Music Hath Charms

We went to the stunning Franz List Zeneakademia concert hall, the Grand Hall, for some Mozart piano concertos. The pianist was Vajron Denes, playing with Concerto Budapest. Where to begin?

He was terrific, relaxed but intense and powerful. And the concertos, one of which I had never heard before as far as I know, reminded me what a great pianist Mozart must have been and why students need to practice scales. I was also reminded that musical warhorses exist because the warhorses are usually good pieces of music.

The audience was almost exclusively old, more so than in the U.S. This is surprising in a country that prides itself on its classical music heritage. After all, it's the birthplace of Bartok, Liszt, Kodaly and Ligeti. There are six orchestras in Budapest, providing employment to graduates of the Franz Liszt Academy. Music is subsidized by the city of Budapest and by the state. Maybe the demographics were skewed because of the day--young people have to get up and go to work on weekday. A weekday concert is less attractive as a result.

Attending a concert in Budapest, which is almost always a wonderful musical experience, raises an issue that has nothing to do with the music. It's the clapping at the end of the concert. At first, the clapping sounds the same as clapping in New York or St. Paul. By the end of the second bow, the clapping has changed. It is rhythmic and all audience members clap at the same pace. At the third bow, not only do people clap in unison, but they become insistent, speeding up in concert, demanding an encore. Audience members not only clap together, but they clap faster and faster together.

This leads to unpleasant reflections about the nature of crowds and the development of a single voice in that crowd. Does the style of clapping at Budapest concerts mean that these elderly classical music lovers have fascist tendencies? Does it explain Viktor Orban, the country's right-wing prime minister? Nah. After all, people in the U.S. clap independently, yet look at our politics. So instead of digging too deeply, I am instead going to reflect on the sources of decoration of the amazing building, some of which are shown here. PS--acoustics are pretty good, too.

Adventures in Hungarian medicine

Before I start the story, let me say that the point of this post is how nearly impossible it is to do anything complicated when you don't speak the language. Case in point: A trip to the emergency room.

I really thought I had appendicitis. I gutted it out (so to speak) for most of the day, and then finally called the clinic recommended by the State Department and the Fullbright folks. The English-speaking doctor on call said I should go to the hospital, and recommended one that he thought would be best. So off we went in a taxi. So far so good.

We get to the entrance to the hospital, and it is totally unclear where the ER is. When we think we've found it, there's a gate with a guard in a booth. So OLGS finally persuades the driver to go ask at the booth to be let in. Amazingly, we are and we drive off to the entrance, or what we think is the entrance.

We are right about the entrance, so we enter the ER waiting area and go to registration. We are waved off to somewhere else, but when we get to the somewhere else, it is totally unclear where we are. OLGS goes back to the registration area, and the clerk, showing only a little scorn for the stupid Americans, finally walks him back to where she had sent us in the first place. Apparently, this is triage, although whether it said anything about that I don't know.

After a short wait, a young woman in a polo shirt, jeans and a stethoscope pops her head out of a door, and indicates that we are next. In I go, along with OLGS as my translator. Then the problems really begin.

In addition to the young woman with the stethoscope, there is an older woman with what looks very suspiciously like a ledger. After showing our State Department-issued health insurance card, we are told that it is no good and that we will need to pay in advance. How much, we ask? 100 euros, we are told.

OLGS yanks out his credit card, brought along for exactly this eventuality. We don't take credit cards, he is told. Cash? We have exactly enough in Hungarian money (not Euros) to pay the cab back and the $15 co-pay that the insurance card says we will need to pay at an ER visit. Of course, the card is in English, and I suspect the concept of co-pay is foreign to them.

Now the lady with the ledger picks up her phone. OLGS understands enough to know that she's saying that there are some Americans who cannot pay and what should I do? Fortunately, the woman with the polo shirt and stethoscope says, in broken English, "Why don't I examine you anyway. We'll deal with this later." I was quite ready to kiss her, as the pain was getting worse from the stress.

So she examines me, asks all the right questions, with OLGS helping. She says that she is pretty sure I don't have appendicitis but that I should go see a surgeon. Surgeon??? She fills out several forms, stamps them repeatedly, and sends us back to registration, where we deal with more skepticism about the insurance card, and ultimately fill out a form in English that I think committed us to giving them our firstborn child.

