June 28, 2015 – Kishegyes … “Requiescant in pace”

My Father-In-Law, Peter, had the soul of a gypsy.  Over the course of his life, he owned property in three different countries, Serbia, Germany and Hungary, and made a sincere effort to put his foot down on the soil of as many other places as he could.  I seriously doubt there is anyone on the planet that, within a few minutes of meeting him, wasn’t a friend for life regardless of whether they shared a language or not.

In the Catholic countries, the Name Day is almost more important than the birthday.  Flowers are exchanged and meals with friends and families are enjoyed.  Tomorrow is Saint Peter-Paul day.  It will also be the first that we will celebrate without Peter.  He succumbed to cancer and complications related to diabetes in October of last year.  This could quite possibly be one of the most difficult posts I have put up on this page – so bear with me if it doesn’t reach my usual level of self-disparagement.

Z will tell you that her most vivid memories revolve around food (about witch she is currently writing a cookbook/memoir – available soon on an Amazon Kindle near you!).  As you might have guessed, mine are more focused upon musical experiences.  I have many fabulous memories of Peter and music – he was a fellow enthusiast.  In honor of his Name Day, I would like to share a memory of my favorite two:

A couple of years back. Lojos-Baci was celebrating his 70^th birthday.  As is the case in these things around these parts, a band was hired.  In this case, the Primas of the ensemble was the first-call

violinist for the film studios in Budapest looking for traditional Roma style playing.  My family all know I play, and events like this are command performances anymore.  The expectation is that I will show with a horn and sit in with the band.  This group was so good, and the level of musicianship so overwhelming that I ended up playing with them for several hours.  Through it all, I could see Peter with the largest grin on his face, talking me up to his friends and relatives, dancing, and singing along with the tunes he knew.  He talked about that party wherever we went.  As much as I enjoyed playing (and it was really cool), it was clear that he had a way better time.

We go to the Wine Fest every year just before we leave – it is one of the last things we enjoy before getting on the plane home.  For the last five or six years, the last bit of entertainment has been the troop from the local community theatre performing the biggest tunes from operetta.  You may not be aware of this, but Hungary is a hot spot for the form, and although, sadly, not many of them get performed in the States, they are masterpieces of the form – every bit as funny and charming as Gilbert and Sullivan or Strauss.  Z and I always had a task that last evening – to get a table close enough that Peter could see the stage and costumes and all.  He would join us just before the performance began, and for the next two hours or so, he and Z would sing along at the top of their lungs with the crowd and the stage.  Mere words cannot capture the joy he was experiencing in that moment.

Peter has settled down now.  His ashes are in the family crypt in Kishegyes.  But as long as we hold onto his memory and tell his story, he still will be a gypsy in the world. 

If you think about it, please throw a buck or two at the Cancer Society in his name when you next get a chance - they do good work over there.

Because I hate ending this post on words – here is a medley of the operetta tunes as performed by a friendly accordion player at the wine fest last week  (because Blogger is stupid that way, you'll have to go over to YouTube).  Peter was, I’m sure, singing along.

YouTube Video of our Accordion Friend

Family and the Polka Band

It is sneaking up on Oktoberfest time again – or O’fest as we call it.  This is our yearly opportunity to travel the world by having the world come to us.  Our family all comes to visit and we get to find out what they’ve been up to.  A good time will be had by all!

Z Musikmakers in residence
at the Weingarten in Mt. Angel, OR

“Family,” in this case means a lot of things.  Of course our “real” families will be there.  We work collectively as a band called Z Musikmakers.  The band was founded by Paul Zollner to perform at the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest.  Along with his wife Pat, Paul has kept some version of it running for about 30 years now.  The core of the current band is Paul and three of his daughters, Monica, Tecie, and Christiana, with older sister Katie occasionally sitting in for Christi. 

Over the years, the Zollner family band has “adopted” several “Uncles” into the family.  The older of us met and became friends through connections in and around the University of Oregon.  I met Pat and Paul through a church music group.  Rob Neidig was their teacher in a morning conversational German class.  Greg Backstrom and Paul were acquainted through a business group in Eugene.  Our love of music has kept us together and friends for years now.  Our newest member, Nichlas Schaal, joined the band, after Pat “retired” a few years ago, via a friendship with the daughters.

Dave, Klaus, and Paul having a quick strategy conference
before the jam set between the Donaumusikanten and
Z Musikmakers.  We do this the last set of our Sunday
show every year.  If you haven't caught it, you
should come and enjoy it sometime!

Of course, the Uncles all come attached with their own families.  Greg’s wife, Shelley and their two kids, Rob’s wife, Rosie, and Nichlas’ wife, Joelle and his three children are frequent visitors to rehearsals and gigs, and are some of my best friends on the planet.  O’fest season is a chance for us to find out what everyone has been up to.  Although we once lived much closer together, we now all live miles apart and look forward to the once or twice a year catch up.

