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8th Grade Graduation

A Collection of Vincenzo Stories

You may recall Vincenzo from an earlier blog post about Paprika Days last September. Well, nine months later he remains one of the most entertaining and hilarious people I have ever met.

Vincenzo conducting to Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zerathustra"

What follows is a collection of memories from visits to Vincenzo Étterem ("Vincenzo Restaurant") in Kalocsa.

"Drukkolni"
December 13, 2008

To celebrate our birthdays, which are a week apart, Jon and I visited Vincenzo's for a little dinner out, just the two of us. He was as animated as always and it was a wonderful evening. The most memorable sequence of events goes something like this...

Vincenzo asked me about my plans for the holiday and I told him I was going to Germany to visit family. He seemed pleased with my answer and then turned to Jon and asked him the same question. We both replied that he'd be accompanying me on the trip, and a light bulb went off in his head about us being a couple.

I then asked him what his plans were for the holidays (I know now that he must not have heard or understood me) and he started to use a word neither Jon nor I knew: "drukkolni." Thinking he was talking about his plans for the holidays, we looked at him and at each other and shrugged. But Vincenzo was not about to give up, so he gave us "szurkolni" and wrote both words down on paper. Nope. We didn't know what he was talking about. So he got his little dictionary and looked them up. Still no luck. Now it was time to draw pictures.

Clearly the rest of this story is easier to tell with pen and paper, but I'll try to get it across accurately...

Vincenzo draws what appears to be a soccer field.

Jon and I figure he will be attending a soccer match over the holiday break.

He points to the stands and repeats, "lots of people," in both Hungarian and German. We nod. Then he creates to "teams" in boxes and assigns them specific colors. Next he points to a team, then points to the fans and enthusiastically shouts, "Red-Black! Red-Black!"

Ok. He's VERY excited about these plans to see a soccer match.

Then he switches to routing for the other team, "Yellow-Green! Yellow-Green!"

Ummmm.. and he's confused about what team to root for?!

Finally, he points to Jon and I and shouts, "Franny-Jon! Franny-Jon!"

OH!!! He's rooting for US! Now that is adorable.

Once home I looked up the words in my Hungarian-English dictionary and they both mean "to root for" and "to be a fan of." It's nice to have supporters.

~



a fifty-year-old package of saffron Vincenzo gave me


Vincenzo's Surprise
May 9, 2009

When Hanna and Alvin (some fellow CETP teachers) came to Kalocsa for dinner, Jon and I made homemade mushroom ravioli. For dessert we headed to our pal Vincenzo's. Hanna had met him back in September during the Paprika Days festival, but it was Alvin's first encounter. We had told him so many stories that he was really looking forward to meeting our favorite chef in Kalocsa.

As soon as we were seated, he handed us menus and began recommending the meat soup. Before we could even respond he was shouting into the kitchen, "Meat soup!" in Hungarian. We quickly stopped him and told him that we had just eaten dinner and would only like dessert. He seemed a bit disappointed, but canceled the kitchen call and took our orders.

We all ordered an interesting Vincenzo dessert made with vanilla ice cream and Tokaj (a Hungarian dessert wine). He served us and then disappeared into his corner office. Usually he is very attentive, but this time he didn't play us any special music, show us any antiques, or explain anything in Egli-Germa-garian.

We wondered why he wasn't talking to us and worried he was upset we didn't eat his delicious meat soup. So we all ordered a second dessert in hopes that might up the chances of an amazing Vincenzo interaction (and, well, because ice cream cones are cheap and delicious here). When we were ordering what flavors we'd like, Hanna just said, "Meglepetes!" which means "surprise!"

He came back to the table with a huge smile on his face and handed Hanna her cone. It had a single walnut on top of her scoops of chocolate and vanilla. As he handed it to her and said, "kis meglepetes" ("small surprise") and giggled. We all burst into laughter. It was absolutely precious.

