Nearing the end of our "home and away" family visits, at least the away parts, today we travel to Kecskemet. The road is pretty straight, and the country would remind you of driving back roads down the Willamette Valley. Great, I-5 has turned into a back road. Pretty country, though. Again I am driving, and am greatly relieved that we are not headed towards the lake. The traffic is backed up for miles, on account o’ the weather bein’ so hot. We found out later there were several fatalities related to daredevil passing. I am glad I did not know about it right then.
We cheated and used the Autobahn by-pass. It is a toll road, but I missed the last gas station on the way out, so we broke the law! Fortunately, there were no police patrols, so we escaped unscathed. Yes, I did drive very fast (around 85-90ish at a couple of points), and yes, even at that speed, luxury German sedans were blowing by me like I was standing still. The bypass takes at least an hour off the drive time around the lake. It is a shame it is a toll road and that the toll is so expensive. On weekends, you can count on paying 10 euros (about 15 bucks) to use it. So more often than not on our journeys, it is the slow way.
We arrived in Kecskemet around noon, and, even though Vera has been here before, found our way to our destination only through a lot of guess work. Street plans are not necessarily obvious in a lot of cities, Kecskemet being one of them. "Street signs?" you ask. Ha. If you look carefully, you sometimes see one on the side of a building, otherwise, you are on your own.
Our destination is the home of Zia’s Uncle Kazi-Basci and Aunt Zsuzsa-Neni, where we are greeted with enthusiasm. Once again I am surrounded by people speaking Hungarian with no clue what is going on. It’s pretty funny. Hungarian is one of those "theatrical" languages, with lots of dramatic volume changes and hand gestures. As always, I enjoyed the show immensely.
After a quick snack of Campari and Juice and some very excellent savory rolls, we continued the quest for a folk music collection. Kazi-Basci took the wheel and drove us downtown to the music store that, we had been told, excelled at folk music. He had called earlier and found they were open until 1:00. I was excited. We raced downtown. Of course you know that they closed early. So, the quest continues.
The reason we could be pretty confident that the music store here would have folk music, is that Kesckemet is the home turf of Zoltan Kodaly. Kodaly, is addition to being a major composer of the 20th Century, also was responsible for a music pedagogical movement, still in use around the world, based upon folk music. Since it was right next door, we stopped by the Kodaly Institute to pay our respects.
The Institute has a small visitors section that you can check out for a small fee. You can see more of the School if you get there at the right time, but, it being a school and all, they don’t want distractions while classes and lessons are going on. The visitors section is a hallway that has some pictures of the man and his life, some original manuscripts of his compositions, and stuff like that. Not having seen very many pictures of Kodaly, I must say he has quite the mullet on him.
A couple o’ thoughts from da man...
"I do not in the least consider what has been done in recent years in the field of physical culture to be too much. Indeed, I find it too little...but do not let us forget the soul either."
Hmm, balance time for PE and Art? Seems pretty radical to me.
"Nobody is too great to write for the little ones; indeed, he must do his best to be great enough for them."
That one is going up over my computer when I get home.
"Our age of mechanization leads along a road ending with man himself as a machine; only the spirit of singing can save us from this fate."
President Bush take note.
"We decided to make use of our people’s tunes. And if we have something to say to the world it can only be expressed in the language used by the people."
Again, President Bush take note.
*****
From there, Kazi-Basci took us to see the central square. All of the local faiths have large churches in the square of the very large and ornate variety. We did a quick 360 in the middle of the courtyard and then headed for home. Along the way, Kazi pointed out the school that one of his grandchildren attends. It looks a lot like one of the big churches we have just been gawking at. Nice to see a classic school for a change.
From there, home for lunch and to meet Kazi and Zsusza’a children. First to arrive is the guest of honor for the evening, Kis-Kazi (or Kazi Jr.), with his wife Zsuzsa (yes, I know, they have the same name, too. Confused yet?), their daughter, Klaudia, and her boys Gabie and Csabi. Kis-Kazi just finished working on a college degree that will earn him a promotion in the Hungarian Army to Lieutenant Colonel as of next Monday.
Shortly there after came the arrival of Gabor, sporting a pair of plastic fake teeth and some amazingly long fake nose hair to make a good impression on his cousin’s new husband. And good impression he did make!
