Journal of a Sabbatical

August 13, 1999

smoked botanists

We woke to overcast cool weather for a change. It looks like it might even rain.

Our new hostess is more generous with the breakfast tomatoes. There were four whole ripe tomatoes on the plate, enough for one for each of us! Compared to the luxury lodge's concept of two tomatoes for 6 people, this is veritable feast. No Herend china though, just ordinary plastic plates.

The beds are nice here too. They don't make that thunderstorm in the distance noise when you roll over, and they're not upholstered with that scratchy stuff. The pillowcases don't have the communist party crest embroidered on them, but I can live with that.

Judy and I continued with re-pressing the Japan stuff but we ran out of cardboard and sponges and string. Not to mention we overwhelmed the capacity of the plant dryer.

Things seem a lot less organized today. István is busy with some VIP visitors and his office is locked so Carol can't find a place to plug in the all-important laptop. The unpacking of the Mexico boxes seems chaotic to me - I can't catch on to the system - and it's too damn humid up there for me -- again.

Zsolt's mother is here helping tidy up. She's untangling the strands of pink raffia and tying them into neat little bundles. I really want to know if there's a shortage of string and if so can I make my fortune selling balls of twine to the Taiwanese? And is István really going to reuse all these shredding pink raffia things Zsolt's mother is organizing so neatly?

On the bright side, I drove the white car to the lodge and back without killing myself or István. It turns out I can reach the clutch if I stretch. I had just been psyched out by Isabel's overwhelming anxiety. I'm greatly relieved. My self-esteem leaped up about 50%! My mood improved a little too. I had been quite down in the dumps this morning feeling both sad and tired (despite the bounty of tomatoes). I'm a little livelier since lunch, and now that I know I can drive the white Opel, my post-project plans don't depend on the impossible task of finding an automatic transmission in Hungary.

I was opening one of the Mexico boxes when I spotted something that looked like it had been gnawed by a giant rat. Not only that, when I opened one of the plastic bags, mold spores flew out with explosive force and my eyes and throat began to itch instantly. This was happening just as István and the reporter from the Budapest Sun were talking with us in the North American room. The reporter only asked me one question: "does the project have a web page?" to which I squeaked "Yup, I'm the web master" before fleeing downstairs from the mold. The reporter took some group pictures in the Taiwan room. Carol made an impassioned plea hoping someone reading the story would donate a laser printer. Tomorrow is the last day of the project, so even if we magically got a printer we're not going to get the labels printed out in time.

Mary and Isabel are off to the opera tonight. The rest of us are going to Vince's house for dinner. We all changed into clean clothes for dinner. The Mexico boxes were very dirty so it was the polite thing to do.

Dinner at Vince's 150 year old house was in the beautiful walled garden with and old stone fireplace built into the wall. The kids helped make the salami and cheese sandwiches (I think there's a minimum daily requirement for salami and cheese at every meal in Hungary. The kids were adorable, especially the 3 1/2 year old boy who took a liking to (or maybe I should say took an interest in) Carol.

I hadn't realized that the real agenda at Vince's was wine. He served the famous Tokaj wines and gave authoritative talks on them. Two wines are made from the same cultivar of grape but one is made by an oxidative process and one by a reductive process. This is lost on me and I start to tune out. The fireplace has no flue so the smoke comes directly forward out over the guests at the table. It feels a little like sitting around the campfire when I was a kid. People keep offering me wine and I keep saying "no thank you" politely all the while feeling more and more self-conscious. Judy turns to me and asks: "Are you not allowed to drink or just not keen on it?" I want to fade into the stone wall. "Umm, I can't drink. I just can't." I'm not the least bit inclined to offer any more explanation than that to a garden full of smoked botanists.

The desserts were fabulous. All home made pastries. Vince's wife must be superhuman. After dinner she gave us a weaving demonstration on an 1870's loom. She weaves traditional patterns on her antique loom while raising three little kids and baking fabulous traditional pastries. Think I could borrow her for awhile?

Back at the apartment, I realize my clothes smell so heavily of smoke that I have to put them outside on the balcony to air out so I can sleep. The neighborhood dogs bark until 10:00 as they apparently do every night. What shuts them off at 10:00 I'll never know.