What does a typical day look like for an O’fest band?  It starts late.  We are a hard-partying group of – OK, I’m lying.  The truth is, it is hard work, and while we enjoy a drink or two and listening to our friends on stage (about which more in a minute), the reality is that we are generally in bed by 11 or 12 in the evening.  It still starts late though.  We aren’t as young as we used to be.  This is always followed by breakfast and the ceremonial lob of the first bad joke – usually by Greg.  It’s downhill from there: a day full of laughter, bad jokes, festival food, folk music, bad jokes, music making, and more bad jokes – followed by a few more “Adult Grain Beverages.”  If you have never been in a band before, you need to add it to you bucket list – it’s one of the best things ever.  My band mates are great entertainers, and a huge amount of fun to hang out with.  I miss the energy throughout the year when we aren’t working.

Making music at St Josef's in Canby
with the Donaumusikanten.

Of course, there are other families at O’fest.  Most of us have a visit of varying lengths by our extended family.  I am still trying to learn the names of all of the extended Zollner clan, but I can tell you from personal experience that there are 1,324, 289 of them.  All of them are swell folks – nicer people cannot be found – there are just a lot of them.  My parents can be found in the back-middle of the hall for every show – they haven’t missed an O’fest in years.  Stop by and say “hi,” they love to meet new folks.  I’ve met various brothers/sisters/uncles/aunts/pets of my band mates over the years, and that is of course part of the fun of the whole thing.

Our family of musical friends now covers the world.  Our friends Gordy and Danny Groening, with Rod and Mark form the Gordanaires from Vancouver, B.C., who are gracious enough to let me share the stage with them for several fests a year.  We also enjoy hanging with the fabulous musicians of the Salzberger Echo, who always drop by to talk brass-shop and to egg me on in playing some orchestral excerpts. Then there are Klaus, Andi, Harry, Hugo, Halef and Thomas of the Original Donaumusikanten from Ulm, Germany, who let me share the stage with them at St Josef’s Grape Stomp – funny guys and fun to hang out with.  Then there is Darlene Jones, who has subbed with our band a couple of times.  And many others.  Among other things (like bad jokes), O’fest is our opportunity to check in with our musician friends and share a laugh and a beer or two.  If you watch, you’ll frequently see groups of bands hanging out to watch each other’s show (and heckle from the crowd).  At least in our band, plans are made around seeing our friends play sometime every fest (so we can heckle them from the crowd) and cheering them on, catching their new tunes, and critiquing their show – in the best possible light.  It would probably be better to say “watch what they are doing that is cool so we can steal it and put it in our show.”  Theft, in the music business, is the most sincere form of flattery.

On stage in Leavenworth, WA with the Gordanaires.

The nice thing about O’fest crowds is that they are small enough that you can get to know some of your audience well.  Over the years, our extended family has grown to include many of these wonderful folks.  We have shared dinner with Dee and David, pictures and e-mails with Rosie, borrowed a dog kennel for our kids from Karen and Keith, and ran into Sharon and chatted for a while at the mall.  I have two friends at my local Applebee’s that I met through the starter, “you’re the trumpet player in that family group down there in Mt. Angel, aren’t you?”  There are many other similar stories.  There is a gentleman who I met while coming off the stage a couple of years ago who told me that he has caught every show the band has played at the Mt. Angel Oktoberfest for decades.  He is such a fan that to do this now requires a flight in every year from Australia.  I am honored to have met these folks, but even more blessed to have had the opportunity to get to know them.

In my case, I also am also fortunate to get to spend some time at O’fest with my “school family.”  The Mt. Angel folks were kind enough to ask a couple years ago if my school group would like to come down and perform.  Like most schools, we were not allowed to perform at a “beer fest.”  This is when I got the idea of putting together a community group that a centered around my students, joined by alums, parents, fellow teachers, and community adults.  Hence the “Columbia River Folk Band” was formed.  One of my biggest joys of O’fest lately is watching the look of shock on my student’s faces in the crowd on a Saturday afternoon when they watch their teacher make a fool of him on stage.  When I see heads on the table, I know I have scored.

I am looking forward with joy of seeing my “family” in the next few weeks.  If you are a “long lost relative,” drop by and reintroduce yourself, OK?  It would be nice to meet you.

7/26 Munich

7/26

After a leisurely breakfast and a quick walk with Lola down to get pretzels, we left for Munich. Our intrepid band is joined today by our friend Chrystal and her husband Jared – great company and swell people. This drive is so much like driving to Mt. Angel it could make you homesick (if you weren’t excited about tasting the ingredients all put together). This is the Bavarian hop region, and there were row after row of Hallertauer and Saaz hops. The harvest looks pretty good this year.

We pulled into Munich around 1:30, and, after the quest to find a parking space, went to lunch – at the Hofbrauhaus. OK, I get that this is kind of a big tourist thing now, and the locals all go somewhere else, but it’s kind of like Disneyland for beer drinkers. If you do, you must.

