Feri! Feri! Feri!

Around these parts, everyone knows the name Gyurcsany Ferenc. I’m generally willing to exert only two or three syllables of Hungarian effort at a time, so I just call the man Feri. Like a close childhood friend.

Feri is the prime minister of this fine nation, the leader of the Magyar Szocialista Part. His trim face, set alongside the Hungarian word for yes -- igen -- is plastered all across the country as we inch toward the parliamentary elections. He is blond and bespectacled. He looks a little like a friendlier Vladimir Putin.

And yesterday he came to little Heves.

The only thing I knew about Feri beforehand is that the opposition often criticizes him for wearing a two-million-forint watch. This year, I will earn one million forints. They say his glasses are too ritzy, as well.

A co-worker was kind enough to give me a bitter, er…better, understanding of Feri the man when he heard I was going to an MSzP campaign rally. "Gyurcsany sucks the cocks of the Russians," he testified. Then he wanted to know if his sentence was grammatically correct. As further proof to his blatant unsuitability to head Hungary, the co-worker went on to explain that Feri’s wife is Russian and the politician wants children to learn Russian in elementary school.

Overtly-obnoxious kids and gusty rain showers had conspired to make it a miserable Wednesday before I set out to find out the truth about Feri after school. With each step, carefully avoiding a new round of squished frogs, I got more and more excited. I was off to meet the Hungarian prime minister! I expected the little town to match that enthusiasm, but even as I got close to the "culture house," it was business as usual. The stray dogs were still doing their stray dog thing. The old ladies were still doing their old lady thing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But that all changed when I rounded the corner and finally saw the culture house, just a half-block away. Heves had prepared in grand form for the arrival ofthe leader of their nation: Six orange cones marked off a square in front of the largest public building in town. Two police cars sat lazily next to them. Top-grade security.

Three of my sophomore girls stood at the door handing out pamphlets. They shrieked when they saw me, racing toward me to be the first to give me a brochure that I wouldn’t understand. Just hours before I had been yelling at them for being jackasses in class. I don’t think they understood.

Two portable metal detectors stood just inside the doors. Those are the same doors that usually send me home without a movie on Sunday nights because there aren’t three other people in the whole damn town who want to see a subtitled movie. I set my keys, cellphone and disposable camera in the tray and walked through. I beeped.

I stepped off to the side, a little disappointed in myself. I had wanted to make it through without beeping, it’s just a little goal I usually set for myself. I looked at the man with the wand and raised my hands out from my sides.

He swiped my left arm. Nothing. A babuska-ed grandmother walked through the gate and beeped. He swiped my right arm. Nothing. The lady kept walking and her friend followed. I don’t think they knew what the concept of a metal detector was.

He swiped my left leg. Nothing. A man carrying a long tube over his back, beeped, but walked right through the gate. Another new grandma, this one with suspiciously large moles. Really big. By the time the security guard swiped my right leg and declared me clear, he was trying to chase down seven people who had beeped but walked on through. I don’t think he succeeded. Feri hasn’t, at the least, made too many mortal enemies in his time as prime minister, or so the security procedures make it seem.

I picked a seat smack dab in the middle of a sea of old folks. Old-age pensioners, they call them in British-English text books. I recognized two young people. A moody looking blond hair girl who smiled at me one night at the disco. She studies in Eger and speaks only German. In my phone, she’s listed as "Smiling Betti". The other girl was a school-leaver who doesn’t come to my class regularly because she has a language certificate. Her name’s Agi. For some reason, she also knows the Hebrew alphabet.

With nothing to do before the show began, I flipped through the brochures. All the pictures were very nice. Inside, I was impressed by Feri’s promise to tovabbi 400 ezer uj munkahelyet teremtunk. Even more startling, though, was his campaign-year pledge to 25%-kal novekednek a berek. That’s big time, folks. I was almost ready to sign on the dotted line.

As the pre-game speeches babbled on, a sudden burst of enthusiasm clued me in to the first happening of note. A man, his dark-skin radiant in sharp juxtaposition to his white suit, and three beauty pageant contestants in red evening gowns slipped out from behind the curtain. All were holding violins.

Hungary is a part of that swath of Eastern Europe that you associate with opera, classical music and the violin. They hold few of their musicians in higher regard than the professional-trained gypsies, a rather significant about-face to normal Hungarian opinion toward their darker-skinned, lately-arrived neighbors.

For half-an-hour they played, swinging their tempo back and forth, fully in control of the crowd. Everyone clapped or swayed along. My favorite was their electro-remix of the Magyar Tancolni. I appreciated the kitschiness of the moment, hundreds of Hungarians bobbing to the Hungarian Waltz as the prime minister was pulling up.

The man onstage is rumored to be the most famous musical gypsy in all the land. He and his three pin-up back-ups stopped after a rousing finale. Then, an old man hopped on stage, and began speaking rather quickly. Regardless of language, that’s a good sign that excitement’s on its way.

On cue, the loud campaign music began just as he stopped. The song is simple, but catchy. "Igen, igen…Igen, igen…" A chorus of yesses, punctuated at frequent intervals with a burst of "Magyarorszag."

A second later, the crowd erupted into a standing ovation as Feri walked through the door with a broad smile and a wide wave of the hand. Long strides took him toward the stage, in between stopping to sign autographs and shake hands. I took a picture giddily, waiting for just the right moment. I’m not beyond that.

Feri got down to business quickly. He began with the important things, to connect with the audience and assure them of his fitness for political office at the head of Hungary. In the first five minutes of his speech, Feri mentioned "palinka," the most famous of Hungarian liquors, four times. I knew from that point on, that this was my man.

He proceeded to lose me for most of the rest of his hour-long rally-the-troops speech, but luckily, the Igen song was back to secure my vote as Feri skipped out of the hall and out of town.

"Yes, yes…Hungary…Yes, Yes…Hungary."

Good stuff. I hummed it all the way back to school for Wednesday afternoon soccer. And then scored three goals. Again. Business as usual.