Láska = Love (in Slovak)

This is a small video I found last week on one of biggest Slovakian newspapers webpage. I miss this poetic way of expression from my daily life, though I would prefer it in Hungarian, this little video made me dream... As I think of myself as a romantic pessimist the topic fits me well...

The video is in my eyes made in high quality, the texts and audio is very harmonic. Good job... hope they've got the rights to publish such a masterpiece :P

My grandfathers stories...

In the old days, just after the world war two, Bratislava (Pozsony, Pressburg) was a city that spoke three languages: German, Hungarian and Slovak. It was a mixed population because Austrians (who speak German) and Hungarians ruled the country before the first world war, and Slovaks after the war. He was telling a lot of short stories, about his friends who spoke all those three languages perfectly. As good, that he could even interpret jokes... It became a measurement for me to decide how good one can speak foreign languages + how quick someone's mind can improvise...

One of the stories he told us, and left on me the biggest impression was from his childhood. Once an airplane was shot down above his village. He was a teenager during the WWII. He went to the site and saw the wreck. The pilot was not able to catapult out of the plane anymore. He saw a long bloody, brainy line which leaded to a haystack, with the remains of the dead body. He never forgot the site.

In another story he told about the socialistic Slovakia. He studied as a dentist in Bratislava. He met my grandmother there, and they fell in love. After he finished the university he wanted to practice as a dentist near his hometown, where he had his friends, family and the Hungarian community. There is still a huge Hungarian community in the south of Slovakia.
A way to try to assimilate Hungarians at that time was to send the educated people as far away as possible. He was assigned a working place in the middle of Slovakia, as he went to ask for a different place he was transferred even further away. So he went there to work, and traveled back every weekend to my grandmother. He traveled half a year there and back, just to be with my grandmother.
As usually in the socialism corruption was the right way. My grandmother went to the office a thousand times, when her father finally gave her money. She put the money on the table, when a stranger came in out of the door and put some files on the money (coincidence?). She then hoped, that the bribe was successful. And it was. It took another bribe for my grandfather to get at the place he wanted, but those are only details... His strong will gave him what he needed, as in so many stories.

He had also a lot of stories about spies. One of the ways socialism held its power was, that you could never know who is a spy from your friends. The secret police could come to you any time, interrogate you on a false suspect and send you to Siberia to work (only a few people came back from there, and no one knew how long their going to be there) or make you a spy (=informer) also. As an informer you had to write down, what you were talking about with some specified people. There was no need in this system to have a lot of informers, the knowledge, that they were some made the people very suspicious to others. He told a story about losing some of his friends to the system.

In my mind he will live on as a strong man, who knew what he wanted, and acted upon that. His life was defined by his work, it managed to let him live on. He understood the people, and had a lot of friends. He loved his nationality, his hometown, his family. He was a good man.

on the 13.September 2008, in the age of 78 years, my grandfather died of lung cancer. May he rest in peace, next to the God, he believed so strong in his life.

Say thank you once in a while

And ask for it from those who you trust.

External memory

This is just a short note for myself... this short poem, which I know exists in many languages, and comes most propably from the English language is one of the few poems that stuck in my head so strong, that I still remember it. So I want to write it here to not forget...

János bácsi a csatában,
János bácsi a csatában,
János bácsi a csatában,
Elesett egy fűszállban!

Arra járt egy indiánus,
Arra járt egy indiánus,
Arra járt egy indiánus,
És szívébe lándzsát szúrt!

János bácsi testét kukacok eszik,
János bácsi testét kukacok eszik,
János bácsi testét kukacok eszik,
És az egyik felkiált!

Jaj de büdös ez a János,
Jaj de büdös ez a János,
Jaj de büdös ez a János,
Ez a lábát nem mossa!

As it was never easy for me to turn down a request, I won't do it this time neighter. After making a quick search around this songs history, I found out the original song comes from the USA and is called: John Brown's Body (click here for wikipedia entry and here for youtube video). Now it is a bit more painful to translate the text as it is definitely not as glorious as the original one was, I would say quite the opposite is true...

Uncle John in the battle
fell over a leaf of grass

An Indian went that way
And stab a spear in his heart

Worms eat the body of Uncle John
When one of them screams out loud

How stinky this John is,
He must have never washed his legs.

I definitely remember this song, because I though it was funny, and still have to smile when remembering it.

and another one:

100 forintnak 50 a fele
Egye meg a fészkes fekete fene
Nem lehet az ember fából
Ki kell rúgni a hámfából!

Azt mondják hogy részeges vagyok,
Pedig csak a jó bort szeretem nagyon!
Megverem a csizmám szárát
Csókolom a babám száját!

A kecskémnek nagy szakálla van
Az én anyósomnak nagy pofája van
Rusnya állat mind a kettő
Verje meg a jeges eső

Peace in the eye of the observer

I was waiting in a line this week for hours when I saw one of natures most beautiful wonders. I looked in front of me and I drifted away...
I was in a valley. Everywhere around me mountains reaching up to the sky. Full of live. My body wanted to climb them... Near my path between the trees and flowers birds were singing. On the way up a small reflection of light blinded me, so I turned and slowly, cautiously approached the light. It came from a small cave. When I enter it, I saw a small underground lake being lit by the morning sun. I sat down for a few minutes to enjoy the sight and moved on. Slowly moving up the hill the forest got thicker, my strength faded slowly, while my wish to get up grew stronger every second. After a while I slowly lifted my head and looked around. I was at the top. Happy. I spotted my soul on the horizon...
I was in a valley. Everywhere around me mountains reaching up to the sky. Such a perfect blue sky. No clouds to disturb the view. I closed my eyes for a second, while my soul slowly elevated up to the sky. When I opened my eyes I saw how I slowly pass the mountains behind me. I wished to have wings. I felt a small warmness on my back and my wish came true. I grew wings. I started to fly in circles. A bliss overwhelmed me. The seconds felt like an eternity.
Then I looked down and saw my self in the waiting line... I should have maybe said something. Something like:
"Please deliver my sincere acknowledgment to your parents, for these are the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen."