It’s big and crowded and finding a table took time. Then we had to track down our Foam Dude and get our maβ (a maβ is a one liter beer stein). Then the party started. Look, I am a performer. I am fortunate enough to work in some pretty large venues and to see a lot of crowds. This place was like a bomb waiting for a match. You drop a band like, say, Z Musikmakers in here and we could have this place going absolutely bonkers in 5 seconds. People know what they want when they walk in the door, and if they don’t get it, they’ll make it themselves. Three different tables near us were singing German folksongs, accapella. There is a brass band in the middle of the place, with the greatest gig I have ever seen. They play one tune. Then wait 5 minutes or so, and then play another one. They are very good, and when they play there are people dancing in the aisles. But then, another 5 minutes? Come on folks, let’s do this. The best part, though, is the obligatory “ein prosit.” There have got to be hundreds of people in this place, and they are all singing, holding up steins as big as their heads and toasting each other.

Lunch was fabulous. I had a potato frittata thing that was great, and Z had a roasted pig on a spit thing with a huge salad that she said was fab. The service was a little erratic, but probably to be expected in a place this busy. The beer was great session stuff – why I could have had another couple of those steins. Ahh, but there is more beer to drink, so onward.

A short walk down the street took us to the Spatenhaus, the downtown pub for the Spaten and Franziscaner breweries. A short diversion… Bavaria is one of the greatest beer producing regions in the world, and Bavarians drink more, per capita, than anyone else. Every town has a little regional producer of something, and almost all of it is swell. Munich is home to the big breweries, and there are traditionally five. The oldest is Augustiner Brauerei, and then there are Hacker-Pschorr, Löwen-Bräu (that’s “Low-ven-broy” kids, not “Low-en-brow”), Paulaner Brauerei , and Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu and then there is Staatliches Hofbräuhaus, which is a brew pub, but is trying hard to grow the empire, plus various other swell brew pubs.

As long as we are diverging – many of you, my friends, are like me, Hopheads. We like big beers full of those wonderful green flowers. 100 BU’s, oh, come one, bring it! The beers we are talking about here are more subtle than that. They are in balance, and not big in the Northwest sense, so you can sit around knocking them back all day in mugs the size of your head. That said, some of them have more of the little green flower, and those, of course, are my faves. For this reason, I was looking forward to trying Spaten on their own turf. They seem to be unafraid of hops.

A nice clean place with what looks to be a pretty good restaurant, we just settled in for beer this trip. Hoppy within the breed, pleasant – a nice session beer, much like the Hofbrau suds, but hoppier. We sat and enjoyed a beer and watched the protest gather in front of the restaurant. They didn’t like something in Iran, I gather.

We left Spaten to do a little shopping and check out the sights. We found the factory store for Manner Cookies, the greatest cookies on the planet, not that I am biased. We enjoyed the view of a couple more amazing churches, had a cup of Starbucks (supporting both my stock and my bladder at the same time, what a deal!), and endured a torrential downpour in the doorway of one of those amazing churches and then bought really, frightfully expensive umbrellas to make sure that the rain thing didn’t happen again.

When traveling, sometimes you get lucky. There is often a best way to see the sights – a correct order, if you will. We had just bought our umbrellas, and the clouds were beginning to thin a bit, and I heard the sound of the Glockenspiel. Munich is supposed to have a killer one of these, so I wandered down the street to investigate. I have been in Europe long enough to have seen some amazing churches and buildings, and like to think that I am somewhat immune. But, alas this is another one of those spots where words are going to fail me. As you enter Marienplatz, at least from the direction I did, you get an amazing view of an incredible church steeple. And then another one. And then another one. And then a remarkable statue, and they just keep piling this stuff on and on. I have never seen anything like it, it was beautiful. And then I turned around to see the Glockenspiel on the front of the Neues Rathaus (New City Hall). This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. I kind of stood there and walked around in circles with my face to the sky and tears running down my cheeks. You must go to this beautiful place. Don’t miss it. Really, you’ll be glad you listened to Uncle Dave. (The glockenspiel is kind of cool, too, but doesn’t have Christiana playing violin on it, so it’s my second favorite.)

We caught a few more sights and then moved onto the Augustiner pub downtown to try beer from the oldest brewery in Munich. Unfortunately, we got lost and had to settle for the pub next to the Hofbrau, rather than their old pub building. As my Father-In-Law says, “if you do it all on the first trip, you’ll have nothing left to do next time.” Augustiner is another great Bavarian session beer, not that I have had a bad one yet. Look, some of them have water that is a little soft, which doesn’t work for me (example, the dread Jelen Pivo – stay away), some of them could have more hops (most of the local stuff), but at least they are in balance with themselves, are tasty and refreshing, and are served in great big huge mugs. I’ve not had a bad one yet. But it’s like pumpkin pie, the worst slice you ever had wasn’t that much worse than the best one you’ve ever had. Augustiner is pretty good. I’ll drink it again.

