Fulbright March Gathering

Thomas, Carol, and I boarded the 11:23 train in Pecs for the start of the March Fulbright gathering. In Domobvar, we were joined by Richard and Wendy. When we were about 20 minutes out of Budapest, the conductor came to our area of the car with a University of Pecs student who spoke excellent English. He explained there was "chaos at Keleti" and that the conductor advised that we get off at the Kelenfold station and take a bus into Budapest. We agreed and by the time we got to Kelenfold station, the announcement came that the train was officially terminating at that station. The student assisted with buying Metropasses and getting us on the right bus. It took us right to the Ter at which our hotel is located. Couldn't have been better.

On Thursday evening, Thomas, Carol and I took the Metro a couple of stations and met Harry and Tari. We had a lovely dinner together at the Gerlocsky Cafe. Each of us chose something diffferent and every entree was excellent as was the conversation.

On Friday morning we were out the door around 7:30 going to Batthyany Ter to meet up with the entire group and catch our private bus. This is a beautiful Ter. I enjoyed the flags waving in the breeze in front of the church spires.

We went first to Pazmany Peter University north of Budapest in the Piliscsaba Mountains. We met again with the university doctoral student who did the architecture lecture at our orientation. He first explained more about his dissertation which is the spatial and literature representations of 9/11 trauma. He described the books he is analyzing for his dissertation and also explained how the memorials to 9/11 fit into his analysis. I found it fascinating that someone outside of our country is so interested in this topic, but perhaps it must be someone outside of the US to bring this perspective to the events.

Then he went on to explain the architecture of the university, which is heavily influence by the work of Imre Makovecz, one of the leaders in organic architecture.

Above is the outside view of the building in which we gathered. Non-eculid geometry is another part of Makovecz's work.

At the left are some examples of his spaces at Pazmany Peter. We see the group geting organized for the presentation and then the ceiling of the room in better detail.

But is was the atrium area of this building that "knocked me out." I've never before seen anything like this in my life. Trees and then Greek columns all mixed up together.

This column is quite inventive. One can see if has a whole in one side. That opens into a winding stair to the upper levels of the building.

Another buildings in the university complex are re-purposed Soviet Army barracks. I tried to take a photo to show that anything that is white is part of the old barracks building and anything gray is new space added into the buildings.

There still remains one old Soviet building on the campus. Someday when there in enough money, this builiding will be taken down and University library built in its place.

This was a truly fascinating visit. We then drove about 45 minutes and crossed over the Maria Valeria bridge into the town of Parkany/Sturova in Slovakia. This appears to be quite a new town when looking at the present buildings, but in fact goes back to the days of the Romans. This town has a huge population of ethnic Hungarians, and all the signs are in both languages. However, it is Slovakia. I ducked into a bank and got Euros out of the ATM to start my stash towards the funds I'll need for the Berlin trip in a couple of weeks.

We also had lunch here in a restaurant called Casablanca. How's that for a Central European name?

My meal began with  fruit soup. Yum!

The main entree was pork roast and saurkraut with a steamed bread. This bread was very unusual, but very good for soaking up the meat juices.

One of the reasons one comes to Parkany is to get the best view across the river of the Eszetergom Basilica.

We went back across the river to see the church. It is magnificent.

The church also includes a 15 century funeral chapel. This was saved from earlier versions of the church, dismantled and then built into the side of the present church. It has beautiful marbles of several different colors.

We headed back to Budapest after this visit. Everyone else had dinner plans so I relaxed a bit and then had dinner at Burger King!