Around Hungary for Orientation week

2-6 September 2019

This was a pillar in Sopron built to commemorate those who died from the plague. We were there on the Thursday that week. I do like this representation of the Trinity at the top. One of the curious things we saw on monuments or buildings like this was that they would arrange whatever Latin passage they used on it so that the numbers and letters that were Roman numerals would add up to the date of the construction. These would be in red, instead of just grey.

For these five week days, 12 of us joined together under the lead of Emese to get a head start on getting to know both Hungary and each other before the week of placement tests began at the Kodály Institute. The extra cost was well worth it. By the end of these trips, we had all built friendships with each other that would not have been possible otherwise. I am realizing just how good it is to have a cohesive, cooperative group of friends going into the school year together. In this sense, the long, meaty conversations that filled the hours on the bus going from place to place were the most valuable parts of the orientation week. I have no doubt of the profound impact of having already sparked these true friendships.

Of course, being introduced to Hungary by a local is definitely the right way to go. Besides the wealth of history, language, and folk songs that Emese shared with us, I am positive that her help as a translator meant that we got to hear about fascinating cultural stories that we might not otherwise have heard.

Many of the places we went are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

If you’re ever in Hungary, here’s the shortlist of my favorite spots that we visited:

Eszterházy Castle, where Haydn directed his orchestra.
Herend Porcelanium, where the Hungarian porcelain is painstakingly made and painted by hand: 700 trained workers (mandatory 3 years of training), zero automation, flawless workmanship. Queen Victoria once bought an entire custom set for Buckingham.

On to pictures!

The old town of Hollókö, which was practically left untouched from its rustic state of the past several hundred years. This is a blacksmith’s forge, where we heard that “one person isn’t a blacksmith; two men are half a blacksmith; three men make one blacksmith.” The forge wouldn’t be functional without three.
This is Aditi, from India in the picture.

Left to right: Jackson (Ohio, my roommate), Robert (West Virginia), Despina (Greece), April (Canada), Emese (Hungary, chaperone), Gareth (Ohio, my roommate), Yanjun (Singapore?), Sarah (Ireland), Carmen (Malaysia?), Theresa (Portugal, one of two others starting the first year of the BA with me), Laura (Australia), Aditi (India).

We sung canons for fun every day at every place we went to. This is at the small church in Hollókö.

The Hungarians/Magyars have worn the leather case in the foreground since they arrived in Europe. The embroidery has the pattern particular to Hollókö. From what I understand, there are patterns and folk songs specific to almost every little town.

Hurray to Emese for translating! We all agreed at how smiley and spritely this Hungarian granny was. She is showing how flax was spun in some of the more rural towns, into the 1980s at least. Since spinning took so much time, and the girls were largely kept at home for propriety (although “once she gets married, her mouth opens”), the spinning rooms were the social centers for conversation and singing. The stick is built like an upside down “T”, and the story is that boys come a courting could come and sit on the other side to hold it down. We learned that when someone dropped her spindle, the boy would be quick to pick it up, and get his reward; a kiss. This old women told us that not only did some get to dropping their spindles rather often, but that if there was a boy a girl didn’t like, their was a way to tie a knot around the top of the spindle, “to make sure it would never drop.” It was this sort of thing that made me glad for Emese’s translating, which still allowed the stories to comfortably be told in their native language.

This is at the Grassalkovich Castle (more of a palace to my eyes) that hosted Hungarian royalty.
(no pictures were allowed inside)

At the Ópusztaszer National Historical Memorial Park. This is a monument that was erected for the 1000th anniversary of Hungary. The monument is surrounded by busts of the kings. Nearby is a building that hosts a 360 degree giant painted panorama of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. It 15 meters high on a piece of cloth originally woven without a seam, with a diameter of more than 35 meters. No pictures allowed, but here is a link to a picture that can be zoomed up on: https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jacobson.nl%2Fpanorama%2Ffeszty.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

Curious little buildings near the building with the panorama. We sang the canon for the day in one.

At the same venue, we came upon some ladies pitting and then grinding up italian prunes.

This is in Szeged, which is at the bottom of Hungary, very near to where Serbia and Romania touch. We learned that the Hungarian towns made a big deal when famous royalty passed through their towns, and remember these events in their histories as important facts. Several times in various cities we heard things like “so and so stayed here for one night so many hundred years ago.” This overpass was built for the one day one particular king came through Szeged so he wouldn’t have to go outdoors to go from his rooms to the dance hall.

In Szeged on a walking tour. This is one of the art nouveau buildings that have seemed quite prevalent in Hungarian cities. We pass by one in Kecskemét every day on the way to the Institute, and apparently there is even a folk song about it. The story about the building in the picture above is that the female figures around the top were originally nude, but the wife of the city leader who hired the architect for this residence was not appreciative and got the figures to be at least a little clothed.

This is the big synagogue in Szeged, the “most beautiful in the world” according to our guide. It was taken over during the WWII and used, of all things, as a store/warehouse. I wondered whether the twisted allusion had been instigated consciously as an offense to John 2:14.

John 2:13-17 King James Version (KJV)
¹³And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
¹⁴And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
¹⁵And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;
¹⁶And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.

Here we “took the waters” of Szeged. It is a spring sought by many to drink of its warm, mineral waters.
I filled up my whole water bottle and drank it over the next day.
I was glad to find out that the sulfur smell did not really translate to the taste.

Up, up, up the circling flights of stairs to the top of the water tower!

The Benedictine Abbey of Pannonhalma! This was up on the high region of Hungary (rolling hills), so there was a very good view. It is as old as Hungary, founded in 996, and has the oldest surviving document with Hungarian text, part of a decree in relation to the monastery signed by King St. Stephen himself. King St. Stephen was the first settled King of Hungary, crowned in 1000AD by authority of the Pope, and who converted the Hungarians to Christianity in order to stabilize their permanent position as a non-threatening neighbor country in Europe. His name is one that comes up a LOT in Hungarian history.

