Day 3 of Celldo”mo”lk
Well there was a little snafu. I had been told that breakfast was at 9 and that I should bring the coffee up to the ladies at 8:30. I was down in the breakfast area by 7, getting coffee for myself, reading a book, making small chat with folks who finally showed up, and then one of the folks said to me in hungarian something like hey arent you a bit late, and I said no, 8 30, and they said NEM, FEL NYOLC, ie, 7:30, and I said IGEN? (really), oh BOCSANAT (which is not O Shit, but rather,oh I am sorry, no matter what it looks like), and went off to get three cups of coffee, which in this case is three cups with about ¾ inch of expresso in the bottom of a small cup and a pitcher of warm milk on the side, all this on a tray, and I head from the breakfast room to the lobby, but Kati is already there, and I am sputtering an apology, but she gamely plops herself down lengthwise on a couch in order to receive her breakfast cofee in prone positon, which is the best we can do under the circumstances.

One of the two other ladies is also there, and she gets hers. So now I am stuck with an extra cup, and finally am able to offer it to yet another person, in this case the mother of one of the ladies who teaches English at the gimnazium with me, she herself is retired from the same school, she lived in what was the Sudetenland (German=speaking Czechoslovakia) and after the war her family had to move to Hungary, since her father was Hungarian (tho her mom was german), other relatives were shunted off to what became East Germany, and there was a big family division, with shades of Lives of Others, because one of the uncles became a supreme court judge in the DDR, so the family had to be eeeeeexxxxxtttttrrrrraaaaaa careful involving all things politics, and they wound up being somewhat permanently split from other relatives who made it to West Germany.

Then about five minutes later lady number 3 comes downstairs, indignant that she didn't get hers, and all I can say is, hey, it was here, you weren't, I did the best I could, etc etc. Nr. three is very interesting woman, Russian, came to Hungary in 1994 or so speaking no Hungarian at all, but with job at an agricultural firm which needed help for its employees who were undertaking large agro-inductrial projects in Russia. She now works for a language translation firm here in Tata, and I am trying to arrange a coffee meeting with her and me and Bertalan so that he can get some firsthand info about what her job is really like.

We do breakfast. Then we pay the hotel bills. It is cash, no credit card. The receipts are handwritten. There is one person doing this. So 15 people checking out takes about 1 hour, because one has to make change, one has to process travel discount coupons, one has to do whatever it is one does by hand because one is just are not set up to do anything electroncially.

We retrace our route to Cso”nge. drive past the Lutheran church again and the Weo”res Sa'ndor museum, and continue to the small community of Ostffyasszonyfa, which appears to mean Tree of the Lady of Ostffy. Two claims to fame. Peto”fi Sa'ndor slept here. Well more than slept, spent a summer here. And he wrote a letter, or it was found in his diary, or whatever, but apparently he said that it was a BOLDOG summer, and BOLDOG is the kind of word you use when you talk about the BVM, or the man who is BOLDOG, because he heeds not the council of the wicked but meditates instead upon the law of God.

So if Pet”ofi stayed here, it is like saying Goethe slept here, or Hemingway, or some other great literary icon, I mean everybody knows who Peto”fi is, like , he wrote the poem that became the national anthem, and so on and so forth. Ok, we get that. And then there is another claim to fame, which is the WWI POW camp. 150,000 Russians, Serbs, Croats, Italians, Bulgarians and Italians all housed here, with about 10,000 not surviving the war, dying at the camp, and so there is a war cemetery, with the nationalities buried in separate areas, all carefully planned in advance and now marked with crumbling limestone steles. It is rather well maintained, actually, has a new wrought iron fence and gate, the grass is mown, the trees are tall and elegant, and it would be peacful except for the auto ractrack about 3 miles away, from which one hears the roars of engines and he and bass boom of the loud speakers.

