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!