More looks at Sopron

There are more monuments than those to honor dead war heroes. Here is István Széchenyi, probably the most famous of the 19th Century Hungarians. He used his family funds for projects to improve the lives of Hungarians and is considered the father of modern Hungary. He founded the National Library and the Hungarian Academy of Science. He mobilized the nobility behind the cause of modernizing the country, including improving transportation. He supervised making the Danube navigable and building railroad links around the country. He helped design the first bridge (the "chain bridge") across the Danube to link Buda and Pest, then separate cities. This statue was erected to honor him in 1880.


His statue stands in this park built in his honor. The flowerbeds around Sopron are especially impressive this time of year.


Franz Liszt (Liszt Ferenc in Hungarian), perhaps the most famous of Hungarian composers, was born near Sopron.


They've just finished redoing the main square. That's the Goat Church on the left. It's called the Goat Church since a goat is on the coat of arms of the family that built it.


Here we are looking in the other direction towards the famous Fire Tower that you saw in an earlier blog.


The problem with pavement and restoration projects in a town like Sopron whose existence stretches back to Roman times, wherever you dig, you might find Roman ruins, especially in the center of town. Now they have to decide what to do with their latest discovery before they can reopen this pathway from the central square (föter) through the base of the tower.

Jó étvágyat--let's eat!

All this exploring makes a person thirsty. Here I am getting a drink from a public drinking fountain.


But wait! Didn't I see on the Fire Tower clock that it is almost 1? No wonder I'm hungary. This looks like a good place to eat.


They have tables outside so we can watch everyone go by. I hope we can find an empty place in the shade.


Here comes the waiter with our food. Jó étvágyat!

Conferencing?

Is this an example of putting your minds together to solve a problem?


No, it's just the climax of a ping pong ball blowing contest at game night. I think this time my side (the team on the right) won.

1989 Piknik

Here's some more on the former iron curtain that almost surrounded Sopron. In 1989 the Hungarian government decided to take down the border fence and started to allow Hungarians to leave at will. That's why the English Department at the University of Florida started its exchange program with the English Department at the university in Pécs. Our family got to be the first to come to Hungary in January 1990 as part of the exchange. A few months before we got there, some Hungarian anti-commmunists decided to sponsor a picnic on August 19, 1989 at a country border crossing near Sopron to have everyone cut some of the wire fence as a souvenir. They even arranged with the government to have the guards open the border gate for 3 hours starting at 3 p.m. to let people through. Then they distributed thousands of handouts to East Germans vacationing in Hungary to come to the picnic. This site is on the other side of Sopron from where we live.


The border fence and the wooden gate are gone now but this marks where they used to be.


This is a replica of what the fence looked like. Can you see how it was a double fence--the first a T-shape of barbed wire with an electrical line and the other a mesh "animal" fence? There was also a plowed border along the fence so the guards could check for footprints when the electrical line sent off a signal. Several months before the picnic the Hungarian government had turned off the electrical signal line.


Here I am trying to make an escape.


Do you think the guards in the tower would have seen me approach the fence?


Here's a look up into the tower. Can you imagine being stationed in this tower in the middle of winter?


Anyway, the East Germans at the picnic decided at 3 to rush the gate. Only Hungarians were supposed to go through but 600 East Germans made it through. When the 5 guards at the gate realized too late that the fast approaching picnickers were not Hungarians, they panicked and fearing for their lives let them through rather than shoot them. The next day the government increased the number of guards so no one could go through. Here is one of the abandoned East German Trabants.


This was the infamous East German car that was made of Duroplast, a type of plastic made of recycled materials (including wood, paper, wool and resin), had no gas gauge (you used a dip stick), no fuel pump (the gas tank was above the engine so gravity would feed the gas to the motor) and had a 26 horsepower two cylinder engine like a lawn mover that took 21 seconds to reach 60 mph. They usually had a waiting list of 15 years to buy one (so they were prized possessions) but the picnickers gladly abandoned them to rush across the border to Austria before the guards could change their minds and close the gate.


This is the original border stone that marks the border between Austria and Hungary that was established when the Austo-Hungarian Empire was split up after World War I. If you click on the picture you can see Caroly standing where the border fence used to be.


The border has been replaced by a bike path. There were lots of bikes out when we were there. You'll notice that Sopron, where we live, is just 8 km or 5 miles away. Like I said in an earlier post, Sopron is like a turtle's head sticking into Austria from the Hungarian turtle shell.


If your computer is like mine, if you click on this picture a second time after it enlarges, you can get an even closer look at the original wooden gate, the dirt road, the German invitation that the Hungarians had given out to the vacationing East Germans, and a picture of the East Germans rushing the gate.


Here's a memorial that was erected in 2009 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the picnic. The picnic was credited with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the unification of Germany. Although the guards stopped letting East Germans through, tens of thousands remained in Hungary hoping to get through to Austria rather than return from their vacations on Lake Balaton or in Budapest to East Germany. The government waited to see what Russia would do (Russian troops still were stationed in Hungary to keep them loyal to the communist cause). When the Russians did nothing, on September 11, the Hungarian government decided that East Germans could leave through any border they wanted so these tens of thousands fled to Austria. This led to other events that resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall November 9. If you click on this picture, you can see a piece of the Berlin Wall in the V where the building is cracked.


