For Carl

Here I am, sitting in an internet cafe in the heart of Budapest for the last time. There is so much I didn't do and so many things I didn't say. For future Budapest Semesters in Mathematics students, here's my advice:
* Take the classes that work for you. The course work here is very difficult, and I saw many students become miserable as they tried to keep up with a schedule that was too demanding. Part of the learning is becoming acclimated to a completely different environment. If it means taking one less math course but spending more time seeing plays or dining out, so be it. You will have learned more in the end.
* Take the class called Elementary Problem Solving. The title of it scared a lot of people off because it seemed so trivial, but in reality, it was an opportunity for me to be exposed to so many interesting subjects. For example, before that class, I had it firmly fixed in my head that I hated game theory because it was only for computer scientists. Now, I realized I actually really enjoy it, thanks to Elementary Problem Solving.
* Take the intensive language course prior to the math classes. It does cost extra, but it gives you a chance to form immediate bonds with your fellow students, which will become increasingly important as the semester goes on. You also learn survival Hungarian: things like numbers, "hello", "goodbye", and "where is the bathroom."
* Take a lot of pictures right away. Things will have not lost their ambiance, and you will also be okay with appearing as a tourist. Right now I'd rather crawl into a hole than look like a tourist since I've been here for so long. I rarely take pictures of Budapest any more.
*Bring peanut butter with you. I know you can buy it at certain places, like Tesco or some organic markets, but it took me a long time to discover these places, and right at the beginning of your time here, you might need something familiar, and a peanut butter sandwich is one of the best remedies for this homesickness.

Hopefully that will help someone, someday. Rather than getting sentimental, I decided to end this blog with the paper I wrote for my History of Math class. I realized that Carl Sagan was the reason I got into math and communication, and so it's only fitting that his story closes my account of my semester of Hungarian mathematics. My information came entirely from www.carlsagan.com, and www.wikipedia.com. I realize wikipedia is not a valid source, but I took only information that was cited.