We spent a good 30 40 minutes at the cemetery, then the choir gathered at the center of the area and sang two or three songs and placed a wreath. Wreaths are DE RIGEUR in Magyar country, always of tightly woven evergreen branches, always with ribbons of green white red, and sometimes with little accents of other flowers, usually about 12-14 inches in diameter, and the ribbons usually have the name of the group who is leaving the wreath.

Of the 10,000 odd soldiers who died and were buried, a number were Orthodox (Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian) and a few were Roman (the Italians, obviously, but probably some Romanians as well, maybe a few Poles). So the center of the cemetery has two large metal crosses side by side, one a latin cross (the T), one an orthodox cross (the T with an extra horizontal bar and the little bar at the bottom going diagonally down to the left). So I say to myself, hmmm, either there were no Jews in any of this, or they just dont count. I think I know which.

Then off to Sa'rva'r, home of one of the princely families, like the Esyterhazys, only not quite as well known, not having sponsored painters and composers. Anyhow there is a castle there, which we do visit, but not until we make a side trip to the Catholic church (a rather dreary baroque edifice that I am sure has redeeming features, but am hard pressed to specify any of them) and then another to the Lutheran church. It is much smaller, is in great need of repair, and then I discover later that they have a partnership with a congregation in Bedford MA, and the yanks come over every year or so and do construction work to help restore the building which is of course very historical and all that. Some redeeming features of the church: on public display on the altar is a 1526 copy of the first translation of the bible into hungarian, the book should be put into a rare book collection somewhere I am sure it must be quite valuable but no we just leave it there the angels guard it and keep it safe and we just hand it around and let people hold it and turn the pages with their oily hand and no we have no idea that this is an inappropriate way to treat a book I mean it is a book isnt it and arent people suppose to read books and how can you do that if you dont hold them.

Other redeeming feature is the organ, which Eva played and said it was a real treat because it is the only one if its kind in Hungary and the action on the keyboard was very fast. So then the pastor asks if anyone who is Evangelisch would like to stay in the church for a brief celebration of the Eucharist, and I figure what the hell, this will be my first church service in Hungarian, I will probably know sorta kinda where we are, and I sorta kinda do, I mean by now I know the words for God and Son (but not yet holy ghost, but 2 of three I hear and then I know the next phrase has to be the HG), and I know the order of the service (hey, Luther didnt get rid of the mass, just the pope), and it all goes pretty well, I just dont kneel and do bread on the tongue like the Magyars, instead I do stand up put it in my hand like the irredeemable non-theistic Anglican that I am, ditto for the wine, but it is all fine.

After the church thingy we go to the picnic area next to the castle (all of these places being less than 3 city blocks distant from each other) and now we have day 3 of salt and more salt and even more salt, and no I really dont want any palinka thank you, does anybody have some extra water, because it is 86 87 or so and the sun is really bright, but there are a couple of cucumbers and a tomato or two, and I dine on sunflower seeds and raisins, which I think do not have much salt in them.

The castle has an eclectic and genuinely fascinating museum. There are frescoes on some of the walls, probably done around 1775 or so, not great art, but interesting art. There are cases with mannequins dressed in Hussar uniforms, then others from WWI, then photographs of Hungarian cavalry in WWII (oh my god, all these horses in WWII, what did they do when they saw Russian tanks?), but this castle was a center for Hungarian equestrian arts, the Magyars have horseriding in their cultural blood, every town fair features demonstrations of Magyar warrior archery, swordsmanship, and, if room allows, horsemanship, including demonstation of horse archery.

My guide on the tour is one of our group-- Pe'ter, an engaging twenty-something trained as biologist, who is enthused by the castle, and we walk together, him explaning things to me is halting but sufficient English, taking good care to make sure that I understand. At one point we come to a big document that starts out WIR FRANZ JOSEF VON GOTTES GNADEN KAISER and then goes on for about 5 lines to describe all of his titles after Kaiser, to include duke and count and landholder and so on, and it turns out that FJ by this document is elevating the head honcho of family of the castle (family ame is Nehazany, or something close to that) to the rank of Prince of the Empire. Peter has asked me to explain the document, so I take time to figure out what it is, and tell him, and then he says good, he was just checking, because underneath the document off to the side is a note in hungarian explaining what the thing his, he was just making sure I really DID know my German. Thanks Peter you are a real guy!