Kis-Kazi and Gabor are obviously good friends as well as being brothers. They have outrageous senses of humor that I can catch a lot of time, even with the language issues. There is a whole family lore about their travels abroad, which they did frequently when they were younger, and still whenever they can now.
We are celebrating Kis-Kazi’s graduation at one of the local Puszta’s. The dictionary I have defines Puszta as being barren wilderness, but it is more romantically used to describe a ranch. There is quite the tourist industry in Hungary taking you out to the Puszta for dinner, to see the old farm buildings, and the centerpiece, an amazing horse show.
We arrived a little early and were walking around the yard, looking at the bread ovens and things, when we were accosted by a gentleman complimenting us on our English. "I’ve been speaking it all my life," was the reply. "Me, too." he said. Turns out that Stew and his wife Sue are from Prineville. What a small world. So, Zia translated for all of us, and I got to speak some English and be understood by someone other than Zia and Vera for the first time in a couple weeks. A win-win.
After the obligatory schnapps course, we went out to the yard for the horse show. The horse show is a demonstration of riding skills and horse control. The riders can do some pretty incredible stuff, even though one of the riders got accidentally kicked in the shin and was out for the rest of the show. (He was back later and seemed to be walking OK, but I bet it is a great bruise). The grand finale of this show is 10 horses, harnessed together, with a guy standing on the back pair holding the reins and riding them around the yard at a pretty good clip without killing himself. Very impressive!
From there we boarded horse-drawn wagons and were taken out, via very dusty roads, to visit the old farm buildings and to see the organic farm. As I am really allergic to a lot of this, my trip was made much more pleasant through the use of copious sinus pills (thanks, Jerry!).
The farm has been in existence for 100 years. The family that were the original owners are buying it back from the state a section at a time (ain’t Communism wonderful?). The house has thick clay walls and a straw roof that is about a meter deep, very good for regulating temperature. Inside you find the old classic bread oven, built in such a way that you can heat the house with it also. There is a pantry full of stuff, preserves, sausages, etc., all homemade. On the way out Zsuzsa-Neni calls my attention to a painting on the wall. It is a page of Hungarian history, depicting one of the Turkish invasions, where a man had just killed his wife to keep her from ending up in a harem, prior to killing himself.
Outside, the lady of the ranch showed us the stock, rare cattle and chickens only bred in Hungary, and then poured us a taste of the homegrown wine. Needless to say, some of the local stuff was available for sale. Kazi-Basci bought me a jar of the hot pepper preserve, that is used as a condiment for soups and things. With his comment that "You will remember me twice every time I use it," caution will of course be the rule.
Back to the restaurant (ettrem) for dinner, salads and a splendid selection of fried cheeses and fried vegetables for me, dead animal fresh and goulash for everyone else, a couple of beers and a great band. The violinist came by, taking requests, and soon the whole table was singing along. The nice thing about folk song is that it is pretty easy to pick up. I can "La La" with the best of them!
As we are staying with Gabor this evening, we left with him and his current girlfriend, Rita. But first, a stop by Kis-Kazi’s for a (large) glass of brandy. One sip in and the phone rings. Stepping back for a moment, Gabor and Rita missed the show part of this evening because, as soon as we arrived at the Puszta, Kazi-Basci’s home alarm system went off, and so Gabor and Rita went back to discover that Kazi had left on a fan that was blowing the curtains around. Needless to say, the phone call was to let Gabor know that he had neglected to return the keys. So, gulp and go. Back to Kazi and Szusza’s to drop off the keys and consume a few more of the great rolls from earlier.
Gabor and Kis-Kazi and entourage (including us) then proceeded downtown to Futyulos (with bunches of extra stuff that this computer will not allow me to add. Speaking of additions, a "Futyulos" is a schnapps glass that, when empty, allows you to whistle for another by blowing across the top) for more beer. Beck’s this time. Kazi and Gabor had a great time relating their legend for Rita, who had not heard it yet, and, presumably, for me, although the delivery was way to fast for Zia to translate for me. Besides, she has told me some of these stories already. That said, Kazi and Gabor, I am looking forward to hearing the stories you don’t tell in mixed company.
They then took Zia and I for a more leisurely tour of downtown, but honestly, I was too tired to remember. The old folks waved the white flag and got them to take us home and put us to bed.
*****
For those of you who have been wanting to post to our blog, my humblest apologies. I am new to this whole blogging thing and had the settings wrong. You should be able to post now, if you wish, so drop us a line. We really would love to hear from you!
Dave
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