TRIP TO IRAN OCTOBER 2009

DECEMBER 2009

Whenever we told persons we intended to go to Iran, almost all of them asked, "What on earth would you go there for?" or some variant of this. With me at least it all began many, many years ago, when I was about twelve years old and read Plutarch's Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, in which there is a biography of Alexander the Great and an account of how he burned Persepolis after defeating the armies of Darius. Of course it never occurred to me that I would ever get to really see Persepolis, just as it never occurred to me that I would see any of the other places I read about and was fascinated by. (My great realistic ambition at that time was to one day go to Chicago!) To be sure we had seriously discussed a trip to Syria and perhaps to Jordan; I had even gone so far as to check out the timeshares in Syria---there are only about three---and the availability of an automatic-shift rental car from Hertz, and it was obviously seriously on our mind. How, then, did Iran come up? Well, in the course of our investigating tours to Syria/Jordan, Anna's cousin's daughter, who lives in Vienna, had enrolled us on the e-mailing list of several travel agencies. Periodically they sent us notices of their offerings, most of which I ignored, as they were all written in German, of which I understand absolutely nothing. Just why I looked through one that arrived in late winter will remain forever a mystery; but I did and chanced to see that they offered a trip to Iran, at a time convenient for me to go, going to the places I wanted to go to (plus a great many more I knew nothing about), and at a quite reasonable price. So I sent them an e-mail and received a reply in English with a description of the tour in English. I spoke to Anna about it and she said she would be interested in going, so I wrote back to the agency and told them we would be in Vienna in June and would come into their offices---both Anna and I were quite familiar with their location---and could we make arrangements then. They replied that it would be fine and in mid-June we went in and made the arrangements. There is a bit more to the story, and if you are interested you may read the posted blog before this one for the details.

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We decided to travel with our Hungarian passports, rather than our US passports. We were not trying to fool the Iranians, for they knew we were also US citizens; moreover, the only restriction upon persons traveling on a US passport as against all others is that US citizens must travel in a tour group (which we were doing anyway), whereas there is no such requirement for other nationals. Our reason was to avoid raised eyebrows and possible interrogation when we entered the US on our US passports, which is compulsory for US citizens. To our great surprise we were given the visa in a half-hour, along with maps and descriptive literature.

We flew on Iran Air from Vienna, about 4-3/4 hours. Although we had a long wait until they opened the immigration booth for non-Iranians, we were allowed to go through customs without inspection and without having to go through the X-ray machine. (We were conducted by our guide, who was permitted to meet us in the baggage area after we cleared immigration). We were loaded into our bus, a large Volvo (although we were only eight!) and driven into the city of Tehran. It was about 8.30 Saturday evening. The highways, we saw, were very good, if you think of the Whitestone Expressway or the Van Wyck as being good; unfortunately, they were just as crowded. This, we were to discover, was to be true of all highways everywhere in Iran: quite good, but very, very crowded. All highway signs (and, astonishingly, street signs as well) are in English in addition to the local language. Tehran is a city of about twice the size of NYC in population, and it seemed like all of them were out and about whenever we were. We arrived at our hotel at the north end of the city, which is the best end of town; the quality of the city improves the further north you go. In quality it ranked with a typical 4-star hotel in the US, but geared primarily toward businesspersons.

The next day, Sunday, and also on Monday, we went to museums, ending up at the vault of the National Bank, which contains the Royal Treasury. We also visited some palaces of the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and his father, usually called Rezashah. (In the Islamic faith it is customary to name the eldest son Mohammed, which is why the last Shah is not a "Junior"). Tuesday morning we left Tehran, having seen relatively little of it; but then, Tehran is not that much of a tourist destination for most tourists, since it does not house any of the great antiquities. It did not become the capital until about the time of US independence, and at the time it was a quite insignificant town. I could get out the itinerary and recite the merits of each of the places we visited----to the extent that I remember them. But I think you would not find such an account especially interesting. So instead I shall relate some general impressions and some impressions of particular places.

