Hungarian inventions video

This should lighten the mood a little before I post: Day of the Dead (part III).

It's a video highlighting some innovations from Hungary.
(Thanks to Gúthyné Maca for drawing my attention to it!)

Day of the Dead (part II): a Budapest cemetery

Here are a few photographs from a big graveyard in Budapest.  In case you know Budapest at all, this one is near the Keleti train station.

statues on top of the Keleti train station

I was still in a soul-searching mood since the candle-lit eve of day of the dead, the night before, and this is probably reflected in the photographs.  Again I pondered the concept of mourning versus expressing joy that souls have advanced toward their Creator. Many of these grave stones and statues seem to do their best at conveying eternal sadness and mourning.  I'm sure the families are sad about losing contact with those who passed, but a thought crept into my mind that I felt a bit guilty about thinking: whoever chose some of these grave stones and statues had the feeling that this soul was going to a bad place! God forbid that anyone judged their lives and thought we better put up a statue to convey how bitterly depressed we are that this soul is headed for torment!

Some of the statues are gothic and somewhat creepy. They were some of my favourites:

I don't approve of depictions of Christ, but this one drew my attention

what message is this statue trying to convey?

Here are some other statues and grave stones which caught my attention:

she looks upset about the imax cinema in the background!

this is one of my favourites, pensive but hopeful

I like the contemplative mood of this one

rarr

translation: our dear Susan, 16 years old

an architect

Here are some random scenic views around the cemetery:

I didn't make this; would've looked great at night!

had to try to get myself in there somewhere...

Day of the Dead (part I)

If you're trying to follow the "when" of my adventures, don't bother.  It's very confusing and I apologize for all the anachronisms.  I'm back from my trip to Veszprem and Vecses, but haven't yet had a chance to blog about older, more interesting topics, like the special holiday here on November 1st: the day of the dead.  I'm especially excited because I've been filled with profound thoughts and I really love some of the photos I took in various cemeteries.

When I heard about the day of the dead, I was eager to travel to Vecses where I could join my family to mourn our dead on Nov. 1st. A brief disclaimer: I don't personally believe in mourning the dead, feeling that it is somewhat selfish.  We mourn our loss and usually ignore their gain.  As Baha'u'llah says: "I have made death a messenger of joy to thee.  Wherefore dost thou grieve?"  Much of the time, I think death forces us to consider our own mortality, and I guess that can be worrisome.

In the last 8 days, I've been to many cemeteries, in daylight and moonlight, and pitch-blackness.  I honestly did not have the slightest notion of fear.  Every time I was filled with awe, sometimes melancholy, and often joy.  Seems crazy?  Or can we consider it a healthy attitude rooted in confidence and wisdom, thanks to my Faith?  This reminds me of Green Day: "Am I retarded or am I just over-joyed?"  Or what about the episode of Northern Exposure where young Ed finds out how old his friend Roseanne is, freaks out for a while thinking she could die at any moment, and eventually deals with it by buying her a plot of remote land for her grave.  They hike there and the episode ends with the two of them dancing on her grave.  No dancing going on in western graveyards, as far as I know, but I really felt like it lately.
(Oh ya, I took part in the Thrill the World, record breaking simultaneous dance to Thriller last year at Halloween; that almost counts!)

Which reminds me of a really wonderful devotional gathering that I went to a couple of weeks ago.  It was devoted to people that we lost.  We took turns talking about the things we remember about them or the things that made them special.  I spoke about my grandfather and my best friend Terry who passed a few years ago, in his 30's, from melanoma.  Then we said some prayers for the progress of their souls.  I said one of my favourite prayers for Terry, which has the following line in it: "... cause him to enter Thy glorious paradise, and perpetuate his existence in Thine exalted rose garden, that he may plunge into the sea of light in the world of mysteries."

So after saying a few prayers, in English, Persian, and Swedish (but not Hungarian!) we lit a few candles and moped a bit.  Then I thought of Terry and realized he wouldn't want it that way, so we cranked some music and danced.  I had such a great time; it just felt so good!

