Vacation Journal V: Family

I first traveled abroad at the age of 11.  Amazingly, my parents put me on a plane with my older sister for 3 weeks in Sweden with the cousins.  Amazingly, I recall being a mostly uncranky preteen in a country where the only phrases I could conversationally use were Hej! (Hi!) and Kan jag få smör. (Please pass the butter.)

I also recall, at a number of points, being so homesick I cried.

This past week, I am still a fool in Hungarian.  But I can eke out egészségedre (exclaimed when toasting) and am an expert on köszönöm (thank you).

And I haven't at all been homesick.  That's mostly because of my hosts -- who have bunked me at their lovely home in the country (mosquitoes aside), kept me in three square meals a day (with dessert at every one), provided a nightly venue for watching the World Cup matches, and treated me like a second daughter.  

I could say that being unaware of what is being said in 90 percent of all conversations might be disconcerting.  But it's vacation.  I have found it is more enjoyable to eat my home-picked arugula and homemade rice pudding, sausage, and cold cherry soup, sitting on the patio in the morning sunshine overlooking the rose garden and be grateful for good people.

Good family.

Mama.

Papa.

Sister Julia.

Vacation Journal IV: Mosquitoes

The floods of 2010 are receding as we speak; the sun I brought with me, evidently, is helping.

Charting Danube flood levels 
on the ferry landing across from Szentendre.

This is indeed good news.  Although from our vantage in the Danube flood plain, it has been a slow drying-out.  Balint and I biked 10 miles north to Vác Saturday evening, on the back roads adjacent to the river, and the muck and standing water reeks a bit like a musty basement.

Another side-effect has been the mosquitoes. By the hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands.  In short:  by the swarm.  We discovered that if you ride a bike, you can just keep your mouth shut and not swallow any ... and that your relative speed keeps them from landing and biting.

Which was great incentive for us to keep pedaling during the 20 or so miles of our route.  But alas, if you are trying to stand still to capture the visit to the old Serbian town of Szendtendre.

Swat, swat, swat.

Now a pro at posing without flinching.

Interestingly, though, once we got on the ferry and moved off the banks and into the river channel -- the pea soup appearance of the water not to be taken literally -- the breeze blew these suckers away enough that we could enjoy a 5-minute respite.

Crossing the Danube back to Dunakeszi.

We haven't been lucky enough to keep them out of the house at night for such respites during sleep.  But we'll take what we can get.

Vacation Journal III: Running

The degree to which I am no longer observing my diet is stark.  Bread, cheese and sausage at every meal.  Pasta with cream soup.  5L mugs of beer.  Homemade pear cake with post-breakfast coffee ... after eating apple pastries, and only apple pastries with cappuccino, for breakfast.

Oy.  Glad I made some room in my stomach before coming here. 

The upside of this is my host's family has an energetic Golden Labrador puppy, Baucksy, who needs to run, run, run with his adolescent's energy.   And we run about the same tempo.  So for the past 3 mornings we have jogged together along the bike path to the next village and back.  He gets easily hung up on chasing butterflies and drinking from puddles and jumping in the river.

But we keep each other honest.  Baucksy gets to show me the countryside.  And I get to burn a couple hundred calories'-worth of breakfast.

Baucksy on the road south of Göd - June 26

Vacation Journal II: Spa

When I touched down in Budapest on Tuesday afternoon, it was through a cloud cover so thick we didn't see land until the wheels nearly hit the runway.  Which was itself covered in puddles.  Balint drove me back to his parents' house in Göd, in driving rain, explaining that this had been the general condition for most of the spring.  The Danube was at record levels, mosquito swarms at even higher density.

Nice, then, to have the next 2 days be nothing but blue skies for my intro to Budapest and the surrounding countryside.  Balint and his family have officially credited me with "bringing the sun along."  I've been called worse.

Wine with lunch. A must at the spa.

Yesterday, the lunch special at the historic Gellert Baths was in order. Nothing like 1930s Art Deco decadence (and some pork cutlets and fried potatoes) to rest the spirit.

Learning that most meals are meat; veal and rice, pork and potatoes.

Now THAT'S a pool.

Relaxation I.

Relaxation II.

(And thank God for the Bikini Challenge.)

Vacation Journal I: Dessert first

Dupla presszókávé and Krémes 
The Ruszwurm, Budapest
June 23

What I would recommend to anyone
who

a) may have just been on a 6-week diet

or 

b) at that moment, on any other weekday of the year,
would just be sitting down at the office to start the day
or
c) hadn't eaten lunch yet
but could not wait.

