Day 5 - A Long Way For Nothing

No, the title doesn't say it all, I did get something out of today's trip to the cemetery in Gyongyos, but not exactly what I had hoped for.

Got up at about 6:15 to the beautiful tune of my cell phone, ugh. Diane got up with me and cooked a wonderful breakfast of... apple and cheese strudels. Oh, guess I forgot to mention the cheeeeeeeese strudel yesterday (no, not Hogan's Heros - it's from Wallace and Gromet.) and tea. Ok, so she didn't cook the strudel, but still, she was nice enough to get up and put it together for me. Love that woman.

7am came too soon, and so I ran downstairs and caught a taxi back to the same train station as yesterday. This is getting monotonous - but still enjoying it. One of the fun things about the Keleti train station in Budapest is that the trains are outdoors, and the indoor section is huge, but it's open to the outside on the rear of the station where the trains are so there's no heating. I arrived a bit earlier than I thought, about an hour too early.  And it was pretty chilly. So what you find are people squirreled away in a far corner of the station by the ticket counter where it's enclosed to avoid the draft and wind, but no heat. So that's where I sat for about the next 30 minutes until the train was ready to board. But first, I wanted to check that I was in the right place and going to get on the right train.

A funny thing about the electronic information board in the station that that it gives you the end station, but not the stops in-between. Although I saw a train scheduled to leave at the appointed time of my train, it wasn't exactly clear if it was mine. The end stop was Sátoraljaújhely (please don't ask me to pronounce it - because I can't,) but I wasn't certain if Gyongyos was along the way, and didn't want to end up in Auschwitz by accident. It has happened before, you know. 

I sauntered over to the information counter, noted by the pleasing letter "i". After the cleaning lady and the woman behind the Plexiglas finished their conversation lasting several minutes, I asked the bejeweled, and obviously very well-maintained middle-aged woman behind the Plexiglas if she could confirm which train is for Gyongyos. So she turned to her trusty computer and started typing - well, more like hunt n pecking with 1 finger - slowly - very slowly. She typed pecked. And then she typed pecked some more. And then some more. And then some more. And then a bit more (you getting the point here?) This was getting painful. I was getting worried that I was going to miss the train (this could be a good thing if it was going to Ausch... oh never mind.) So I just blerted out "Is it the train on track 13?" And after a few more seconds, she said "yes." And then she printed out a paper that gave me the same information that was on the electronic information board. Sheesh! I have no idea how long I would have been waiting if I hadn't TOLD HER the track number. With expertise like that, I haven't a clue how she can afford to keep up her appearance. Oh, right, this is Hungary and she works for the government. How could I forget? I guess the old days are still with us to some extent.

So I found the train and hopped aboard. Now my cousin Zora, who is a really, really nice lady, had purchased the tickets for me a few days prior for second class seats. First class would have cost only 300 forints more - about $6 additional each way. I guess she was looking out for my best interests. But it was ok as I was only going for an hour's ride. My problem was that I had no idea which cars were first class and which were second. So I made a left turn and entered one of the cars. Other than the trip to Vienna, and a previous train ride from Hannover, Germany to the airport in Frankfurt back in 2001, I had never been on a train in Europe. This one had enclosed compartments that seated several people. Never been on one of these before, but have seen them in countless movies from the 1940s. I looked in the compartment which was empty, and simply noticed that the headrest had a cloth covering. Since I wasn't sure about which car, I decided to check out the next car, and this one did not have the headrest covering, so I made the assumption that this was second class. I was to find out later that I chose wisely.  Chalk one up for Zora for saving me $12 for not having a cloth covering on the headrest.

The ride to Gyongyos was pretty boring, unless you like to look at tall weeds along the way and decrepit houses for an hour. Actually the train was going to Vamosgyork, and I was supposed to change trains there for Gyongyos, but the person meeting me decided to pick me up at Vamosgyork, about 10 minutes from Gyongyos. That was a very nice gesture, and a heck of a tongue-twister as well.

Surprisingly, the train arrived on time at Vamosgyork (pronounced something like vamosh-djork, with the accent on the first syllable.)  However, my contact was going to be 10 minutes late, as I saw in her text message. So I went to the WC for some relief. As I walked into the WC, I only noticed toilets, no urinals, so I assumed it was bi a common facility. After finishing, I opened the door, and was greeted  by a small woman in a red coat entering the WC, simultaneously thinking that I had just made a very interesting faux paux, while at the same time she looked at me and said "Jerry?" Now I must say, it isn't often that I exit a bathroom, probably the wrong bathroom at that, and am confronted by a woman calling my name. Actually, it's never happened in my entire life before this moment! I couldn't see it, but my face must have been a priceless contortion of ohmygodwhatdidIjustdo? and the color red. After a brief hug with my contact (of course it HAD to be HER that caught me, and not someone from, well, Vamosgyork,) she went into the WC, and I just had to confirm my thinking. So I nervously looked back at where I had been, and what I had missed, Of course I had used the woman's WC. Hey, I don't know the words for Men and Women when it comes to Hungarian bathrooms, and there were no international stick figures to help! This is waaaayyyy out in the boonies where they don't speak English, and some still carry a hammer and sickle. So when she came out, we had a good laugh at my expense. And of course, she had to tell her male companion who didn't speak a lick of English. And he laughed too. Good way to break the ice I guess.