First of all, the place is much cleaner and more orderly than you would expect it to be. As an example, in Tehran I saw a man actually cleaning public telephone booths, something I had never seen in my life anywhere else; and at the airport I saw them cleaning the handrail of the escalators abd the vents of the air-conditioning system. People are extremely polite and friendly and remarkably patient, too, for they never complained about being asked to screech to a halt so we could cross the street. From what we saw public transport was frequent and the buses seemed in good condition; we never used public transport ourselves, however. We were regularly approached by persons asking where we were from and expressing surprise and pleasure that we were from USA, for (as you might imagine) few Americans travel to Iran, and my impression from things said to me is that most Iranians do not blame them for not coming. The hotels ranged from very good Holiday Inn types to the quite luxurious, and in all of them you were provided with a complete set of toiletries and slippers. The food was international cuisine. There was no alcoholic beverages, but you could drink alcohol-free beer, something we knew very well here in Hungary, since it is forbidden to drink at all and drive here. Except in the more remote and small towns you will find persons who speak English, especially among the university-age set and professionals.

Distances in Iran can be considerable by European standards---here 200 miles is a great distance. However, conveniences are not hard to find, but if you wish to use the toilet it is best to go to a mosque, since you can be sure of a higher level of cleanliness. The landscape is a mixture of desert and semi-arid land for the most part, with a goodly number of mountains. Archaeological sites abound. Many of them consist of bass reliefs carved into rock and commemorate notable victories over foreign foes or homage being paid by subject princes.

The most remarkable cities are Shiraz, Yazd, Kharmanshah, Eshfahan, and Qom. The latter is the Shia Vatican, which is to say that it is a religious center and therefore likely to be crowded most of the time. The others were either at one time or other capital of the country or major cultural cneters. Persepolis is sort of near Shiraz. I say "sort of" because it is actually about 55 miles distant and there is no reliable way to go there by public transport other than by taxi. We of course went on our tour bus, but we learned that a taxi will take you there and back and wait for you for two hours while you tour the site for about 20,000 rials. I could hardly believe my ears and asked again to make sure I heard correctly; 20,000 rials is, after all, all of $2!

Persepolis is every bit what you imagine. At least what remains of it. Given that what remains is quite extensive in area, two hours is barely enough time to do it if you also wish to inspect the bass-reliefs on the cliffside overlooking the city. I bought a DVD (in English) which shows a re-creation of what it must have looked like in the time of Darius the Great or Ataxerxes, before the coming of Alexander.

Shiraz has a bridge we walked across that was already open to traffic at the time William the Conqueror was mulling over snatching the throne of England from Harold. It also has beautiful gardens and parks, which is something found throughout Iran. Eshfahan has a huge square flanked by mosques and palaces, and adorned with fountains and gardens, with shaded arcades.

To sum up: It was one of the very best trips we ever took, and we would recommend it to anyone with even a slight interest in visiting that part of the world.

AUTUMN 2009

SEPTEMBER 6

I am back from two months in USA. I shall not attempt to recount all that happened during that time, since many of you are a part of that story. But to summarize briefly, I spent time in NY, visited my sister and her family in NC for ten days, stayed overnight at Anna's brother's daughter's in Georgia, and then spent ten days visiting friends in Sarasota, stopping in DC over the weekend on the drive back to NY.

The day following our arrival we attended the annual Crystal Run Village Picnic. It marked the 50th Anniversary of the founding of Crystal Run and afforded us an opportunity to see a large number of colleagues without having to go to a couple of dozen locations. The most noteworthy event of our NY stay was my meeting with Barbara, the daughter of a long-ago acquaintance who is a very famous painter and author. I had not seen her in over 25 years and only once in the past forty years, but had written to her because while in the Metropolitan Museum last year I chanced to see a poster of a painting that I suspected was one of her mother's, and it turned out that it was so, so I bought it and also bought copies of two books written by her older sister, which I read during train rides between here and Debrecen. We met twice, once alone and the next time with Anna. It was a very affecting experience for me, for Barbara is the closest I came to having a daughter, and it was very satisfying to me to find that the relationship between us remains a close one notwithstanding the passage of so many years and the transpiration of so many events.