The "day of the dead" experience started on Sunday night, Oct. 31st: the night of the eve of the day of the dead? Awkward.  I was still in Debrecen, so a small group of us got together and went to the main cemetery.  After a tram ride, it was still a pretty long walk in pitch dark, with an awe inspiring spread of stars.  Like a true geeky science guy, I pointed out a constellation (Cassiopeia) and star cluster (the seven sisters.)  We arrived and viewed what should have been an eerie vista, but I was just overwhelmed with the beauty of it all, and somewhat obsessed with capturing it on my crappy camera.  Of course, these shots don't do the experience justice...

a statue by the gate

that's me; self-timed with my camera on the ground

Weaving around between graves, on an awkward stumbling trek, Mansoureh showed me to Mrs. Afnan's grave.  She passed away a few years ago, leaving her beautiful big residence to the Baha'i community of Debrecen.  That's where I'm now staying!  So we paused at her grave and prayed for her soul too.  We were surrounded by thousands of candles wearily trying to fight back a chilly dark night, and we realized that both of our prayers mentioned light: her's I think mentioned "light upon light" and mine "plunge into the sea of light, in the world of mysteries."

There were five of us there in that cemetery; that is, five of us above ground with our souls still attached. All the mourning families who placed these candles were gone.  The five of us didn't seem to talk much that night.  If it was a reverence for the dead, or a numbing sense of awe, or just a wave of contemplation, I'm not sure. I grabbed the following quote from a facebook comment (thanks Meghan! Anything on facebook is public domain, right?) "It was SO very beautiful. :) And very powerful. A strong reminder of how finite and short life is. I could see my breath and was reminded of how quickly that breath leaves us, life. And how in 100 years they'll be new people probably standing in that very spot, thinking the same sort of thoughts and lighting a candle for the dead, for me maybe."

One final quote from Baha'u'llah:

"...up from Thy prison ascend unto the glorious meads above, and from thy mortal cage, wing thy flight unto the paradise of the placeless."

on the road for a week!

I've been hesitating to blog lately for a couple of reasons:
1. I'm in a fairly low tech environment right now.
2. I'm lazy.
3. I'm busy.
3.5. I want to experience life instead of typing about it.
4. This keyboard is wonky and some letters are switched and puctuation is scrambled and itás making me crayz'
5. That was supposed to end in an exclamation mark'''''
6. I can't upload mz photos'
7. I feel I should wait until the end of mz new adventure.
8. I forget what this list is about.

So anyway, here's a quick update.  I'm staying at my grandmother's sister's grandson's place.  Is he then my 2nd cousin?  Anyway, Csabi's house.  It's really nice and he and Maca are gracious hosts.  They've gone to work and I made a big mess trying to use their expresso machine.  (Sorry guys, I think I cleaned it up okay and I don't think it's broken!)  They have good fun and belly laughs trying to put my blog into an auto translator to get some sense of what I'm saying.  It spits out mangled Hungarian which they find quite entertaining.  I'm so curious to know how this paragraph turns out!

I hung with the fam here yesterday eve after returning from Budapest where my day began with a long morning in the cemetery taking artsy photos which I can't wait to upload!  Then a friend from long ago took me to the all-vegetarian Hari Krisha restaurant.  Praise God for Indian food!  Later, I met with two representatives from Hungary's National Spiritual Assembly at the Baha'i Centre in the stunning heart of Budapest.  We first prayed together and I felt an inkling of the mighty power of that Institution.

Today, after cleaning up and hanging with my fam a bit more, I'll head by train back to Budapest to attend the Baha'i 19 day Feast, and I'm very excited about that.  I'm staying overnight there and leaving for Veszprém in the morning to reminisce.  Damn, there's no spell check.  Technically there is, but it's underlining everything since in Hungarian it's all spelled wrong.  Except for "is" which means "also".

Many years ago Dharlene and I were in Veszprém for a year.  Well, she was there and I was in nearby Balatonalmádi, on the big lake, apparently the largest in Europe.  It'll be nice to be there again for a couple days.  The weather is perfect: sun and clouds and a high of approximately 16 C for the next few days.  Then the weekend back here in Vecsés, then back to Debrecen.

 Thanks for reading, and don't forget to encourage me by commenting!

The Wildlife in Debrecen, Hungary

Before you biologists or naturalists get too excited, let me warn you that there isn't really any wildlife here.  Well, that's what it seemed like at first, but I did eventually discover a few mildly interesting critters.  It's weird not seeing squirrels scampering around all over the place, nor their once adventurous furry flattened carcasses littering the roadside.  Not a squirrel in the country, as far as I can tell.

"wildlife", sort of

Of course, there are the typical boring city creatures, such as pigeons galore, sparrows, and mosquitoes.  The mosquitoes are fairly plentiful.  I think I've killed an average of one per day since I arrived in Hungary, but the strange thing is that they don't seem to bite, or perhaps they don't like my foreign blood. On my balcony there is a pigeon nest behind a broom, which seems to be constructed of pigeon poo (the nest I mean, not the broom.)

my balcony with the nest behind the broom

The fledglings are getting brave and wandering around the balcony now.  That explains why you can't see them in the poo nest behind the broom.

a baby pigeon on my balcony

There are lots of crows too.  And half black, half grey ones.  Are they magpies perhaps?  I thought they were black and white, not black and grey.

a magpie?

Other than colouring, and a very wimpy call, they seem exactly like crows.

a chilly, chilling turtle

I saw this turtle come out of the frog pond in the "great forest" to sun himself, but when he felt the eight degree cold and a wind chill, he changed his mind and dove back in before I could snap a photo.  He posed nicely in the floating leaves for me when he resurfaced.

two over-crowded bat houses

I didn't even have my camera, sadly, when I first discovered something strange going on in the tree shown above.  I heard a lot of squeaking on my way by, and it was really bugging me.  I kept circling the area saying "what is that sound?"  I first thought it may be some kind of insect I didn't know about.  Then I just decided to sit under this tree and stare and listen.  Did I see something move in the dark of one of those holes, I asked myself.  Then a bat stuck his head out, then back in.  Suddenly one popped out of the top hole and took flight.  This was at 4 pm on a warm, sunny day.  Then another one popped out.  Were they young bats fledging from the nest perhaps?  They were all pretty big though. All in all I watched over a dozen bats come out of the two holes and fly away, all of them simultaneously shouting, a squeaky symphony.

I didn't see any moles, but evidence of them is obvious everywhere: myriads of molehills.  

mole hills

These bugs were unfamiliar to me.  Not common, but plentiful on this tree!

strange bugs on a tree by my street

And of course, the frog pond has frogs.  I saw some quick ones, but they were too quick for my camera, sorry.  Here is the frog pond below.

frog pond

I had to get some willow tree shots for Dharlene:

me under a willow on the bank of the frog pond

Speaking of trees, they have a lot of oak and maybe beech?  And some kind of maple with giant leaves:

big maple leaf

There are tree-huggers, and then there are hugging trees (you may have seen this guy in one of the Lord of the Rings movies)

the hugging tree

No raccoons, no colourful birds, no possums.  Not sure about wolves or coyotes.  If I get attacked by wolves in the great forest, and survive, I'll definitely blog about it for you...

blog revamped!

I've got a lot to add, but time is short since I spent all morning cleaning up this blog and adding labels!  The labels will help navigate the blog and hopefully help you look for things you're interested in.  I've also added reaction buttons.  I love it when people comment, but I see that's rare.  Feedback is great and it's very encouraging if I see people are reading and reacting.  So even if you don't comment, please hit one of the reaction buttons at least.

I'm off to meet a friend at that favourite cafe I blogged about recently!

Coming up soon: wildlife, Halloween, night-life...

Thanks for looking and reading!

a small trip to a small town: Ebes

Two of the Baha'is in the area have a house in a small town of 5000 people, about a half hour bus ride from Debrecen where I'm staying.  This town, called Ebes, is what looks like a typical Hungarian town: red clay tile roofs, and fences right up to the sidewalk, some of them with scary dogs behind them (see my previous blog about Vecsés.)

So Dan, Jeane and I came to visit these two Baha'ís, Zoltan and Erika.  They met us at the bus stop in tiny Ebes, by this charming church.

Ebes' church

An interesting thing about this town is the way it was founded.  In the communist era, apparently all the farmers from a huge area were collected to this small area, since the soil is fairly fertile.  Their families were uprooted and re-established, consolidated in this little area.  The communist administration decided that it was much more efficient this way, which I guess makes sense.

Zoltan is an organic farm inspector, and Erika is a music teacher.  They both speak English very well.  This is Zoltan below, posing proudly with the addition he built on their little house (not so little any more):

 

And this, below, is me posing with his house too:

They have beautiful flower and vegetable gardens around their place, with fruit trees as well.  I had a tart apple which was the tastiest one I've ever had!  All organic and unsprayed.  Here's a very green picture of their back yard, which offers a lot of wonderful food for them:

We had a very relaxing stroll through this fruitful wonderland, and then went in for a long conversation about the Baha'í community in nearby Debrecen.  Probably most impressive during this visit for me was how Erika asked if we were hungry, grabbed a few things from the garden, and in half an hour whipped up an amazing casserole to feed five of us!