7-2 Kishyges and Topolya

7-2

As further proof that things are not happy here in Serbia yet are recent articles in the Hungarian language Magyar Sző detailing attacks on people speaking Hungarian in the larger cities. Peter reinforced this a few days ago when he suggested we take the car up to Topolya to walk around, but to "be careful not to speak Hungarian" because there has been some violence there (Z and I, of course, hold lengthy conversations in Hungarian all the time). I am always a bit amazed by all of this. Here is a country that is currently doing everything it can to get into the Europen Union. They are rebuilding their infrastructure, getting all the modern conviences and stuff. Yet they still feel that they must snuff out the "foreigners." If they can't live peacably with each other in their own backyard, who is going to trust them in the international community.

Today is the beginning of Dombos (that's doam-bosh) Fest, the local music festival. It is held in an open field west of town. There is some talk that this will be the last year of the festival. It is heavily subsidized by the Serbian government and they are finding it "too Hungarian." The opening act this evening is a violinist who has made his debut in Carnegie Hall, but only gets 15 minutes of time on stage because he is crazy (read: drug addict). The rest of the evening is filled with a folk dance group and a disco for the kids.

**********

I haven't really started on the beers yet this trip. Suffice it to say I am "enjoying" a few, or as much as I can in Serbia. Most of them have been covered earlier in the blog. They are generic pilners, around 4.5%, and are yellow fizzy water. My description of them so far can best be somed up with this entry for Master Pils (a Heineken product): "It's a pils. Eh."

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Afternoon kavé this afternoon is spent in the company of Imre and Kati. Another afternoon for me of being a walking knick-knack. It goes with the turf sometimes of being the husband of a Hungarion wife. It's worth it.

The afternoon rains are brewing and the skies are getting that dark blue that foretells our daily afternoon storm is arriving, always an adventure if not at least for a break in the humidity. This afternoon features a huge electrical storm pretty much right on top of us. It didn't seem an opportune time to be holding a metal object, so I put away the horn and dug the show with my grandaughter. Pretty cool!

**********

Speaking of incongruouities, dinner this evening is as guests of Lajos and Bori at their Capriolo Restaurant (home of the greatest pizza on the planet, but we won't be having any this evening). The first incongruouity, the house sound system is playing flamenco music in Spanish. Then the chord changes start to sound familiar. Then - hey, isn't that? It is! It is! Hotel California, the flamenco version.
Dinner is guinnea hen soup, which I am told is fab, followed by a Greek salad and a mega-huge, Dan Ralph-sized house platter of grilled meat. You could hear the thump of Greg's jaw hitting the table. On the plus side, the chef is a vegetarian. I had the best veg plate I have had this trip, sautéd mushrooms, home-made soft cheese, stir-fried vegies and wild rice pilaf. No one can figure out how he cooks meat so well, but I'm not complaining.

Also dining with us this evening is Lajos III (Lali) with his wife Adrianna, daughter Lena, and Loijos IV, a cute little tyke about a year old. Lali is the head of the Capriolo bicycle empire (search "capriolo" online for their web site), about which you can find more information earlier in the blog. As a result of his buisness interests, Lali speaks excellent English, and so we were able to converse about business (slow, the economy), Greg's tattoos (finom), etc. It was a swell evening that stretched on long enough that we missed Dombos tonight. Maybe tomorrow...

7\8\ö8 Vilseck to Keszthely

So no promises on this entry. I am typing today on Vera´s keyboard which is in Hungarian. It has about a million more keys than I am used to, the "Z" and "Y" key have been switched, and most of the punctuation marks don´t work - as you can see from the title of this post.

Sunday, and the trip from Vilseck to Keszthely...

Kyra drove the first section of the trip, and I took over just before the Austrian border. What fun! The autobahn is pretty cool. Before we crossed the border into Austria I touched on 11ö a couple of times. Austria has a speed limit, so I had to content myself with crusing along at 13ö KMH (that between 85 and 9ö MPH for you slowpokes at home!).

The autobahn system is set up so that you don't travel into any towns, just skirt the edges. As a result you get to see a lot of wooded hillsides and, over in the distance, many little quaint villages, huge castles, towering chuch towers, etc. Since you don't get to see any of them up close and personal, you have a lot of time to sit and question. I drove through three countries in a day. Why three countries? Germany and Austria share a language, the architecture is similar in all three countries, the social customs are similar. What makes it all so different? Which leads on to introspection about culture. I am fortunate enough to get to play in a band with several great friends who perform the folk music of Germany. Why Germany? What draws people to hear the folk music of a culture that is not their own? What is folk music? Dang it, I almost missed that turn.

We reached Peter and Vera's in the late afternoon, just in time for dinner. First the obligatory palinka - no make that two. Apricot, and very good stuff too. And then dinner - chicken parprikas for the carnivores, and "chicken" paprikas with tofu for the vegetarian. Vera has been playing around with tofu and should publish a cookbook. She is doing some amazing things with the stuff.