Carl Sagan was one of the most influential scientists of our time. He had the gift of communication; not only was he brilliant, making huge strides in many disciplines, he successfully communicated his ideals to the general public. Carl Sagan is possibly most widely known for two of his publications. One, Cosmos, published in 1980, was not only the best selling science book published in English, but was also made into a mini-series that aired in 60 countries. This piece of work encompassed much of the known history of the universe up until its publishing. It started with the smallest particles and explained their relationship to the physical world, working all the way up to the principles of supernovae and black holes. The film production embraced the important and most interesting parts of the book. Carl Sagan himself starred in and narrated all 13 episodes, coining a recognizable method of describing large quantities, that is, “billions and billions.”
While Cosmos was a brilliant display of Sagan’s knowledge and his ability to place it within the public realm, his true passion lay within astronomy, as is revealed in the second book formerly mentioned, Contact. This work delved into the unknown, hypothesizing the consequences of an alien message received by Americans. These ramifications included religious outcries, political and economic issues, and of course, the mathematics behind all astronomy and astrophysics. For me, it was reading this book at the age of 13 that made me want to study higher mathematics. One of the main principles included in Contact is that the message received came in the form of prime numbers, such numbers never occurring naturally by any phenomena. This idea struck my fancy and hooked me into mathematics. Like Cosmos, this book was also made into a major motion picture starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. Although Sagan died during the production of this movie, his work was carried out by his longtime spouse and friend, Ann Druyan, to whom he credits much of his work. Once again, Dr. Sagan successfully made his ideals available to the general public.
I call him Dr. Sagan, because he indeed had a Ph.D. as well as having received 22 honorary degrees from colleges and universities across the nation due to his contributions to many different fields of study. While Cosmos and Contact were often peoples’ first tastes of Sagan, he has worked on many more projects. Since the 1950’s, Dr. Sagan was a consultant to NASA, briefing the Apollo astronauts and experimenting on such space craft such as the Mariner, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo. Indeed, many facts that almost everyone learns in early schooling regarding characteristics of planets were discovered by Carl Sagan. For example, it was he that recognized that the extremely high climate on Venus is in fact due to the acute greenhouse effect, very similar in principle to that on Earth. He also realized that the seasons on Mars were due to dust blowing, and that Titan (a moon of Saturn) houses organic molecules.
At the time of his death, Sagan was working at the Laboratory for Planetary Studies, based at Cornell University, as the David Duncan professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences. However, aside from this prestigious position, he twice earned Distinguished Public Services medal, the Apollo Achievement award, and the medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, all from NASA. The National Academy of Sciences awarded Sagan their highest honor: The Public Welfare Medal. According to this bureau, “Carl Sagan has been enormously successful in communicating the wonder and importance of science. His ability to capture the imagination of millions and to explain difficult concepts in understandable terms is a magnificent achievement.” Sagan was the President of the Planetary Society, which is the largest space-public-interest group. He has an Asteroid 2709 Sagan named after him as well as the landing site for the Pathfinder on Mars, he was awarded the Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Medal from the Soviet Cosmonauts Federation and he received the John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award from the American Astronautical Society. Sagan was the Chairman of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society, and chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also was President of the Planetology section of the American Geophysical Union. While most of these awards and honors seem to center around astronomy, he was received awards and accreditation for his research on the consequences of nuclear war, and is given credit to helping reverse the nuclear arms race. He left the legacy of the Carl Sagan Foundation, which strives toward continuing public science-education on the entire planet. Not only does this foundation preach the merits of science, but it also reminds the people of the dangers of misuse of technologies. Sagan always had very extreme beliefs that science could not give all the answers. Indeed, he was quoted widely for saying, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
Sagan was always very interested in the question of whether or not there is life in the Universe. In fact, he was such a public figure in this area, that on his birthday in 2001, NASA dedicated the Ames Research Center’s site for the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Cosmos. He studied the famous Drake Equation, which states that the number of advanced civilizations in the Universe with which communication is possible (N) is equal to the rate of star formation in the galaxy times the fraction of stars with planets times the average number of planets that can support life per star times the fraction of these planets that develop life at some point times the fraction of THOSE planets that develop intelligent life at some point times the fraction of civilizations that become technologically advanced enough to release detectable signs of their existence into space times the length of time these civilizations send signals into space. These values, while educated guesses, are merely guesses. The figures of each parameter have been changed and recalculated many times, and currently the value for N is .0000001. From a mathematical and hypothetical point of view, should any of these values be 0, N would be 0, proving there to be no life in the universe. However, that is assuming his equation to be accurate which no one can know. Regardless, Sagan was an advocate of it’s accuracy, but he recognized the Fermi Paradox, stating that while the Drake equation guarantees extraterrestrial life, there is an extreme lack of evidence for it. Using these facts and hypotheses, Sagan believed that all life forms have a tendency to destroy themselves. Thus originated his interest and research on the long-term consequences of a nuclear holocaust.
While Sagan popularized the ideas of alien intelligence, he didn’t, ironically, believe that “UFO’s” were signs of intelligence, or even real. However, he made popular the Bussard Ramjet as a way of showing the total uncertainty of the entire extraterrestrial life situation. The Bussard Ramjet is a hypothesized space craft of the 1960’s which worked upon the principle of compressing hydrogen from surrounding interstellar medium and fusing it, using the remains as the exhaust of a rocket and a means of acceleration. While this vehicle is far-fetched and highly advanced, Sagan used it to note that one could feasibly travel celestially without violating the physical constraints of the universe. Sagan quoted, “"I believe the numbers work out in such a way that UFO's as interstellar vehicles are extremely unlikely, but I think it is an equally bad mistake to say that interstellar space flight is impossible."
Carl Sagan died of pneumonia in 1996, after going through highly advanced medical procedures for months. He had a severe blood disease, often called pre-lukemia, that makes the body more susceptible to infections. He received such break-through health care only because he had made such a name for himself, and this troubled him. Thus, once of his legacies is The Carl Sagan Discovery Center, built with the cooperation of the Children’s Health Fund. It is dedicated to providing health care regardless of financial status. This center incorporates the most recent technology to make sure that children receive top notch health care.
Another one of his legacies, the one that supports the Discovery Center, is the Carl Sagan foundation, which strives to teach young people using the best science and technology. Sagan always wanted to make sure children had the opportunity to learn about the natural world, and this nonprofit organization in Sagan’s name assures that public science education continues.
Carl Sagan chose to preface a chapter in his book Contact with a quote by Vincent Van Gogh. I choose to end with it. “Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?” This was Carl Sagan’s driving question, and perhaps the question that makes his ideas so appealing to the rest of us.