We were going to leave after that -- I decided that since I didn't have appendicitis, I could deal with it the following day at the English-language clinic where they understand the concept of the State Department. However, a woman in scrubs rushed out as we were ready to leave and marched us into an examining room.

She spoke no English, but did a great demo of vomiting. OLGS finally told her that we wanted to go, and she agreed, after telling me that I should see a surgeon. That made me even more anxious to leave, so OLGS called the cab company, which promised to be there in 10 minutes. It was, and we walked back to the gate, since the driver did not argue with the guard about driving to the entrance.

When we got back to our flat, I went to bed, and although it was hard to get comfortable, I finally fell asleep and felt somewhat better in the morning. During the day I continued to feel better, so I never called the English-language clinic.

Lessons learned: Stick with English speakers for medicine -- OLGS is not advanced enough to do this in Hungarian. The basic humanity of the woman in the polo shirt -- a PA or intern -- who was going to examine me whether or not the payment issues were resolved. We were a charity case. And the meaning of surgeon: Physician -- similar to the Brits calling a doctor's office a surgery. And I'm more or less back to normal two days later. Food poisoning? Indigestion? Who knows. We didn't understand.

Hungary's tax dollars at work

You can tell a lot about a country by what it subsidizes.  Hungary, for example, subsidizes the arts -- heavily.  It also subsidizes public transportation, at least in Budapest.  But that is for another post.

Today's visit to the Bartok Marathon was quite revealing.  For under $10 we attended two concerts, one a celebration of the folk dance tunes Bartok used as the inspiration for many of his piano works.  It was charming and professional, with two modern folk dancers performing against the backdrop of early 20th century peasants filmed while dancing.   The second was an  orchestral concert, again performed at a very high level. And expensive to put on -- two harpists, eight French horns, and a massive string section.  They were very good, and while not sold out, the hall looked full.

And the venue?  The Bela Bartok National Concert Hall is about 10 years old, and has amazing acoustics.  Unfortunately, it's in a unprepossessing neighborhood, surrounded by construction-related mud.  Inside is just fine. And maybe it looks better in the summer.  But that is my only quibble.

I feel almost guilty taking advantage of these offerings -- but not guilty enough to boycott.

Are you an advocate of English-only? Try to learn another language and then see how you feel.

Language class is over for now.  OLGS and I celebrated with a luncheon party, or buli, for his classmates and his and my teachers (no classmates for me -- I was in a class of one!) Charming people, all of whom spoke English.

In fact, they all spoke English amazingly well. I complain about Hungarian, but it is logical and is pronounced phonetically.  What you see is what you get -- kind of like Spanish.  There is no gender issue, like French.  There are very few irregular verbs.  In contrast, English is amazingly difficult, and the more I learn about other languages, the more impressed I am by people who manage to learn English.

It's full of irregular verbs, and the spelling and pronunciation seem to follow no rules that one can hang on to when trying to navigate the words that come from many different roots.  Then there are all those homonyms -- words that are pronounced the same but spelled differently, or words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently, depending on context. It's a mess.

I want to say that I can't understand how English became a world language, but I kind of know why.  It is infinitely flexible, and most English speakers -- the ones I know, at any rate -- are pretty forgiving.  If they get the meaning, they don't usually care whether you were "correct."

In contrast, everyone in Budapest is a Hungarian teacher, from the shopkeeper to to the ticket taker at the movihaz to the kind stranger who gives up her seat on the bus for a gimpy American.  Whenever you open your mouth, they correct the fine points of grammar that you have missed because you've only been speaking the language for three weeks.

So to those yahoos who want to restrict entry into the US to English speakers only, or keep citizenship away from people whose English doesn't measure up to some impossible standard, I say this: Go try to learn a new language yourself.  Especially if you are over 21, you'll find it amazingly difficult.  And bear in mind that English is one of the hardest.

I bet that the loudest English-only advocates don''t speak any other languages.  Just a guess ...

Belvaros neighborhood

Veres Palne Utca

Our Budapest street is named after the founder of the first high school for girls in Budapest in 1867.  The neighborhood is quite lovely, with five and six story apartment blocks with inner courtyards.  Our apartment building until fairly recently had little stores in the courtyard where one could buy basics.  Now the space is used for parking bicycles.

A late evening walk after a snow storm that left the streets wet revealed some interesting buildings, a church encircled by a high wall and gates -- the Serb Church -- several bars, a youth hostel and what is apparently one of the few vegetarian restaurants in Budapest.  There are also many historical markers, primarily noting the literary and political figures who lived in the buildings in the 19th century.

