Journal of a Sabbatical

February 24, 2001

farsang

Today's Reading: The Third Eye, a Life in Photography by Bela Kalman

Hotel Platanus - Budapest - February 24, 2001

Sun's out. Let's hope it's not another false alarm.

Finished The Paul Street Boys last night. What a sweet, sad, tea-jerker of a story! Great characters.

könyv = book

könyvesbolt = book shop

Botanical Department, Hungarian Museum of Natural History - Budapest - February 24, 2001

This morning I took the metro to Ferenc tér to visit the Museum of Applied Arts, which Carol had recommended. It is a gorgeous Art Nouveau building with a striking green ceramic tile roof. The permanent collection has plenty of Arts & Crafts items, exhibits on bookbinding, weaving, iron forging, and pottery glazing. The current exhibition is called One Hundred Years Ago. It displays decorative objects such as glass, ceramics, furniture, fabric and so on from the Fin de Siecle period - the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century - a time when Budapest was at its height of creative energy, construction, and prestige. The exhibit has items from several different countries all from the same time period - arranged by country. It was sort of an Around the World with Secessionist Art tour. The similarities were striking. I guess the point was it was truly global art movement.

The museum staff were preparing for some kind of function in the main hall tonight. I watched a guy folding napkins from up on the balcony above the hall. Just when it occurred to me what a great photo it would make, the guy took a break. Them's the breaks I guess.

After the museum, I took the metro to Kalvin tér in search of used book stores. I found two: one very small, one quite large. Both had a fair number of books in English , also French and a lot of German, in addition to the stock of Hungarian books. Both were packed with people . There were more people in one of these shops today than I have seen in a year at Olde Port Book Shop (in case you're wondering - no cat in either shop here). I had a great time browsing but bought nothing. I stopped in at one more regular new bookstore and purchased a bizarre little book about coffeehouses of Budapest, filled with nostalgia about places and culture that used to be there. The writing is sarcastic and biting and quite funny. Also picked up Budapest Then and Now, a quirky collection of personal essays about local history and places.

I treated myself to lunch at the Museum Restaurant, so named because it's next to the National Museum. I ordered one of the house specialties "layered potatoes a la museum", which was a giant, I do mean giant, casserole of potatoes, eggs, cheese, some kind of vegetable, and sausage. Somehow I wasn't expecting the sausage. I ate around it, consuming the potatoes and eggs etc. This casserole was large enough to provide a full meal for six or more people. It's about the size I would have made to serve my whole family. The waiter asked if I didn't like it because there was so much left over. I liked it fine, there was just too much of it. I ordered some coffee and lingered over it there before I headed back to the botanical department to meet István for a drive out to Budakeszi to see all the work that's been don on the herbarium since we moved all those boxes in.

Herbarium - Budakeszi - February 24, 2001

The snow is still on the ground in Budakeszi (it melted almost immediately in Budapest) and on the trees making it look all picturesque and Central European. The same dog - the mean one - is still at the gate. No sign of the other more friendly one.

The herbarium looks like a real place now. The area in the lobby under the stairs is no longer filled with empty boxes and trash from unpacking. Instead it house a collection of cross-sections of branches and trunks of various species of trees. The room that we used as a dining room is now a meeting room with chairs and a rug and everything. The rooms where the students slept are now the kitchen and dining room. The workrooms have tables and chairs. The library has books. Many of the wonderful tree photos from the Mexico expedition are displayed on the walls. The collections are on shelves in numerical order. Yup, it looks like a real place now. I took a bunch of pictures for a photo tour of the herbarium for the IDRI web site. I'll put a link to the photo tour here when I get it done.

On the way back to the city we had to make a stop at an address that István was not familiar with so we got a little lost up on the hill overlooking the center of Budakeszi. Twilight was just falling and lights were coming on in town. The church is floodlit at night. The view of the village complete with snow and the tiniest remaining sliver of sunset was worth getting lost for.

Botanical Department, Hungarian Museum of Natural History - Budapest - February 24, 2001

I edited the English text for a bunch of the labels for the New Zealand collection back here at the botanical department and the started flipping through a book of photographs by Bela Kalman, titled The Third Eye, which was sitting on István's bookshelf amidst the botanical books. I was so taken with it that I asked if I could borrow it to bring to my room tonight.

There's a party going on upstairs in the botanical department building involving disco music and people dressed as clowns. We couldn't eat at the hotel restaurant because it was closed for a party. There's a party at the Museum of Applied Arts. Parties everywhere tonight. Couldn't find a restaurant where there wasn't a party so ended up at the golden arches. Yikes! Turns out this weekend is Farsang, a celebration of the end of winter, which involves balls, dinners, costumes, music ... and takes place on the weekend preceding Ash Wednesday.