2010.04.05 Slow Day, today.

Tata Railway Station, Easter Morning 2010

Rained all day yesterday. Nicer today, met Bertalon for coffee/mineral water at the hotel, we sat down at 10:05 and didn't get up till 12:30.

Conversation number two

The downstairs folks, Imry and Erzebet and Gabriella invited me for Tee und Kuchen... I was on my way to school in the middle of last week and the two parents (I&E) were outside digging holes to plant some small shrubs, so i pitched in for about 5 minutes, doing the heavy digging work, but had to bail out after a bit to go to school. Anyway they left a very nice note in my box inviting me for a drink some afternoon, and i saw them on Saturday and said I was going to Gyor on Sunday, how about Monday, so it was fine.

We did the usual point and fumble with english/hungarian german/hungarian dictionaries, pretty much got the picture down, Gabriella is divorced, 2 yrs ago, had been working as a nurse, now has been diagnosed with some tumors in her throat, will have an operation next week, wont be able to talk for about 2 months, the older folks are retired, he used to work for the national railways, they moved from Tatabanya to Tata at the same time she divorced, she has a son and a granddaughter, he is 26 , she is 3.7 or so, anyway we did all this over some homemade cake and pastry, it was really very sweet.

rainy and gloomy all day. i am doing laundry and wash and otherwise not much.

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.

a good night spoiled

well, let's start with the good parts

first was the best ever attempt with freeciv, getting mz spaceship to land on alpha centauri by the year 1648.

then there was the trip to tesco, a kind of watered down wallmart. did some decent shopping, bought credible food, a not quite so credible cap (but only $3.50, so who cares), and some vinegar (necessary for doing the wash to counteract the heavy lime in the local water).

then there was the decent cup of coffee at tesco while i was waiting for the bus back to town.

then there was the nice guy who struck up a conversation while we were waiting and who merged his 100 word english vocabulary with my 200 word hungarian, so we got along well enough... i told him where i lived in the us and that i had a daughter in school in LA, and he has some relative or other also in LA and has three (14 down to 6) daughters and was at tesco to buy some drywall patch, ostensibly to fix a wall in his place, and i joked that tomorrow being easter was going to be a workday for him. my first joke in hungarian.

btw, his name is Lajos, = Louis/Lewis in hungarian.

so i get home and unpack and it is now about 6 pm and full daylight still, so i say to myself, ok, easter service wont start till dark, so i get cleaned up and shirt and tie and coat and off to the church about 1/2 mile away and there are folks outside so i think great they are just now lighting the fire,[but no it was the stupid end of the stupid service, the bozos started at 6 pm for godsake, in full goddam daylight, what total unimaginable heresy, how the hell can you strike light in the darkness you know the whole lux lucet in tenebris schtick while the sun is still in the dimdam sky you magyarpoops, but hey, it's not my church, i'm only an observer, so i should shut up} and clustering at the entrance to the church, which is full so there is a crowd around the entrance door, and then there is a hymn, and people outside chime in, and then a short pause, and i see the priest sort of waving something golden around (it could have been a monstrance, cant swear, if so it is the first time in 40 years i have had one waved at me, last time was in Germany when I was in the Army), and then there was the start up of the organ again and i said to myself, i know this one, and sure enough, it was the national anthem (Isten meg all az Magyart= God grant the Magyar people.... all sorts of stuff, mostly peace and quiet, lord knows they have suffered endlessly at the hands of the younameits the turks the huns the austrians and by god they are just ground down to the earth so pleeeeeeeeeeye god, etc etc), which of course everyone sang, the men outside standing just a little bit taller and a little bit straighter as it began, and then the crowd started to give a little and here came the processional cross heading down the aisle outside toward us and i thought (because i still did not yet realize that the service had started a full 90+ minutes earlier) that this was all the prelude to the lighting of the pascal fire, but no here came the altar party and two little altargirls dressed in traditional Magyar costume, complete with the little red tiaras and the dirndlesque outfits (how can i create such a word, dirndlesque, the worst of both german and french, i should hide my keyboard in shame) and poof they disappeared into a side door and then i could tell it was over because everyone was coming outside and all the honchos were gone, vamoosed so to speak, so i said to my self:
the road to hell
and i am on it

next up.. i just walked around a bit, headed south for about 1/4 mile, then turned west toward the lake, and then at the edge of the lake i could see all lit up
A the gimnazium on the hill, glowing and serene,
B the Esterhazy palace,
C the fortress, and off in the northwest sky still a lingering of light, here, even at 8 pm, and it is only the very first of april. the first stars were just coming out, there was no moon, but he lights from the illuminated buildings reflected on the water and i remembered all the time i spent on the boat in the mediterranean, the lights on the water at night.

