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A Family Trip to Erdely

March 30, 2002

Written May 4, 2002

Dear Friends and Family,

This episode is embarrassingly late. Over a month ago, we were bouncing through Romania and I couldn't wait to share our adventure with "the diary people". Well, I waited. And waited. And waited. Sorry. But now it's here, a bit abbreviated, but here.

Klara, one of Marianne's cousins in Budapest, had invited us on a family excursion to the part of Romania called Erdely by Hungarians and Transylvania by the rest of us. Timing was good since we had put away our car in Austria and planned to take the train back home to Kyiv via Budapest. A five-day excursion sounded interesting. It was.

Our train ride from Vienna to Budapest was pleasant and uneventful. Klara met us at the station and took us home to dinner with husband Gabor and their two boys Dani and Adam. At our evening planning session, we learned that the start time was five o'clock the next morning. We needed an early start because we had almost 700 kilometers (430 miles) to cover on Day 1. In the end, the day turned out longer than either Klara or Gabor had hoped or we had imagined.

Alarms sounded at 4:00 and mumbling started immediately, but we did make it into our two cars promptly at 5:00. We drove downtown to pick up more folks, many more. On the first leg of the journey there were 14 of us in three cars. Our caravan headed up and rolled out, across the Danube and outta' town.

We went only about an hour before we pulled into a pleasant Hungarian village to have breakfast at somebody's gramma's house. She had ridden down from Budapest but turned down our odyssey invitation in favor of her peaceful village. We were met by even more relatives. About 20 of us crowded into a tiny kitchen for a bread and cheese breakfast. It was fun. It's been many decades since I've been around my own extended family, but the confusion and chaos felt familiar. Hanging around the small yard seemed like the perfect start of our excursion to Erdely.

Now, a little Erdely (pronounced "air-day") background. Europe's history of wars in the 19th and 20th centuries, and the subsequent border treaties generally punishing the losers, left behind unhappy peoples from the Balkans to the Baltics. Following World War I, Hungary's territory was halved by the Treaty of Trianon when Erdely was shifted to Romania and various other parts of the old Hungarian Empire were shifted to other neighbors. With the breakup of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia in the last decade, some of the WWI border creativity has unraveled, but some Hungarians still strive for more "restoration of historical boundaries". We were going to the heart of such Magyar nationalism.

Getting there was not quick or easy. The Hungarian highway was OK but two-lane with all the passing that involves. We were glad someone else was driving. When we reached Romania, we were reminded that this was not the European Union. A half-hour of border formalities and money changing was still required. We all became millionaires (one million Romanian Leu = $31). Five days later the process had to be reversed, but on the return, the delay was more than doubled.

Once into Romania, the roads changed. The two lanes were smaller and rougher. The 700 kilometers passed very slowly. From time to time we'd stop for a quick visit at a site important to local history. A few times we dined, on either the tailgate or the hood of one of the cars. Mostly we just drove. And drove. And drove.

By sunset, we were driving through an industrial valley where the air pollution made pictures better and smells much worse. Still we drove on. Our destination was a small pension (bed and breakfast) in a small town named Gheorgeni in Romanian, Gyergyoszentmiklos in Hungarian and Niklasmarkt in German. Reading road signs here is complicated by the practice of showing not just the Romanian name but, maybe if the town has changed names over the years, also a Hungarian, and occasionally, a German one.

We didn't get to our hotel until 9:00, 15 hours after we left home. Dinner had been held for several hours, so our day was stretched just a bit longer as our crew of 13 devoured the first of our home cooked meals. Each of the five days of our Erdely adventure involved long drives, sightseeing, tailgate lunches, and late dinners, so this particular day was a good initiation.

(We will show some of the important tourist stops in another diary to keep this one a reasonable size. For now, here's some insight into our "normal road life".)

We ate an early breakfast and a late dinner every day at a huge table made by the hotel owner/host. There was always a lot of talking but not much English, I'm afraid. I'd get a summary from Marianne or Klara. Our host and hostess (Picture 6 3310085) would often describe the lives and struggles of the resident Hungarians and express their desire for reunification with the old country.

Most of the food was locally grown and traditionally prepared. The food was tasty and probably pretty healthy. Even the water was from a special well and its salty taste was touted as health-beneficial. It reminded me of computer software where peculiar performance is called "a feature" instead of a problem. Of course, we drank more than just healthy water.

We were generally offered "palinka" (Hungarian moonshine) each meal or other festive gathering. It was made from a variety of fruits or vegetables and ranged between 35% and 60 % alcohol. It was definitely not health food but we had to toast "to health" from time to time. Marianne also managed to pick up a two-liter bottle of cabernet wine at the local market for about a dollar. It was worth that and more: more, but not much more.

Our days seemed to be spent driving for hours, jumping out to see a Hungarian grave or some such monument, back in the car, out for lunch smorgasbord on the hood or tailgate, back into the cars, out again for a picture, back in, and later out again for souvenirs. Etc.

Speaking of souvenirs, we found some real bargains. Some, like the strange wigs cousins Tibi and Gyuri tried on were easy to pass up. Marianne and I were limited by space, but we did get a very nice table runner and the inevitable post cards. Gradually, the three cars filled to overflowing as our crowd bought pottery, carvings, homemade cheese, and palinka.

Our favorite souvenir vendor was Zoltan. He couldn't stop talking from the moment we showed up in his shop until we drove off. His patter was funny, even though I could not understand the Hungarian part and it was sometimes difficult to recognize the English part. He succeeded in getting our cars stuffed yet a little more.

At the end of each day, we would return to another home-cooked dinner, always later than we had planned. As the only non-Hungarian speaker, I was spared the after dinner political and family discussions. Mostly, I was spared any discussion at all. That was just as well because this tourism business is difficult and all I wanted to do was crash, so I could be ready for another round the next day.

So, was it worthwhile? Absolutely. Marianne and I enjoyed the company of all the family. Marianne particularly appreciated the opportunity to spend time with family she may otherwise get to see only every several years. Marianne also enjoyed talking in her "native" Hungarian to almost everyone we met. It was hard to remember that this was Romania, not Hungary. We won't wait so long for our next visit.

We learned about a part of European history that gives us added perspective, not only to events in Hungary but also to difficulties of peacefully dealing with a broader Europe.

And we saw some wonderfully beautiful and colorful landscapes, towns and villages. But that's the next story.

Take care and vote for leaders who can remove borders, not rearrange them.

John and Marianne.