This blog is about my time as a Fulbright recipient to Hungary 2014-2015. This blog is not an official Department of State website, and that the views and information presented are my own and do not represent the Fulbright Program or the Department of State.
Every month, we have a Fulbright event and our March event was a trip to the Liszt Academy of Music.
The school is named after the famous pianist, composer, and educator Liszt Ferenc (or more commonly Franz Liszt). He helped start the Academy in 1875. During our visit, we toured the building and learned about the history of the school. The building was recently refurbished and it looks beautiful. Many parts of the building feature Zsolnay tiles and designs from Pécs. In this picture, you can see one of the many dark blue/purple globes.
On the front of the building sits a large statue of Liszt. It's actually quite high up and we were able to see the statue up close.
The concert hall is definitely the most beautiful part of the building. Everything is golden and intricate. Here is a picture of the organ and a large picture of the hall itself.
During our visit, we also watched two current students in a piano lesson. Afterward, we went across the street for a delicious lunch at the Seasons Bistro. Our March event was another success! Thank you to the Hungarian Fulbright Commission for all of these wonderful opportunities to learn.
Enjoy this famous piece by Liszt, "Hungarian Rhapsody No.2," performed at the Liszt Academy.
For my birthday, Dan and I went on a trip to London! Besides our short excursion to Austria in December, we haven't been out of Hungary since August. As soon as we arrived in London, it was culture shock. We arrived at Victoria station, a large transportation hub which is constantly crowded with people running to where they need to go. Just to give you an idea, the population of London is almost the population of the entire country of Hungary. Budapest is not nearly as busy, loud, or crowded as London.
Our first place to visit was Platform 93/4 at King's Cross Station. We were allowed to choose the scarf of our choice - I chose Hufflepuff and Dan chose Gryffindor! - and we got a few quick photos. There is a Harry Potter shop next to the "platform" where we bought a souvenir magnet and a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans.
The next day, we hit some of the main highlights of London. The Tower of London was our first stop.
We saw exhibitions about currency, military history, and the crown jewels. Unfortunately pictures of the crown jewels aren't allowed but they are spectacular! Wow! They are impressive.
Next we went to St. Paul's Cathedral (no pictures allowed here either).
The inside of the Cathedral is amazing. We took a guided tour which I highly recommend. We were able to see a few special sections of the cathedral which are off limits to normal tourists. You might recognize one section in this picture....it's one of the stairwells used in the Harry Potter movies.
Speaking of stairs, Dan and I climbed all of the way to the top of the Cathedral...528 steps! Sometimes I felt almost sick endlessly climbing the tight spiral stairs but the view at the end was worth it. Here are some of the views from the top.
After the Cathedral, we went to Westminister Abbey for Evensong service.
This evensong service is a musical service sung by the choir. The choir wasn't the full size, as you may have seen at William and Kate's Wedding. It was rather about 8-10 men who sang a cappella. Most of the pieces were plainchant (one melody all sung in unison) but one was polyphonic (several voices, each with their own part). I couldn't find any recordings of these specific pieces so I'll post this one from the royal wedding. Take a look at the beauty of the church...in addition to the wonderful music!
(For the visual highlights, start at the very beginning and then jump to 2:14, 2:52, 4:41, 5:31, 6:27, 6:38, 7:32, 8:02, 8:43)
Westminster Abbey is right next to Big Ben and the Parliament. We enjoyed seeing these iconic places up close!
After supper, we went to Harrod's to browse for a bit. (That's Harrod's with the lights.)
Harrod's is a gigantic store with everything imaginable. We bought a few chocolate truffles, some special beef jerky, and a cute Hello Kitty dressed as a royal guard.
On Saturday, we started with a visit to a car dealership. I had searched online for a Bugatti dealership. The Bugatti Veyron is Dan's favorite car and we were hoping to see one in person. We'll just have to settle for the little model version that I got for Dan as a gift once. There weren't any Bugattis in stock so we browsed the Bentley collection instead. Here is a Bugatti.
After that, we went in search of the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), the time machine from the show Doctor Who. It looks just like a police box which we visited near Earl's Court Station.
After that, we stopped by Sherlock Holmes home, 221b Baker Street.
Our final stop for the day was the British Museum.
We wish we could have spent more time in the museum because it has so many wonderful things to study. Our focus was the ancient Egyptian exhibit including the mummy of Cleopatra! Here are some pictures of our favorites.
On Sunday morning we went to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It was a much larger event than I was anticipating. The guards marched in with two different marching bands and there were hundreds of people in the crowd!
As we were leaving Buckingham Palace, we went to Hyde Park. It was a big moment because we saw our first squirrel since coming to Europe! Dan and I have been searching Hungary for squirrels (mokus in Hungarian) but we have yet to find any. We enjoyed seeing the squirrels in Hyde Park.
On Sunday, we visited two special parts of London from the 17th century. First, we visited the Monument. It was built to memorialize the 1666 fire of London. Inside the tower is a spiral staircase leading to a lookout point. This time it was 311 stairs!
Here are some photos from the top. Look at all of the construction going on!
Looking down the stairs from the top. Yikes!!!
After the Monument we went to Tower Bridge. I find it interesting that the most iconic bridges isn't the one named "London Bridge." I wonder if there are any songs about Tower Bridge? Anyway, we were able to walk across the walkway and look down through the glass floor! Plus, there were several informational posters about famous bridges, including the Chain Bridge in Budapest!
When we were finishing up our tour of the bridge, it started to rain so we hurried to find a place to eat supper. We decided to go for the traditional food so we ate fish and chips and shepherd's pie. They were both delicious!
