Journal of a Sabbatical

February 25, 2001

a floppy full of photos

Today's Reading: Logbook by Géza Ottlik in A Hungarian Quartet * Four Contemporary Short Novels

Botanical Department, Hungarian Museum of Natural History - Budapest - February 25, 2001

I pored over the Bela Kalman book until after 11:00 last night, then couldn't sleep anyway because of the noise from partygoers. I still managed to get myself out of the hotel with camera in hand before 10:00 AM. The Kalman book inspired me to take pictures again and got me looking at things differently. For one thing, I changed my mind about the bullet holes in the walls of the botanical department. They are visually interesting after all, especially now that the sun is out for real.

Bullet holes in granite

Bullet hole in brick

Blue boats on the Green Danube	Blue balloon on the green Danube
A view of Buda from Pest	The Chain Bridge
Balloons discarded after a Farsang party

A single black-headed gull floats downstream. Two more gulls fly past it, whirl around, and land on the water one on either side of it. All three of them float along, carried by the current to the Elizabeth Bridge. They join a whole raft of gulls swirling about the Buda side of the bridge, flying, floating, swooping, in a gull convocation.

The discarded Farsang balloons float towards Romania.

I return to the botanical department with a floppy full of photos.