After that he was back to his old self. We had already paid and were halfway out the door when he invited us back in for some Tokaj. Naturally we took him up on it. By this point, the place was closed and the cooks had left, so it was just us and Vincenzo. He put on some Hungarian folk music and spent nearly the whole time trying to find the right spot on the record where his favorite song was. When he finally found it, we had to listen to it twice.

~

Vincenzo's restaurant is full of antiques and nicknacks. He even has a small electric organ.

"An American tourist in Budapest..."
June 3, 2009

I have heard a number of times that a mark of real fluency in a foreign language is the ability to successfully tell a joke. Of course I still feel light years away from telling a joke in Hungarian, but I didn't realize how long it would take me to actually think a Hungarian joke was funny. I heard my first Hungarian joke in 2006 during my intensive language course at Beloit College in Wisconsin. Translated, it goes something like this:

A bunny rabbit with a speech impediment (that is not crucial to the punchline, but is a requirement when telling the joke) goes into a bakery and asks, "Do you have any carrot cake?"
"No." replies the baker, and the rabbit leaves.
The following day the rabbit returns and again asks, "Do you have any carrot cake?"
Again the baker says, "No."
This exchange continues for days, weeks, months, until finally one day the rabbit enters the bakery and asks, "Do you have any carrot cake?"
"Yes, I do!" says the baker.
"Eww." replies the rabbit.

When I first heard it, I laughed a bit out of discomfort. And that's how I've responded to every Hungarian joke I've encountered since then. I smile awkwardly wondering if I just didn't understand the punchline or missed an essential detail.

Even at Vincenzo's, where I laugh at just about everything that happens, I don't find the jokes he tells very funny. Though there's one in particular that I've come to love only because I don't understand it. He's told it to us twice, and now Jon and I just laugh because we still don't get it.

An English couple are staying in room 222 at a hotel. They call the reception desk and say, "2 2 2 room 2 2 rooms." The man at the reception desk thinks they are crazy and hangs up the phone.

I'm guessing he's just not telling it right. It's probably supposed to be some combination of two's and to's, perhaps even a "too" in there somewhere as well. The funniest part is how severely he cracks himself up when he tells it.

Well, at long last, it finally happened: I laughed at a Hungarian joke. Last Tuesday Vincenzo told us a series of "An American tourist in Budapest..." jokes and had us genuinely laughing. They all follow the same basic format: There's an American tourist in Budapest who thinks everything is bigger/faster/better in the States and then a Hungarian comes along and zings them. My favorite was this one:

An American tourist gets into a cab in Budapest. As they are driving the tourist marvels at the beauty of the Hungarian Parliament and asks the driver how long it took to build.
"Nineteen years," replies the driver.
"Ha! We could build that in 5 years in America!" boasts the American tourist.
They drive a bit more and the tourist sees the chain bridge. Again the tourist asks the driver how long it took to build.
"Ten years," replies the driver.
"Ten MONTHS and that would have been finished in America."
They drive on and the tourist sees Buda Castle and once again asks how long it took to build.
"I don't know what that is," says the driver. "It wasn't here yesterday!"

I laughed. Maybe it was because for the first time I understood a joke told completely in Hungarian. Or maybe I've lived here long enough to see things from a more Hungarian point of view. Whatever the case, I feel like this place is starting to wear off on me.

~




a photograph taken by Vincenzo, which he gave to me


Ice Cream
June 6, 2009

Whenever someone comes to visit me in Kalocsa I try to make a point to go to Vincenzo's. To me, he's as much a part of Kalocsa as the paprika museum (and a lot more fun!). Yesterday our friend Margie trekked over 400 km all the way from Kisvarda (a small town in northeast Hungary) to spend a day in Kalocsa.

Vincenzo really does make the best espresso in town and Margie needed a pick-me-up after her long journey, so we decided to pay him a visit. The espresso was perfect, as always. He even brought out a fresh bowl of local cherries for us to snack on.

Jon and I had just visited him last Tuesday and he had us try some new ice cream he picked up at the supermarket. It's called Rákóczi túrós, which is a type of Hungarian dessert. Usually he only keeps chcolate and vanilla on hand, but it was delicious so I asked if he had any left. He paused for long enough that I realized he probably ate the rest himself.

me: "Oh, it's okay. I was just wondering if you had any left..."
Vincenzo: "Just a moment. It will be here in just a moment."