Gareth is sitting in King St. Stephen’s seat in the crypt at the monastery. It’s story is that if one can touch their back to the back and feet to the floor while sitting, they are worthy to be king of Hungary or something. As you can see, Gareth is getting a kick out of doing this. King St. Stephen was apparently quite tall, so he could do it.
Gareth is 6’8″.

Can you read this date inside the monastery?
I learned that the second symbol is the old style of writing the number “4”: it is half of an 8!
So, the date reads 1486.

The huge library. When it was built, they didn’t have enough light, so they used mirror “windows” to funnel the light down from cupola at the top of the roof. You can see one of these sets of mirror panels at the back of the picture. This library is still in use by the school at the monastery and by the public
(although I’m sure you couldn’t take home some of the centuries-old books).

We stopped by the end of Lake Balaton, the huge Hungarian lake.

Carmen, Aditi, Theresa, Sarah, Robert over Lake Balaton

the other picture is better, but perhaps my family will have a slight bias towards this one…

Also above the lake was a “real Hermit’s cave.”
I told Gareth that a picture with me in a real hermit cave was something I *suspected* my family would want to see, so just take the picture for me please. 🙂

Eszterházy Castle. Musical home of Haydn. If I remember correctly, this is the very room where the Haydn’s Farewell Symphony was first played, pointedly.

That is a stove for heating on the right side. For these big palaces, there were little tiny child-size passage ways leading from the hallways to the backs of the heaters, where the fires could be started and tended without any disruption to the royalty in the room.

Pictures were not allowed in the main music hall, but there were several interesting things about it. It was a big, tall box, that would seat 150 or so at most. It had very good acoustics, so much so that Haydn’s orchestra was too loud in the room itself, so they would put them in a long room on the second floor, from which there was a window cut for the sound to come down to the audience. Apparently even then it was “still too loud”! We all did get to sing in the room, which was very nice. The surface of the walls makes for good acoustics because they are imitation marble. It blew my mind, but the Eszterházys chose imitation marble specifically because it was the most expensive material out there. They could have used real marble, but it wasn’t pricey enough, I guess. This was strange to hear: I never have, and probably will never in the future use that criteria for choosing what to buy, and how to decorate!

The “castle” palace is mindbogglingly huge. The picture shows perhaps half of the ONE building.

As I mentioned at the top, the Herend Porcelanium was one of my most favorite parts of the week. I did not realize how much time goes into every single piece they make. Those who make it (all by hand) have to spend 3 years training before they can be hired. They have to produce consistent perfection, and do, somehow. We learned that painting a single plate can take a whole day of work, depending on what the pattern is. Every hole is hand cut, every part is hand painted, often without any pattern. The product is expensive, but it would be wrong if it wasn’t. I don’t remember seeing any workmanship at this level before. It’s worth seeing, especially because it is such a contrast to so much of the world we live in today.

Every hole hand cut. No mistakes allowed. They said that doing just the holes on this one piece was practically work for a whole day, or most of one.

This scale pattern is very characteristic for their porcelain animals.

This is the pattern custom made for Queen Victoria, when she bought a 200 piece set for Buckingham Palace.
Prince William and Kate have a more purple edition of this now.

This is one of Herend’s special designs. I believe the story goes that the American Rothchilds were visiting,
and the Madam lost her jeweled necklace. It was found hanging in a bird’s nest.

On to the Archbishopric town of Kalocsa on the last day!

We saw an exhibit of some old and fancy bishops’ robes (this is the slightly overly mundane summary), and were treated to an organ concert in the cathedral. It was good, but the acoustic was really too much, and in my opinion the organist took one Bach piece just a bit too fast for the space–thank you, Mr. Kriewall 🙂 — and at some points seemed to be using more stops than necessary to show off. (This reminds me of Norbert, and his view that just a few well selected stops are nearly always better than a horde).

Aditi (India), Laura (Australia), and Jackson, my roommate (Ohio)

They have a very old library, with very old bibles and music, among other things. I was highly entertained by seeing this one:

Somebody spilled their coffffeeeeeeee….
“Who, me? Yes, you. Couldn’t be! Then who???????”

There is also a thousand-year-old skeleton of the bishop who crowned King St. Stephen himself, in full view.

I chose NOT to take a picture.

Intriguing and perhaps impressive for being so old,

but,

not exactly picturesque.

We then went to a little tiny museum about paprika (brought back in the few years after Columbus first discovered the Americas), which also had the old style Hungarian house. Below is a picture from the “good room,” which was kept very neat, clean and tidy, and as we learned in Hollókö on the first day of the week, was the room for childbirth and the first period of an infant’s life. The walls are hand-painted.

The lace of Kalocsa. This style became popular during the Communist era, and is actually imitation lace. After sewing the flowers on to solid fabric, the majority of the holes are cut out individually!

We ended in the wine cellar village of Hajós, which has about 25 km of wine cellars crammed underneath the vineyards. The owner (pink shirt) said that half an hour before we came he was out with the workers pressing grapes. Here are the 40 year old wooden casks he has in addition to the tunnel-style cellar with mold surrounded bottles–an indicator of the right temperature– and a few grape roots peeking through the curved clay ceiling). They have images carved on the front, and if I remember correctly, each hold at least 17,000 liters. We got to go inside of one, 8 of us at the same time! Several of my classmates bought wine after the wine tasting: some of it was quite good, as well as being around $3 a bottle. (this low price has now been beaten–someone said they got very good Roset for about 1 euro at the Aldi in Kecskemét.

Pre-orientation week orientation

29 August – 1 September 2019

In the few days after I arrived and before I left with 11 other students on the orientation week, I did some orienting to Kecskemét myself, and started to get the wheels rolling on several different things I needed to get done.