We also visited--albeit briefly---Anna's niece, Kim, whom I last saw in 1999, when we spent a couple of days with them during our trip around the US before leaving for Hungary. Her two eldest are now in college, and they are all moving from their present home in rural North Georgia to a rural setting outside Ocala, Florida, where they have just purchased a home. I have known Kim for thirty plus years, and we have always been quite close. It is a strange experience, however, to adjust to the fact that someone you knew as a child is a mother of three, two of whom are in college; or, as in Barbara's case, that someone you knew as a teenager is now 57 years old and has three grown daughters.

This Saturday we shall visit an old acquaintance in Serbia. I was last there in 1983 (!), and cannot say that I remember anything about the town, though it is only about 1:45 drive from the frontier. I was going there in 1989, but at the border they insisted that I had to convert $200, even though I intended to return that evening, I was only going to have dinner with friends. What on earth, I asked, could I possibly spend $200 worth of dinar on, since I did not intend to buy a VCR? But they were adamant, so I just got the bus back to Szeged and my friend went on without me and brought me dinner and a bottle of wine back that evening, and the dinner was still warm.

SEPTEMBER 21

The visit to the friends in Serbia was very satisfying. The most difficult part of the drive there was finding the border crossing, as there was no sign----well, there was, but the "sign" consisted only of a very small symbol on a sign that I thought meant that I was going onto the expressway, which was in fact the case, because the only way to reach the crossing point is by going down onto the expressway, which then ends at the crossing-station. The crossing itself took only a few minutes, and the drive was just more than an hour or so. To be honest I remember virtually nothing about my visit there and was pleasantly surprised that everyone remembered me, even the grandson who had been only six years old at the time of my visit. (He is now 29 and has two daughters!) We had a great time, marred only by the fact that for some reason my digital camera, though it showed the photos I took in the memory of the camera, for some reason I am unable to understand did not impress them onto the memory-card, with the result that I have no photographs.

This past Friday we went up to Budapest to the Iranian Embassy and submitted our applications for our visas. the official there checked them over, said everything was in order, and told us to return for them the end of September. I replied that I would come in early October, as we would be in Austria at that time, whereupon he asked me for the passports and told us to take a seat. He returned in about a half-hour and handed us the passports and said, "It is all taken care of, you need not come back." We asked if that meant that we had the visa, and he answered that yes, we did, whereupon we looked inside and saw to our amazement that we had indeed been issued our visa on the same day, when all our information had been that we had to expect it to take at least a week, and probably longer than that, since nothing happens sufficiently often when dealing with the Iranians for one to safely conclude what can be considered "regular". So the result is that we are all set to go to Iran on the 10th of October, as the travel agency has mailed all the information and documents to our relatives in Vienna, whom we shall meet up with this Saturday as we spend a week together in Austria before we leave for Iran. We celebrated by going to a restaurant in Buda and having dinner, as we were to attend a concert in Szeged that evening. I had not been in Budapest since February and was surprised to note numerous changes. For one they built a large office building nesxt door to the railway station. Not in a mere six months, of course; but I had not noticed it before, or that they were constructing it. For another they have closed the Margaret Bridge and are laying some kind of tracks on it---or so it appeared to me. If indeed they are tracks I am confused as to what the purpose might be. There is a tram that runs along the Danube Embankment from the Margaret Bridge on the Pest side clear up beyond the Palace of the Performing Arts, but I cannot imagine what the purpose would be of extending it to cross the Danube to Buda, nor can I imagine where it might go to once it crossed the river.