Thank you for reading this account. Viszontlátásra!

I am now an alumnus of Budapest Semesters in Mathematics. I can't believe I made it! Today was the farewell party. It was a lot of fun, and it was really nice to have a chance to thank my teachers. We took a group picture, which appears above/over/under the text (I'm not really sure how it's going to be formatted). It's most of the students and some of the teachers. Tonight we're going out to dinner with one of our favorite teachers and one of the most charismatic people I have ever met. We received our transcripts, and I am very happy with the results. I worked hard, and there are lots of very smart kids with whom to compete. While I didn't take the hardest classes, or the most classes, I took what worked for me and it paid off hugely.

We are revisiting all of our favorite things and trying to relive the honeymoon period of the language school. It's really fun, but also bittersweet because so many people are leaving, one by one. I don't leave until early morning on the 29th, but it's hard to watch the people with whom I became so close so fast, disappear. Tomorrow I am going to revisit the baths for one last relaxing afternoon, and then my roommates and I are going to go to the first restaurant we ever visited in Budapest. It's only fitting that our first dining experience together should be our last since we bonded so much during that first hour.

In the past week I have been very cultured. I went to the Opera House to see The Marriage of Figaro. I paid a bit extra for better seats, so while I wasn't lucky enough to get a box seat this time, I did get a front row seat in the middle of the balcony, so I could lean forward on my elbows. This was merciful as the opera was almost four hours long. It was absolutely gorgeous, but it was entirely in Italian with Hungarian subtitles being broadcasted above the stage. Neither language is a strong point in my repertoir of skills. However, I was mostly able to figure out what was going on... like when a lady came out in a wedding dress, I perceived that perhaps someone must have gotten married. It was definitley too long, but very good. I'm astounded that humans can make such beautiful noises with their throats. Two days ago I revisted the Opera House for a Budapest Philharmonic Symphony Concert. It was very near to heaven for me, because they played three pieces: Scheherezade, Night on Bald Mountain, and the Firebird Suite. The accoustics are brilliant in the Opera House... a person could stand on stage and whisper, and it would be heard in the balconies. While I'm not too familier and fond of Scheherezade, it was stunning listening to Firebird and Night on Bald Mountain. When I was in orchestra, I played this latter piece, so I really enjoyed hearing it by a professional orchestra. The Firebird is probably my favorite classical piece of all time. As a former French Horn player, it only makes sense that I should like that orchestration, even if I never particularly enjoyed or excelled at instrument. The gentleman playing the solos, however, was just fantastic. The conducter, who was a tiny Asian man conducting without any music in front of him and leaping around when he got really into it, was given flowers at the conclusion of the concert. He plucked one out and gave it to the first violinist who played the really phenomenal solos in Scheherezade. The rest of the bouquet he hurled to the French Horn player. It was really quite sweet. But I tell you, there is nothing like hearing the finale of The Firebird live.

If any readers need anything from Budapest, let me know and I'll be happy to bring it home. Sziastok! (Hungarian was of saying a bit of a casual goodbye)

Rubik's Cube and Languages

I recently purchased a mini-rubik's cube for my key chain. Since Rubik himself was/is Hungarian, and he invented the "Magic Cube," as it was originally named, in Budapest, I felt that, Westernized or not, I couldn't leave Hungary without one. I've never been much good at solving them. I find myself happily spinning them, hoping that a solution will suddenly occur. This is ridiculous since there are over 43,000,000,000,000,000,000 total permutations of the cube. Now, I've had this cube for three days, two of them being class days. In these two days, I've had two different people say, "here, let me see that" and fiddle with it for a minute or so, and then hand it back completed. ..... I found myself wondering where in the world would this ever occur, having my cube solved by two different people in two days. But then I remembered I'm in a math program, so suddenly this all made sense. There are some very very very smart people with whom I'm rubbing shoulders.

