Peter and Judit (left) met us at the bus station in Veszprem and took us the fifteen miles to their villa (above) in Nemes-leany-falu (Noble-Lady-Village, apparently named for a local church which was named in honor of a local woman who helped defeat the Turks back in the 1500s), a suburb of Nagyvazsony. Peter had fled Hungary during the 1956 uprising against the Soviet rulers, and he and Chris were roommates for a few months in Hamburg in 1960. Peter spent his entire career as a teacher in a Hamburg middle school, and couldn't return to Hungary until shortly before he retired. Then he bought a run-down house, renovated it, and sold it to a German woman he knew. (Many Germans want vacation homes in Hungary--beautiful country and low prices.) Then Peter and Judit built their villa at the edge of the subdivision, and now there are three houses on the street are owned by Germans. (The Hungarian word for "German" is "nemet." In Chris's first effort at a pun in Hungarian, he is going to suggest that the village be renamed from "Nemesleanyfalu" to "Nemetleanyfalu" -- "German-lady-village.")
The first day there, in the midst of a downpour, Kay and Judit, wearing rain slickers, went out with the rambunctious dog, Vazul, into the meadow behind the house to hunt mushrooms. Kay was the first to return, with the slicker pulled up in front like an apron -- holding a couple of pounds of big beautiful mushrooms. Judit had to tromp through the meadow and woods shouting for Vazul, who was not noted for obedience. When she returned (with Vazul), she had another couple of pounds of mushrooms, all of which she and Kay cooked up into a delicious mushroom ragout. Kay and Judit (and sometimes Chris--but not Peter, who was not an early riser) took Vazul for a walk through the community every morning, often picking berries from bushes overhanging the gravel street.
One day we traipsed across the meadow and into the woods, looking for the ruins of a cloister destroyed by the Turks in the 1500s. The trail was poorly marked, so we got lost a couple of times before finding it. (Here it is at left.) Then we wanted to make our way into the village, and weren't quite sure of the way. We cut through an adjacent cemetery and ran into a gardener pushing a lawn-mower. We couldn't speak enough Hungarian for a conversation, but he did know some German. Seems he was yardman to several of the Germans on Peter's street, and he gave us an earful of what he thought of these Germans who choose to live here and can't even be bothered to learn to speak Hungarian. (Here he is.)
Peter spent a day showing us around the northern side of Lake Balaton, a 30-mile-long resort lake. Along the way, he turned off onto a rutted dirt road that snaked north up the hillside away from the lake, and suddenly we were at a vineyard. The elderly vintner welcomed Peter and showed us the little stone house where he made and stored wine (mostly in large thousand-gallon casks). We sat at a rough picnic table outside, looking over Balaton a mile or so down the hill, and he brought us two bottles of his wine and several glasses. So we sat and talked and poured and drank and talked and soaked up the sunshine. We asked Peter, "How much is he charging for this?" "He doesn't exactly charge. We can just leave him a little money. Anything will be fine." Wow! Great way to run a business.
A few days later, Peter and Judit loaded up the car with us, Vazul, and a collection of one- and two-gallon jugs. What is this, we wondered? Soon we were going up another rutted dirt road and then pulling onto the grass outside another little stone house in another vineyard. A couple in their 60s greeted us, and we all sat around in plastic chairs, and they brought us each a glass of wine. While we sipped, the couple went in with the empty jugs and emerged a few minutes later with full jugs. Seems Peter and Judit come by every month or so for their supply of everyday wine, for the equivalent of a few dollars a gallon.
Since none of these local vineyards seemed commercially viable, Chris asked Peter and other people about it. Seems there is so much cheap wine available in Hungary and elsewhere that it would not be profitable to market it in any big way. Most of these vintners are older people who grow grapes and make wine because they enjoy doing it and don't know any other way of life. They eke out a living selling to local customers, or perhaps to a few hotels or restaurants on Lake Balaton.
One day Peter and Judit drove us west and across the border into Austria, where they go every month or so to the town of Rust to shop at Aldi, a German supermarket sort of like a Super-Target. We stopped in the town square, at one end of which (left) a TV drama was being filmed. From a respectful distance, we silently watched the hero stomping out of a house, cameras aimed at him and microphones on long poles being held overhead, while the heroine ran after him, begging him not to go.
After a while we found seats outside a little cafe and tried a local product called "Sturm" -- "storm" -- so called, Peter told us, because if you drink too much of it, you'll have a storm in your belly. (I think he made that up.) This was actually the local name for a ubiquitous seasonal product, grape juice that has just been pressed and is just beginning to ferment -- sort of the grape equivalent of apple cider. In the Wurzburg area and in Bavaria, it is called Federweisser ("feather-white"), and in the Freiburg area it is called "Neuer Suesser" ("new sweet"). It is one of Kay's favorite beverages, so she looks forward to being in Germany at the right time of year to enjoy it -- by whatever name.