Here the artist has people of all ages emerging from the captivity of communism because of the events started at this picnic. It was exciting for us to see all this since we lived in Hungary just a couple of months after this happened and we took part in the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe.

Újra feldíszít--redecorating

You know me. I have to be surrounded by visual stimulation, especially where I work. The branch president's office in Sopron resembled a storage room. I was so excited about redecorating it that I forgot to take a "before" picture. But here is the "after" with new pictures, flowers and mottos (and you know how I like mottos) and a colorful arrangement for the bookcase. Even closing the blinds has a wonderful effect.


This beautiful sister is my first customer for counseling.

Vasfüggöny--Iron Curtain

In the mornings we take walks to explore the countryside. About 3 miles from our house is the village of Harka. We can see it on our walks in the hills and planned to walk over. Today it was rainy so we decided to drive over. We drove through the village, took a newly paved one lane road looking for a place to turn around, and suddenly we were in Austria at this guard station.


At first we thought it was one of the old guard stations where the communist soldiers would wait to shoot anyone trying to cross. Click on the picture of this small billboard that we saw next to the guard house and you can see how the iron curtain went through the countryside here. Notice the farmers working on the Austrian side right up to the fenceline and on the Hungarian side the soldiers on horseback ready to shoot escaping Hungarians.You can even see a berm in the background to make the escape more difficult by making it easier to shoot people trying to cross the border.


We decided that as we were looking at the picture, we were standing in and looking into Austria. We were probably at an Austrian border station built to protect Austrians and welcome escaping Hungarians. So we turned around and could see where this carefully tended vineyard goes right up to where the iron curtain used to be. If you click on the picture and look closely, you can see the fence posts marking the former iron curtain, the uncultivated "no man's land" from the picture and the berm in the background.


We walked up to the old fence line and looked back towards Harka, Sopron, and our house. You can see the remains of the iron curtain in the picture and if you click for a closeup, you can see the radio tower on the right in the distance not far from our house.


We drove to the other side of the hill on the Austrian side where we could see a Hungarian guard tower overlooking the carefully cultivated fields in Austria.


This is the Hungarian side of the same hill, still uncultivated from when it was a no-man's land twenty years ago. You can't see the tower from this side. It is hidden in the trees to surprise anyone trying to escape. Other than the contrast of cultivated and uncultivated fields, there is no sign of the border today. In fact, we were surprised that we were suddenly in Austria while trying to find a place to turn the car around. There was simply a change in the pavement and a fencepost with the colors of the Hungarian flag painted on it.

Race to the top

When you return from a teaching appointment with 4 missionaries and an 88 year old ward missionary and her dog who lives on the 7th floor of this apartment building and the elevator only squeezes in 4 (if you hold your breath), what do you do?


Of course a gentleman doesn't send the 88 year old and her dog up the stairs.


However, it turns out that 7 floors is really 9 since we started on -1 and the ground floor is 0.


Can you tell who took the elevator? I almost beat them to the top.

Esös nap--rainy day

It's pouring rain this morning. Who are the neighbors looking at outside by his car?

It's Thompson Elder taking advantage of a free car wash. "A penny saved is a penny earned," they always say.



Thompson Növer even ventured out for a second to get this close up. I knew there was a reason I brought my bathing suit. The rain wasn't quite as warm as a Florida hurricane rain, but you take what you get. You can take the Thompson out of Florida but you can't take Florida out of the Thompson. Be sure to click on this one so you can see the rain pouring down.

Szombathely--Young Adult Fun

Saturday we took some Young Single Adults to a district YSA activity at the Sombathely District chapel. This was the first chapel build in Hungary and Bonnie served here on her mission. I wanted to see the chapel since one of my goals is to get our attendance up so we'll be eligible for a chapel too. (80 is the goal. We had 34 today but 48 two weeks ago).


They had a water balloon extravaganza. Which side looks like it is winning?



Of course here is my favorite missionary.


Here are the worker bees putting out the refreshments--palacsintas (the Hungarian version of crepes). That's Elder Haslem. We replaced him and his wife in Sopron. Their task is now to establish a district Young Adult Center in Szombathely. Everyone loves them here in Sopron so I'm sure they'll be a great success in Szombathely.


I decided to look around the chapel to see what we could have in Sopron if we work together. This is the entrance hall.


Doesn't the chapel look nice? I love their ceiling. It's multipurpose so they can hold dances and other activities here.


The Relief Society room includes the kitchen on one side.


The primary room is a bit small.


The baptismal fount is behind these glass doors in an alcove in the hallway. It's better than the sauna we have to use.


This is where they are trying to set up a Young Adult Center. It includes ping pong tables and a classroom.


I thought you'd like to see that since this is the district center, it has satellite for church broadcasts at General Conference time. Since Sopron is an hour away, we'll see it on tape the next week. This serves as an outdoor cultural hall. Can you see the green picnic tables behind the storage shed? You can also see the post on the left that holds the basketball standard. The standard is on the ground next to it waiting to be reattached.