I'm about to use the second Lord of the Rings reference in two consecutive posts... Perhaps I need to get a life? But anyway, I was happily reading The Two Towers the other night, and I noticed a reference to the appendices. Like a good Tolkien fan, I followed the asterisk and flipped back to Appendix F and found the section to which the author was alluding. It was in regards to the language of Entish. It was described as, "slow, sonorous, agglomerated, repetitive, indeed long-winded; formed of a multiplicity of vowel-shades and distinctions of tone and quantity which even the loremasters of the Eldar had not attempted to represent in writing." I THOUGHT OF HUNGARIAN! I think from now on, I'll just tell people that I'm learning Entish, rather than Hungarian. Actually I'm speaking in jest. I was writing an e-mail to a friend from Budapest, and I recounted my reaction to hearing English on the street. I wasn't expecting to hear any English in the part of town through which I was walking, and so when two Americans passed by me (talking loudly and gaudily, I might add) I was quite taken aback. What I noticed, however, was that all I could hear was the dramatic "eeeer's" and "orrrrr's." It sounded very ugly! Now, I wouldn't characterize Hungarian as a romantic, beautiful language, such as French or Italian, but it is definitely very fluid with a lot of soft sounds. It's very relaxing to listen to Hungarian, or really any foreign language, but for the first time, I realized perhaps not all nationalities feel the same about English. In any case, I thought the line describing Entish was a funny way to think of Hungarian.
Although, to set one fact straight, there is very little repetition in Hungarian, and in fact one of the techniques we were taught in my class was to reduce unnecessary repetition using all manners of suffixes and prefixes.

Today I had my last class with BSM. Now for finals! I'm concerned about my Combinatorics final, because it's cumulative, and while I really like graph theory, basic enumeration completely eludes me. I'm in for a fantastic weekend of trying to apply the binomial theorem to going to a flower shop and buying 4 roses, 5 tulips, and 6 daisies, all in a specific order.

My Number Theory final is all on Diophantine equations. Those are basically equations without solutions, and it's our job to prove that they indeed don't have solutions. Non-math people, I'm sorry, just bear with me. I think it's cool, but I suppose it sounds like a mildly rhetorical technique.

In Elementary Problem Solving, my final is cumulative, but it'll be fun! Strangely enough, I have found a sudden interest in Game Theory (or the Theory of Gaming... I'm not really sure of the difference). Before, I thought it was pretty pointless, but then I got introduced to a technique using the Grundy Numbers, which I have never studied before. It basically involves assigning a number to each possibility in a game (using a basic algorithm) and then converting these numbers to base 2 (binary) and working with them, yielding a winning strategy. I'd like to take Computer Science 1 again, and use this strategy in our lab on NIM. I expect this would have yielded a better grade than my guess-and-check strategy I hypothesized. However, I am sad to admit that I got a point off on my last test because I asserted that 3^2=6. My brilliance sometimes amazes me.

Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying the fabulous weather, and good luck on any springtime finals or projects, or whatever grown-ups do in the real world!

