Journal of a Sabbatical

August 14, 1999

more cardboard and sponges

Bird Sightings
Budakeszi

1 yellowhammer (female) 

My jeans and red T-shirt still smell like smoke from Vince's fireplace even though I left them outside all night.

Today has been a day of work and logistics.

I swept the floor and folded plastic bags while Keith and Judy unpacked and sorted the last of the Mexico boxes in the North American room. When István finally unloaded the plant dryer so we could have more cardboard and sponges, Judy and I set up shop downstairs again and continued re-pressing the Japan stuff.

Somehow, I left out of yesterday's entry that Keith miraculously reserved a car with automatic transmission for me at the Budget rental office when he went into town. Automatics do exist in Hungary. In the afternoon, I went into Budapest with István and Marti to exchange the white Opel for the aforementioned automatic, a red Suzuki Swift.

Back at the herbarium Keith was still sorting Mexico, Judy was still re-pressing Japan, and Carol was still entering data into the laptop.

We had a little planting ceremony for a viburnum from the Case Estates (picked up by Zsolt) and a linden tree from the base camp in Rokugo. It really is a small world and getting smaller all the time, as the cliché goes. The Case Estates, where the viburnum came from, is right next door to Regis College where I went to school. I traveled halfway around the world to Rokugo where I met István, who had spent 4 years at the Case Estates. And now here we are planting it in front of the new herbarium in Budakeszi. It's amazing where the flow of life takes you and how where you are ends up being related to where you've been even when there's no obvious connection or explicit path.

Dinner at the witch place tonight was another marvel of disorganization. Some of us thought we were going directly to the witch place from the herbarium. Others thought we were going home to change first. None of us thought Isabel was coming because she had taken the train to Eger for the day. So there were Carol, me, István and Marti at the witch place waiting for Keith and Judy. We ordered appetizers while we waited. Finally István decided to go look for Keith and left. Keith arrived with Judy and with Isabel shortly after István and Marti's appetizers appeared. Keith was about to go look for István when we realized that was nutty, and István returned - astonished to see Isabel. I think we'd been there for an hour before we ordered dinner, which was of course fabulous.

After dinner I drove Isabel to the ATM machine (in my new Suzuki Swift) thus disorienting myself and starting to drive back to the herbarium instead of to our apartment! Boy was I on autopilot!

The dogs barked until 10:00. I watched Sky News on the TV. And so to bed with hopes of finding the bird paradise at Lake Velence tomorrow.