One nice thing about Kecskemét (“kech-ke-meyt”) is that everything in the center is close together, and all bound together by Rákóczi út. (st.) and the pedestrian avenue that it turns into. In the picture above, Rákóczi is the green strip that comes into Kecskemét from the left. The bigger block of trees is where it has a T, but for pedestrians pretty much just turns into a pedestrian only walkway, with fountains, places to sit, etc.

As the picture at the top shows, my flat is very close to the Institute: just 3-4 minute to walk.

Here’s an art nouveau style building at the point where Rákóczi turns into the pedestrian avenue. You can also see it in the picture at the top of this post. It was built around the beginning of the 20th century, and I learned that it has a Hungarian folk song specifically about it, which mentions its green windows, among other things.

This is at the corner you see in the top picture (“400 meters”) of this post

Here’s the building of the Raday museum, which is hosting the Kodály Institute on the 2nd and 3rd floor (“1st” and “2nd” floor here) while the monastery next to it is being renovated.

This is looking the other way, at the building complex of the Reformed church, which includes a church, school, and swimming pool as well

looking down into the 2nd floor commons (first level occupied by the Institute)

The “Concert Hall.” Here we have begun choir rehearsals in the morning already, under Laszlo Nemes, who is wonderful. He’s very good, and very, very nice. He could be a good beekeeper, because he fulfills Daddy’s qualification of “flowing like water.” I met him 2 years ago at Holy Names University at their summer Kodály classes. He offered me a spot in his chamber choir if I’d like. I’m flattered.

3rd floor commons. This floor has the library

Third floor practice rooms and hallway to the library

One of the places I got to know in these first few days was the Malom shopping center, which you would be able to see in the lower left corner of the picture, except that it must have just been being built whenever it was taken. It is about 5 stories high now. It has a Telekom store (Hungarian version of T-mobil) where I have gone to learn about getting a phone, a phone store where I got a phone, and a nice grocery store and bakery at the bottom.

Although I had good service the second time I went to the Telekom store (questions answered accurately, in English), the first errand there was really quite bad. Technically I was in their line from about 10 in the morning until 4 or 5 in the evening. They had a kiosk where you’d request to talk with one of their representatives, and then it would spit out a piece of paper with a number. Each person would wait until his number came up on the screen, and then go up to whichever desk they were directed to. When I went up, I saw the several flags indicating different languages, and when I tapped on the USA flag, the kiosk asked whether I’d like to speak to someone in English. Of course! So I got my ticket with my number. Well, my number was something like two hundred ahead of the current one up on the screen, and the store was far from crowded. What I realized progressively more and more throughout that morning, and then early afternoon, and then late afternoon, was that the Telekom store had set up their service so that they could choose to see me, or choose to wait until they had someone who wanted to try their hand at English. Apparently that day, English was not something anyone could do, or that they wanted to try at.

I didn’t realize this at first, and figured I’d just need to wait until the numbers clicked up the 200 notches. Obviously, it was far away, so I could spend time doing other things, such as explore the grocery and start trying to translate labels, meet my roommate Jackson and take him back to the flat (he’s here for a semester from Capital University in Ohio), and also start trying to decipher the Telekom website. Only the first 2 pages or so had an English version, so this turned into many, many hours of back and forth research with Google translate in the ensuing days.

That evening I eventually decided to pretend to the kiosk to be a Hungarian-speaker who couldn’t speak Hungarian. The number that it spit out showed that there was practically no line. However, by coincidence or not, my “English service” number came up right before my new number, so I did get to go up and speak to someone. However they didn’t really speak English, and only “ein bisschen deutch,” so we ended up using google translate (I figured maybe some of the German I learned this past year might be useful–I have used it some already). According to the guy, I could not get a monthly phone plan without having a Hungarian address card as well as an EU registration or something. There was a SIM card I could have gotten, but not having a phone to use it with, in addition to other factors, I didn’t get anything from Telekom that day. Emese told me the thing about the address cards was bunk, because I was not Hungarian. The second time I went in I asked that Telekom employee about it and he (in English!) said “No,” I didn’t need one, but I did need to have a Hungarian with one come with me to vouch for me to get a monthly phone plan. I also found out that the SIM card they were offering only came with 80 minutes of domestic calls, 1GB of data, and just FIVE SMS texts. So, I confirmed that it was not a good idea to get.

As I mentioned, I did other things that day while I was “in line,” such as going down to the grocery store.

Visiting grocery store at Malom was enjoyable, because after looking at prices and doing a little conversion, I realized that my actual food costs were going to cut my estimates at least in half. Food is quite inexpensive here, and in some cases, much better quality. For example, I got some very nice apples (they were in great shape for being 2nds) for 160 Hungarian Forints/kilo. Right now, $1 USD is pretty much right at 300 Ft., so 160 Ft./kilo is $0.24/lb for apples. The standard simple Hungarian cheese (Trappista) is right under 1500 Ft./kilo. That’s a bit under $2.25/lb for cheese. Eggs are between 30-40 Ft. per egg, which is about $1.40 per dozen, although they have cartons of 10 here.

The eggs here are magnificent. Their yolks are more orange than ANY I have ever seen. They are probably 400% more orange than the regular sub-par quality US egg. They are probably 200% more orange than any of our home grown eggs. They are VERY, VERY, orange; I would not be far off to say that they are as orange as a Halloween pumpkin. This was great to see, because the color of the yolk is an indicator of the health of the chickens. The Hungarians have to be doing something right.

