From our front porch

This is one of the things I see when I look up at our palms along the street.

Of course, I took the picture a little farther east -- at Vajdahunyad Castle, which now houses the Agriculture Museum in Budapest's City Park, in a former chapel at the rear of the grand building, which is only about a century old. We were there almost exactly three years ago, and the park, the Szchéchenyi Bath (with its floating chessboards), and the fairytale lake where all the newlyweds come to be photo- graphed were just a healthy hike from our room along the Danube.

When I looked up at those those arching, coffered capitals, with their Ottoman echoes, I couldn't help thinking of palms twinkling and glowing in the night, fronds arching to meet their neighbors.

And when I look up at our palms, I can't help thinking of that ceiling, either. The mind is such a small world.