A Trip to Hungary
My first trip to Hungary since 1996 was a great experience. On June 18th this year, after an almost ten hour flight to London we tried to meet Karcsi G0UEN between flights. Although there was supposed to be a four hour difference between our landing in London and the takeoff to Budapest, the flight delay of an hour to London prevented us from doing so. I was able to call Karcsi from the plane at Heathrow with my T-Mobile so he didn’t have to make the trip to the Underground station we were supposed to meet at. At the airport I tried to make a few pictures, but was quickly interrupted by security guards, who explained that taking pictures was prohibited. I didn’t know and I didn’t see the signs. She looked at the two pictures I made, then let it go... The two and a half hour flight from London to Budapest was uneventful. Lots of emotions went through my mind though as we were approaching the City and as I was looking down on the country side... Our friends Tibor and Tamás were waiting for us to take us to our new residence my wife inherited in Zugló, a suburb of Budapest. There was champaign in the refrigerator as I requested ahead of time and Tamás obliged us... There were some specialty items on the table from the local bakery also, that cannot be found in America, called „kifli” and „zsömle”. These are baked from the finest wheat dow that go well with ham, fine salami and cheese and can be served on any king’s table... After a toast with the champagne it didn’t take long before we hit the sack...
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We had five big tasks ahead of us: cleanup and setting up a new household, get Internet connection (UPC, had it in 12 days!), and utilities going, meet friends and relatives, set up an antenna system, paying respect to our passed away loved ones and try to have some fun in the meantime. We almost ran out of time in three months! My wife had to go through every inch of the house with the broom and cleaning cloth before she was satisfied... I had to climb up on the ladder to clean the heating pipes, window frames and lamps, had to remove a lot of junk from the basement... Here I was rewarded though with a couple of bottles of good old wine and champagne my father-in-law stashed away before he died... We had to purchase and replace many things that were missing or broken: replaced bad washing machine, coffe maker, electric iron, cookware, utensils, coathangers (she bought over 30...), replaced old linen, etc. We had to arrange for the utilities reconnection and payments, had to make repairs of the roof and plumbing, had to have the sewer flushed by the utility company, (after a ten day rain they clogged up) and had to purchase a car... By chance I found out about our 47 year high-school reunion in Budapest. G0UEN invited me to IWIW, through which I was able to find some of my high-school classmates that I haven’t seen for 47 years! The day was the last Friday of June, a week after I got there... How much fun it was! First I couldn’t recognize some of them, but after a while the gestures and the features came back to memory and we immersed ourselves in intense conversations about the past... Besides Tibor, I met some of them twice – Árpád and László, for more in depth political and economic conversations, so I can better understand today’s Hungary. We had another dentist in our class: Attila, who fixed a lose crown for me. (The second classmate, who worked in my mouth...) Unfortunately none of them were hams... : )
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We used public transportation when our friend Tibor wasn’t available; trolleys, street-cars – but it was no fun: it seemed that the trolleys without air-conditioning had a big band playing trombone, trompets violin and bass while giving us the rock-and-roll... I was getting sea-sick in them. The street-cars were better, but still gave you a good workout holding on to the safety loops and bars when the cars stop and go, also without air-conditioning... So we had to have a car, no doubt about it. Renting was out of the question because on the long run it would’ve cost half the price of the car we bought. So with the help of Tibor we bought a 2005 Opel four door Astra with automatic transmission and air-conditioning in ten days! It had 59 000 km on it and we added almost 5 000 to it in three months with only a burned out headlamp. It has a 1.8 liter four cylinder engine with plenty of power, so you can maneuver in the city or on the highways. Maneuver you must, because the drivers in Budapest are in a constant hurry, as if there is no tomorrow; they tailgate you as close as two yards going at 100km/hr... You gotta get out of their way or you suffer the consequences... Anyway, the car served us well, saved us time and wear and tear...
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For almost a month I was without an antenna and I was frustrated. The weather was stormy, with lots of rain. I complained to my friend Lajos, HA3IW over Skype (I had my laptop with me) and he suggested to call around. He gave me the phone number of Zoltán, HA3KZ, who gave me the phone number of Tamás, HA4BX, who said I could pick an antenna any time!
So our first trip was to Dunaújváros, about 60 km from Budapest, in the middle of July, to pick up my antenna from a small local company, KlímaComp Plusz Kft., The “DunaX” four band vertical. Although I tried to get one from the only Ham outlet in Budapest, the A & B Trade K.F.T., no vertical was available for months. It was easy to set up and it performed extremely well for under $200.00! I recommend it to anybody with space issues and under 750 watts. By the time I got to Hungary I had my new Hungarian call-sign: HA5AZE, thanks to Márti, HA5FQ, who turned in my request ahead of time and by lending me the necessary fee. We had a nice "eyeball QSO" with her at our QTH. I made 5 by 8, 5 by 9 contacts all over Europe the first time I turned on my Yaesu FT-897: I0IFO, DL50SOP, G0UEN, DL1JK, DK8SV, DF8WZ, OZ9EDR/P, HB9Z/P etc. I could extend the full bandwidth with my Yaesu FC-700 tuner, even on my G5RV I purchased later for the low bands from A&B at a whopping 29,000 HUF. It was a mistake though, because I only needed one for 80m, not for 160, that was available. I had to cut it down to half length, to 80 meters… It performed well also and I had a chance to talk with hams all over the Carpathian basin on 3,768 MHz, no problem: HA1UF, OK1TQ, HA6FQ, HA3UX, HA9DAG, HA4XC, OM90GI (OM8GI), HA0KA, HA1SU/P, HA4GBJ, HA5AZD, YO6OAF, HG5CAT, YO5AJR, YO6BGT, YO6PTM, HA1TO, OE4BAB, HA6ZN, HA1ZM, HA3OD, YU7GL, HA5AEL, HA8WV, OM5LA, HA8LPI, YO5AQN, HA8QO, HA7SP, OM5ATI, YO2AAG, HA8QT, HG2ECG, YU7BDP.