So we went into town to get the key to the cemetery from a man who owned a dress shop, first making a short stop for some tea. Well, I found out that nothing takes a short time out here. Took a bit to get going, and to get the check. But once done, we walked about 3 more stores down the street and entered the dress shop. The owner, Mr. Waldner, is an older fellow who belongs to the only Jewish family in town. Gyongyos was once a prominent and very wealthy Jewish community in this part of Hungary. We all know how and when that ended.

While Agnes, (my contact) and her companion Joska, were talking to the man about the key, a woman, who appeared to be his daughter, and a younger man, who was probably his grandson, began speaking to me in English! I was impressed. Not only did they speak English pretty well for being out in the boonies, but the woman mentioned that she was related to the same family name that I am looking for in the cemetery. Now in truth, the only given names I know are those of my ggg-grandparents from the 1850s, so it would be a stretch to say that they were my cousins. But you never know. We had a nice chat, and they took my email address should something interesting show up, like a nice dress for my wife, or maybe a fully completed family tree? Now that would be nice (and a lot less expensive)!

So after a walk around town a bit with a stop at the old synagogue that is now a second-hand clothing and furniture store (remember there's only 1 Jewish family in town these days, many of the rest are neo-Nazis and communists - really), we went to the cemetery.

Now the last time I was here was 9 years ago, and the grass was tall, and the brambles and weeds were hell. As we drove up I could already see the weeds growing over the 8 foot high brick wall. Uh oh. Here we go again. The cemetery was at least as bad, if not worse, than it was 9 years ago. I would have thought that by this time, someone would have done something about it. Well, I earned the first part of the "assume" parable.

So we go into the cemetery and I just start snapping away with my camera. I had enough capacity in memory for about 1200 shots. The camera battery and my energy would probably run out before the memory.

My goals here were twofold; to try to find potential relatives/ancestors, and to take pictures of as many headstones as I could for the Jewish organization I support called JewishGen. I did my best, really. The thickets were thick, the brambles were brambly, and the stickers were, ouch, stickly. This was a labor of love, to say the least. It had to be in order for me to be willing to spill my blood, sweat and tears as I did earlier today. I had taken about 200 pictures, was absolutely drenched from head to toe in sweat, with a little blood on the side, and had no idea if any of the pictures would even come out well enough for anyone to transcribe. The sun was on the wrong side of the headstones as well (behind.) And to top it all off, I found nothing of interest for my personal family research. Came a long way for nothing.

After two hours of back-breaking and blood-letting, Agnes said the men had had enough. She said they were hungry. They weren't hungry - they were bored. The two men sat in the car for 2 hours while Agnes and I worked our butts off taking pictures in the cemetery that one of those two men is supposed to maintain. But I had had enough as well, and there was no more I could do anyway. Out of about 1000 headstones, I captured nearly 200. The rest are either too far gone from decay and acid rain, or they were just too deep in the forest of nature's reclamation process to get to.

So after dropping off the man from the shop, we went to lunch in town. We sat down and opened our menus. In many restaurants in Budapest the menus have some English. Not out here. Hungarian. So Agnes, being as nice as she is, tries to determine what I wanted to eat. She gave me a few items to choose from, including chicken and Ostrich. Not having tried the Ostrich here in Hungary previously, I chose the chicken, and some soup. I must say, I had no idea what the green in the soup was, but it was really good. And the chicken was pretty good as well.

Lunch was coming along, and it was a real shame that I wasn't able to have a discussion with Agnes' friend Joska. So Agnes flipped back and forth, having discussions with each of us for a few minutes at a time. She's good.

This was the end of the day for me here in Gyongyos, and Joska and Agnes drove me to the train station. On the way, chatting with Agnes, I had mentioned that I had hit a brick wall, both here and in Eger, the nearby town where my great-grandfather was born, and where my gg-grandfather was a teacher, and where he got married to the woman from Gyongyos. I mentioned to her that the Jewish records stop in 1850, and that I needed to go back one more generation to connect some missing connections. She turned to me and said "No they don't." During her research (she's a Ph.D. and an award-winning Jewish history researcher) she found earlier records in the university of Eger, and promised to review them for me soon. Wow! That could be great for my research. At that, we parted.

The trip back to Budapest was quiet and uneventful, as this was becoming old-hat now.

I think the important lesson of the day is - learn the difference between the Hungarian words "Men" and "Women!"

Touring more of Budapest tomorrow.

Jó éjt (good night)