We finish the castle, go back to the cars, load up and head for home. On the way, about 30 miles down the road, we make a brief stop by a stream, walk 300 yards to the access point next to the swimhole, and Peter holds forth for a good 20 minutes on the ecological and biological significance of this stream, all the while we are being devoured by mosquitoes, at least we are in the shade, but it is definitely hot, and we are all tired.

Finally we are on the main highway, it is aother 40 minutes or so till we reach Tata. I am now riding in another car, my original driver headed on to Vienna where he works, the rest of us got distributed to other cars. I am with Tibor #1 and Tibor #2, and their spouses, whose names I never quite got,but we are going along, and the ladies are making conversation with me, and I am trying as best I can to explain in Hungarian where I come from what I do what my family is what church I go to and so on. Try explaining anglicanism to a Magyar catholic sometime.
Then then one of the women starts to sing the chorus to the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and I join in and then I am able to explain that there is more to the song than just the chorus, there are verses one two and three, each of which is followed by the chorus, and yes, they do get that, and then I mention that it is July 4, the freedomday of america, and they ask what people do on freedomday, and I say they have music and fireworks (which comes out something like MUSICA ET BOOM BOOM) , and I try to explain that it is not music and then fireworks, but music combined with fireworks, so I sing a little bit of the 1812 overture and do booom booom with my hands to indicate that the fireworks are along with the music, and next thing you know we are all singing the marseillesaise, followed by Old Man River, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, and then that awful schlocky new catholic/fundamentlist hym How GreatThouArt, but I sing along, cheerfully, and then we ae doing a couple of Taize chants and then we are back home.

Farewells, exchanges of emails and phone numbers, and then I get a lift off to my place and I am home. There is nothing in the fridge except beer. Oh. and a piece of very stale cheese. But I am tired and it is dinner enough.

A poem by Weores Sandor Monkeyland

Monkeyland
Hey! for distant Monkeyland,
monkeybread a-plenty there,
from monkeywindow monkeybars
the wind twangs out a monkey-air.

In monkeyfield and monkeysquare
monkeyheroes draw their swords,
hear the monkeymiserable
moaning in their monkeywards.

Monkeyteacher makes Monquita
learn her monkeylessons well,
monkeymalefactor rages
in his monkeyprison cell.

In monkeymanufacturies
much monkeymayonnaise you’ll find,
limn in hymn the limitless
illimitable monkeymind.

Monkeymonarch spouts decrees
from monkeypole in Monkeynese,
monkeyheaven waits for those
eternal monkeyhell for these.

Macacque, gorilla, chimpanzee,
orangutan and rhesus, too,
all read their daily monkeynews
when the monkeydinner’s through.

In memory of monkeymeal
the outhouse rings with monkeyfarts,
monkeysoldiers on maneuvers,
Left face! Right face! Forward march!

Monstrous monkeymilitary
mania in every face,
Monkey clutching monkeygun,
The world, it is the monkey’s place.

— Sándor Weöres
Fordította: Will T. Laughlin

Celldo"mo"k Day 2

The night was warm, the hotel room was stuffy. I had two windows fully open, using the lace curtains as screens against the mosquitos, only partially succesfully it turns out. I got up several times to get water from the bathroom sink, waiting in vain for the cold tap to produce cool water.
Finally I got up at 5:30 and went downstairs to go for a walk. The main door was closed. Damn, how was I going to manage till people decided to get up? Fortunately there was a night clerk and he heard me rattling at the main door, and he came out to open the thing for me. So I stated off on a hike towards downtown, about ¾ mile away.