From what I have asked, I think all the breads here are from sourdough, at least at the one bakery at Malom. When I translated sourdough into Hungarian (yes, that’s a bit iffy on Google translate), and asked the bakers if they had any, they said that “all” the breads (“kenyér” in Hungarian) were that. When I asked Emese (“Em-esh-e”) more specifically about it, she was confirming this across all my descriptions. She also said that until just a little bit ago, there was no sliced bread you could buy in Hungary, and that they have something like as many breads as the French. All is also great to know: like with the eggs, I won’t have to be choosy. I’ve picked a different dark brown looking loaf each time I’ve gone. Currently I’m on one that turned out to be buckwheat. It is made for butter, and butter made for it. Their tastes fit each other perfectly. I hadn’t gotten any butter yet, but my taste buds got the request across very clearly so I finally got some today. Until now I had found a little tub of “Lipazsír,” (duck grease..I know you from home!) that I got for cooking. With sea salt, garlic, and other herbs it went well on the first loaves I had got. I did figure that I wouldn’t have much competition to keep it to myself though. Gareth, (roommate #2 of 3, who is a Capital U. classmate of Jackson, here for the semester, 6’8″ tall), he really gets a kick out of the fact that I label everything. I told him he shouldn’t be surprised; I have 5 siblings. There was another one of the students who knew what I was talking about. Theresa is a Portuguese student who is one of the other 3 BA students starting this year at the Institute. She has 4 siblings.

(I was surprised to learn that their are only 3 in my “class.” There are other BA and MA students in their 2nd and 3rd years, but the majority of the students are here for a 1-year diploma course of study, or here on exchange for a semester. I will have some individual lessons, some with the diploma students, and yes, some with just the two other BA students in my year. I think that will be nice. )

So, the Malom shopping center is about 4 minutes away, walking straight down the main drag of Rákóczi. There also is a big farmers market even closer, that happens to be right on Wesselényi (“veshel-eynyi”). Our flat happens to be at the corner of Rákóczi & Wesselényi.

Everything except the farmers’ market is within a block of Rákóczi. The farmers’ market is a whole three blocks. Getting places has been very easy. 🙂

That’s all for now! More to come soon.

Sincerely,
Samuel Rausch

Copenhagen to Hungary!

28 August 2019

We celebrated Laura’s birthday at breakfast, and both she and Erik opened my gifts of US currency and coins. Laura almost immediately remembered what she could do with a US bill, and folded hers so that Lincoln would smile or frown depending on which way you tipped the bill. Here you can see how she did it.

Then, goodbye from the Hareskov station, and into Copenhagen. At Bo’s recommendation I took the metro into the airport. This way I had tried all the kinds of rail: commuter train, regular train, and metro.

The Copenhagen airport was a breeze, especially with a totally automated check in, including the checked bags, which you’d weigh, scan, and submit yourself. I bested myself in precision from the last flight. If it was only “99.25%” then, this time it was a full 100.0% down to the last decimal. I didn’t get a picture of my second bag, but I do think it was at 20.0 kg too (the weight limit for Norwegian Airlines).

On my way to the gate, I found “Anders And” comics!!! When we lived in Greenland for two years, from when I was 3 to when I was 5 years old, these Danish “Anders And” comic books and magazines were my absolute favorite “reading.” We still have a stack of them at home, and I still remember most of them all. They were well thumbed through then, and so I spent probably an hour at the airport looking through the compilations there for ones that had bits that I knew and remembered (even after all these years). I don’t think I revert to a 4 year old often, but I certainly did here. As the picture shows, I got two of the little Hans Christian Anderson books that I remembered, as well as a newer one with illustrations of similar quality. For all of these illustration is key since after all I don’t speak Danish. (Mama probably has the two Hans Christian Anderson books somewhere, but now I have them for my own bookshelf.)

So, my meticulously selected bookshelf for Hungary has grown: I am as satisfied as before.

The Bible
Don Quixote
a Harvard Classics big volume of English Poetry “From Tennyson to Whitman”
a thick Danish “Anders And” comic book
Hans Christian Anderson stories and Troldeliv

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sam_0429-e1567976925401.jpg

I almost missed getting on the plane because I was occupied by writing my first post on this website. But I didn’t. The flight was uneventful. The were huge towering clouds over Germany.

Getting the on the right train at Ferihegy station took a moderate amount of waiting, carrying 50kgs up and over and down the overpass from one side of the tracks to the other 2-3 times, a lot of sweat dripping down my face and arms in the 85+ degree F day, asking several people if “this is the right side?”, getting on and then immediately off the wrong train, finally getting on the right train, getting some kind of additional ticket pass I needed from the conductor, moving myself and luggage a few cars down to where I was supposed to be, and trying and failing to use the train wifi to contact Emese. She did get one of the several emails I sent, but only three days later. Emese (“Emeshe“) is the registrar and student organizer at the Institute.

However, I successfully got to Kecskemét (“Goat-town”) after about an hour on the train, touched base with Emese by using the wifi at the station, and soon met her, around 8:15 . It was 10 minutes to my apartment (“flat”, one says here), where Emese showed me very thoroughly through everything: mostly working, and partially not so much (though practically all the problems are fixed and functional now). She also had some shopping to do, and showed me around the Aldi’s store a block away, where I got several things for the next day. Emese finished showing me everything shortly after 10pm. Then it was out with the good old camera stand for some pictures. Finally came what ended up being a sink-bath, because the plug in the bathtub got stuck down as I was rinsing it out, so it wouldn’t drain. There were scratch marks over the top of the plug, which inspired me to try to pry it out, but to no avail. (It is fixed now.)

At that point, I couldn’t go to sleep satisfied with the furniture layout of the flat as it was, so I spent the next 2.5 hours fixing it all.

in the middle of the flat, facing toward the door

facing the other way into the common area

Then I was satisfied, and I went to sleep, waking up just a bit before lunch the next day. I spent the rest of the day homebound, pulling out and sorting all the linens, blankets, etc., and doing a few other things. I was the first one in the flat by several days, and it has been nice that I pretty much have gotten everything ordered the way I want it (including the best, new(-est) mattress, and my preference of linens, pillow, and blanket). Even with three other roommates here now, only one semi-major furniture adjustment has come up.

Sincerely,
Samuel Rausch

The success of this day was made possible through scholarship funding from Derek and Nancy Morawski, of the CFS mattress fundraiser, who taught me the value of a choosing a good bed (as I did this day). Köszönöm szépen! (Thank you very much!)