NOVEMBER 2

Well, as you can see, a great deal of time has passed since my last entry. Since then we went to Schladming,Austria for a week with Anna's cousin's daughter and her husband, and also with our friend, Sari, from here in Hodmezovasarhely. the resort was quite nice and, as it turned out, was part of a chain in which we own a timeshare to which we have never been, which was something I did not know at the time I made the arrangements. We really had a great time. We arrived Saturday. On Sunday we drove to Bad Gastein, a very famous resort to which all of us except Anna had been numerous times. On the way there we came upon a caravan of vehicles participating in the celebration of the Autumn Harvest Festival. The assembly point was in Bad Hofgastein, which is just before you get to Bad Gastein, and it has a brand-new bath to which I went last year with Sandor and Julianna. From there we went to Zell am See, to which--again---everyone except Anna had been numerous times. The following day we went to a waterfall in a national park about 25 miles north of Zell am See. Clemens and Saci had been there before, the rest of us had not. the following day, Tuesday, we drove to a nearby resort to spend the day with Clemens' parents, who were vacationing there and who had invited us to have dinner with them. We spent the day with them, taking in numerous local sights. On Wednesday Saci and Clemens drove to Italy to do some shopping for Clemens, who had just been promoted to head of his department where he works; the rest of us decided to take in the wonders of Schladming, which is certainly a quite picturesque place. Thursday we drove to Salzkammergut, to Aussee, Wolfgangsee, and Mondsee----these sees are lakes, if you did not know---all of which were known to Clemens, but only the latter two to me, and only Wolfgangsee to Sari and Anna. On Friday we drove to Radstadt, about 25km away, and then went up to a place which makes things from pine and also has a very nice restaurant. Saturday we drove home, 700km to Hodme-zovasarhely, in something of a rush as we were to attend a performance of Berlioz' Damnation of Faust that evening in Szeged. It was one we were scheduled to see last season, but we missed it owing to a mixup as to the day of the performance and had to end up giving our tickets to friends. This year we were determined to not miss it, and were rewarded with one of the most spectacular performances we have ever seen anywhere of any opera. Neither of us is a great fan of Berlioz. I had never see his Faust and quite disliked his Benvenuto Cellini that I saw many, many years ago, although I do like Le Troyennes well enough. But this performance was simply breathtaking!

The next week we went to Iran. I shall make that a separate blog and shall only relate the series of events leading up to our departure. To recount what I may have already mentioned, we learned of the trip through a newsletter which I receive via e-mail monthly from a travel agency in Vienna. Since the newsletter is in German (which I do not understand), I usually pay no attention to it; but for some reason I decided to peruse it on this occasion and saw that they had a trip to Iran, at a time suitable for iour travels, and at a quite reasonable price. I spoke to Anna about it and then sent an e-mail to the agency requesting further information. they replied in English, advising me that the guide would likely speak only German. We decicded that that would not be a problem, he would be able to tell us what time we would leave and that kind of information in English, or, if not, there was bound to be someone in the group who could tell us, as English is fairly widely spoken/understood in Austria, especially by younger and educated persons. While in Vienna in June we wnr to their offices and made the arrangements. the xeroxed my Mastercard and said they would charge it in September. Well, September came and nothing happened. Here we were in Schladming and they still had not charged my card, even though they had sent us our flight tickets and all the information for the trip. So I called and they said, "We are old-fashioned, we do not charge your card until you tell us to do so," whereupon I told them to do so! Several days later I got an e-mail saying that the bank had declined my charge! Impossible! I screamed. the card I gave them was a debit card, not a credit card; since I had ample funds in my account to cover the charge, there could not be alogical reason for the bank to refuse to honor it. So I called the bank and, in the course of conversation, learned that they had a limit on the amount a transaction could be; this of course I did not know, for I do not use my debit card to pay transactions, but only to withdraw money. But it would not be a problem, she assured me. Since I know the President of the bank very well, I could call her the next day---she was not in that day---and ask her to have them raise the limit temporarily to the amount I wanted to pay. I did this, and Nancy said, fine, just send me a fax, which I did at the resort where I was staying. But when I called two hours later, she said the fax had not come through yet! So I went down to the post office and sent it, but the woman there said that for some reason the fax would not transmit. So I went into a nearby hotel and asked them to send it, and they did, refusing my offer to pay for it, and told me that it did go through. when I called Nancy she said, Yes, we got your fax twice and it has been arranged that they will pay, just have them re-submit. I notified the agency, which finally submitted and had it accepted only a couple of days before our departure. I asked the agent why she would send us the tickets and other materials when they had not been paid; she said that they felt I would find some way of paying them and were not worried that I would not. Bear in mind that I had never dealt with this agency before and that we are in different countries!