walking back to the apt i said to myself, well, if La casa restaurant is still open i will go have dinner there, my very first restaurant meal on my own in hungary, and it was so i went in.

Very nice inside, two medium=sized parties there, i was the only solo diner, the waiter addressed me in English (was it the coat, the haircut, the shoes, the glasses, my initial hesitancy), but ok, and i sat down and soon found myself enjoying a very decent cabernet, then an excellent spanish lamb dish, and to top it off a very good cup of coffee and a wonderful dessert==almost a lowfat cheesecake, not at all sweet or rich but very satisfyhing.

so here is the hard part. i think i was overcharged. Damn. the lamb was 1900, the coffee 300, the dessert 300, that makes 2700. I dont know what the wine was, but it couldnt have been much more than 800 for a glass, which is 3500-3600. but the final tab (including tip) was 6000. I did not argue, but I am wondering what i should do now. The food was quite good, and I would like to go back, but not if I was stiffed.

I honestly think I will go back sometime next week and ask them point blank if they overcharged me. If not, then fine, and I will return. If so, then I will tell then why I wont be back and why i will be telling my colleagues at the Gimnazium how i was treated.

dreaming in subtitles

At some point many years ago I started to dream in German. At first it was just an awareness that there was some German dialogue, but nowadays there will be extended swaths of conversation that are in German, usually because my dream setting is somewhere in Europe. Last night was the first time Hungarian crept into things. But as subtitles or printed labels, not as something aurally coherent. I think it is the combination of watching BBC reruns of Weakest Link and Antiques Road Show, which have hungarian subtitles along with spoken english dialogue, and my being surrounded by hungarian signage. ever so slowly i am able to pick out individual words. the other day i had an aha experience.... background: one of the german teachers here is named cilla (=stella), and we see each other at the lunch table about once a week and have a good 5=10 min chat auf deutsch. other background: just to the south of the gimnazium there is a small observatory complete with dome and retracting door for telescope. the building has a sign on it, cannot recall it but it goes something like this

LAZATONY KAROLY CILLAKOSPONT

and then it hit me: it is a STAR somethingorother (starwatchcenter, stargazeplace, starmeasureroom, etc etc) named after Karl Whoozitz.

So in my dreams, there were letters or words hovering around the people who were speaking, not quite a threshhold of understanding, but at least the door was open a crack.

the old lake

If I walk back from school, I choose to walk along the lake, heading toward the fortress. The weather has generally been chilly, but as things warm up I start to see more and more people out along the lake, just lolling or strolling. A week ago it got pretty warm, and I noticed several people who seemed to be out of towners... a few on spiffy touring bikes, wearing sleek outfits, helmets, dark glasses. Others dressed rather formally, as if they were attending some kind of business conference, or taking a break from a funeral.

The couple schmoozing on the bench is de rigueur for just about everywhere. PDA's are the norm. At school it goes on on the benches outside, in the hallways, in the classrooms. In many respects, this is a Southern European country. Domestic architecture reflects this as well... there is no front yard, instead everything is arranged like a roman villa... the heart of the house is the courtyard, which is closed to the outside world.

Death and... Whatever Good Friday 2010

I put my blog on ice for a while. Main reason, I had foolishly used the blog id to post some homework assignments, and then students started reading my blog and asking questions, and I realized that perhaps some of my negative comments about the school and some of them might be viewed as hurtful and mean. Maybe they were, but not intentionally. If the kids are just plain pains in the ass, then they are. If they are more interested in their fashion mags and their cell phones, then they are. Not much I can do about that.

So, I have renamed the blog, and buried the old one and hope to bring this one to a new and better life.