Gratitude 19

I am thankful for the brilliant day of hiking in the Buda hills that sweet Klára and Roland took us on yesterday. :)

So hiking...yeah...it was hiking, not "oh, we'll just wander around the hills." Um...no. It was really hiking. But it was a great time. I'm not the "outdoors-y" type, but this was cool....a good change of pace for me...and a little adventure, too.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day on Saturday. Szép erdö as it is said in Hungarian. The perfect (tökéletes) day for the Buda hills. Last weekend, we got rained out of going, but not this weekend. :) We woke up early (for a Saturday) and caught the 8:47am train to Budapest where Klára and Roland were to meet us at the Nyugati station.

On the train, I attempted to practice some solfege, but that didn't work out so much...lasted about 15 minutes. Oh, well. I met a young man studying medicine in Szeged. He was reading a book in English by an American publisher, so I asked him where he was from...turns out he's actually Hungarian. We talked for a few minutes...then he found out I was studying singing...the conversation quickly died off. Guess, he didn't like that so much. haha! The older man across from me starting talking to me near the end of the journey. He, of course, spoke only Hungarian. I didn't understand a whole lot, but I got a basic gist of the questions he was asking. I got to put my limited Hungarian skills to the test! My vocabulary is growing, and I am actually retaining more than I thought! :) It was kind of fun/humorous. When I really didn't understand, I looked over to the "medicine man" for translation, but he wasn't much help.

Klára and Roland were waiting for us at the station and were ecstatic to see us. They are so adorable (and so spry!)! Such wonderful (and extremely brilliant!) people! (They had matching bags, too! hehe!) After a stop at the W/C, we hopped on a bus that we rode for probably 30-40 minutes! So long! It took us over to the Buda side of Budapest to a ski lift-type thing, which we rode up, up, up. It was so peaceful up as you went up. Quite a bit like home with the trees and "country-side" and hills and birds, etc. Roland and I were seated together on the lift. He's a great man, but a little awkward when it comes to conversation. Once you start talking, he's fine, but it is at first, "What do you talk about?" He had me look back when we were getting closer to the top, and you can see nearly all of downtown Budapest behind you. It was so cool! At the top, we traveled up yet more on foot to a look-out tower.

We stuck around there for awhile, had a bit of our lunches...and Klára brought us chocolate! (She had promised in Solfege class to do so!)..., and then Casey was trying to teach Roland to tap dance! Roland was so concentrated trying to figure it out. haha!

From there, we hiked up an even steeper hill. We had to climb through tangles of trees and hike up/over rocks jutting around the hillside. What a workout! haha! We passed by a "children's train station," which is really a train station (most for tourists that goes through the area of the Buda hills) and is run entirely by school children. Well, except for the actual operation of the locomotive. It was like they were playing "Thomas the Train Engine"! How cute!

We made our way to two other look-out points, getting the opportunity to survey the area of Budapest. The views were incredible. There were a few times when I forgot that Budapest was right over the hills...it was kind of a "brain cleanser"...I think I needed some time out of the Institute and away from "reality."

All through our journey, Klára was teaching me more Hungarian. She says I am picking it up so quickly. Perhaps, it is because of my singing, and wanting what I sing to sound "authentic," so I listen closely to the inflection and pronunciation...especially when I am with natives of the language. Plus, I am singing a couple of pieces in Hungarian, so I want them to be acurate. I think that Hungarian is a very "harmonious" language...they even have things in their grammar of "vowel harmony." It was good to practice and expand what I know. I told Klára that if I was just dropped into the country and no one spoke English to me, I'd be fabulous at Hungarian. I only hope that once I return to the States, I do not lose the little pieces of this language I am collecting. I guess I'll just have to talk with my friend Noémi a lot for when I return here someday.