Bikini Challenge BV: Dénouement

May 4 Poundage: CXXXVII

June 16 Poundage: CXXVII

June 20 Goal Poundage: CXXV

June 21 Actual Poundage:  CXXVI

Corner of Clarendon & Stuart, Boston - June 21

So .... a pound short.  

Complete uneven runner's tan.  

Remnants of the Reeses Pieces binge apparent at the waist.

Nonetheless ...  the bikini fits.  

And I'm getting on the plane to Budapest, regardless.

So long .... farewell ... auf wiedersehen ...

Notes from 2 days and 2 nights

Friday begins....

..... one of the longer Fridays of my life.

Work is 2 parts drama, 4 parts aggravation, 1 part determination to not leave the 28th floor without reducing the pile of new-account folders with pending issues to less than 2 feet high. Which means work goes until 8:15 p.m. Note to self: when co-workers seem more enthusiastic to see me leave on vacation than I am to go on vacation .... it must really be time to go on vacation.

First things first, though: a flying run around the MIT-Longfellow loop at dusk. Flying. It rocks; negative energy, begone. Note to self:  4 parts aggravation provides first-rate fuel for marathon training; get aggravated more often.

Home to the kitchen and the mound of produce the size of a lesser peak in the Appalaichans: time to prep the 5 batches of salsa and many more batches of sangria for the party I'm hosting the next day. If you haven't spent a Friday night dicing tomatoes, green onions, red onions and mangos (and limes and lemons and avocados and peaches and oranges) while the BBC's non-stop analysis of the BP oil spill drones in the background, you have not lived. Note to self: next party, pick both food and drink not requiring 6 hours of chopping with a dull knife. Also: buy knife sharpener, soon.

And Saturday rolls in during the chopfest ....

.... it was almost a relief at 1:32 a.m., when the phone buzzed with a text from long-lost C-2 (last seen on opening night), wondering if I had a last call and a beer in my bones. "Just one, I'm making salsa," I shot back. In truth, Guinness never sounded so sweet; jump in the car, destination Foley's, in the doors just before they shut. Note to self: if you even ever think a night will bring a chance to join a man out for a beer, don't mince garlic first. It does not wash off the palms on first scrubbing.

Soon, 5:28 a.m., still out. One Guinness turned into a raucous conversation turned into C-2 smelling the garlic on my palms into my driving him back to Somerville when, enticed by the 75 degrees and the stars through my open moon roof, turned into, instead, a detour over to Spy Pond in Arlington. A lengthy detour. Note to self: must plan all-nighter every year on third-longest day of the year, when it gets light about 4. Lying on the damp grass at sunrise with someone you want to lie on damp grass with at sunrise isn't a bad gig. To his credit,C-2 mentioned several times: "tell me again why we don't hang out more often?" I had been thinking same.

Meanwhile, sunrise or no, there was a party beginning in 12 hours and a Key Lime cheesecake that needed to be first baked, then chilled for 12 hours. Which meant party prep resumed pronto. Which meant another detour, this time to Dunkin' Donuts for fuel ... and then back to the kitchen (and the BBC) to grate lime zest and whip cream cheese into vanilla yogurt and lick glaze off the beaters and then begin chopping more lemons and squeezing them into the Sangria wine and wonder how it suddenly got to be 11 a.m. and I hadn't yet slept. At all. And how I could be, surprisingly, lucid. And not that tired. Note to self: Guinness and solstice sunrises can replace sleep every so often. And 6:30 on a Saturday morning is an excellent time to bake.

Fast forward to 6 p.m. .... following a 2-hour cat nap, a top-to-bottom clean of the apartment, a couple loads of laundry and some serious last-minute set-up help from friends .... the Salsa and Sangria party began.Just as Saturday's sunrise had cooperated, Saturday's sunset did the same. Guests came and went and drank and ate and we talked on the patio for hours and hours and hours and the neighbors never called to complain about the noise and the kitchen floor grew sticky from sloshing glasses of the new best summer drink in the world, Peach Citrus sangria, drunk by old friends and new friends who all became new friends. Note to self: if ever feeling low and aggravated like I did Friday at the office, must remember nights like this and that my friends are cooler than any other friend's friends I know.