Pálinka Festival

Yesterday was the annual Budapest Pálinka Festival. It's a common misapprehension that Unicum is the national drink of Hungary. In reality, it's the fruit brandy called Pálinka. This brandy is double distilled and made from a wide variety of fruits and berries, most typically Plums and Apricots. This festival was happening right next to another street festival which I was attending. This latter festival was very strange in that while it was called "Utcafesztival" which literally translates to "street festival", it was more like a rally for the European Union. Each booth was dedicated to some aspect of the E.U. I'm not entirely sure what it was all about... but it definitely had a different feel than any sort of festival in America. I got to listen to the Hungarian version of “American Idol” sing. Anyway, being that I was already in the area with a friend of mine, and most of our friends were out of town, we thought we'd dive into this Pálinka festival. There was an entry fee, but you got a tasting glass and voucher for 500 forints which could be used at any booth. Each mini-shop represented a different brand of brandy (alliteration totally intentional) and by exchanging the appropriate amount of money via coupons, you were given a sample of their stock. It was a really neat atmosphere. There was a gypsy band playing, and there were lots of lanterns and benches since it was entirely outdoors. Pálinka has been an important part of the Hungarian culture, so it had a really authentic feel to it. However, the liquor itself was not for the weak-hearted. Any readers of Lord of the Rings will recall a certain spirit given to Merry and Pippin by the Orcs to keep them, cruelly, on their feet. Such was the feeling I got from Pálinka. It was brutally strong; after the first couple of sips my gums were numb and my lips were tingly and felt swollen to the size of a small automobile. To make matters worse, the festival was held on an old cobblestone surface. I have trouble walking on such flooring under the best of circumstances, but in the dark with throngs of people milling around me, trying to balance a small glass goblet, and drink out of it without looking too disgusted by the whole ordeal, I was challenged to stay on my feet. After not too long, the worst happened. My flip-flop caught on the side of one of the protruding stones and I tripped a bit. In an effort to keep my balance, I took a lunging step forward. However, this proved problematic as my foot landed at a spot that was half stone, and half sand, with the two surfaces being dramatically uneven. Thus, before I knew what was happening, I found myself careening madly toward a large group of handsome, swarthy gentlemen, ending up in the arms of one of them, dripping with brandy. The people around me looked at me with an array of expressions. Most of them were obviously disgusted with the American girl who proved to be extremely inebriated at 8 pm. However, the man in whose arms I was tangled seemed impressed. I righted myself with as much dignity as possible, and smelling strongly like spirits, I left the area of my immediate circumstances, clutched onto my friend for moral support (much to his disdain), and, tripping once again, found my way to a stand to get a refill on my nearly untouched glass. Somehow I wasn't quite in the mood to continue into a long night of brandy, and thus after about half an hour, convinced my friend to leave, and we played chess. This was my eventful Saturday night.

Szeged and a homecoming

Last weekend my Historical Aspects of Mathematics class took a trip to Szeged, Hungary. It was a 3 hour train ride, and it was spent in good company so that part was fun. The town itself is beautiful. It is currently known for the huge and prestigious university at the core of the city. Earlier in history, however, it played a much more important role, being mentioned by Ptolemy in his writings, and perhaps even the home to Atilla the Hun's quarters. Little of these relics remain in memory or as artifacts due to a devastating flood in the 1800's. There are markings measuring the level of the water, and at the river, it was something like 11 meters in depth. The city was rebuilt and it’s very pretty.

My professor, Dr. Andras Ringler, is a man of some importance in the town, being the head of the University of Szeged's physics department. He's a brilliant man, and strangely enough, worked for the Mayo Clinic for two years. My hometown is very near Rochester, Minnesota, where this famous clinic was founded. My teacher was thrilled that I knew his former home-away-from-home. Anyway, we got a super tour of the city. We visited several churches, including one that was home to about 30 HUGE manuscripts filled with biblical texts handwritten in ancient Russian characters. We were allowed to flip through them to our heart's desire. My teacher also got us a tour in Europe's second-largest Synagogue. It was a Saturday, and Synagogues are never open to the public on Saturdays and so my teacher made a call to one of his colleagues who met us and opened up the gates for us and gave us a tour, translated by my teacher. It was really pretty. It was very interesting looking at stained-glass that wasn't Christian in nature. I live next to the biggest Synagogue in Europe, and I still haven't toured it, so it was a new experience for me.

Another thing that stood out to me is the fountain we visited. It was comprised of four taps, each constantly running thermal water. The water came directly from 150 feet below us, and smelled of sulfur, and was hot to the touch. Townsfolk lined up to fill their water bottles with this water to take home. We were encouraged to drink it because of its ancient healing properties, and also because drinking warm water is more hydrating.... or something. Physiology is not the high point of my studies. Anyway, it was really magical. And strangely enough, it tasted rather like Minnesota well-water.