The street is mostly cobblestone and barely wide enough for one car.  Parking is allowed, and I suspect the search for spaces occupies a significant amount of time -- kind of like New York.

But I don't need to worry about that -- it's only a five minute walk to the veggie restaurant, which I suspect we will visit often.

The district is called Belvaros, which means "beautiful city." They got that right.

Adventures in Budapest, 1

Veres Palne Utca

From my study window I see the Buda hills and the Erzebet Bridge, which is beautifully lit at night.. Step out onto the tiny balcony and I can see a dingy rose-colored building with a big hole in the roof.  Repairs were clearly started but not completed.  That may be the story of Budapest -- lovely sights, but still slightly battered.

But you wouldn't know that Hungary was part of the Soviet bloc until relatively recently by looking at our street. Right next door is a shop that sells only single malt whiskey. Next to that is a coffee shop with a sign in English, "Hot chocolate to go." There's a dressmaker, a fruit and veg store that sells Canadian squash -- who knew that the neighbors to the north exported veggies -- a jewelry store, an ice cream shop, a bar, a restaurant (open 12:00 noon to 12:00 midnight), some kind of financial business -- perhaps a commercial bank -- and that is just our block. Two blocks away is the Vaci Utca, where one can eat, drink, stroll and purchase goods from Hugo Boss, H & M, Nike and Lacoste and a variety of German stores.

Lots of tourists, but lots of Hungarians, too, crowding the outdoor cafes even during 45-degree weather.  And what am I if not a tourist, albeit a long-term one?  Loving it.

Eastern Europe

We've been back from our trip to Vienna, Budapest and Romania for almost two months, but the glow lingers. Vienna, where OLGS was working with Austrian colleagues, is rich, accessible, clean and very western. Budapest is more gritty, with many remnants of Soviet-style architecture, a significant police presence, and fewer English speakers. But that's OK, 'cause OLGS speaks Hungarian. And there are the broad boulevards, the elaborate fin de siecle apartment buildings, the cute trams, and an atmosphere that conveys, "Yes, we were once grand and could be again. Just give us time." But Romania?

In some ways it's a throwback. Donkey carts, lumbering, exhaust-spewing trucks, and many, many Roma people who are universally despised by the Romanians. It's what I imagine Alabama to have been in the 1920's. And the reminders of the Ceaușescu regime -- huge dams and factories, extreme poverty, suspicion and fear -- linger still. But the Hungarian-speaking village where we stayed in Transylvania is both very poor and very rich -- self sufficient in so many ways, dedicated to the children's education and improvement, and living out their heritage every day.

Will we return?  You betcha.

Leaving Flyover Land -- Temporarily

OLGS and Domtran are off on another adventure, this time to eastern Europe, with a stop in central Massachusetts. While we are absent from the land of 10,000 swamps, some of the Joes will be living chez nous, supervising Mitzi the cat, the carpenters who are working on the house, and making sure that the snow, if any in this winter of global warming, is removed from the walkways.

And it will be good to both leave town and come back -- maybe to spring?

OLGS returns

OLGS has returned from two weeks in Hungary and Romania. He thinks this is the last subsidized trip, given that the governor of Wisconsin is now on the warpath against state employees, who will be giving up somehwere between 5-10% of their pay -- permanently. For that reason, OLGS is a Pittsburgh fan.

If the bleak beauty of a real Transylvanian village attracts you, be warned: they have no snowplows.

From "Kek Duna" to "Father of the Waters"

by OLGS, guest blogger.

DomTran and I are safely returned to Minnesota after a long day's travel. I am proud to say that I managed, in Hungarian, to convince our taxi driver that he had taken us to the wrong airport and that he had to take us to the correct one if we wished to make our flight to Amsterdam and there make connections to Minneapolis. The mystery was why the hotel staff at the very elegant "Lanchid19" hotel told the driver the wrong airport, "Ferihegy 1."

DomTran was dubious about my insistence that the driver had made a mistake, but felt a bit relieved when we left the pre-war Ferihegy 1 (pictured above) and saw the new jetport at the second one, Ferihegy 2, pictured below.




In one day, we left the "Kek Duna" (Blue Danube) for what President Lincoln called "the Father of the Waters" when referring to the Mississippi River. We are glad to be home after a memorable vacation.

