Today is the birthday of composer Joseph Haydn, whose legacy has enriched my experience of Central Europe. His patrons, the noble Esterházy family, have left us two sumptuous palaces that make a Haydn tour through Austria and Hungary a feast for the eyes as well as the ears.
 
Franz Joseph Haydn (†1809) was born in Rohrau, an Austrian village not far from today’s Slovak and Hungarian borders, on March 31, 1732. He spent much of his career as court musician for the Esterházy family, so wealthy they once covered the road from Vienna to their Eisenstadt palace with salt after they’d promised Empress Maria-Theresa a sleigh ride but it failed to snow that unseasonably warm January. They helped make him the highest-earning composer during his lifetime—consider how many others lived in penury.
 
Haydn’s wealth was also due to prolific output, 104 symphonies among other things. Not only was he the “Father of the Symphony” but also the composer of the “Kaiserlied,” which has become today’s German national anthem. (Next time a German tells you that Beethoven was really a German and Hitler an Austrian, try pointing out this factoid.) He arranged it as a birthday present for “Good Kaiser Franz.”
 
Following the Haydn trail makes a wonderful little daytrip. I did it with my parents in the summer of 1996. After three days indulging in the sights of Vienna, nicely accessible by public transport, we picked up a rental car and headed southeast.
 
The first stop, Eisenstadt, was in the composer’s day called Kismarton, part of the Kingdom of Hungary, one of numerous entities within the Empire of the Habsburgs. It became part of modern-day Austria in the aftermath of World War I.
 
After a visiting the Haydnhaus, his residence for twelve years, we dropped into a sidewalk café for coffee and pastries. There’s another Central European interethnic rivalry—the Hungarians claim the Austrians stole the recipe for their almás rétes, or Apfelstrudel. Anyway, it was flaky on the outside and sweet-tart on the inside. We also ordered a cream horn and a poppy-seed cake, and passed the plates around.
 
This indulgence was to fortify us for the tour of the baroque Schloss Esterházy. It is one of the most magnificent things outside Vienna. Crowds always linger extra-long in the Haydnsaal, one of the best acoustic spaces in Europe, with an elaborately painted baroque ceiling.
 
We had a spicy, savory chicken paprikash lunch in the Hungarian border town of Sopron before heading to the village of Fertőd, just off the highway. The gate to this palace, called Esterháza, was open for people to wander around, but the sign on the ticket office read “Hétfőn-kedden minden zárva.” We’d planned this trip to avoid the common Monday museum closings, not expecting them to take Tuesday off, too!
 
So this tour is definitely on my “bucket re-do list.” Esterháza has been extensively renovated. And it’s open Tuesday-Sunday in season.
 
Final note: one of my most treasured memories of living in Central Europe was performing Haydn’s Paukenmesse (“Timpani Mass”), aka Missa in Tempori Belli (“Mass in Time of War,” i.e. the Napoleonic Wars), when I sang bass in the Saint Cecelia Choir of the Saint Elizabeth Cathedral in Košice, East Slovakia.
 
 
(See also the Schloss Esterhazy official site)

This time last year, I posted on the Slovak/Czech tradition of switching and the exchange of eggs. This time, I'm sharing this pick of a willow switch I bought in Slovakia in 1991, and some of the eggs I "earned" with it. 

For the old article, "Easter Monday Mischief--Slovak Style," with details on the custom, CLICK HERE.

On the eve of my 50th birthday, I'm making just a brief post with this reflection, something I've learned over the years:

Travel is enlightening and invigorating; it makes possible friendships you would never have otherwise. But if you can't be happy at home, you won't be happy on the road. Happiness begins with gratitude for friends and loved ones, for what you have and where you are. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Okay, I've never been to Ireland, but in the spirit of the day, I'll share this pick of the last four-leaf clover I found. (Sorry, not a shamrock.) I didn't pick it, so you'll have to look for it yourself, and it just may bring you luck! And enjoy also the pics of my friend's rustic cottage in Slovakia where I spotted it. 

Alena appeared in this earlier post.

Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey
By Isabel Fonseca

Since I’ve co-opted the name of an ethnicity for this travel site, it’s about time I deal with “the Gypsies and their journey”—their migration and diaspora. Though I’ve met many Gypsies in my travels and learned much from them, including a number of songs, I’m by no means an expert. But I’ll try to make clear who these people are through this book review.

The title, from a Gypsy saying “Bury me standing; I’ve been on my knees all my life,” is well chosen, given the author’s attempt to correct common misunderstandings, both the vilification and the romanticizing. Author Isabel Fonseca recounts her experiences learning the Romani language and living among Gypsies, or Roma, in several countries of the former East Bloc. (I use Roma as a noun, interchangeable with Gypsy, as does Fonseca. Romani is distinct from Romanian, a Latin language.)

She depicts the squalor of a Roma neighborhood in Tirana, Albania, and the Gypsies’ notion of ritual cleanliness: taboos about anything below the waist, defilement through contact with the gadje, or non-Roma. We learn of their traditional trades as smiths, failed socialist-era assimilationist policy, and modern activists’ attempts to organize themselves and defend their rights. With Fonseca, we meet glue-sniffing orphans on Bucharest streets and visit families in sumptuous villas.

Fonseca intersperses personal interactions with research. We learn that, paradoxically, Nazi “racial hygienists” compiled probably the most thorough genealogy of Roma ever, mainly to discover and isolate those with genetic dispositions to “anti-social behavior.” In medieval Romania, Gypsies were part of a slave caste, which, she hypothesizes, included members of other nationalities. She arrives at this conslusion through encounters with marginalized groups who fit the profile of “Gypsies,” but who have no knowledge of Romani language or customs. For such people, she suggests, the term Gypsy – despite its often-negative connotations – might be more suitable than Roma.

As a linguist, I, like Fonseca, have occasionally had to explain to Roma that their language came from India and bears many similarities to other languages of the subcontinent. Why are Gypsies unaware of this past? In areas where the Roma have migrated over the centuries, there are legends – containing some kernel of truth – such as a Persian tale about their receiving cattle as a gift from the ruler. After they promptly slaughtered them all and had a feast, he kicked them out of the country for their undignified behavior. But Roma have no recorded history of their origins – quite unlike the Jews – as their literati have only recently standardized a written language. Even their oral histories seem to go back no more than about four generations.

Fonseca’s observation on the tendency to disinform gadje about Romani language also rang a bell with me. I once sat in a restaurant with a Gypsy musical ensemble during their break. I asked the name of their band. Bokhale muja. They even wrote it down for me, along with a translation ‘Merry Fellows.’ A year later, I told a Roma conservatory student that I knew of a group in town called Bokhale muja. He burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny? It means ‘Merry Fellows,’ doesn’t it?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Sorry, they were pulling your leg. It means ‘hungry faces.”

In addition to such brief contacts, I’ve enjoyed lasting friendships with Roma, including one who recently ran – albeit unsuccessfully – for a Slovak parliamentary seat. I’ve visited their homes for dinner, but I’ve never managed to get to know Gypsies anywhere near as intimately as Fonseca has.
           
Just as this book was a wealth of information for me, curious readers, even those with no direct experience of this people, will doubtless find it fascinating.