out of the Army, still in decent shape.

I am back "home" and I am tired and sleepy. time to put the blog away till another day.