I get about half a mile down the road and Mr Nightmanager is suddenly in his car chasing after me. I guess he thought I was leaving without having paid, but he spoke a little German, and I assured him that I was just out for a walk. I proceeded to the main square , sat down on a bench next to the statue of Brother Odo, and proceeded to read the book I had brought along in my backpack.

Odo is not the only bronze on the plaza. Across from him is a statue of the BVM (can you pronounce that as “beeevum”, or does it always have to be the three distinct letters, like ATM, which is, to my knowledge, never reeduced to “ate'em”), not a bad work, actually, a rugged modern Rodin=esque figure of her and 2 yr old child, but in this case she is wearing a beanie—the crown of Hungary with its latin cross bent at a 60 degree angle off to the side. Mary, Patron of the Nation.

Mary is offering the boy an apple, and there are some bronze apples on the low marble wall behind the two figues. But the apples are also Rodin=esque, and as a result look like they have withered down to about 2/3 their former ripe size and look decidedly unappetizing. I wonder if there is a political interpretation here. Mary will look out for the Hungarians== they wont die, but they will have to content themselves with bad apples.

Just after 6 am I head back toward the hotel and over to the Tesco supermarket, hoping to find some flip=flops and a bathing suit to wear later in the morning. But this is a mini-Tesco; it carries only normal grocery items, no clothing section like the Tesco where I live in Tata. So I settle for a container of yoghurt and a packaged cream-filled croissant.

I return to the hotel and manage to rustle up some coffee, by now there are a few of our group awake and downstairs, so there is conversation and time is occupied till breakfast, which is the standard Hungarian assortment of cheese, salami, ham, some sliced sweet paprica, a few tomato slices, plus marmalade and some Muesli. The plan is to go to the thermal bath at 10, so I head over to the other supermarket next to the hotel, the Penny, to see what I can find there. Maybe they will have some summer goods available, like bathing suits and flip flops?

They do have flip flops, and they do have bathing suits, but only bikinis in size about 10 year old. Oh well. So I figure I will have to wear my hiking slacks as my bathing suit—these are lightweight pants that have zippers in the legs so you can convert from slacks to shorts. Only they are just a little loose on me, so what will I do to prevent some kind of embarrasing accident? Surely I am not going to go into a pool wearing a belt?

The solution I came up with... I found a piece of plastic wrap lying in a vegetable bin. I turned it into a length of twine, wraped one end around my left front belt loop, then drew the other end through the right front one, pulled, and tightend up the shorts. The plastic was transparent and practically invisible. No Problem.

Walked to the thermal baths, about ¾ mile in the other direction from downtown, could not sign up for a massage as they were available only after 1 pm, so contented myself with the hot water and semi-massage spouts, had a cup of coffee, went into the big pool, families were gathering, the whole setting seemed to be eerily both european and american, we were surrounded by fields of sunflowers, the sun was bright and the weather was hot, but the whole setup... architecture and ambiance, was decidedly non-american. No waterslides, no gangs of yelling teenagers, no rock music blaring from radios, instead, all was genteel and civilized, calm, tranquil almost.

We did lunch in the dining room of the hotel, everyone dragging out leftovers from the previous day, I started to get a bit nervous, there was not that much ice in evidence, and what about all that meat? Turns out the meat is all salted beyond imagination, I was given a plastic icecream bucket, containing a frozen ocean of white pork fat in which cargo ships of meat chunks were embedded. Gamely I took out a chunk of the meat, wiped the fat off of it with my paper napkin, and took a bite. Almost like biting into a chunk of solid salt. Luckily I had a banana left over, plus there was some normal bread and some cheese and a tomato or two.