Budapest sightseeing

by OLGS, guest blogger.

We are staying at the Lanchid Hotel, right next to the Chain Bridge across the Danube,and center stage for the Thursday night fireworks celebrating St. Istvan Day. The fireworks were sensational and the crowd or a million people or more on both the Buda and Pest sides of the river were appreciative.

Yesterday (Friday), Domtran and I did a tour of the city and had a leisurely dinner at a Buda sidewalk cafe. Today we plan to visit more sites, before returning to the U.S. tomorrow (Sunday the 23rd).

Next stop Vienna... for DomTran and OLGS

by OLGS, guest blogger.

I complete my four weeks of language class at the U. of Debrecen tomorrow, Friday the 14th, and immediately set off for Vienna (Bécsi in Hungarian) to meet Domestic Tranquility herself. We plan a leisurely trip along the Danube with five days in Vienna, one in Bratislava, and four in Budapest, before returning to the Twin Cities.

The laptop is fixed, sort of, so we will be able to blog together, and just in time to celebrate the Haydn bicentennial in Vienna.

A Bécsi következő (next stop, Vienna).

Light blogging until I go to "MediaMarkt"

by OLGS, guest blogger.

My laptop computer is not accepting a charge from the electrical adapter. For whatever reason, the laptop refuses to recognize the adapter (original equipment) as a genuine Dell product.

So I will have to go to MediaMarkt and see if someone there can help fix the problem. Until then, I will only blog irregularly...

A day trip to Oradea, Romania (formerly Hungarian “Nagyvarad”)

by OLGS, guest blogger.



The diakok (students) of the Debrecen Summer Institute boarded two buses early Saturday morning. Destination: the Romania border city of Oradea, or in Hungarian, “Nagyvarad” (aka Great Castle). Oradea is about 35 miles east of Debrecen, but there is still a border checkpoint and non-EU visitors, such as your correspondent, must show a passport. It’s even more of a hassle to return to Hungary from Romania, as the Hungarian border guards search some vehicles for contraband cigarettes. It took up an hour each direction to cross the frontier. The accompanying photo shows the line, about half-way through our wait. If/when Romania becomes a full member of the EU, the border control will be disestablished.





There are remains of a large castle built in the 13th century *after* Genkhiz Khan and his soldiers sacked the city, not that such a fortress would have stopped the Great Khan. The castle was rebuilt in the 16th century against the Turks, again unsuccessfully as the Sultan occupied the city from 1660 to 1693. The Hapsburgs built a third castle on the same site in the mid-18th century, presumably against the Russians, but maybe still the Turks. Anyway, the surviving barracks are now largely empty except, oddly, the Department of Art & Design at the University of Oradea takes up one building. The large windows probably make for good studio space.



The glory of the city is its judgendstihl/art nouveau architecture.



Some of the work rivals what I saw in Prague last year on UWEC’s Central European Travel Seminar. Some of the buildings are also in terrible condition. We asked our guides why this was as we walked around the city. Their answer, as best as I understood it, was that the Romanians were too incompetent to realize the development potential of the city to international tourism. We heard the same refrain from the Hungarian representatives to the City Council. They greeted us at City Hall and talked at some length about their minority status. Too bad most of the students tuned out, due to the heat, fatigue, or hang-overs from the previous night’s “buli."



My personal favorite building was not art nouveau, but rather a simple late 18th century church known as the “Moon Church.” The steeple has a gizmo (not the technical name) that rotates to show the phase of the moon. I checked that night and the gizmo, made in 1795, is still accurate.

Travel weekend; photos forthcoming

by OLGS, guest blogger.

I went traveling over the weekend to former Hungarian cities, one in Romania just over the border, and one in Slovakia, just over the border. Both have wonderful late Hapsburg art nouveau/jugenstihl/secessionist architecture. I'll make a longer post when I have time to organize my photos, but now I must prepare for language class. Rather: Prepare for language class ! (as we are studying the imperative today).

Update: new photos from new camera

by OLGS, guest blogger.

Well, the new Nikon "CoolPix" digital camera from MediaMarkt is easy to use. I'm posting the first photos I snapped, taken of the "Furdo Strand" today. I particularly like the smashed-in window over the letter "H" on the big sign. It's where the docent/security guard assigned me for my changing space yesterday.