After a couple of glasses of Peter's remarkably tasty home grown wine, we wandered down to listen two a couple of tunes from the band playing downtown. Classic garage band, bass player working hard at being serious, rhythm guitarist that is just a little too old and a little too bald to pull off the low guitar, preening for the ladies at the edge of the stage thing, lead guitarist that has the look but not quite the licks, drummer that was pretty OK, female lead vocalist dressed in the current hip fassion and placed front stage to be the center of attention. And - and this is what made it for me - the keyboard player who is a dead ringer for Steve Martin, look manerisms and everything. I was rolling the whole time. We finally gave up, grabed a gelatto and headed home for bed.

Monday.

A nice relaxing day by the lake. You pay 8öö forint and that gives you the run of the place for the day. Get there early enough and you can even have on of those cool deck chair things. We all relaxed in the sun, taking turns getting in to swim with Jaden, who stays in the water pretty much all day. I remember when I used to be able to do that. I spent my time not swiming reading the work at the center for the arts school next year (yes, I did do some work this summer!). It's called "The Creative Habit" by Twyla Tharp, and I highly recomend it to those of you with a creative bent. A facinating read about the process of creating and the work involved in doing so. Lunch was langos - basically an elephant ear with garlic instead of sugar. Pretty tasty.

Dinner, and another of Vera's tofu experiments. Tonight was Tofu Schnitzel: thinly sliced tofu with blue cheese in the middle, breaded and deep fried. I have mentioned before that Vera is the queen of cooking, but she excells at frying. This was pretty amazing stuff.

More beer notes:

Aktien Pilsner, Bayreuther Bierbrauerei AG, 4.9% by volume.

A beautiful light tawny brown with a slightly hoppy nose. Sweet and hops are well balanced in the front of the mouth, slight hop flavor in the back of the mouth that disappears a little too quickly. Not too big - another good session beer.

7/31 Hevis

For all of you gardeners out there. Vera just passed on through Zia the story of a friend of hers who uses birth control pills as plant food for vegetable plants with great results. Now if you can just get your doctor to write your plants a prescription...


*****


Today we took a bus trip to the spa town of Hevis (the "e" has a long, horizontal line over it, HAY - vees). We will not visit the spa today - too hot! No, today we sight see.

Hevis, according to Peter, renovated all of the spa buildings last winter. When the town council inspected the buildings following construction they found shoddy workmanship and sub-standard materials (hmm, on a government project? Can you do that?). They ordered the whole thing torn down and rebuild before payment.

The spa at Hevis, according to our guide book, is slightly radioactive (!!!). I am, however, at peace with visiting the baths later in the week. In the first place, people have been coming here for over 200 years to "take the cure." So there must be something to it. In the second place, I don’t plan on having any more children.

Our visit to Hevis was very rewarding. As previously mentioned, this is a spa town (read "tourist"). So our sight seeing expedition was mostly of shops. We were wandering down a side street, when Zia excitedly grabbed my hand and exclaiming, "we have to go in here," drug me into a shop. Great, more footwear, I was thinking. Instead I found a bookstore. With Hungarian books. In Hungarian. Zia wandered off to look, and amused myself by doing what I have been doing this whole trip when walking into a Hungarian bookstore with Hungarian books in Hungarian. I looked at pre-1910 maps of Hungary, always a good bet. Then I stared at CD’s for a while. Nice classical selection, at least I think it is. I can read the composer names, even though they are backward. But orchestras? Soloists? Your guess is as good as mine. And then! We discovered the music shelf. And on it there is a fabulous and very scholarly book of ethnomusicology on the folk music of this region, with examples...in Hungarian. And the examples, very well organized, are only excerpts. And so, once again we slink towards the door in abject failure. Zia and the clerk exchanged a few words on the way out. The clerk reaches into a stack of newly arrived books that have not been shelved, and thrusts into my hand three books of Hungarian Folk Music. The Holy Grail! The end of the quest! I was giddy, I laughed, I cried, I think I even danced a cszardas (you can’t do a jig in Hungary). Even as I write this, Peter and Vera are sorting through the tunes, helping me to find the ones they hear played a lot.


*****


Hevis also has a pretty great German Folk Clothing store. The work is all done locally and is pretty inexpensive. They get a lot of German tourists here. Zia snagged me a new shirt for this year.

Our trip home was on the milk run bus, so we got to see the "garden district" of Keszthely. Some very beautiful houses, and the big bus stops all have some fabulous statuary. Even with the heat, things are very green and pretty.

Dave

7/24 thru 28, Keszthely & Zalacsany

A couple of days loafing around Keszthely. It is a town that is well set up for it. I get my morning walk in and come back and practice for a while. We grab some lunch and then Zia and I take a walk to people watch. Home to practice a little more, maybe update the blog, perhaps a nap, perhaps a swim in the warm lake, gab with Peter and Vera, a light dinner, and then back to the Boardwalk for the evening program and a gelato or a beer and some more people watching. If we are feeling enthusiastic, we will bring suits and go swimming again. Do I really have to come home?