Then it was off to Cso”nge, a village about 20 KM away, and we stop at a museum which honors Weo”res Sa'ndor. I have since looked up some stuff about him on the internet—he seems to have been something of a combination of Lewis Carroll, ee cummings, wallace stevens. Wrote in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, very political (anti-authoritarian), was suppressed, was allowed only to do translations (Lao Tse, shakespeare, goethe, some russians). There was a tour guide, I looked at pictures and documents, then we gathered outside for some refreshments (I was still incredibly thirsty, went through at least two liters of water), and then the choir did a little program, some songs, some recitation of some of his poems, more songs, a wreath laying, and then it was off to the village church.

This is Lutheran country. The catholic church building either doesnt exist or got transformed into something else. We got to visit the second grade school building, and in one of the classrooms there is an alcove with folding doors, and behind the doors is an altar with all the usual Hungarian altar trappings and a tiny organ, and that is the church on sunday, I guess they move the desks out and put folding chairs in for mass.

On to the Lutheran church, built around 1800, which is very interesting, a rectangular building with stone/stucco exterior walls, wooden interior pillars and a completely flat wooden ceiling, with a wooden u/shaped balcony. the pillars are set so that they are all along the interior edges of the balcony, which means they are also in the middle of the pews, so the pews have semi/circular sections cut out of them so that people can move around the pillars. There was a wheezy organ, orignally euipped with bellows (you can still see the lever that was used for pumping) but now outfited with an electric blower. So the deal was that we were goint to have an ecumenical prayer service.

The choir rehearsed from 6 to around 7, then changed into their formal dress (white shirts and blouses with purple ties or scarves, dark trousers/skirts), townspeople started to gather, and the bell in the tower bonged several times, and then the Lutheran pastor (a stout woman, about 5' 2” I would say, about 35 years old, wearing her black robe with her little white tab collar came in, accompanied by a girl of 5 or who, based on their interaction, seems to have been her daughter, plus a roman priest in eucharistic garb. They both went up to the altar, she greeted everyone, and then there was a hymn, the choir sang a kyrie, there were readings, there was more choir and more hymn, and then the priest talked for about 20 minutes, with me picking up such words as KATHOLISH EVANGELISH REFORMATORISH AUGSBURG UPPSALA THEOLOGIE PROFESSOR , well, enough for me to understand that he had been in various places and had been exposed to non=roman theology and felt that he was the better for it.

So now I get to blow my own horn for a moment, well, just a bit. The choir did a piece based on psalm 121, and then it hummed the music while four readers spoke the first two verses of the psalm (I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth.) , first Hungarian, then Russian, then German, and I ended with the English. It was very effective and elicited a shiver of applause when it was done.

Then the service is over, people shake hands and say how nice, and how good of you to come visit and we are so honored, and then there are picnic tables and some wine and a stew for dinner. And this is indeed a tasty stew, not nearly as salty as the other stuff I have had, and then in the conversation (this is a mixture of hungarian, german, and english) I am informed that the meat in the stew is venison. So I try out my Hungarian, uttering something like Me Now Eatum Bambi.

I am sitting across from three of the ladies, Kati who speaks some German, and two others. Now it is Kati who came up with the 100 forint coin yesterday to buy me a cup of coffee from the coffee machine and to whom I promised that I would buy her a cup of coffee in return. So I remind her that I owe her a cup and will get it for her at breakfast the next morning (coffee does not come free with breakfast, you have to pay for it if you want it). She says fine, then she says that she wants it brought up to her room. I say fine, what time? She says 7:30, I say no problem. Then the two other ladies chime in and say what about us? I say, fine, what room? And they are laughing and teasing me, and then I get inspired.

So from the little hungarian I know so far, I have been able to figure out that there are some “international” words that you can count on. Autobus, radio, taxi, that sort of thing. So I am fairly certain that this is going to work. It is worth a try, anyway.

Now the hungarian words for ONE TWO THREE are egy, ketto”, harom. So I ask them, Mi az egy meg egy meg egy? (what is 1+1+1 ? ) and the answer of course is Egy meg egy meg egy az harom (+1+1+1=3).

Now the key word here is HAROM, which starts like the english word HARD, and then the >om< ending rhymes with english SOME.

The hungarian word for woman is no”, which sounds something like the Nur in nurse. So I ask: Mi az no” meg no” meg no” (How much is woman plus woman plus woman?) And they are puzzled, of course. This sounds stupid. And then I give my answer:

No” meg no” meg no” az HAREM! (woman plus woman plus woman = HAREM, which is the same word in both English and Hungarian).

And there it is, a linguistic milestone, I have created a joke in Hungarian. Wow.

It didnt really help. I still continued to have inadedquacy dreams. One involved me having to lead evensong, but not having the right size vestment, trying to button the one I did have while we were processing down the aisle, and starting to lead the service and then realizing I didn't have the right prayerbood, and trying to do it from memory and not being able to recall the opening sentences, and people in the choir muttering about how Bob always screws things up.

The next night it was me attempting to compete at a swimming/calesthenics event)

But still. My first hungarian pun.

72 hours > the first 24 July 4 Weekend 2010

So I have this linguistic dream. It has to be linguistic, because it is about not knowing what is going on and doing everything wrong. And it comes at the end of a day when I have been banging my head against the wall trying to use what little Hungarian I have to talk with Lajos, who works a couple of acres of grapes on the NE slope of an ancient volcano, who has a cellar that measures about 14' x 14', and who makes two kinds of wine, RED and WHITE, and who is explaining his tools of the trade to me: the press, the barrels, the plastic jugs (used mineral water bottles which are perfectly good for storing wine in, will hold up to a year no problem).

The dream comes after the big wine tasting, which was in the other cellar, the one that belongs to Imre. Imre of the big smile, the expansive gesture, the beginning of each sentence with Kedves Vendegemek, or something like that, meaning Dear Guests, for the 30=odd of us are squeezed into his cellar, measuring something like 20' x 30', with about 10 wooden casks containing 250 liters each, stacked on them a number of 50 and 25 liter barrels, plus three stainless steel tanks each holding something like 500 liters. Imre has a day job, not sure what, but the land he works is some kind of family holding, winemaking a family tradition, and he does this little wine tasting gig for private groups. Besides the cellar, there is a covered picnic area in the middle of the grapes, vines growing over the roof and all, and we are served a tasty but heavy and somewhat salty stew of wild boar (shot personally by Imre, though Lajos assures me that he did not kill the boar on the premises of the volcano, for that is a protected nature preserve), with side dishes of pickled green tomatoes and, as I can best recall, onions, plus a slice or two of beer. And wine. And mineral water. Eva , the organist, sits across from me, and she has instead a plate of noodles with sour cream and some kind of powdered cheese. Perhaps she is vegetarian? Plus wine, of course.

The day has been fiercely sunny. After the tour of the city hall (former benedictine monastery, some of the decorations have been retained, Saint X , Saint Y, the Redominifcation of the blessed Sulomitaritians, the Valutpta of Saint Schomiatoria, patroness of the Celdomitians, etc etc, all of which we admire and oo and aa, and uh and hum, we also get a tour of the CHURCH, which was built in record time of XXX years, and was erected because of the miracle healing of a stone worker, who was injured while helping to excavate a site of a natural spring, but who recovered so quickly and so completely after his prayer to the BVM , that all were amazed, and then hundreds and thousands came to the well, so a pilgrim church was erected, and of course it needed monks to help take care of the pilgrims and all that, so Brother Odo (statue of whom, complete with grape cluster and vine sits in the park and gazes directly at the church, for whose construction he was primarily responsible) came from Austria to help out, and now we have the church, the protection of the BVM somehow being mysteriously and not-really-discussed-about-hushed-overly absent during WWII when the bombs fell and smashed a lot of the place (but one bomb did not explode and of course that is a miracle indeed).