P.S. If you are in western Washington, and may need to replace a mattress in the next 1-20 years 🙂 you might think of visiting one of their fundraisers near you: [https://www.facebook.com/pg/CFSSeattle/about/?ref=page_internal] (see “Events”)
Their business model means that they don’t have overhead costs that need to be supported, and when you add their core motive of fundraising for high schools and selling good sleep, the cost ordering a mattresses from them is often worth having in the back of one’s mind. From them a variety of quality mattresses can be ordered, which are then built order by the manufacturers and then delivered two following weeks.
I know all this because I worked for them last year. Only for such an excellent outlier of a company with such character could I of all people have been of all things a “mattress salesman.”

Lejre, Denmark, home of BEOWULF

27 August 2019

On the 27th, my one full day in Denmark, I visited Lejre. Only once I was there did I learn that this town is considered by archeologists to be where much of the epic poem is set, which was especially fun for me because I had enjoyed reading Beowulf in high school just a few years ago.

“On the basis of legendary analogues, specialists in the Old English poem Beowulf have long inferred that the action of the main part of that poem is situated at the village of Gammel Lejre on the island of Zealand, Denmark. Archaeological excavations undertaken from 1986 to 1988 under the direction of Tom Christensen of Roskilde Museum yielded spectacular confirmation of that inference by uncovering the remains of two great halls at Lejre dating from ca. AD 680 to 990, one built on the site of the other. At that time, this discovery had little impact upon Beowulf scholarship, in part because the chief monograph reporting on the excavations was available only in Danish. In 2004–05, however, a new round of excavations revealed that a still earlier hall had once stood elsewhere at Lejre. This hall has been dated to the mid-sixth century, very close to the time when the action of Beowulf is set. The question of the Danish origins of the Beowulf story is thus now highlighted.”
http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503527345-1

Bo Christensen had shown me how to get to the train station 10 minutes from his house and had helped figure out how to take the train to Lejre the night before, so getting to the town itself was pretty easy. He also lent me an old out-of-use iPhone with a google maps screen shots of how to walk the 3km or so from the train station to “Sagnlandet Lejre.” This turned out to be helpful because although I struck out along the road parallel to the tracks as the picture showed, after 2km of my scenic walk, I realized I was on a different road than I had expected. Google Maps on the iPhone may have not done much else, but it did show my location, and I saw that I was going the right direction, just a bit more south than I needed. So, I got to walk along a more private road in between some fields, and then through a forest until I got up to the golf course mansion that was the midpoint on the original route. There was a bit of thunder and lightning far in the distance, and it rained slightly as I was going underneath the trees. Also, I saw many wild pheasants.

In the end, the detour was just right for the timing of the day. I got to Lejre Sagnlandet later than I thought I would, but I finished seeing everything there right before Bo came to pick me up (more on that later).

Sagnlandet Lejre is a reconstruction of a Iron Age village, where archeologists from around the world to gain new knowledge about the people of the past through practical experimentation with their recreations. On one of the signs I read that they built a house in the style and construction of the Iron Age, and then lit it on fire to see and record what would have happened in similar situations in the past.

For example:

My mom had highly recommended coming to see Sagnlandet in Lejre after coming and enjoying it a lot several decades ago. One of my favorite features was one that was only set up in the past 5 years or so (by a huge set of volunteers, and something like 5,000 man-hours). This is a stone viking ship monument, modeled after the style of one several kilometers off. I had a lot of fun with trying to get the perfect picture with my camera stand. In one case I had it spread-eagled against a nearly vertical rock face, balancing one foot on a dime-sized indent. For another picture the boulder in the middle of the field where I wanted the picture from was not high enough for the right angle, so I ended up balancing a random piece of firewood on it, then balancing my big water bottle on its top (which was only several inches wide, being a wedge from when they had moved the stones), and then using the three flexible legs of my camera stand to pinch over the mouthpiece of the water bottle lid, and hold the camera up for the picture with me in it (the stories are better than that pictures, which aren’t posted here).

the view from the top of the largest stone

Of course I wondered whether I could get in the picture to provide the “human interest” component.

This is a nifty design for a self-closing gate. Since the gate post is tipped, the gate always swings shut. This is one of the many pictures of the day taken with my camera stand, which here was wrapped onto the top of a post.

This are simply the examples of Iron Age clothing at Lejre. However, notice that the grand warrior never needed to bring socks. He’s nearly wearing a onesie. If only Monty Python had been here before they bought their knight costumes…

This is a pair of “hackles,” through which flax stems are drawn to remove the outer stem layer during the process of making fiber for linen. I am intrigued as to whether the name is connected to the verb “to heckle.” If so, the context of this vicious-looking tool certainly adds some extra significance and punch to the definition!

Just a few minutes after I finished at Sagnlandet, Bo and his daughter Laura picked me up, and after gleaning a few nearly ripe apples of some trees on the way out, we had dinner with his parents, Hans Erik and Lisbeth (hopefully I have the spelling right), Lisbeth pulled out some pictures from when I and my family were her last, which she realized was practically 16 years to the day. I believe I have added 3-4 feet since then.

Sincerely,
Samuel Rausch

The success of this day was made possible by Bo Christensen and his family, as well as the Issaquah School District (for their handy surplus sale where I got my camera and its increasing famous stand for $5. If you’re in the market for a small camera and near Issaquah, check them out.) Köszönöm szépen! (Thank you very much!)

CT to Copenhagen!

25-26 August 2019

Thanks to a gift from Aunt Katharine, I was able to schedule a shuttle from New Haven straight down to JFK for my flight out to Europe the night of Sunday the 25th. Katharine (Conroy) kindly offered to drop me off at New Haven, and the rest of the ride to JFK was a breeze. I even took a nap.