And Sunday rolls in ....:

.... cue ahead to 2:30 a.m., on the heels of the party teardown and a last beer slugged while sitting on the couch, cat at hip, feet on a chair, hands finally registering a soreness from the salsa-making, brain still trying to register life's idiosyncracies and joys and how a body can sometimes function on those things alone.

Note to self: the sleep of the dead that comes after a full 2 days without sleep is also the sleep of purest pleasure.

Bikini Challenge BV: Inching

So you know that yoga and me are pretty tight.  So are running and me, at  least (knock on wood) for the this brief and unusual period in which nothing on my body hurts when I do it.

I'm grateful for these solid relationships, which allowed  last night's weigh-in to continue inching in the right direction.

May 4 Poundage: CXXXVII
June 9 Poundage: CXXIX
June 16 Poundage: CXXVII
June 20 Goal Poundage: CXXV
(Poundage to go:  II ..... in addition to the pound of candy I may very well inhale.)

Alright.  Let me explain ... which means I must reintroduce you to my dear sister Kristin.  A caring girl who is the queen of Complimentary Vacation Care Packages.  Usually including snacks for the road. A fun t-shirt.  Book of crossword puzzles.

Last night I got home -- feeling all buff from yoga and the hill-climbing machine and grocery shopping --  to discover a padded envelope in the mail pile. Suspiciously lumpy. When lifted, shape of crossword puzzle book apparent.  Telltale sound of smooth candy coatings clacking against one another.

Yes.  On the last 4 days of diet and work before vacation and just getting ready for vacation, period,  I let a pounder bag of Reeses Pieces into the apartment.

I tried to forestall the inevitable by putting it in the freezer behind a bag of chicken breasts and unloading my other frozen groceries in front of that.  This helped for 5 minutes.  After which I moved the chicken breasts out of the way, broke the seal, and helped myself to 4 man-sized handfuls.

Oh well.  Either I need to a) see a counselor for impulsive and compulsive eating habits; b) admit that willpower is one of my weaker traits;  c) hope that the bikini I ordered from Victoria's Secret gets lost in the mail before Sunday; or d) need to just be OK weighing 127 pounds.

Kristin:  I love you and thank you ... you evil chick ...

I wish ....

.... that I could marry Power Yoga.

(The end.)

Vacation, schmacation...

Today I'm much better.

Yesterday, not so much.

A week from today, I'll be in Hungary.

I won't be back for 2 weeks.  Which means 14 days away from the cats.  2 Sundays away from church. 2 more away from my Tuesday weightlifting class. 1 Independence Day not celebrated in the US. 9 business days away from the office.  The longest vacation I've taken in 16 years.

Yesterday, as if I hadn't been thinking about it regularly for the last 3 months, it hit me that I had to figure out how to be gone.

I'm not very good at this. Most of the day I sat at my desk, staring at a stack of account folders, contemplating the details therein that should be communicated to my coworkers. I thought about the shopping I should do after work to get a get a present for my hosts and the walking shoes and the comfortable traveling skirt I've always wanted..  I thought about the cat-sitting schedule only marginally done.  I thought about the party I -- yes, why not -- thought would be a fine idea to host on Saturday night and the attendant 58-item grocery-and-liquor list just waiting for my attention.  I realized I don't even know how to say "hello" in Hungarian. Or thank you.

It was a lot of thinking.  No doing.  Another instant of the sheer number of details rendering me powerless to deal with even one of them.

Oy.

My unlikely savior was Doug, the IT dude. By 4 p.m., requiring roasted almonds from the lobby snack bar in order to soldier on without a panic attack, I happened to encounter Doug in the down elevator.   When he asked, "how are you," I told him my exact level of anxiety about the 9 days of client crisis that I wouldn't be around to help solve.

Doug is one of the cooler characters I know.  He just chuckled.

"You know, you gotta let it go," he said. "It'll all be here when you get back."

That's both good and bad.  But also true.  My co-workers will also be here the entire time I'm gone, doing my job.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Something about Doug's casual confidence snapped my trance open.  Reminded me that I will have 12 hours on a plane to learn how to say "hello!" in Hungarian. That I know exactly what walking shoes I need to buy and where I'm going to buy them and that I'll buy them tomorrow.   That I actually made a recipe list and drinks list and grocery list for my party. That I have a passport and a plane ticket and a friend meeting me at the airport in Budapest who will take care of me.

It's great.  32 hours later, I'm still breathing.