Roland and I pretty much had a mini chamber music session at one point in our hike, too. He caught me humming Kocsi széker, a Hungarian folk song that Kodály arranged into a voice and piano art song. It is a simple yet great little piece...only two pages...and I had sat down and learned it only the previous night. (Like I said...it is very simple....do-la hexachord structure...however, not all Hungarian folk songs are easy...A csitari...not so simple!) I dropped off of my humming to ask Roland which direction to go, and Roland inquisitively asked, "Was that the piece I gave?" After that, we had probably a 15 minute conversation on the text of the piece. It was nice, though. (note: You never go anywhere with your teachers and not learn something! They always sneak it in there!) I was curious as to what it meant, anyway, since I couldn't figure out the word-by-word Hungarian translation I had attempted to do. I think Roland has a trend going, though...first a Hugo Wolf piece called Ich hab' in Penna einen Liebsten wohnen, in which the setting implies girls in a small village (19th century era) gossiping around the well about "lovers" and finding a man....and now, Kocsi széker, which is about girl in a village talking/dreaming about getting married next winter...if she finds a man. I asked him, "Roland, what is this?" He insists that is only coincidential, and he didn't even realize till I had now pointed it out. Whatever. They are at least brilliant pieces of music.

At the end of our trek, we ate lángos, probably the most fattening food ever but very delicious. It is similar to the American doughboy, but instead of cinnamon sugar, it has garlic and sour cream and cheese on it. Mmm! But very unhealthy! Roland wanted to get us palinka (uh oh!), too, but they did not have it at that place.

We left them about 4pm. Two girls went back on the next train, and myself, Clare, Hilary, and Casey stayed in Budapest for a bit. We sat at a cafe across from the Liszt Academy and had some food and drink and then went to a highly-recommended Irish bar near the Nyugati station (Clare and Hilary are Irish.). Clare introduced me to Sambuca, which is a licorice-flavoured liqueur and fills your mouth with bursts of the flavor of black licorice. I had a small bit. It was quite nice. I left on the 7:50pm train because I was very tired by then, and they followed on the last train of the night. On the train, I met two really nice Americans, husband and wife George and Sue. (You don't get much more American than those names!) George was on a sabbatical teaching at the ceramics institute across town that Sophie had gone to. We walked and talked all the way from the train station to the Institute. Then, we went our separate ways. It's amazing how many Americans I have met...just a couple of weeks ago, I met people from Cleveland outside the Institute door! Weird! Oh, well.

This is already probably the longest post in history, but I shall quickly catch up on what happened over the rest of this past week:

Wednesday, I received a letter from my dear friend Noémi. How fun! And it was so good to hear from her! :) Ironically enough, I was intending to write her a letter and then about ten minutes later, I received hers!

Thursday, Solfege was frustrating but all will be fine. I amazingly remained quite in check with my frustration! Klára gets more strict and intense by the day, but it is only for the best. I need the challenges to grow and develop as a musician. Methodology did not go well at all and put me in not-so-great a mood. I still had chamber music and a voice lesson after it, and I was a little worried I was going to crack. However, Roland put me in a happier mood during chamber music. We made huge strides from the previous week. I was dancing around and just being...well, me. It was fun. He is teaching me to really adopt the characters of my pieces, which is really important.

My lesson with János continued to be great accomplishments. I think I am actually figuring out this whole "resonance" deal! ...it only took me three years! haha! It is as if a whole new dimension/capacity of my voice is being unlocked! :) He is very strict, but again, it is necessarily so. Comments that Lynn has made to me over the past two years are coming up in his speech, too, like, "I know you don't particularly like coloratura, Samantha, but I know your voice...it has to move, whether you fight it or not." They are both right, and I have actual come to like coloratura stuff...learning it, however, is the biggest beast. It's a process. Someday I'll get it. He and Lynn are determined to pry it out of me, too. haha! Funny János moment:

János: (completely straight-faced) Snort, please.

Me: What?!

J: Snort, please. Do it!

Me: *snort*

J: Jó. Again, please.

Me: You just think it's funny.

J: Yes, it is funny (him giggling), but do it again!

Crazy man!

Conducting on Friday with Zoltán was a hoot! He decided to interpret the English lyrics of a Hungarian folk song (which apparently had nothing to do with the original Hungarian words). It was hilarious! I think we laughed for a good 10 minutes! It was just the funniest picture...him walking his tuning fork around the table as if it was a little doll of a girl and then plopping her into the sea...then he said, "As if there's a sea in all of Hungary!? It must have been a lake. Oh! The shark ate her!...because of course there's sharks in the lake!" He was just so animated about it, too! Oh, boy! Gotta love Hungarians! haha! :)