Day 42 – May 27 Friday

Up early this morning & repacked our bags before breakfast.  Dejan arrived at 9am & drove Gizella & us to the city of Zrenjanin, where Gizella’s other son, Dusan, lives.  It was also great to see him again after so many years & he remembered so much of our visit with James when we stayed with him a few days.  Gizella was also visiting for her 50 year school reunion to be held on the weekend, so we drove into the CBD to see the old school & churches.

Zrenjanin is also the city that Tereza spent the first 12 years of her life before leaving for Australia, went to school, went to church, shopped, went for walks.  There were so many recalled memories for Tereza & Gizella walking together again through the Zrenjanin streets, comparing memories & stories, changes & not.  It was great to see them laugh & smile & talk constantly.  The local school kids were also celebrating their last day of school & had a noisy procession through the main street from the nearby school, closely flanked by a few police.  Tereza even found her favourite treat, a cake slice called Shaum pite, in the same location, in the same shop, where she had this treat more than fifty years ago, amazing.  Some things never change.  Another really smooth ice cream with Dejan & we went back to the house, dropped off Gizella, said our farewells to Dusan & continued our journey.

The drive through the countryside is very beautiful, the green of all the new crops growing on the flat & fertile plains of the Vojvodina region, passing through a small village now & again, seeing other small villages in the distance, marked by their church spires.  We reached Kikinda at 2pm to spend some time with Tereza’s other cousin, Katalin (Gizella’s sister) & her husband Antal.  We were greeted very warmly, along with their daughter Evika (Klara’s sister) & were treated to another fantastic Hungarian meal, as always, way too much to eat, but all very, very nice.  We are made so welcome, it is really good.  We sat & talked for ages, before Evika had to go back to work & Dejan back home to Novi Sad.  We went for a walk around Kikinda in the late evening & went to hear the practice of the choir that Evika is conducting & taking to Istanbul for a competition in July.

Evike’s family came to pick her up after choir practice & we got to meet her two sons for the first time, Mate & Viktor, they are both very cute & handsome boys, along with her husband, Radovan. (again they were young people courting & now settled down with 2 big boys, time seems to have stood still for me until I see their children now. We had another long walk around town before we went back to the apartment after choir practice.  It was a lovely night & there were lots of other people out walking.  We got back around 9.30pm, late, great dinner & bed.