What to say about a somewhat tacky, somewhat gloomy, somewhat seen-better-days place that just reeks of early 19th century piety? Perhaps that it has a wonderfully kitschy Schatzkammer upstairs, filled with historical bits and mementos and a wide variety of votive offerings. Primary among the offerings were little silver legs, it looks like someone took a sheet of silver, about 2" x3", and used a wood carving of a leg, and hammered the silver sheet so that it created a bas relief of the legs. So there were legs, and arms, then there were little pairs of eyes. I wasn't sure about the eyes, so I asked one of the other people I was with, I said, these are eyes , aren't they, and they said, yes, what else could they be?, and I said, well, maybe they were breasts? I kept looking, but found no votive penises. Apparently you didnt go to the BVM if you wanted help in getting it up.

There were a lot of votive paintings, Now that would make for a wonderful exhibition. My favorite was one showing a husband and wife being rescued from a tumble of their wagon into a into a river. They were trapped and in despair, until they called on HER for help, and sure enough, help arrived right away. Watson and the Shark it isn't, but you can see how much they share a Sitz im Leben.

After the Church we went back to the hotel, then reassembled for the attack on the Saghegy=the volcano core. This basalt cone apparently supplied cobblestones and building materials for NE Hungary all the way to Vienna and down to Budapest. We assemble at the hotel, caravan to the base of the volcano, park at the trailhead, then unpack all the picnic lunches. Well, I hadn't brought lunch, was not in the loop so to speak, but i had gone to buy some bananas, so I had them to offer. Beautiful summer landscape: we are about 200 ft or so higher than the rest of the landscape, gazing eastward across fields pointillated cream yellow (just=mown wheat and hay fields) and deep green, interspersed with rust red splotches of tile roofs, with a horizon about 20 miles off to the north, east, south, and everything except our volcano core and another one off about 10 miles to the southeast as flat as central Kansas.

Lunch starts with the group singing a Grace. Then palinka is offered (i refuse, also the wine being passed around, saying not till evening, never in the afternoon, in very broken Hungarian) And then the hike. DAMN it is steep, jeez, i thought we had driven close to the top, no way.

Huff, puff, and then the sun starts to hit me and I am sure glad I didn't have any wine, and I am soooo thirsty, all that Hungarian food is filled with salt, and all I have left is about 1/3 of a plastic coke bottle I filled with tap water before we left the hotel. The core of the volcano is about 1/2 mile across, I climb up what I think is the rim, but it isn't, there is more, and the pathways are broken rock and no I am not going to try that, thank you. Did I mention the sun? There is little shade to be had, we are baking. And no it is not 100 degrees in the shade, only about 90, but there are no clouds anywhere and the sun is just plain fierce.

Ultimately we work ourselves around to the eastern rim of the cone, where there is a memorial. I will have to look up more on Google, but this is a Trianon memorial, and for every Hungarian the word Trianon is burned forever into the national psyche. Trianon was the treaty the Hungarians were forced to acquiesce to at the end of WWI, and it redrew the national borders and shrunk the area thereby circumscribed by about 2/3... sort of like all of Texas being reduced to just the area east of Ft. Worth, losing out on the Edwards plateau, the Big Bend, and the Panhandle. Of particular sensitivity was the loss of territory in what is now in Romania, the land beyond the forest, Transylvania, where there are real mountains, not the 3000 foot stubs that are all that remain inside of today's borders. So Trianon was what made the Hungarians side with Adolf in WWII, or at least not actively oppose him, because they hoped that in the Greater Order of things these lands would once again be returned to the Magyar peoples as their birthright. After resting a while in the shade of this memorial, we organized for the trek back, the choir sang a song and then the national anthem, and we headed back down the hill.

Soon back at the hotel and time for a shower. Oh, the hotel doesnt provide soap? Hmm. Well, sorry bout that folks, right now all I can do is a rinse job, but it is refreshing, and then we head out around 6 pm for the bus ride to the wine tasting.

,