I had arrived according to plan a little over three hours before my flight, so before I entered the river of lines and hallways ultimately leading to the plane I had the time to spread weight around my luggage. My constraints were two 20kg checked bags, and 10kgs total for my carry-on and “personal-item.” Luckily I was right at the limit of 50kg according to the test scales by the check-in…if I wore my coat with its pockets filled with the smallest but heaviest non-metallic items I could find. 🙂

As you can see, I was very precise with the weight.

…but when I saw this…

I figured I could surely do better.

Actually, it wasn’t as close as I thought, because when I got up to the check-in, their scales were only to the tenth of a kilogram, and read a whole 0.4kg less than the test scales.

The flight was a bit late, but uneventful from then on. I watched the movie Avatar, which I had been interested in seeing since probably middle school (I liked it), and was able to doze off pretty well before we arrived in Copenhagen. There I connected with Bo Christensen (his father and he both were in the number of Danes who stayed and worked at Grandpa Emil’s AZ farm, so they are family friends). He had a few hours left of work at his office, so I got to make a walking tour of the medieval downtown section of Copenhagen for about 2 hours. It has no skyscrapers because as Bo told me, there is a height limit of 5-6 stories practically everywhere.

The highlights were an amber store that I stopped in at…

the Hans Christian Anderson statue…

I got this one by asking two Americans whether they wanted me to take a picture of both of them.

this church (which was my most favorite of the day)…

and its organ!

I found more times to use my camera stand–right here it is straddling one of the pews.

Of course, most of the two hours was just walking through the streets, around the quarter that has the longest pedestrian street in the world. This is very representative picture: LOTS of bikes, and often the lights hung on wires above the street to save space. What I realized once I got to Hungary is that the bicycle traffic culture in Copenhagen is excellent, with the riders politely making their “excuse me”s with their bells.

This midieval heart of the city is surrounded by water, and on the waterfront they have an activity strip of sorts, with an enclosed court for soccer and basketball, as well as these fun little trampolines set at ground level into the concrete.

At this point I had gone from the upper left corner of the medieval sector south to where it is bounded by water and then followed this line to the east. To meet back with Bo, I of course decided to go up the famous canal right there with its colorful boats and houses.

And then it was back to Bo’s house for the night, where I met his wife and two children!

Sincerely,
Samuel Rausch

The success of these days was made possible by Aunt Katharine, Katharine Conroy, and Bo Christensen. Köszönöm szépen! (Thank you very much!)

Powder Hill Dinosaur Park, CT

21 August 2019

Uncle Ralph took me to see dinosaur tracks! They are at what is now the “Powder Hill Dinosaur Park” in Middlefield, CT, just a few minutes away from the home base of Haddam Quarter, in what practically used to be Uncle Ralph’s back yard when he was growing up near there, at the top of the hill. What you see in the pictures is pretty much the whole “park,” but what it lacks in size and publicity it makes up in authenticity and a sense of discovery. After pulling over into a little parking lot with only a couple spaces and a sign right under the overhang of trees by the road, it was just a few yards around a sign and into the forest to look down and see the marks as if dinosaurs had walked and sunk in across the stone.

We saw two to three different kinds of tracks of varying size.

Here’s an image I found of what one of the dinosaurs may have looked like. -flickriver.com-

Some of the footprints have been moved to the Peabody museum, but riding out to the original spot with Uncle Ralph was better in spades to seeing any there at the Peabody. It is particularly fascinating because the park spot is far from being a sterile environment, rather, it is very alive with the forest all around, the leaves and dirt seeming to have just been swept away to expose the footprints. As I would say, they were truly “real wild ones.”

Uncle Ralph has a piece of this rock with a particularly good footprint that he has taken with him from its original home (his too), to wherever he has lived over the years.

Sincerely,
Samuel Rausch

This trip was made possible by my Uncle Ralph and Aunt Katharine, who hosted me before I left for Europe, and helped me make good use of the time spent with them. Köszönöm szépen! (Thank you very much!)

American Boychoir class of ’14 Five-year reunion in Princeton

After the rest of my family left Connecticut to head back to Seattle on Wednesday the 14th, I got to take a trip down to New Jersey for the 5-year reunion of the ABS (American Boychoir School) Class of 2014. We had all decided right after our graduation to aim to see each other again at least every five years, and so it is nice to be right on track. In 2015 a lot of us had independently decided to come back to the school for the alumni weekend (the airplane tickets were my birthday present), but even so it has been at least four years for those of us who came. After living together for up to three years, coming back together after a year had seemed just like coming back from the regular 2-week break, so I was interested to see whether the friendships had stayed the same after a four or even five year gap.

The process of actualizing the reunion brought us all together closer in more ways than the physical. We’d had a chat going since the beginning, but obviously this is a meager sort of way to stay in touch. It was pretty funny because in the process of me sorting out the details of when to meet, we kept on realizing how much more we could connect. When I asked for everyone’s phone numbers, a couple of my classmates realized that although the chat had been there, they had never actually used it to get the contact information. We also ended up needing to do a group video call the night before I was to leave CT, which we for some reason had never done even though it was very enjoyable to be able to see each other face to face without having to travel.

I had started testing the waters of prepping all this many months ago, but of course the progress and communication started by dragging, and then increasing exponentially in speed and efficacy as the dates got closer. Luckily, practically all of our schedules allowed us to converge in Princeton at the same time. After scheduling the rehearsals for a 6-man a Cappella group in high school, I appreciate how rare this convenience is! But as I said, most of the details proved to be up in the air until the penultimate day. I had originally planned to take trains down to Princeton on that Friday, and so Thursday night I made sure that I had checked the times, and had figured out to leave before 7 the next morning. My grandfather, Pa, had volunteered to be my ride down to New Haven, from whence I’d continue on to Grand Central, and then down to arrive in Princeton in the afternoon.