Peace in the eye of the observer

(by clicking on the picture you get the high-res photo)

The fields around Dunajska Streda in July.

A feather in a forrest

An explosion of colors

ps: dedicated to Elise and her Moments of peace

Szőttes folk dance camp 2008

From the 4th of August till the 10th I was in Várhosszúrét (Search for : Krásnohorská Dlhá Lúka) near Rozsnyó (Rožňava) which lies in east Slovakia. I was attending a folk dance camp there with a good friend of mine, Gábor.

Lets start from the beginning on: in June on a short notice I started to visit a Hungarian folk dance group called Szőttes (twice a week 2-3 hours). And there, as they wanted us to join the group, we were motivated to come to this camp, as we would learn a lot there. When it was clear that I won't get my internship trough IAESTE to Spain I was happy that I have at least something to look forward to.

We were sleeping in tents, had a great weather (it rained just on Monday and Saturday). The little village and the mountains around it were breathtaking. It was like beeing stuck in time. The calm surrounding with the traditional carvings. One of the local pubs was having a traditional design. But of course one of the local shops and the local "house of culture" (the place where the cultural presentations used to be in a village during socialism - concerts, presentations, meetings) where having the typical minimalistic construction. Most probably they were built during the socialism. Nevertheless those were insignificant in the whole picture of the village. The small Hungarian community gave me a very pleasant feeling.

The program - 6 days 3+3 hours of dancing a day + during the night there was a dance house. We learned traditional Hungarian dances from two regions (Mátyusföldi and Kalotaszegi). We started with the Kalotaszegi (from the village Bogártelek) dances. They were according to me much easier then the Matyusföldi dances, though the second one is much more fun :) Of course we learnded just the basics of these dances, but it was very interesting for me to see the little differences in them. Also the character of the Matyusföldi dance catched me. It was very much like a game, with a lot of moves, were you change get away, got close, run away, court your partner...

The Bogartelki dance:


Is definitely more fun when you're there ;)


The only problem with the whole show was, that I had an inflamation of my right ear the whole time, so no alcohol, nor staying up long through the night for me :( Definitely missed a lot of fun.

Of course from time to time the question popped in my mind why so few people are interested in folk dances nowadays, when it is so much fun. Somewhere on the way to the 21th century people were having so many new things around them that they forgot the old ways. Thank god I was never a type of a guy who just walked with the stream, and figured, that there is much more to see and enjoy!

more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/hajdupeti/SzottesTabor2008

A small movie

12 minutes (+titles), a short movie when you don't know what to do... It's called: Our Time Is Up from the director Rob Pearlstein
(a psychologist who gets to know, that he has six weeks to live and so decided to tell the truth...)


This reminded me of a TED talk I saw recently, about positive psychology, where the guest presenter says, that he wanted to make miserable people happy with psychology. But he got only to the point where he got the people in a state of emptiness. This is where he started to search why people are happy. See what they found out till now.


Are you living a happy life?

How politics work

After the last elections in Slovakia, the political party SMER-SD with it's leader Fico got the best results. After the elections I have seen the small video clip below, which pretty nicely describes his tactic between the voters, and works marvelously. Czechs made a lot of good movies during the socialism, some extrelmy funny ones, and some with words of wisdom like this. I tried to translate it from czech... I had my difficulties in the process, but hopefully it understandable :)



Grandpa: What is our strategy for the campaign before the elections?
Candidate: ...
G: That everyone should have everything. Am I right?
C: Yeah, of course.
G: Every dumb ass knows that. But, what strategy to use to get to this? ... Come on, say it. ... So that everyone won't have anything.
C: No way!
G: Yeah. We just won't tell anyone. Just like you can't allow anyone to think, that you don't understand something. Your the head of the city, that means that you understand everything!
C: But I can't do that!
G: I know that to, but you can't let that show! See, the only thing you really must know is, that you need to know something about everybody... But be aware! Most importantly with those people who understand this.
C: Gramps, were did you take this from?..
G: ..and be careful! With the nit witted people be gracious! Show them that, that anything the clever people say is complete idiocy! Cause you can't argue with those who understand it, so you'll hurt your reputation! Because if you don't have the aggrieved, the harmed and the incompetent on your side, then you won't get far. Remember that!

Title of the movie: Tri chlapi v chalupe

Deevastating icy rain

A few weeks ago there was a huge icy rain in here. In a near city it had horrifying effects (roof, cars destroyed). I was home, we had "just" nut sized ice pieces falling down... at my grandparents place the ice stayed for another half an hour in the garden. I didn't make pictures from my grandparents garden before the accident just this one:

We were there to cut the wine, cause there were to many fruits (are they called bunches?) on them. Just 1 day before the rain :(

The garden afterward: