31 May 2010. Travel day from Soltvadkert (H) to Schwemsal (D)
At 5 am Bob was up and packing the 70 litres of wine in the van he had bought from his host family, the Köhlers. Janos senior has vinyards for both red and white wines. Bob chose a light red wine. It is to be a surprise for not just the artists, but also our next hosts in Schwemsal and further along the Culture Trail.
All the artists met at the Culture House in Soltvadkert to pack the luggage and get on the road. All of them had packed lunches with them from their host families and the odour of paprika sausage, tomato, garlic and spring onion mingled in the air with the freshness of the early morning smell of awakening flowers. Some of the guest families and translators were helping with loading, whilst others were boiling water for a final coffee.
Lajos was doing final translations for everyone and gathering last information snippets and finally being able to bathe in the wave of his own success in having done so much to make it all work in his home town Soltvadkert. Peters 'grandpa' host, Papa came along with a big plastic bag and gave each artist half a litre of his best white wine. Lajos translated one last time what Papa had to say, that all of us are welcome anytime to his home, the door will always be open, to sleep, eat and have a glass of his best.
As we drove away our Hungarioan friends were all standing their with handkerchiefs in their hands, waving to us as they huddled together on the steps of the Culture House. The sun shone and Papa's words rang in our ears as we disapeared into the distant vinyards on road 54 to the highway between Szeged and Budapest, the Culture Trail continues.
The road to Schwemsal was easy. Hungary to the Slowak Republic, then on to the Chzech
Republic by-
Our host family was already waiting for us as we arrived. We are all staying in the organisers family guest house. We unloaded the vans, got the technical equipment into the hall, the luggage into our rooms and the kilos of Paprika sausage and cheese into the fridge.
We sat for a while and chatted with our new hosts, trying out the first of the Hungarian red wine and offering our hosts some of the Hungarian goodies.
Bekir and Patrick then went to the hall to set up the exhibitions whilst Philippe, Jonathan and Ingo jammed for a while and gave them some live music to listen to, trying out new structures and just having fun.
Slowly the night drifted its shrouds of drowsiness over us all and the beds were
a warm haven for some very tired bodies. Its good to be here still wallowing in the
wake of the Hungarian experience and looking forward to bringing all these new feeling
into activity with new faces and do what we do best as artists -