In order to minimize reverse culture shock, we are encouraged to make a list of things that we miss from America, to make us forget what we're leaving, and look forward to what we've missed. My friends and I came up with a list, and this is part of it:
*Family and friends
*breakfast foods
*clothes dryers
*convenient internet access
*friendly people
*gyms and places to work out that are not sketchy or overly expensive
*laws maintaining quiet on the streets
*refrigerated milk (and, come to think of it, SKIM milk)
*coffee in larger sizes and alcohol in smaller sizes.
*American books and magazines
*driving
*beds with springs
*libraries for reading and studying that are open late enough to fit our sleepless schedules
*fire standards (fire alarms in our apartments and multiple entrances)
*cell phone plans (not prepaid)
*clean streets (as a side note, all the trash mentioned in my earlier blog was on the street for about 36 hours then just disappeared. But still, gross
*pedestrians getting the right-of-way in the streets
*movie theaters that are easily accessible and playing movies guaranteed to be in English
*Mexican food
*TARGET
*grocery stores that are open 7 days a week and until later than 7pm.

I'm sure there are more things America offers that I'm missing. However, it's good to keep these things in mind so that leaving won't be as hard.
Happy May 10th!

Why Eastern Europe has a poor connotation

Of late, I have been feeling more and more at home with Eastern Europe. I have gotten used to the weird things, and now they seem normal to me. Eastern Europe is thought of as being dirty, uneducated, primitive, and Communist. However, even at the beginning of my stay here, I was never floored by these observations. Indeed, I found it highly superior to the United States in many ways. True, there are bullet holes on the facade of my building, and if a fire marshal exists, his rules are lax, but nonetheless, I enjoyed the truly different environment. However, beginning last night, I suddenly became revolted by a citywide tradition. Once a year, the city proclaims a day during which everyone can literally throw their trash and unwanted belongings onto the sidewalk. Apparently the city looks forward to this event because they don't have to pay for waste removal, and it's also an opportunity to pick up some free, second hand items, as it is perfectly acceptable, and indeed encouraged, to rummage through the piles in search of desired items. According to my Hungarian teacher, the city keeps this day secret so that people will not start putting their trash outside too early, and only on the eve of the event is the nature of the next day revealed. Well last night was this infamous "eve." Initially I thought some people in my building were moving out, but as the night arrived, I realized that all up and down our street, piles of things were beginning to accumulate. By this morning, directly outside our exterior door to the apartment, there was a pile at least 15 feet long, and waist high. It wasn't garage-sale-esque, rather, it was filth. There were some clothes, but mostly it was decrepit furniture, stained bedding, dirt, old sponges and rags, Communist-style shoes, and what appeared to be several broken mirrors. It was vile. It still is vile. In order to leave our apartment, we have to walk through the edges of this purgatory, stepping from pieces of dirty cardboard to cardboard, avoiding the shards of glass. I love Europe, I love Budapest, but this is a repulsive tradition that I feel is both unsafe, and does nothing to change the image of the countries formerly under the Communist regime. Suddenly homeless people and beggars have showed up in my neighborhood, looting through the junk, and while these are common people to see around Budapest, I am not okay with having them outside my door. If I spoke Hungarian I would write a very strongly-worded letter to some figure of authority. As I am leaving in less than a month, and my Hungarian is limited to the bare basics, I will content myself with ranting on this blog. In conclusion, I love Hungary, but I could do without these cave-man tendencies.

