holy moly.... I'm in a choir

Where do I begin… I had choir last night.   Yeah… I joined a choir.  My colleague Erika (the conservative one who skipped the party at school) is in a choir and she invited me to come.  Well, as you may have picked up, a “maybe” means “yes I’d love to” so I was “collected” at 6:15 for choir practice.  I have had some choir experience in my high school years, and I always enjoyed choir, but this was a totally different situation.  We were the first ones there, so Kata (the leader of the choir) showed us around her home.  It was an old peasants home that was pieced together with the shed.  It’s tough to describe it, but it sloped up a hill and at the top of the hill, you could see Calvary Hill.  There isn’t any significance to this particular Calvary Hill, but it’s representative of the one Jesus died on.  Needless to say, Kata is very religious and explained Calvary Hill for a good 10 minutes with Erika translating.  While we were looking at the yard and garden, her family of peacocks came out to check out the new people.  Yes, I said it, peacocks.  I felt like I was in an old Little House on the Prairie episode with the gardens and the birds… then the choir started to show up.  Again, we are on Hungarian time, so when Erika told me that it started at 6:30, it was no surprise that our first notes were sung at 7:15.  I felt confident in my singing ability prior to showing up, but when we started our Hungarian warm-ups, I knew that this was going to be a bit more difficult than I had expected.  The 16 of us were gathered around this nice older lady- (Kata) saying things that are supposed to help us annunciate, and yet that’s difficult to do for a non-native speaker.  There are, however, two Russians and a German in the bunch, all with much better Hungarian than mine, but there are three other people who speak a bit of English, so I was okay.  I’m the youngest member by a long shot, but I think two of the women are about 35-40 and then the rest are old… really old.  The oldest guy is about 70 I think.  They are very nice and sweet though. 

 With each new song, I had to try and not only sound out the words, but follow the part of music that I was singing (alto) – this is no easy task.  I did well, at least I thought so, but it was a challenging endeavor.  I was thrilled when one song came with verses in German and English – yet – we stuck to the verse in Hungarian. Dang.  Well, we got through the singing, and then it was on to the announcements.  Kata showed off a certificate and a medal of sorts.  Apparently the choir had won a gold medal from the town of Tata for it’s arts contributions to the community.  Yes, that’s right- I’m a member of an award winning choir.   After the medal and certificate were passed around, it was time to talk about the field trip.  Yea, a field trip.  The choir is traveling to Papa, Hungary in two weeks to perform at two church services.  Kata asked Erika if I would like to go, and when I said that I’d have to check my schedule, Erika responded with a resounding “Igen” (“yes”).  Ok, so now I’m going on an overnight field trip with the choir.  The funny thing is that Papa is where my friend Megan lives- so I’m really excited to go – but holy shit.  I’m singing in a Hungarian choir in church.  WHAT??

 The last announcement was about an additional performance that the men of the choir were going to do.  They will be singing at a local Kocsma (we learned in orientation that Kocsma means “dive bar” in Hungarian, and it’s typically for men after work- not a ladies place in most cases).  Well guess what – I’m going to see them sing even if I’m the only girl.  The really exciting thing is that it is the night before our big field trip!!!  A whole weekend of CHOIR!

 After singing and announcements, we retired to the kitchen where there was food galore served.  We met Kata’s husband Steve who helped to serve the food.  Erika told me that Steve was a good photographer and she told me he had a book about Tata.  I thought for a minute, and asked if it was black on the front with a lot of pictures of Calvary Hill- and she replied with a strong yes.  Holy crap – he was the photographer of the book that Megan stated showed pictures of “where Hungarians go to die.”  Admittedly, it painted a bleak picture of Tata with some pictures in the snow and void of life, but they were artistic.  So, my coffee table book author is now serving me Palinka.  Yeah- homemade Palinka.  I know I’ve mentioned it before, but Palinka is the Hungarian Brandy that is SUPER strong, particularly when homemade- and here I am with a shot of it in front of me.  We passed around pieces of bread – LOTS of bread (of course) and homemade wine to follow.  Conversation was energetic, but in Hungarian so I was left out of much of it.  I managed to try several different types of jellied meats and pate in addition to different cheeses.  We were there until 10 pm… what a group.  Not only am I a member of an award winning choir, I will be going on my first field trip with Hungarians to scenic Papa.  Want to come watch us perform???  Yeesh.