Visit

I had a pleasant surprise recently. One afternoon, my cousin called me from Transylvania, that her son leaves for Vienna by car and she would come with her. If I wait for her on the M1 motorway, she'll be able to stay a few days in Budapest. At night, at  3 o'clock a.m. I was on the way by car. We couldn't sleep a lot because the next day – 23rd October - we would have liked to see some programmes of the national holiday. In the morning we drank a lot of coffee and we went to look at the Parliament. Thanks to the free entry, the people snaked in a long line around the building.

 We thought that we'll to wait for one hour and if we don't get ahead, we'll go away.

Incredibly, after one hour we were at the gate. Actually we could see the crown only, and we couldn't see the complete building. 

 When we went out, a musical changing of the guards just started.

The rest of the day we made up for the missed night.

The next day we awoke to a beautiful sunny day. At the end of October one can think, perhaps this is the last beautiful weekend, so we went to hike to the Buda hills. From the Szépjuhászné ( Beautiful shepherd wife ) we climbed to the top of Feketefej (Black head) hill 

and after that we arrived through the Kecskehát (Back of goat) and Meszes (Limy) hill to Remeteszőlős (Vineyard of hermits). From here we went home by bus.

I

Yesterday

morning my son Ö. flew from London to Las Vegas for a trade talks. The flight was long enough, more than 10 hours. 

He'll stay one week there. He won't have time to go to the casino, but he has a plan, an excursion to the Grand Canyon.

I'm here again :)

At last I'm trying to find time to write in my blog. Last year I've really enjoyed being retired, I was able to deal with things that I like, but I never had time for them beside work. There were many little experiences that are difficult to enumerate and my life has become much calmer. I traveled a lot. I travelled to Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Tyrol, England.

I dealt with the history of my family intensively. The oldest person was born in 1640. Unfortunately, the older documents are only in Latin, so I had a little taste of the Latin language. I learned Latin in the secondary school for one year, but I thought it isn't so important. I chose other languages. But how good it would be to have a little Latin knowledge !

I was hiking a lot. We began to walk on the National Blue Circle. Today two sections are ready - the National Blue Trail and the South Transdanubian Blue Trail - and this year we started the third section, the Big Plain Blue Trail. I hope the first half of next year I'll also manage to finish and then we can say we walked around the Hungarian border and we went almost 2,500 kms.

Meanwhile, my grandchildren have grown a lot. Zsolt is already 18 years old and Mate will be seven years old, and he's a serious pupil.

Also I read a lot, I continued my English study, I renovated my flat and finally I learned to bake cakes and bread.  

This year our next class reunion was due. We graduated 45 years ago. I don't even want to count, when I finished the secondary school. In general, we meet in May.On previous occasions, usually I organized it and everyone accepted it. This year I've been pretty busy, I only waited for an invitation. The months passed and nothing happened. In late September, I wrote an email to one of my classmates. : "What do you know about the meeting?" Did you forget to write to me ? I thought that everybody was very busy. The girl answered to me and she organized a lunch for 10^th October. We were 21 students in the class. Unfortunately, one of our classmates already died, and three of them never come there. A girl is living in Germany. She came all the time, but now she got the invitation a little late. 16 classmates gathered together. It's not so bad. Our school was in the town of Vác. 

We have calculated that the majority of the class was no longer living in Vác, but no one said: sorry I don't want to travel. For our form master we were the first class after her university and she's only a few years older than us We greeted each other as old friends. In 2011 was the last time when we met, so everyone had plenty to say. In the pictures there are no more children, but grandchildren. Now they have the leading role. We planned it have a little conversation for about 1-2 hours after the lunch but finally we only said goodbye to each other at 7 pm. I think everybody had a very nice Saturday afternoon .

ANNIVERSARY

When I started elementary school at the same time I started  learning music.   When I could already read the notes,  I began learning to play an instrument. In 1964 a children's choir was set up in the music school. I had a membership here until the end of my secondary school years. 

April, 1967

In the choir we sang many beautiful classical pieces.  We had a lot of fun and I still have friends from this period.

Our conductor was a young man, who  finished the music college at that time. He had the first workplace in  the  music  school. So we grew up together. He was the leader for 23 years. After that he got a possibility to work in Finland with a Finnish children’s choir. So he moved there with her family for some years.  His wife was a choir member, a talented pianist. They have four children, All of them are well-known musicians. Gergely plays the piano, Tibor is a cellist, Bence plays the bassoon and Bernadett plays the flute. Gergely received the Kossuth prize when he was 30 years old. He  was appointed a citizen of honor in his native town of Vác.

 The choir still exists  after several name changes nowadays.

In April, I got a  phone call, a celebration of the foundation  the choir was organised. It will be the  50th birthday.

I was glad that I was going to meet old friends. A little concert was organised where we sang the old pieces. 

The conductor - who is 75 years old today - is still active and also very kind. 

Many of  the old members have chosen professions of music or they are music teachers.  After the concert there was a little reception  in a good mood.  

I hope this will be repeated again and we don't need wait another 50 years, because we don't have so much time already.

,

AN ENGLISH PRIVATE SCHOOL: WHITGIFT

My grandchild Matt was in a camp in April.   The firm "Super Camps" rents the institutions of a private  school,  during the school break.  So I could  look at an English  private school, but only from outside.

The school is in the centre of South Croydon. It takes 20 minutes by train from the centre of London. 

The school  originally operated  on a part of South  Croydon, it's called North End,   then it was moved to its present location in Hailing Park in 1931. This area and the  buildings were owned by Lord Howard of Effingham (1536-1624) an English admiral who was the commander for the English maritime  fleet against the Spanish Armada.