This will be the end of this. The trip to Iran will have a separate blog.

WINTER/SPRING 2009

2009/02/11

It seems the weather is strange everywhere, and here in Hungary is no exception. It is mild one day and wintry the next; but we have had very little snow in our part of the country. Although Budapest is only 2-1/2 hours distant by train, I seldom get up there, mostly because I have little reason to go. However, we were there three times in the span of two weeks, twice to performances at the Palace of the Arts and once to visit our friends, Sandor Klein and his wife, Julianna, with whom we shall go to Spain for two weeks on March 13. We plan to drive, which is nothing unusual; I have driven to Spain numerous times in January and only once did I encounter poor weather, and that was only a light snow near Milan. However, the weather has been Old-Style Winter over most of Europe this season, with snow even in the north of Spain. Hopefully it will be more Spring-like when we go. We shall be in Tarragona for two weeks, which is about 70 miles south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean. Actually we shall be in a resort named Pineda, about 15 miles outside the city, a few minutes from Salou, from which it is possible to get trains regularly to Tarragona, Barcelona, and major cities. I know my way around Barcelona on foot, but not driving; and what there is to see there is in the city, so we can go by train. Some sights in Tarragona, on the other hand, can only be conveniently reached by car, so we shall go by train for those things we can walk to and by car for the rest.

I have been avoiding speaking of the State of the World, which, at this point, is rather dismal in most places. Here included. This was dramatically illustrated to me when I boarded a bus I customarily take from my friends' where I usually have dinner. In the past it was always crowded and getting a seat was out of the question. Last week I was astonished how few passengers there were and remarked so to my friend, who had taken the bus to go up into town. The foreign companies are reducing the workforce drastically when they are not closing down entirely. New graduates have no prospect of finding positions from which they once could have enjoyed a choice. So imagine my surprise when Ildi's daughter refused an appointment to an instructorship at the Medical School in Debrecen. She had a good reason to do so, and I commend her for her decision: she would prefer working with people as a volunteer at this point to teaching, and teaching under the present Dean would hardly be the most encouraging start to a career, as he is somewhat erratic at best, and is not very often at his best.

As for the President, I have to agree with him that you do not need to give a bonus to those who have guided their companies to the brink of bankruptcy; and as for the argument that this "best talent" would go elsewhere, Where is there for them to go? And as for these economic experts that have suddenly emerged in the ranks of Republican legislators, Why did they not give Bush the benefit of their boundless wisdom when he was stumbling and blundering us into the present state? Now, all of a sudden, they are experts on what will work and what will not, while all the real experts are humble enough to admit that they do not know for sure.

FEBRUARY 23

It is still winter here, as I see it is in most parts of USA as well. At least it is racing by, for it is only a week shy of March. The next two weeks shall be quite busy, for there are numerous musical programs, and in addition Anna is giving several dinner parties, and then we leave for Spain. When we return March will be over, and then Anna leaves for England and then friends come from USA, and that is the end of April. I have not discussed Anna's plans with her, but I plan to go to USA the end of June and return in late August. In late September we go to Austria for a week in the lake region with Anna's cousin's daughter and her husband.

Tomorrow Obama delivers a speech before a joint session of Congress. This first month certainly has not been short on activity, but as to where it will all lead I lay no claim to knowing. Like most I am full of hope and guardedly optimistic. One has little choice but to be optimistic, for we are running out of solutions. Surely cutting taxes on business and the wealthy cannot be the solution, for business will not invest in productive capacity for which there is no market no matter how much of a tax break you give them, you are simply rewarding them for buying what they were going to buy anyway. I think it ludicrous, however, to hear all of this weeping and gnashing of teeth over how much it will cost. When you are dangerously ill, you do not pause before the Emergency Room and consider how long it may take you to pay the medical bill, or reject life-saving treatment on the grounds that it may cost too much. No, you know you will hit the lottery and be more than able to pay whatever medical bills you receive, all you need to do is to get well enough to make it down to the lottery vendor. But of course the persons who complain about the cost are those who, for the moment at least, have no need of the treatment; they are concerned over how much it may cost them to restore someone else's health. But wait until it hits them! Then they will declaim loudly about how as taxpayers they have earned the right to assistance from the Government, and how in times of great distress we must all hang together, because, after all, isn't that what this great country of ours is all about?