Then he walked into the kitchen, handed one of the assistants some money and told her to go across the street to the supermarket and buy some of this kind of ice cream! A few minutes later she returned with two containers of it.

The most uncomfortable part was that I was the only one who wanted ice cream! He made me up a beautiful dish of it, complete with a paper flower, whipped cream, caramel sauce, fanned apple slices, and a single, frozen red currant on top. Then he convinced Margie to try a "taste" and came back with another dish, AND three cones: one for Jon, one for the kitchen assistant, and one for himself.

I think I will need to go back and order some more soon.

~

me and Mr. Vince Mondovics, a.k.a "Vincenzo"

Eger

Saturday Jon, Briggi and I spent a day in Eger, a city in northern Hungary. The most famous Hungarian red wine, Egri Bikavér ("Bull's Blood of Eger"), comes from here. It was a beautiful day for seeing the city. Our first stop was at the Eger Cathedral, one of the largest churches in Hungary.

looking up at the front of Eger Cathedral

statue of St. Peter in front of the cathedral

The cathedral built between 1831 and 1836 and is home to the biggest organ in Hungary. The organ itself was built in Salzburg by Ludwig Moser at the end of the 19th Century.

the organ


painted interior of the dome

Just across Eszterházy Square from the cathedral is the Líceum, built between 1765 and 1780 by Jakab Fellner, a famous Hungarian Baroque architect. Today it contains the Eszterházy Károly College as well as a library, an astronomy museum, a hands-on science museum, and a camera obscura. Both museums were packed with kids, so we only peeked in on our way up to the balcony and the camera obscura.

at the top balcony of the Líceum with the Cathedral in the background

view of the Minorite Church and Eger Castle from the top balcony of the Líceum

Built in 1776, the camera obscura is a periscope through which the entire panorama of the city can be viewed as reflected on a white table in a dark room atop the Líceum. About 15 people are allowed into the dark room at a time for a guided viewing of the city. It was really incredible.

diagram of the camera obscura

view from the dark room of the camera obscura at the top of the Líceum

Our next stop was Palacsintavár ("The Pancake Castle") where we chowed down on amazing palacsintas, which (even though it translates into English as "pancakes") are Hungary's version of crêpes. Jon ordered a traditional hortobágyi palacsinta, a crepe filled with a pork paprikás (basically pork in a sour cream and paprika sauce), while Briggi and I split a veggie one filled with a kind of herb and onion cream cheese. Yum.

the most delicious palacsinta I've eaten in Hungary

After delicious palacsintas we headed up to the castle. Jon and Briggi quickly spotted two men in costume charging a few hundred forint for a few shots with a recurve bow or a crossbow. While Jon was trying out the recurve bow, the guy with the crossbow offered Briggi and I some wine and a shot each with the crossbow.

Briggi got the cardboard man right in the neck and I shot him in the nose. Afterwards we chuckled a bit at the improbability of being handed wine BEFORE trying out a crossbow anywhere but in Hungary. Thankfully the only injuries were sustained by men made of paint and cardboard.

We walked around and came across some other costumed people cooking in cauldrons. Briggi started talking to one of men in costume and before we knew it we were sitting down in front of two big plates of pork and french fries and some local wine. After a grand attempt to make a dent, I had to explain to the nice man that we couldn't possibly finish the lovely meal he had set for us because we had just stuffed our faces with palacsintas a few minutes ago. Thankfully he didn't seem too frustrated with us when we got up from our still half-full plates.

view of the Minorite Church and the Líceum (far distance, left side) from Eger Castle


Briggi by the castle wall

Our last stop was in the Szépasszony-völgy ("The Valley of the Beautiful Woman"). This wine making valley is just outside the city and is home to over 200 wine cellars. At one end is a small park surrounded by about 50 different cellars open for tasting and purchase by the liter.

view into the Szépasszony-völgy