On the first of our home visits, Kazi-Basci and Zsuzsa-Neni, with Klaudia, made it by this week. We had a barbecue, and I made Mediterranean Tofu Tias. Klaudia says she enjoyed them, and I believe her. Vera enjoyed them a lot, and then came up with an even better version later in the week using mushrooms instead of tofu. Everyone else ate dead animal flesh. Again, Zia will need to describe that part for you. Not part of my culinary experience this trip, sorry.

The next evening we visited Kazi and Zsusza’s vacation condo in Zalacsany, just down the road from Keszthely. The condos are built next to a castle. The condo is owned by an architect, who as a child dreamed of owning a castle. When this one became available, she hocked everything to buy it. She financed the effort by selling off the side yard. The person who bought it sat on it for a while, meanwhile she turned her castle into a resort hotel. The person who bought the side yard decided not to use it, so, putting herself into debt again, the architect bought the side yard back. She built a bunch of duplex condos, which she is now selling (a two bedroom one will set you back $50,000). Meanwhile, a championship golf course is going in across the street, with a major championship match scheduled there next year. I think property values will be going up soon, better act fast!

And so, we enjoyed the pool behind the castle. A beautiful day, maybe my farmer tan will disappear before the end of the trip. It could happen!

The next day I woke up not feeling very well due to dehydration. It has been unusually hot in Europe this summer, a continent that does not believe in air conditioning. This has lead to several deaths here this summer, over 25 in France as of last week and more than 14 in Spain. Balaton, a spring fed lake with no outlet has dropped more than 10 cm. in a week. So, lots of water, and better by evening.


*****

This evening we are the guests of Kazi-Basci and Zsuzsa-Neni at a "Gypsy Wedding" show put on by a pro group in Zalacsany. Needless to say the show is proceeded with schnapps (you knew that had to happen). They meet you at the gate with it, with a traditional dry biscuit chaser. There is a photographer there to memorialize your shudders for posterity (that they will be happy to sell you after the show for $59.99, or something...). Then into the performance hall.

They perform in a permanent structure in a meadow on the edge of town. A huge wooden stage is covered with an elaborate wooden scaffolding, with a canvas roof. The audience is in arena seating, with bench seats and a plank table in front of you. Two pitchers of very good, home-grown wine, one red, one white await your drinking pleasure. A recording is playing the last tune in the Hungarian Folk Suite that was the recessional for our wedding last year and is now entrusted to Z-Musikmakers - at least I got that tune right! Meanwhile the band is setting up and quickly checking mics. The band is two guitars, a mandolin, a female vocalist (who is the dancer when the band performs separate from this show), and a percussionist who plays milk jug. Really! You have to hear it to believe it, it is pretty incredible.

One of the actors is floating around behind the audience, posing for pictures with the audience (available following the show for $59.99). Zia explains that gypsy women traditionally wear clothing that doesn’t match, and is as bright as possible to attract attention. Somewhat like what I wear to school every day, only more tasteful, I guess.

The head gypsy of the band is called "Vaida." Our Vaida is the MC of this evening’s festivities. He evidently is an insult comic, according to Zia. He begins the show by introducing his wife ("once she was pretty, now she is my wife"). Zia at this point warns me that the script contains a certain amount of profanity. I pass the warning on to you, be fore warned that I am including comments from our Vaida, and they include a certain amount of profanity. You have been warned. On with the show...

The script is a horse opera, literally. Our hero is stealing a horse to impress a girl and win her as his wife. Unfortunately, he kills his future father-in-law in the process. ("I’ve never seen such a f*^&#%g ugly dead man.") Regrettably, he doesn’t stay dead. ("Never mind, I don’t have luck in life.") The wealthy horse owner and two side kicks return, and there are several of the tricks from our Puszta show of the other evening. At one point several of these tricks are done by a mule, ridden by the father-in-law, which, according to Zia, is incredibly difficult. ("He’s a poor cowboy, his horse is as big as a dog.") I hope, at this point, that you are catching on that the plot is pretty irrelevant here. The band is pretty hip, in a very subtle way. For example, at the end of this whole mule schtick, Vaida says, "get outta here," the band plays a real short instrumental version of "Hit The Road Jack." If you don’t know the tune, you probably missed it, but several folks in the crowd got a chuckle out of it.

So, on with the "plot." The wealthy guy wants to buy the girl, which leads into a scene where he is tricked into getting drunk on sacramental wine at the ceremony, and his bride is stolen away. Much dancing ensues. The dancing is a highly skilled cross between break dancing and the slappy dance. The percussionist is adding some pretty cool mouth percussion to the music at this point, in addition to anchoring the group with bass lines played by controlling how he slaps his hand on the end of the milk jug. It is pretty amazing.

There is a mistaken belief that Hungarian Folk Music and Gypsy Folk Music are the same thing. Although there is considerable overlap, instrumental differences, and melodic shapes and modalities are different. Having heard a lot of Hungarian Folk Music lately, the differences in this show are pretty evident, although hard to describe without playing you some examples.