APRIL 2
We are back from Spain , where the weather was simply gorgeous every day, with temperatures ranging from about 58F to about 73F---14C and 21C respectively for Europeans. It did not rain at all during the two weeks we were there until the day we left, at which time it rained all the way home. The disadvantage of that part of Spain is that there are few nearby sigthtseeing possibilities compared to, say, Andalucia, which is where I usually go; but then, I have seen the sights of Andalucia many times over, which is why I did not go there this year. Except for Tarragona and Barcelona, twenty and eighty minutes by train respectively, there are no sightseeing treats closer than 2-1/2 or 3 hours, and these are not really worth that long a trip. We drove to Carcassonne, in the south of France, a four hour trip by car, but worth every minute of the drive. It is a fortress-town with a double wall around it, and dates its origins back to around the time of Trajan (112 AD), though the beginnings of its present form date from the time of Charlemagne. What we see today is essentially as it looked in the time of Charles the Bold and the Albigensian heresy (roughly 1240 AD). Tarrago0na has some worthwhile Roman ruins, most of them in the very center of the city; the most striking, to my mind, however, is the Aqueduct, which is about three miles outside the city. Barcelona needs no introduction, I am sure. It has monumental architecture, classical and modern, and is easily one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Spain and most of Europe, for that matter. I have been there numerous times, but on this occasion went to attractions I had not been to in past visits, such as Spanish Town and the museum overlooking Plaza de Espana, that once was the seat of the regional government of Catalonia. If you would like to see photographs taken during the trip, just e-mail me and I'll send them to you via Picasa.

Anna leaves this Sunday for ten days in London with her friend, Karen; a week after she returns, friends will arrive from the USA for a stay of two weeks or so. After they leave, another friend arrives from USA for about six weeks, at which point we shall ourselves leave for two months in USA, ending the end of August. So we shall be quite busy until the time of our departure, even as we shall be while in USA, for in addition to spending time in the New York area, we shall visit my sister in North Carolina, friends in Sarasota, Florida, and Anna's niece in Georgia, whom I last saw in 1999.

APRIL 4

Today is absolutely gorgeous! I rode my bike to have dinner with the friend I eat with most of the time; it was the first time I had been on it since October, and I was surprised to find that it did not tire me in the least, even though it is about three miles from here. I usually ride the bus, but on weekends the bus runs only every other hour, which means I would have to take a bus at 10.20 to eat at noon, or, as my friend suggests, take the 12.20 bus and eat at 12.45. What time I eat is not especially important to me, I often do not eat until 6.00 in the evening if I am not here in Hodmezovasarhely; however, my friend is accustomed to eating at noon and I do not think I should require someone else to wait for me.

I have been playing Bridge on the internet, not as difficult as you might think. It is set up so that you can only see those cards you are supposed to see, and you cannot hold private conversations with your partner and exchange information secretly. If your partner is uncertain as to the meaning of your bid, (s)he may ask and have it explained; but everyone gets to read the question and the reply. In the same way, if opponents do not understand the meaning of your bid, they may ask and have it explained, and your partner gets to read the reply along with them. Of course it is all pot-luck who your partner will be, unless you arrange to play with a preferred partner by getting on the internet at a pre-arranged time and hanging out in the "lobby" until you receive a notice that that person has signed in (made possible because you designate that person as a friend and thus are notified whenever they sign in if you are also signed in). I have such a partner, a woman who lives in Germany. I know nothing else about her, and she knows nothing else about me, except that I live in Hungary, speak English---but not German---and what system I play according to. If you want to become acquainted with the person you can exchange e-mail addresses in private---when you designate a "friend", only you and that person can read your messages back and forth, unless you are playing together in a game, in which case everyone can read them. I shall not get on the internet this evening, however, as I shall have visitors, a young man and his girl-friend; after they leave I shall listen to Das Rheingold and Die Walkure, which are being telecast this evening.


