Journal of a Sabbatical

February 18, 2001

canvasbacks

Today's Bird Sightings:
Watchemoket Cove
canvasback (22)
hooded merganser (6)
Canada goose (76)
mute swan (41)
domestic goose (3)
mallard (15)
ring-billed gull (190)
herring gull (34)
common goldeneye (4)
red-breasted merganser (3)
American black duck (6)
bufflehead (18)
American crow (5)

Today's Reading: Budapest: The City of the Magyars by F. Berkeley Smith

Breakfast at Downcity. Browse at Brown Bookstore. Resist buying a book called Who Killed the Great Auk? despite intense desire to learn the latest theories on how we let the great auk go extinct. Restraint likely due to slight remorse over yesterday's book binge. Canvasbacks at the cove. Dragonwell tea at TeaLuxe. Packing for Budapest.

I'm off for Budapest tomorrow...

"I'm off for Budapest tomorrow," announced the Enthusiast of the Quartier Latin as he entered the restaurant Lavenue, hung up his black-brimmed hat and squeezed into his place among his crowd of fellow students at dejeuner.

"Budapest!" cried half a dozen, looking up from their plat du jour. "Well, we can see your finish, Enthusiast. You're in luck."

"Just think," the Enthusiast went on, "they say it's the greatest place this side of the Arabian Nights. I've been longing to get there for years. Wild czardas droning in your ears all day and night, a regular comic opera of a town. They say Budapestians never go to bed. Cafes never closed. Soft Oriental climate, rose gardens, hot mineral baths, warm sunshine, gypsies, glorious wine, and the handsomest women in the world."

From Budapest: The City of the Magyars by F. Berkeley Smith, New York, 1903, James J. Pott & Company.