It's almost 5:00 p.m. in Debrecen, "Akcio" (sale or discount) time, so I've convinced several of my classmates to go for an afternoon swim.

Visszontlatasra!

A swim at the Strand

by OLGS, guest blogger

One tram stop away from the University of Debrecen is a group of run-down thermal "furdok" (bath spas). The one most popular with the students is the "Strand" which has a forbidding concrete exterior. The photo, taken from the spa's website in winter, incredibly, makes it seem warm and inviting, compared to its actual shabby fortress-like appearance. With my new camera, purchased at MediaMarkt, I will take a picture of the Strand on a future update to this post.

The Strand shows the same suspicion of people that seems endemic in post-Communist Central Europe, that is, people will try to take advantage of you if you are not careful. Exhibit "A" is the ticket sales. The Strand has a very good deal with reduced admission of 500 forints ($2.50) after 5:00 p.m. until closing at 8:00 p.m. The ticket booth is in bullet-proof glass with one of the ubiquitous non-functional microphones to communicate (or shout through the glass)with the bored ticket-seller inside. Upon payment of 500 forints, the ticket recipient walks five meters to the entrance and has the ticket checked by the next official. The Strand can't be too careful about people who might want to bypass the ticket booth! The same mentality is even evident at the University: a diner at the college cafeteria has to present a ticket to a student monitor. Otherwise, who knows? Any bum off the street might come in and dine on cafeteria food.

Back to the Strand-- once inside, I found three pools outside: the thermal pool, very warm at 99 degrees F; a kiddie pool with a rickety-looking waterslide; and the "Aquaticum" which was a wonderful, clean, low-chlorine pool, half-roped for laps and half open. I entered the Aquaticum and began my laps, thinking I would swim ten laps, the same as the former Joe High School swam competitively for Minneapolis South High. On my eighth of ten laps, an official shouted something at me in Magyar. To my delight, and his, I actually understood it: move to the right-hand lane, the open part on the other side of the pool. Got it, did it. Then after I finished my laps, I realized that the Debrecen "Orkakok" (Orcas) were training set aside for lap-swimming.

I resolve to go purchase some goggles this afternoon and visit the Strand again.

A visit to a palinka factory

by OLGS, guest blogger.

The Debrecen summer program took an overnight weekend excursion. Three buses full of students set out early Saturday morning for Kceskemet, a country town southwest of Debrecen and southeast of Budapest. We visited three folk-art museums, but the highlight for most students was a Saturday night visit to the Zwack family distillery, makers for more than a century of "Barack" palinka. No, the family did not anticipate the election of an American president by that name. "Barack" means "apricot" in Hungarian and the Zwacks annually turn out thousands of gallons of apricot brandy.

Sunday was a long day, with a side-trip to Budapest and an evening stop at a winery in the "Bulls Blood" region on the way back. The alcohol-soaked theme continues tonight with a Debrecen-region palinka tasting, but I have too much homework, so I will hit the books, not the bottle.

Alas, my old Kodak digital camera went kaput just a few photos into the trip. I'll continue blog-posting but without my own photos.

A visit to the Nagy Templom

by OLGS, guest blogger.

I went with my classmates to view the inside of the main Calvinist church, the "Nagy Templom" or literally the Great Church. Inside, it very spare. The walls are whitewashed and the windows are plain. Above the Isten Asztal ("Lord's Table" or altar) there is some beautifully carved wood for the pulpit and also for the organ loft. However, there is no crucifix or other religious display to distract the worshipper from making a direct connection to God. Very impressive and very Reform, unlike, say, St. Giles in Edinburgh which was very Presbyterian but not very reformed, at least when we visited in 2006.

Magyar Film Club: "Somewhere in Europe"

by OLGS, guest blogger.

Last night, the Debrecen Summer Program sponsored the "Magyar Film Club" and showed a 1947 film, *Valahol Europaban* ("Somewhere in Europe). There is a nice review at www.moviehabt.com. I was charmed by the film, especially the 25 orphan children who played their own lives as actors. I also was pleased how much of the Hungarian I could understand, with the help of the English sub-titles for context.

The only drawback was the late start. The Magyar Film Club did not schedule the screening until 10:00 p.m., and even then, the film was preceded by a 40-minute introduction-lecture by the MFC host. We did not finish watching the film until about 12:30 a.m., and I am dragging a bit in language class this morning.