The overall plan was to meet in Princeton on Saturday. On Sunday several of us would go up to NYC to spend more time with our classmate Anthony, who lived there. Charlie was coming in from a family vacation on Sunday, so then I was going to head out to Somerset, NJ to spend a day with him before heading back on Tuesday to Connecticut (my flight to Europe didn’t leave until the next Sunday).

Well….then I double checked the Facebook chat for my class to make sure I was up to date with everything. I had seen no more than a week before that Nathan had been able to get a good flight, and was going to come up from Florida just for the couple of days to spend time with the rest of us. When I checked at this point, I saw that he was already in NYC, at Anthony’s. However, more and more of my classmates had posted that they were running into more conflicts than they liked on Saturday, while Sunday would work for even more than originally would have been able to come. Over the course of two hours, beginning at 10pm that night, everyone involved was on Facebook at some point, and after as much communication as had gone back and forth in the previous year on the subject, we confirmed a switch of days. For this, I would not leave on Friday morning, but Saturday morning, meet Anthony and Nathan in New York for the day, and then head south with both of them to Princeton, where we would all stay at Nicco’s (before this whole blitz of communication, Anthony and Nathan did not have a confirmed place to stay, and only I was set to stay at Nicco’s house). Good thing this was a whole 6 hours before I left CT toward Princeton! In any case, this new plan worked much better for everyone, including me, as it gave an extra day to spend with my grandparents from Arizona before they left, and streamlined my travel plans so that I would not have to backtrack at all.

As I said, we ended up doing a video call to talk directly to each other. Many of us, including myself, had not seen each other “live” for years, so the reunion started there and then in a way. I think we all realized how feasible this was, and so hopefully we’ll be taking advantage of this more often. I was the least “techy” of my whole class, so they got a kick out of seeing that I was using a laptop. I did reassure them that I had a Samsung smartphone with me, but in New York City two days later Anthony asked to see it, so I think I might have had some takers when I quipped that “actually, I have a flip phone that’s 15 years old.”

So, my grandfather went to sleep with one plan, and woke up with another. Luckily I woke up right when he got up and explained the shift in the spheres that had gone on while he slept, so he didn’t have to read the note I’d written before I’d gone to bed.

I figure only the modern internet could make something like this possible. Even though I’ve lived with this kind of connectivity widely available, I was still amazed that we all were able to pull the act off like we did, and leave the restructured and figurative “jenga tower” still upright and stable.

On to the trip and pictures. Saturday morning I took the train down to Grand Central from Union Station in New Haven. Even though I’ve made the trip both ways many times when I was at ABS it was the first time I’d managed getting the tickets on my own, and was pleasantly surprised at just how fast and easy it is. Getting the ticket from Penn Station in NYC down to Princeton Junction that evening seemed to take only 30 seconds, and BAM, you have your transportation set. In NYC that day Anthony treated us to a few Uber rides, and led us back to his house on the metro, which I was glad for. With all the different connections, it seems like the sort of thing that is much easier for someone who knows the city and routes well.

I got into Grand Central between 9 and 10 in the morning, where I waited until Anthony came to meet me along with Nathan (up from Florida). After lunch at IHOP (where I ordered “a plate” to the great amusement of my classmates and the waiter: I had a homemade sandwich sent along with me by my Grammy), we visited the Strand Bookstore at Nathan’s request, practically walking straight to the music section and spending all the time there flipping through the books, records, and scores. Nathan came away with a book on blues piano, Anthony with some apparently choice rap records, and I got a copy of the Czerny piano exercises and a neat little, light-enough-to-pack (!) copy of 28 Beethoven arias with full piano accompaniment and 9 canons of his. I think we were all very satisfied both with the purchases, and having two other people who also thought the one place to go in the bookstore was to the music. Nathan and I are both going a very similar route in college (we’re the two in my class doing music/music ed.), so our tastes and conversation interests overlap quite a bit. The really satisfying thing was to see someone like Anthony, the NY businessman (of our class probably the most likely to make millions, soon) pause the rap in his headphones to show us some of his favorite classical or romantic pieces. He may not be getting the same degree as I, but he still appreciates music the same way. I may not have a rap playlist, but his playlist of classical music that he’s put together for himself nears identical to mine.

Perhaps it’s needless to say, but we all meshed back together so immediately that had to remind myself that it had been 5 years, and that we should probably get on to those “what have you been doing since we last met” conversations that less good friends would have begun with. Except for added height, added weight, and in some cases, added facial hair, nearly all of my classmates who I saw again had not really changed from the people they were 5 years ago in 8th grade. And we know each other like the back of our hands.

We also stopped by an asian clothes store, and Anthony took us to see one of what I call an expensive-sneaker store. Then the 40 minute metro trip 8 or so miles back to his house. A block away there was a cracked fire hydrant spraying a bow of water over the road.

At Anthony’s house we met his loquacious old Trinidadian (if I’m not right, I’m close) grandmother, and I got to get a taste of their homemade Mauvy/Maví/Mauby, which is a Caribbean drink made largely from Mauby bark, orange peel, cloves, and cinnamon, boiled really hard together and then sweetened and sometimes fermented: sweet, spiced, with a bitter kick. To me it sounded like the Caribbean variety of Kombucha. Anthony and Nathan were up for getting a couple more shirts/underwear/etc for the NJ trip, so we stopped by. Not the right underwear, and it took Anthony a few more tries at various places, including a pharmacy by Penn Station: he must have eventually found some in NJ. And yes, Nathan and I learned that in NYC, you can sometimes find things like underwear in Pharmacies. In the one by Penn Station I think Anthony actually did see a single small pair, presumably both clean and being sold off a rack. 🙂

Nicco (now studying a philosopher, with a budding philosopher’s beard — Iit took meeting another philosophy Phd. at the church the next morning to realize that’s what it was) and Chris picked us up that night from Princeton Junction, and after stopping at Chris’s house (he’s ABS class of ’15), we all 5 went to Nicco’s house, where Alexander also joined us since he lives only 15 minutes away. It was a grand time, wherein we were sustained by some excellent stew by Nicco’s dad, heard a lot from Anthony about his business ventures, and played Smash Bros until very late, or rather, very early (videogame, first time for me–I was pleased to provide material for some quite entertaining commentary). I threw in the towel first as we neared 2-3am; the nice thing about such late timing is that I had no qualms that I would miss much of anything the next morning when I went to the 9:30am church service in Princeton, where got to see several that I had known from coming to church there from 2011-2014. Nicco had some work that morning at 9, and he dropped me off halfway to Princeton from whence I Ubered the rest of the way.