The last day of our trip was my birthday. It's fun to think that I turned 30 in London! It will definitely be a birthday to remember. We first went to the Royal Academy of Music Museum. Although the museum is small, it had interesting displays and instruments. My favorite part was seeing the famous horn player Dennis Brain's horn on display.
To finish the evening we had dinner and a show. We went to a great restaurant called the Brasserie. The main event of the day was the musical Wicked. Dan and I both loved it! The show has been in London for 8 years, which was evident by the amazing sets and design of the entire theater. Our favorite parts were the elaborate sets, bright costumes, amazing singers (woo! the high notes were great!), and the musicality of the ensemble. I don't think I've ever heard such dynamic range in a musical before. Wicked was all around fantastic!
Our time in London was short but packed full of events. Dan and I had a wonderful trip that we will never forget. On our next trip, we'll be in Berlin! I look forward to sharing our adventures there as well. :)
Only a few days after the Concerto Heavy Metal Concert, we had another chance to hear Hidas' music. This time the performers were the Corpus Trombone Quartet. The piece was one movement from Hidas' Négyesfogat-részlet. I first heard this ensemble in the spring of 2014 when the group performed at the University of Iowa as part of their tour. Held at Eötvös Loránd University, this concert was an evening of Hungarian music for trombone quartet. You can see their program on the poster below. The quartet was exceptional! We loved all of the pieces as well as the energy, precision, and professionalism of the ensemble.
On February 13, Dan and I went to the second Concerto Heavy Metal concert presented by Concerto Budapest. We went to the first concert in November and you can read about that concert here. This time, the featured instrument was the trombone. The most exciting part about the concert was the double trombone concerto by Hidas! It was my favorite piece on the program.
Program:
Folke Rabe - Basta for trombone solo
Leopold Mozart - Concerto for Alto Trombone
Thom Ritter George - Concerto for Bass Trombone
Eugene Bozza - Ballade
Hidas Frigyes - Kettősverseny tenor- és basszusharsonára
P.Mascagni - Intermezzo
Dubrovay László - Boszorkány-galopp
Mazura János - Páva
Zarándy Ákos - Breath Metal
We enjoyed the concert because it had a great variety of styles and ensembles. The music ranged from soloist to brass quintet to full orchestra. I have really enjoyed these concerts focusing on brass instruments. I think it would be something which would work well in the United States. The horn concert is coming up soon and we're looking forward to attending.
For your enjoyment, here is a recording of the Hidas piece with piano accompaniment.
During the past month or so, I spent several hours researching at the Open Society Archives in Budapest. Fortunately, the OSA Archives have a lot of sources but it's not sorted in the best way for me. All music items are grouped together....classical, jazz, rock, pop. While sifting through the articles, I came across an article that told about the popularity of the Hungarian version of the Bangles' song "Manic Monday." It was sung by a popular Hungarian artist, Szandi. I enjoy hearing music that has been translated into another language. Here is the original song:
Now, here is the Hungarian version by Szandi. Instead of the English "It's just another manic Monday," the Hungarian is roughly "I'm afraid it's a real Monday." Enjoy as you compare and contrast!
Dan and I are always excited when we can try new foods. Recently we tried a few new things. First, we tried a fruit we've never had before. These are lychees. They crack open to a soft white center about the consistency of a grape, which surrounds a pit. We loved the unique and delicious flavor!
The second new item was basically a hot dog. On a few occasions, we had seen these for sale at the grocery store. It is a hot dog-like sausage called virsli, paired with a pastry. Dan and I had joked about these because they are neither refrigerated nor hot. We mostly wanted to try it as a dare to each other. Surprisingly, it actually turned out to be pretty good.
On February 6, our Fulbright event was a visit to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. It was a wonderful day. First we went to the reading area of the library. Here we saw the original handwritten catalogue for their collection...yikes!
Next we moved on to the fun part, the rare collections. These were amazing!!! Our group visited the Oriental collection first. The following pictures show publishing plates, ancient manuscripts, maps, dictionaries, and religious texts. Unfortunately we don't have pictures of every item we saw but these give a great summary. The script and artwork are amazing...plus they are several centuries old.
These pages are from the fourteenth century.
The Hungarian, Sándor Csoma de Kőrös, was the first person to write a English-Tibetan dictionary.
In another rare collection, we saw materials from the area in and around Hungary. These were some of my favorites. This first one is a piece of wood from the second century which was a receipt or contract.
This is artwork from a few centuries ago. You can see the Hungarian crown on the man's head.
This was a book from King Matyas' library (from the Renaissance times).
This is one page from the Gutenberg Bible. Someone decided to sell each page from the original! It was still neat to see though.
This was basically someone's autograph/memento book and this page has Isaac Newton!
This postcard (for lack of a better word) was made from tree bark when paper was too expensive and inaccessible during war time.
This book is an amazing artifact from the 17th century. No one knows what it is. It's all in a mysterious code.
After the rare book collections, we went to the art gallery where we saw paintings of famous Hungarians such as Deák Ferenc. The neatest pieces of art, in my opinion, were embroidered on silk. They were incredible! They look like a painting or a sketch from far away but up close you could see all of the individual threads.
Our trip to the Academy of Sciences was very special because we were able to see many artifacts which are not open to the public. Many of the rare books are not allowed to be studied because they are so fragile and valuable. You can see some of the digital collections of the library here. To finish the day, we ate a delicious four-course meal in the restaurant inside the Academy. Plus, we had beautiful views over the Danube. Our February event was definitely inspiring!
The school is named after the famous pianist, composer, and educator Liszt Ferenc (or more commonly Franz Liszt). He helped start the Academy in 1875. During our visit, we toured the building and learned about the history of the school. The building was recently refurbished and it looks beautiful. Many parts of the building feature Zsolnay tiles and designs from Pécs. In this picture, you can see one of the many dark blue/purple globes. 