Anyway, onward. Half-time brings the main course. We are dining on Paprikas this evening, beef for the carnivores and mushroom for the vegetarians. The side dishes include a regional specialty. It is a pasta, made by grating a hard dough into small discs, and then cooking with lentils. This is accompanied by white bread (and yes, it is way better in Europe than in the US). The Mushroom Paprikas was a little oily, but the pasta was very flavorful. Not my best meal here, but not too shabby either. Desert is a brownie like thing, not too sweet, more nutty. Fill up the wine glasses, and on with the show.

The opening number by the band includes some strictly non-traditional blue notes which had me laughing pretty hard. The police arrive, and search the audience for "horse thieves." The selected individual ends up on stage being used for target practice for a guy with the a Hungarian horse whip, which he is able to crack at the guys side and then wrap around his waist, making it look like he is hitting the guy.

The wedding party makes their appearance, carrying the wagon tongue (you can’t steal a wagon without the wagon tongue). The dance music for the wedding is sung, primarily on "La’s." The cops are back, and being corrupt (they speak German), are bribed off. ("We were broke, but we were happy.") A large finale dance thing ensues. Vaida thanks everyone, the dancers, the band ("Does the band have a CD? You bet! But it’s f*^&#$g expensive. It looks like a coaster. What are you thinking, charging so much?") The cast dances one last tune, bringing people from the audience up (bodily carrying them if necessary). We kill the wine, and clap along. The end of a great, and very funny show. Thanks to Kazi and Zsuzsa, and Peter and Vera for taking us!

Dave

7/16 Palic and Kishyeges

We went to Palic (PAULich) today, slightly to the east of Subotica, to visit the zoo. This is a way different animal than the Oregon Zoo (pun intended). Cages are often very small and you can often get a lot closer to cages and pens than you would think is safe.

According to Zia, during the war the government abandoned the zoo. After several days the local populace broke in and started feeding the animals scraps (keep in mind that during the war food was scarce, so this was quite a hardship). Most of the animals were kept alive these donations. Now that things have settled down there are plans for renovations and improvements.

From there we walked over to the lake. The hotel where Vera and Peter first met is there, a great big 100 year old building from a more gilded age, when the wealthy would take "the cure" by the lake. From there we headed for home, via the downtown square in Subotica so that Jaden could have "Kitchen" Nuggets. You know, McDonald’s are a lot better if you can sit outside and look at a great historic square while you eat there (and they have beer in Europe!).


*****


This evening we went to the 75th birthday party of Pityu-Basci, an old friend of Peter and Vera. The schnapps course included the afore mentioned "Quince Schnapps." As a warning to you, dear readers, this is what it taste like. The nose is rubbing alcohol, with hints of paint thinner. At this point you find yourself thinking "Oh, this is not going to be good." If only you had listened, but, courtesy calls, so... On the front of the mouth one gets hints of fruit, mostly cherry - not so bad. Rolling it across the tongue you swallow and feel the huge alcohol thing. Whew, not so bad...

You remember those cartoons, where the guy drinks the stuff and sighs contentedly - then a beat - then smoke clouds come out the ears, face changes several shades of red, fire on the tongue, etc. That is kid stuff compared to this stuff. First your tongue and throat start burning. Then you feel the hair on your sinuses catch on fire, your stomach is churning, and O the alcohol... I am not sure what the percent alcohol this stuff it, but the scale probably needs to run into the millions. They should give you a shirt after you have it, "I survived the Quince." Of course manners - honored guest from America and all - required that I drink 3 shots of this death potion within a half an hour of arriving. Wrecked before the evening even began...

Dinner, a variety of salads and meats, followed by dancing to a live band. The classic bar band, a Cassio Keyboard (first time I have ever seen anyone use the one finger left hand chord feature on a gig), accordion and violin.

Zia, as she sometimes does when folk music from Hungary is played, was overcome with homesickness. After being here for a couple of weeks and being fortunate enough to see what life is like in her hometown, I can still only imagine how hard it must have been on her to give this all up, her life, her people, her culture, her home, and move to America. I don’t know that I would have been strong enough to do it.

*****

I suppose that this would be the place to talk about smoking in Europe. At least where we are at the moment, there is no such thing as a "smoke-free" area. Trust me when I say that your bar gig days did not prepare you for this. I can remember some pretty smoky places, but things were so dense with smoke at one point in the evening I literally could not see the other side of the room. As a result, I did not get to enjoy as much of the evening as I might have liked.

Pityu-Basci - a vibrant and energetic 75 - was sincerely touched by our visit, and honored that we had come. It was a magical evening.

We left around 1:00 to bring Jaden home for bed. Peter and Vera walked home sometime after 3:30 - now we know who the party animals are.

Dave

7/15, Kishegyes

Seems the folks in the house across the street aren’t talking to us. They evidently like to use the front yard as a parking lot during harvest season and we came back at the wrong time for them to use it. Just when you thought you were on vacation from High School...

There is a tragedy in town today. A three year old boy has been killed by hitting his head on a trailer. As mentioned before, the hay trailers here ‘bouts are stacked very high. A tractor was pulling two of these over full trailers and the boy tried to jump on the back one - the one farthest from the driver. He evidently hit his head falling off the back. His six year old brother was watching him and evidently egged him on to do it, and the driver couldn’t see them because they were on the other side of all the hay.


*****

On the other end of the spectrum, Zia and I were on our daily walk to the gelato stand and ran into a wedding procession. Hungarian weddings are quite the event. The entire wedding party, the band, and the grooms guests all meet at the grooms house. From there, to the accompaniment of the band, they process to the bride’s house to collect her and her guests. They then process to the court house for the civil ceremony. Along the way the men in the wedding party will pass out wine to spectators to toast the happy couple, and the women in the wedding party will pass out "Fonott Kalacs (Fo-NOTT Ka-lash)," a sweet bread shaped like a pretzel. After the civil ceremony the party, again accompanied by the band, process to the church for the religious part of the ceremony. They then process to the reception, where things look a lot like our wedding reception did.


*****


You have to admire Jaden. If there is another kid around, she wants to play, and finds a way to make it happen, with verve!


*****


Tonight’s band at Dombosfest is a quintet playing a cross between traditional Hungarian folk music and Gypsy Jazz ala the Paris Quintet with Grapelli and Reinhardt, with a major Balkan overtone. The whole thing comes off sounding kind of like the Mahavishnu Orchestra. This probably the most frustrating thing I have heard in a while. The guitarist and violinist are monsters, but everything sounds the same. The keys are almost always G and D without any key changes. The tunes mostly always accelerando at the end. The whole band play pretty much all the time. After three or four tunes you find your self thinking, "yeah, I’ve heard that."

Jaden, on the other hand, was completely digging it. She was having a grand old time doing the hippie dance in front of the crowd. Her great-grandmother promised her chocolate for dancing so enthusiastically, but had to renege and give clothing instead after she got sick. The local music teacher, who was sitting in front of us, asked which family she was with. When we explained that she was our granddaughter, and that her father was in the military, he was completely disbelieving. Seems Americans in general, and daughters of military personnel in particular, can’t dance that enthusiastically. You go, Jaden! Needless to say, Peter is taking full credit.

On TV this evening after the concert is a Folk Dance and Music Contest. The group on while we watch has dresses that were worn in this festival by the great-grandparents of the female participants. The dresses are highly ornate, and Zia says by custom they must wear 16 petticoats underneath. Sounds pretty hot to me. Again I am amazed by a folk culture that has been around for centuries longer than we have had a country.

Dave

7/14 Kishegyes

Peter badly cut his finger this morning. No stitches here - squeeze some blood out to cleanse the wound, rinse in schnapps, and slap on a bandage. Schnapps, what it doesn’t cure will kill you. Must be the Hungarian version of Windex!

Lunch today is as guests of Emese and family. We had two different casseroles, a cheese and cauliflower thing and a stuffed pepper thing that was almost Spanish in character, fried cheese, fried bread, and some dead animal-flesh thing that I didn’t notice. (Sorry, Zia is going to have to tell you about meat dishes, the vegetarian cannot be expected to notice!) All this was tossed down with the obligatory schnapps and Pivo Pils. I really can’t tell you anything about the Pivo because of the two schnapps that completely obliterated my palate before it, but it was one of the afore mentioned "lawn mower" beers. Good, but not memorable. Dessert is cream puffs (entirely homemade!) and raspberry cream (for each cup of raspberries, one cup of sugar and one egg white and blend like crazy).

Before the meal Adam, Emese’s son, is told that we are eating all of the casseroles because I am a vegetarian. He wanted to know if I was going to be eating in the kitchen. It seems the family used to sneak into the kitchen to eat stuff Adam, who has food allergies, couldn’t eat on his diet. Seems he knew that.

Tonight’s at Domosfest (that would be dom-bowsh-fest) we get a study in contrasts. The first group is a duet, a female vocalist and a wind player (soprano sax, Hungarian bagpipe and a folk flute) doing traditional gypsy tunes. They are an amazing ensemble that held an entire audience spellbound for a 90 minute set, part formalized, part improvised and all hauntingly beautiful. Their web site, which we regrettably can’t get to on this computer (too slow), is www.palyabea.hu. They were followed by a band that had grown to 15 by the time we left (the lightning was getting a little ominous). I don’t know if they got bigger or not, but I know there were still open mics on stage. It was all very well organized and tres slick. Everything sounded the same, there was no strong lead voice - it was as boring as the other group was interesting.

At home Peter is watching a documentary about the church in Topolya. It is 100 years old as of the filming of this show (a couple of years old). They are showing a grade school age choir singing in 4 parts - a cappella - lovely!

Dave