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Our next three day trip was to Zagyvarékas, a village on the Zagyva river about 100 km from Budapest, where my wife’s cousins and family-friends live. It was a joyful time to meet them, most of whom I met the first time. Their hospitality was genuine and we had great conversations about hard work and life in the country-side. Teca, my wife’s childhood friend provided us with room and food at her house while we were there and gave us a tour of Zagyvarékas and the cemetery. She also guided us around Szolnok on the Tisza River. She also visited us in Budapest. With Béla, my wife’s cousin we went to the old cemetery by the Zagyva to pay respect to his and Ilona’s grandparents.
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A DRÁVÁN
Marburgnál
Zúgó habjaidba szórom
E virágfüzért,
Dráva! Hajtsd alá, s a partra
Tedd, midőn hazámba ért.
Bárha dúlt lesz akkorára
Dísze s hervadott,
És özönnel kelyhe nem hint
Szerte éden-illatot.
S mondjad: ilyen a honáért
Lángoló kebel,
Melyet a sors zivatarja
Tőle messze sodra el.
Petőfi, 1840
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In August, on our “Southern trip”we went through Harkány, a town of thermal baths. The weather was great. We stayed overnight then next morning we proceeded to the Croatian border. We crossed the river Drava, a swift and wide waterway. I lived not more than ten kilometers from it when I was a child, but never saw it. Many people drowned in it while trying to escape during the Rákosi era… We arrived in Osiek (Eszék) mid-day and took a tour around the city and along the Dráva. The Castle is very nice and inside the castle old Eszék is charming with its old buildings and streets. Here we had lunch in a restaurant and we could speak Hungarian with a young waiter who informed us that across the river in the Drava Triangle everyone speaks Hungarian. Mid afternoon we headed towards Vojvodina, Serbia. We crossed the Danube at four and in about an hour we were in Sombor (Zombor), where my cousin Feri was waiting for us, whom I haven’t seen for over forty years. He has a great apartment and we stayed there for two nights.
He gave us a nice tour around Sombor. While site-seeing, I noticed a young lady wearing a T-shirt with „IOWA” on it. I asked her in English if she was from Iowa? She said she was going to the University of Iowa, studying English and German... In a souvenir shop we bought some cards and memorabilia, where the lady spoke pure Hungarian... Then we drove to Bács, my birthplace. Here we went to the cemetery to pay our respect at our grandparents’ grave, then went to the old castle. It was a great feeling to see it again after fifty-two years! I couldn’t help thinking about King Mathias, who held national assemblies here over five hundred years ago… Bacs has a six hundred year old church, that my grandma visited every Sunday; the town has a fairly modern look with at least one sidewalk café. In a store we bought some towels and to my pleasant surprise the lady spoke Hungarian nicely… Next morning we said farewell to Feri and Sombor and drove to the Hungarian border. There was no problem at the border crossings or in Croatia or in Serbia.
We continued to drive to the Danube at Mohács where we crossed with the ferry for only 1500 HUF. Mohács is a nice town, with a sad historical connotation, (Hungary lost the battle with the Ottoman Turks in 1526 here, beginning the 150 year division and Turkish rule – the result of the nobility’s fear from the peasantry on account of György Dózsa’s uprising twelve years before, demobilizing a strong peasant army) we had a walk through the „walking street”, stopped at some memorials, statues and the „Fogadalmi Templom” (Temple of Oath). Next we drove through Villány, a great wine-country and town, where we picked up two bottles of fine wine. Then we drove to Siklós, where we took a tour of the castle. By late afternoon we were in Vajszló, home of my other cousin, Tóni and his family. With him we went to Páprád to pay our respect at his parents’ grave. By nightfall we were in Harkány again. We spent the better part of next day at the thermal pools of Harkány. This concluded our „Southern trip” that lasted for five days.
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On our way back to Budapest from Transylvania, we stopped in Debrecen and spent a night and half a day. We walked through the street in front of the Great Church, called „Nagytemplom”, and checked out a gun-shop, called „Nimród Vadászbolt”. The guns on display were exquisite! There was a three barrel shotgun-rifle for 1.7 million HUF, the price of a small car! The view from the top of the bell tower was great. We know that there are a lot of friends, things and places to see in Debrecen, too bad we didn’t have more time. From Debrecen we went straight to Miskolc, home of my cousin I found on the Internet after 40 years. He and his wife have a small, modest apartment and a big heart. He guided us to the Castle of Diósgyőr and the thermal cave baths of Miskolctapolca. The experience in the warm pools in the caves was an unforgettable one. That concluded our one week trip to the „East”. The last three days were cold and rainy. But on September the 17th the tasks we had during the summer months were completed: we „cleaned up” the house and set up a „secondary household”; got the utilities going, set up cable Internet and TV, paid respect to our passed away loved ones and installed antennas for the radio. We met our relatives and friends and visited three other countries, Croatia, Serbia and Romania and enjoyed doing it. The fun is not over yet; we’ll go back next year to do more things we have to do and visit three more countries: the Ukraine, Slovakia and Austria, those parts that are inhabited by Hungarians...
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Saying Good-bye! |
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Where is the cake? |
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Tamás is ready to cut the cake |
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Domino is watching |
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Ready for hibernation |
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On the cold, cloudy morning of the 17th of September, Tibor took us to the Ferihegy Airport in Budapest and we safely arrived the same day back in Los Angeles.
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