Split, Croatia

About three hours ago I arrived back in Budapest from my long weekend spent in Split, Croatia. A couple of times each year, according to Hungarian tradition, there are official four-day weekends. These happen in concurrence with various European holidays. Today, Tuesday, is a labor-related holiday akin to our "Labor Day." The government gives its people Monday off, and a couple of weeks prior "moves" Monday to a Saturday to make up for the freebie given later. In any case, this long weekend found me in Split, Croatia with three boys from my program. The journey began with a 17 hour train ride. The first eight and a half hours of it was boring and slightly uncomfortable, but pretty entertaining. The trains in Europe have compartments, similar to those featured in the Harry Potter movies. Thus you are allowed a bit of privacy, except when the train fills up and strangers join you. Regardless, it was fine. We had to transfer trains in Zagreb, Croatia. We got there about 20 minutes before the train was scheduled to leave, so we hurried to make arrangements for getting a sleeper car to ease the rest of the journey. We asked various conductors, who told us to go to the ticket booth (which was closed) before we figured out which one the sleeping car was, and asked the attendant for that car. He didn't speak any English, but when we got our point across to him, he muttered, "Nein", which I can only assume means "no" in Croatian. Thus, we spent the night crammed in uncomfortable compartments attempting to sleep upright. However, it was all made worthwhile when we arrived at our destination at 7 am. The city of Split is comprised entirely of beaches and harbors. It is known as being one of the cities with the most sunlight overall throughout the year. We dropped our baggage off and explored a bit, discovering a lovely sandy beach flanked by rockier terrain and bars that sat along the waterfront. We climbed along the rocks and enjoyed the view, which was only flawed for a moment by a brief encounter with an older gentleman sunbathing in the nude in a hidden crevice of the rocks. When the time was right we changed into swimming suits and found our way back to this magical place. This sandy beach was very clean and the water was shallow very far out. It was around 80 degrees with no breeze and not a single cloud the entire weekend. The water was not warm, but it was very pleasant once we got used to it. When I was four years old I went to the ocean, very little of which I remember. While Croatia is situated on the Adriatic Sea, it is more or less oceanic, and for the first time I tasted natural salt water and saw a tide. It was a beautiful experience. That first day we spent a couple hours laying on fluffy towels in the sun, and we all fell asleep for a while. When we rousted ourselves and made it back to our hostel, we showered off the salt residue and explored the city. We made our way back down to the beach to see what the nightlife afforded.

Along the beach there are countless little bars and clubs, as well as ice cream stands, hot dog joints, and miniature theme parks for children. We wandered along until we found a peaceful place that appealed. Like all the bars, it had entirely outdoor seating, most of which was in the form of wicker chairs or park swings near low tables. If there is any wild clubbing scenes in Croatia, (which, judging by the looks of the people sunbathing on the beach, there certainly is) we didn't find it, and we were perfectly content sitting for hours sipping on drinks and alternating between relaxed silences and laughing at each other. Days in the sun are tiring, however, as are night-long train rides, so we hit the hay early on.

The next day began with more sunbathing. In the shallow water, on the soft, flat sand, there were perhaps a dozen groups of guys, from chiseled young men to wrinkly old fellows playing some type of game with small rubber balls. As far as I could tell, the point was to smack the ball at each other trying to keep it aloft. This process involved many leaps and grunts from the men, especially the younger ones, as they hurled themselves after the diminutive ball and ending up face first in the water. If they were successful in hitting the ball, they got up dripping and flexing. If they failed their buddies laughed at them (and so did I). In any case, the guys I was with felt sub-masculine without being part of this game, so they searched Croatia over to find a ball and played for hours, giving me some much needed girl-time laying in the sun.

Later that day we climbed to the top of a "hill" to explore a "park." This is what I was TOLD we were doing, and as such, 3 pm found me scaling up the side of a mountain trying to reach a flagpole at the top. The road was apparently too easy, so the boys insisted on going, literally, up the side of this "hill." Thus, in my pretty pink top and sparkly pink flip flops I grouchily found myself in the midst of thorns and tangles while the boys played Crocodile Hunter meets Frodo Baggins. After this exhausting escapade (during which I insisted, using rather strong language, that we must find the road or else suffer the wrath of Betsy) we found ourselves at the top, and I can't even explain the view. It was fantastic. Thus, I posted a bunch of pictures on my picture web site in the album labeled Split, Croatia.

The next day we explored the Diocletian Palace. It was built in something like 295 AD and is one of the best preserved relics of Roman architecture (or so says wikipedia). It was mostly converted into shops, and it was pretty small, but still, being around old buildings is cool.

On the way back we succeeded in getting a sleeper car. That seemed to shorten the journey a lot. Now, back in Budapest everything seems smelly and dark compared to the Adriatic. I suppose that is to be expected. My advice for all travelers is to find your way to Split, Croatia, just for the joy of the cheap souvenirs and laying on the blue blue water.

Look at my pictures!