APRIL 8

I picked up my car today; it had been at the Toyota dealership having some work done on it. Tomorrow I shall drive to Szeged and get my suitcase, which is at Anna's apartment. I left it there because it would have been burdensome to bring home on the bus or train. As it is it will give me an opportunity to check her mail for her. there is a concert at the Conservatory, but I just heard the principal work on the program and do not wish to go again, even though I very much like it.

The weather is still great, in the low 70s; I wear short pants and a short-sleeved shirt. I did some shopping today and really must clean and order my flat; it may not look all that bad, but it really needs it. We shall have a new Prime Minister next Tuesday. Our present PM resigned, even though he survived numerous no-confidence motions, because things had reached the point where his party's normal allies, the Alliance of Free Democrats, not only withdrew from the coalition---that was over a year ago----but made it plain they would not support his program. The new PM will be Gordon Bajnai, presently the Economy Minister in the government. He is not a member of the Socialist Party, nor of any party for that matter. Curiously, the Socialist PM Medgyessy, who was PM before the present one (Gyurcsany), also was not a member of any political party. If you think that politics had become highly polarized during the Bush Administration, you should come here. We have a Parliamentary system, and the party with the highest number of seats is usually asked to form a government. Members of Parliament are elected by constituencies, just as in USA; but in addition, we have proportional representation, under which a certain number of seats are apportioned among the various parties according to the percentage they receive of the votes cast, provided they received at least 5% of the total votes cast. We shall have our next national elections next year, in April, assuming that the government is not defeated on a confidence motion---none has ever been defeated on a confidence motion in our brief history under our present constitution----and the likelihood is that the only two parties that will be left standing when the smoke clears will be FIDESZ (Alliance of Young Democrats), which is an amalgam of far-right parties; and MSZP (Hungarian Socialist Party), which is a centrist party. We do not have a viable left-wing party here; the Hungarian Workers Party, which is the doctrinal successor to the Communist Party (whose name was actually the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party) have exactly one seat in Parliament, and you can be sure that one will be very much in jeopardy in the next election. If you are wondering who is going to be the likely winner of next year's election, I don't know anyone who thinks it will be the Socialists. Current polls suggest that FIDESZ would win about 70% of the vote. In my town every single elected officeholder is FIDESZ. I do not even know anyone in the upper echelon of the Socialist Party in this town, not even by name.

APRIL 15

Anna is back from London and called this morning at 08:45. Believe it or not, I was still asleep, though I had not been up especially late last evening, I did not play Bridge or watch TV. Although it is a lovely day I took the bus to have dinner, as I did not have time to walk there. I did consider riding my bicycle, as there was a possibility I might not reach the Square in time to take my bus; but I decided to take my chances with the bus and made it in time. I am done cleaning and ordering my flat, have done my tax forms and will mail them tomorrow---the April 15 deadline is only important if you owe them money (in which case you are liable for interest and a late-payment fee, though it is unlikely the latter would be invoked for submitting a week late), which I do not. I thought of setting up my terrace furniture, but decided against it; I doubt that I have sat out on the terrace more than half-dozen times in the six years I have lived here, for I am on the western side of the community and have the sun in the afternoon, and I am averse to sitting in the sun, even when shielded by an umbrella. We shall be going to concerts Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday, though it is possible I may miss the Tuesday one---it happens to be the one I most wish to attend, in addition to the Thursday one---as I may have to go to Debrecen. I should know in about an hour or so if that is the case.

I may have mentioned that here in Hungary all high-school graduations in the country take place on the same day. Needless to say this can present a problem, especially for gandparents, who may have more than one grandchild graduating and not necessarily from the same school, or even in the same city. This year, however, the situation is made even worse by the fact that it will be on May 2, which is the Saturday of a long holiday weekend. (May 1st is Labor Day here in Europe, and not just in Communist countries). So not only must you make a choice as to which graduation you will miss, but also a decision to forego a major holiday weekend's entertainment or holiday somewhere. As a consolation, however, Pentecost, which is one of those Sunday-Monday holidays (like Easter) will be May 31--June 1 this year. To make matters worse a group I frequently take trips with is going to Transylvania May Day weekend, and the group consists heavily of elderly persons. I do not plan to go as we shall have guests here from USA at that time and also must attend a graduation ceremony of a young lady whose parents are very dear friends, the invitation to which I just found in my mailbox this morning.

