Tag: Hungary/Romania 2008

The Beres family met me at First Unitarian Church of Budapest. Ibolya Beres, (mother) and Barnabas (son) were happy to see me. The father, Gyorgy, was working and I would meet him later. When they asked me what I wanted to do I told them I would love to eat and then go to sleep. And that is what we did.

The Beres family were stellar, out of this world hosts. I’m not sure what I–a person who, outside of 4 out-of-town high school choir students in 1988, has never hosted anyone–did to deserve such luxury. I enjoyed every minute of it.

We went to Gundel where I had an absolutely fabulous meal. It consisted of cold zucchini soup–who knew it could be so good–a cold salmon and eggplant dish and dessert. I got the famous Gundel dessert which was a filled crepe. The Beres family shares my healthy appreciation for dessert in general and ice cream in particular.

With my appetite sated, we journeyed to the Beres house where met Gyorgy, as well as Barnabas’ grandmother. I found my bathroom, room and bed in quick order and I slept 12 hours.
The Beres house. Gyorgy has a doctor’s office on the first floor. There is a waiting room and two exam rooms as well as my bathroom and bedroom and a separate apartment for Barnabas’ grandmother. The family lives on the second floor.
Ibolya and Barnabas outside. I’ve got some pictures of Gyorgy coming in the next post.
My bedroom and bed. It was very comfortable and quiet.

I forgot to mention in the last post that the airline lost my luggage. They also lost Eric and Isabelle’s. I blame the quick connection between Amsterdam and Budapest, but really, why couldn’t they get all of our luggage on the same plane? So I arrived in Hungary with what was in my backpack (luckily, my toiletries) and Marcia kindly lent me a shirt and a pair of socks for Saturday.

Also! Hungarian has all sorts of cool accent marks that aren’t available on Blogger. So really, their last name is B-e[accent mark slanting to the left]-r-e-s. Barnabas’s name has a slanty to the left accent over the third a, and his father has an umlaut over the “o” in his name.

I’m a bit vain about my packing. I do it very well. My red suitcase, which I bought at a Salvation Army store in Somerville for $3.00, holds all the clothes I need for two weeks in Europe. My backpack holds the rest.
And I’m ready to go. Aside from clothing I’ve brought along six books, 14 envelopes and 14 stationary (I’ll write myself a letter per day), an art kit, my water bottle, toiletries kit and my trusty travel pillow. Or what I hope will become my trusty travel pillow–I just bought it.
Group photo at the airport. Brittany and Derek are missing because they were flying standby and didn’t make their flight. But other than that, here were are.
And nine long hours later in Amsterdam. We flew Northwest/KLA. Our flight attendants were gruff and grumpy, but we each had our own movie screen and could choose from 30+ movies. I watched “Definitely, Maybe” and read an entire book. I slept 40 minutes. I attempted to use the travel pillow, but it was too poofy. Most of us did not sleep very much. We weren’t in Amsterdam very long, but long enough to notice that the KLA flight attendants have the coolest uniforms. They are powder blue skirt and jacket set. Very 1965. I loved them.
Sleep did happen for me on the flight from Amsterdam to Budapest. And for Eric and Christine on the shuttle from the airport.

Some of you may know that I am going to Hungary and Romania for two weeks in June and July with the church youth group I lead. I leave next Thursday and as the countdown goes on, I get more and more excited about the trip. This time (I went in 2005) we will be staying with host families in both Hungary and Romania. Today I received the following email:

Hey, Patricia!

I’m Barnabas,your host in Hungary. We are glad that you will come here! How are you? Do you know that we have one afternoon and a whole day to do something together. (my family and you) So we must think of a program you are interested in. What kind of program(s) do you want to have? Shopping day? Visiting monuments or builings? Tour in the woods? Seeing ruins? Museums? Or movie theatre which I do not suggest? Seeing the worst parts of Budapest(getto)? Seeing the richest parts of Budapest? Looking around in the parks? Visiting my dad’s hospital? Or whatever you want. So tell us what do you want to do in your freetime and we will help organising it.

Bye, Barnabas

Okay! Sounds like a good trip in the making.