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.
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