4 MAY

We have not had a real rain for some weeks now, and for the first time in several years there was no closing of the road along the river in Szeged, as the level of the river, which normally threatens to flood every year, never approached the level of the road, which is normally under about 15 feet of water. Anna and our guests will go on a four-day trip with a group to Transylvania on Thursday; I will not go, as I had thought I would have to go to Debrecen on Friday, but learned today that I shall not. We are presently involved in making preparations for a trip to Persia (Iran) in October. It will be a fifteen day trip leaving from Vienna and the cost of the trip will be only $3000 and includes all fees and two meals a day. The guide-tours will be in German, but I have already ordered guide-books from mazon, so that will not be a problem. We are constantly asked, Why do you want to go there?, and, Aren't you afraid to go there? As for Why, they have splendid sights, including what remains of Persepolis; and of course there is the opportunity to experience a different society. No, we are not afraid. We are traveling with our Hungarian passports, not because we fear how we would be treated as Americans---the only major restriction is that you must, as an American, have a pre-planned itinerary(which we have anyway!)---but because we do not want to run the risk of being hassled by US immigration over having an Iranian visa in our US passport. We arrive back from USA the end of August, and spend a week in Austria from September 26 to October 3; the trip would leave October 10. After that we probably shall not go anywhere until late winter or early Spring of 2010.

MAY 18

Today is the warmest day of the year to date, 93 degrees Farenheit at 3.00PM. I had dinner at friends (as usual!) who live nearby and walked there and back, choosing the shaded side of the street, if there was one. This past weekend was one f great activity in Szeged, where they had the annual Wine Festival---very popular, as you can imagine---a symphony, an opera, a ballet, and an auto race. In point of fact we did not go to any of them. We thought we were going to the opera Saturday evening, only to learn when we arrived there and saw that it was dark inside that in fact the performance was on Sunday. We ended up giving our tickets to a friend as we were going to be in Hodmezovasarhely Sunday, having dinner at a favorite restaurant and then attending a piano recital and coincert in the evening by Hegedus Endre, a world-famous local pianist who regularly gives free or benefit performances here. This was a benefit performance for some charity of the Unitarian Church, which is quite small here---it is mainly a Transylvanian religion, though we had a congregation from Massachusetts come here a few summers ago. We are busy for the remainder of the week; there is a concert in Szeged Tuesday evening, Anna has a dinner-party Wednesday, we go to a book-signing of a friend on Thursday, we go to a dinner at friends' Saturday, and we thought our Vienna relatives would be coming on Sunday, but learned today that the mother had made a mistake, they will not come until June, and in fact we shall go up to Vienna to visit them in early June and also make the arrangements for our trip to Persia at that time. Before then I have an appointment with my doctor about my esophagus just before we go to Vienna. He has been out of the country for the past couple of years, somewhere in the USA I am given to understand. I shall ask him when I see him, as we are friends and I missed seeing him at the symphony, where we frequently met.

I am not a Facebook fan, and belong only because relatives belong and I joined because of them; I only use the service to reply to them. However, in the past two weeks I have received e-mails from two very close friends I had not had contact with for many years, the one in about seven years, the other in about twenty-seven years. And all because they found me when they dropped in names of friends into the Facebook Mixmaster. I have learned that many things one tends to be quite skeptical about turn out to be entirely useful, which is the case here. I was, by the way, very computer-aversive for many years; I knew comnputers worked, but only for other persons. Once I began using one I could not understand how I had been able to get along for so many years without one, especially when I began to learn how to beneficially use it.

I am going to out an end to this now. My next entry will not be before September, probably not until November, when we are back from Persia.