Szekesfehervar, Hungary – it’s a mouthful. And quite honestly, took us most of the week to remember how to say – even after having it explained. Pronounced ‘Saykahs fahair var’ and literally means “Seat of the White Castle”.
We stumbled across this town of about 100,000 by accident. From Budapest, we did a little searching through our Servas list and found a woman who was available and interested in hosting us. It is only 45 mins by train so we figured we’d check it out. And what an incredible week it turned out to be.
First of all, our host Katalin, should be the next spokesperson for DosXX if they ever decide to replace ‘The most interesting man in the world’ with a woman. This lady has seen and done everything. She travels for 3 mos at a time, alone, and is not afraid to go anywhere. In fact, when someone tells her not to visit a city because it is dangerous, she buys tickets the next day.
It was a pleasure and an honor to be her guest for a week. Listening to her incredible adventures and life story was amazing. And best of all, she basically planned our week for us. Not knowing much about Szekesfehervar, she totally hooked us up. Starting with our first night there. We arrived on a Sunday so not much was open, but she directed us to local gastropub, bEAT. What a score this was. Manager Tomas and his staff were so incredibly welcoming to us. The food was highly sophisticated, the ambiance and style were contemporary and funky and the food amazing. We had one mix up due to the language barrier with our waitress. Myla ordered a Dr Pepper (which she hadn’t had in months) and the girl brought out a burger. Turns out they have a burger called a ‘Dr Burger’. She felt bad but we said just to leave it and it was SO delicious!
The highlight of this week for us was that Katalin is a teacher at a bi-lingual (Hungarian/English) school. She arranged for us to go there for 3 days! Having not been around many young people, it was amazing to have our kids get to talk to other kids. Jett went to Kindergarten, made Halloween crafts and dressed up on the last day. The girls, Myla and I sat in on Middle school classes. Some we just observed but several were a Q & A with us. That was great because the kids had many questions about our trip and our life back in California. A common question being “Do you ever see any celebrities?” It was so great to engage with the teachers and students. We often laughed at our cultural and language differences. And we feel so fortunate to have been able to meet with them and learn a little about their lives.
Couple things stood out. The school lunches were friggin’ delicious! Usually, schnitzel with tasty rice. Also, one of the student’s father used to play in the NBA for the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers back in the ‘90s. Kornel David, only Hungarian to do so. Pretty cool. We also learned that they do celebrate Halloween by dressing up but they don’t trick-or-treat. Many people go to cemeteries and remember those that have passed.
The next day, Katalin took us to Bory Var (Bory Castle). Built by sculptor Jenos Bory over the course of 40 years. It’s an elaborately designed structure with his artwork everywhere as well as these elaborate and loving poems to his wife. Having Katalin as a tour guide was so awesome as she was able to explain the history and meaning of all the statues and designs. We also went to a local, indoor pool one day and explored the town centre. There is a toy museum there that has antique doll houses with crazy little hand-crafted kitchen utensils, outfits – amazing details. There was also a puppet theater for the kids to put on a show for us.
Each morning, we would take a bus to the school and back. The woman in the ticket booth didn’t speak any English so Mike would just hold up 8 fingers and smile. (We needed 4 tickets to school and 4 to return since Jett was free). The cost was about 1200 HUF ($4) but Mike would pay her using a 10,000 HUF bill (about $35) because he needed to break it into smaller bills. The lady would get so frustrated because she’d have to make change. On the third day, Mike finally learned how to say “Nyolc yegyek kerleek” or “8 tickets please”. She laughed and nodded, then frowned when he handed her another 10,000 bill.
On our last day it was late afternoon and we were walking past bEAT on our way home. The kids had to use the restroom so we went in and decided to have a glass of wine. Tomas the manager joked, ‘has it been a year already’ since we said we’d come back after our trip. Our same waitress from before seated us and next thing you know we decide to just have dinner – it was getting late, the kids were hungry and the food is amazing. At one point the chef came out to a nearby table. The waitress said that the chef didn’t speak good English but that he wanted us to know that he was happy that we came there and that we enjoyed his food. That was really nice. As we enjoyed our meal, Myla and I noticed that our glasses of wine were much larger than before. We thought maybe it was because we had returned and they were being generous. When we received the bill, however, it was much higher than expected. After inspecting, we had been charged for 2 glasses of wine each time. That was weird. Tomas explained that it was common for people to order a double glass of wine – so somehow the waitress or bartender made that assumption with us. We explained that we specifically asked for 1 glass each time. Since we drank it and enjoyed it we offered to pay the full price – probably about $20 more. But Tomas insisted on refunding us the difference. Another highlight of that night was that they had a young woman accompanied by a guitar singing pop songs but in a mellow, jazz style. We were sad to leave.
In the end, Szekesfehervar was another pleasant surprise along this journey. Something unplanned and totally unexpected. It was a great reminder of why we prefer to fly by the seat of our pants rather than having everything planned out in advance. Sure this approach can be challenging, stressful and even costly on occasion. But overall, it always leads to amazing and memorable experiences. Koszonom (thank you) and Szia (good bye) Szekesfehervar!
Stivers Tribe 