Here’s the other philosopher I re-met, who has the same beard as Nicco.

The the Freedman-esque economist and his wife

After church I and Pastor Erhardt visited Anne Bolick, who not only with her late husband Mel took me to church when I attended ABS, but also took the young Anton Armstrong when he was a boychoir boy there 50-some years ago (he’s now one of the pillars in American choral conducting, and directs the choir at St. Olaf in MN).

Anne Bolick (currently fighting cancer) and Pastor Erhardt

Finally, I’ll let pictures do most of the talking:

My class plus some others alums met at Princeton Library at 2pm.

Had lunch at Princeton Pi. It will be no surprise to my family to hear that I, like my grandfather, Pa, was the one taking pictures throughout the day.

Visited Albemarle, which on an August weekend was void of any people. The buildings were locked, but we had free range of the grounds, and found a metal stair up to the top of the building. It must have been locked off when we were there, or I’m sure we’d have remembered at least someone going up it.

ABS reunion 5-year, Albemarle, Nathan West, Noah Wilde, Nicco Grillo, Theo Trevisan, Alexander Famous, Charlie Banta

ABS reunion 5-year, Albemarle, Anthony Baldeosingh, Alexander Famous

This picture of the little mermaid with the broken hand comes with a boychoir legend that was passed down to me by other boys when I got there:

Supposedly behind the nook with mermaid is a bomb shelter, that Mr. Lambert had had put in when he lived there. The story goes that the door to the cavity would open when the mermaid’s hand was turned. However, the access and conclusive proof to this was blocked when her hand was broken off, although there is still a hexagonal hole in her wrist. Our theories said that once that key was twisted, the whole golden mermaid and shell could be turned and then the door would swing in. Truly a captivating thought for any of the students, and not unlikely considering the time period.

The American Boychoir School folded in 2017 after having incurred a mass of debt by moving to an old seminary by Princeton, so I was glad to see that the asian math and science school PRISM is maintaining the facilities very well, and respecting the buildings that have generations of history with the boychoir in them.

ABS reunion 5-year, Albemarle, Anthony Baldeosingh, Alexander Famous, Charlie Banta

ABS reunion 5-year, Albemarle, Alexander Famous, Anthony Baldeosingh, Charlie Banta

I really started to like the flexible camera stand + delayed picture taking. For the best pictures in front of Albemarle, I had Charlie pull his car around to the front of “the Oval” so I could get a better angle by mounting the camera up on top of it. I’d get it all set up, push the button, run around to get into the picture, prod whoever was not facing the right way yet, “smile!”, click, run back, adjust, repeat (just a few times).

Theo (Class of ’13), Charlie, Nathan, Noah, Anthony, Alexander, Isaac, Samuel

That afternoon we spent in Theo’s beautiful downtown Princeton house, sight reading, learning how well Charlie could now play and sight read the piano (convenient when we sang Cantique de Jean Racine, which we had sung in France in 2014), chatting, being impressed by Nathan and Anthony’s comedic (Nathan)/impressive (Anthony) rap battle…

…playing frisbee and of course A-E-I-O-U (a hand hacky sack game taught to us by our Spanish director that we played literally every single day on all our tours–this time we figured we’d have one champion for the next five years: Nathan gained the title). It’s a game strangely easy to make stupid misses in, but we actually managed to play it as if we had played it hundreds of times.

Playing A-E-I-O-U. That’s Nicco Grillo on the right with his philosopher’s beard 🙂

And here for the first time is captured the rare feat of *catching* an “U.” (if it hits you and you don’t, you’re out). Noah, of course, has a background of hundreds of games, and so he *can* pull this move out of his pocket if he wants to. 🙂

We finished off by singing the ABS alumni ballad “Brothers Sing On!,” and after an excellent dinner at PJ’s (joined by two of Charlie’s friends, one of whom is Cory Yhap–second from right below–younger brother of two other ABS alums) where we ate also in 2015, we dispersed. Since Charlie had been able to come down to Princeton (thanks to the schedule change), I just headed up with him back to his house in Somerset.

PJ’s. I recommend their salmon, cream cheese, onion, and caper omelet.

Nicco, Charlie, Samuel, Anthony
Nathan, Theo (class of ’13), Alexander, Isaac, at Theo’s house

On Monday the highlight was sorting and labeling all the pictures I’d taken, and playing two parts of Bach hymn arrangements for Charlie to practice dictation on to prep for the aural placement at Indiana University (he’s getting a degree in composition). Apparently last year he placed out of the first 2 or 3 levels of written theory, and I think now he’s done the same for aural theory. Monday night I and Henry (Charlie’s younger brother) had a very good time together watching The Fugitive, starring Harrison Ford, which of the movies I’ve seen has THE most well written and tastefully cliche-avoiding plot. At ABS our math teacher had used part of the trailer to create a math problem for us, and at some point we had watched it for one of the “8th-grade movies” on Friday movie nights.

At the Banta’s with Charlie and his mom. This is another picture taken with the camera stand–more to come!

Tuesday was back to CT, where my “aunt” Annie picked me up and took me back to HQ, with a stop to IKEA, which I had never seen before (“Haddam Quarter”, which is head quarters there).

Sincerely,
Samuel Rausch

This trip was made possible by Pa, Annie, the Grillo family, the Banta family, and Pastor Erhardt. Köszönöm szépen!