The buildings of the school are in a 45 hectars area. 

There are old and new houses, great gardens, 

parks, 

sport centre,

 music school and concert hall, IT centre, laboratories and a little zoo with peacocks, geese, flamingos, kangaroos and an albino wallaby. 

There were two albino wallabies but one of them drowned in a little pond. There was very big fog and he didn't see the water.

The school's name is Whitgift. John Whitgift 

was the last archbishop of Canterbury  in the time of Elisabeth I.  The school was founded in 1590 and the teaching started in 1600.

In the school boys study only, between 10 and 18 years old.  

The school fee is fairly  high, 17000 pounds a year. The kids have  very  serious  entrance exams and they have  to be especially talented at  sport, art, natural sciences, etc.   There is a possibility  of a full grant as well.

In the past more than 400 years, the current director is the 26th.

England 3 - London Marathon

The next event was the Virgin London Marathon. The weather was beautiful,

 sunny and blue sky. During breakfast I was watching  the start of the disabled and

the  injured sportsmen on  TV. 

After that  I went  by train to the Blackfriars bridge. From the train station I was walking on the bank of Thames and on the Victoria Embankment.

 I was on the spot at eleven o'clock.  The route was from  Greenwich to Buckingham palace and they were running  through  the famous  sights of London.  About 35000 athletes entered this year. I found a very good place to see and to take photos. Here was the 40 kms sign, so  the goal was not far from here and I could see the best runners 

.First the women have arrived. 

In the picture there are the winner and the  runner-up, Florence and Edna Kiplagat from Kenya. 

A little later  the men came. On this video you can see  the winner Wilson

Kipsang  and  on the second place Stanley Biwott, both from Kenya. 

Wilson Kipsang  has won  in London the second time and he's also the world recorder.

The favourite of the  audience, the English Mo Farah, - who is the world champion 

and olympic  champion on the 5000 and 10000 meters, -  got only the eighth place.

England 2- Oxford-Cambridge boat race

One week later I went to look at  Oxford-Cambridge boat race in Putney. 

The  weather was slightly  bad. It was gale and in the time of the start it was rainy. 

Nevertheless,   there was a huge crowd on both banks of the Thames. 

The people were able to watch  the race on  big screens too. The race also was a great fun, the people were  eating, drinking and they felt very good.  The first regatta was in 1829. The  idea comes from two friends. who studied at  the rival universities. On the

first regatta  the distance was 6,8 kms (just like today) and the winner was the

Oxford team.  

Until now the Oxford team have won 78 times, Cambridge  81

times and one time  the result  was a draw.  This year the Oxford team won the

race with a big   advantage. The Cambridge team had an accident, for this reason 

the difference  between them was eleven boat length.

(to be continued)

England 1.-Coast

In April, I was in England for more than three weeks.  Most of  the time I took

care  of  my little grandchild, 

 I cooked, I washed, I was shopping   so  I had little  time to look around 

and  to travel.  I managed to travel by car  one day with my son and I saw 

two events, which were interesting for me.

Beachy Head is found next to  Eastbourne, in the southern part of  county Sussex 

on the coast. Here are Britain's highest coastal cliffs, 162 meters above the sea level.

Beachy Head's  name comes from the French word "Beaucheif '  which means a

nice piece on the waterfront. ( Nothing to do with the English word " beach"  )

The area developed in the late Cretaceous period , about 66 to 100 million years

 ago , when it was all over the sea . Later, after the last ice age  the sea level rose,

 and formed the English Channel and limestone cliffs were born of the Sussex

 coast .  The ocean takes away one meter from the cliffs  every year, so it's

dangerous to approach the edges of  the cliffs.  At weekends the coast guard

watches over the shore  to avoid the tourists taking away the white stones.

Beachy Head is one of the most notorious suicide locations in the world ( on

 average there are 20 suicides a year )  The earliest records of suicides are  from the

sixth century . The beautiful countryside was the favourite place  of the German philosopher and thinker  Friedrich Engels. According to his  last wishes,  his ashes

were scattered  in the sea here.

A sight  of the coast is  the Belle Tout lighthouse. 

The original wooden tower was  built in 1828. There were 30 oil lamps, that lit for vessels.  There was often dense  fog, the seamen didn't see the tower because of the low light, so in 1902  a new, 43 meter high lighthouse was built. The seaside was crumbling because of erosion, so  in 1999  the tower was lifted, and was moved 17 meters further back.

( to be continued )

Northern Lights

I had about three great dreams. To see the geysers in Iceland,   walking  in a rain forest and look at  the  northern lights with my own eyes.  The first two were  already successful  and I had a  possibility  to see my third dream  in February.  A small group  left for  Norway, they to make photos of the northern lights.  They looked for one more person for this trip.  I  racked my brains a little and I said yes  I will go.

We arrived  -   after more than four hours flying with one change - at Tromsø. 

The city is 400 km toward the north,  from the arctic circle. Then we drove 70 kilometers by a little bus to a beautiful fjord.  There was a detached house  where  our little group lived for 5 days.

It was comfortable and warm.  This trip  wasn't one where you  could  sleep a lot. We watched the sky  every late  night. The temperature was about minus 15 degrees. And the result arrived.

The first night  we saw very strong and colourful – green, blue and orange - lights . I  cannot  describe the sight, it should be seen there, then on the clear sky  we saw the stars so low that we could almost touch them .   The whole night was amazing.

The other three days the lights were  already weaker, but we looked at them every night, too.

On the last night it was very cloudy and the next morning when we travelled home it was rainy and warmer.

I am glad that I didn't miss out on this journey.