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!
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Romeo es Julia
On Friday I saw the ballet Romeo and Juliet. Since it was put on by the Hungarian National Ballet (and being that I am in Hungary) the translation of the title is Romeo es Julia, (probably plus some accent marks and umlauts that make it incomprehensible.) It was really fantastic. I decided to splurge on tickets, spending around 15 dollars, rather than my usual 2 dollars. The 2 dollar tickets are perfect for philharmonic concerts and such because they are labeled "restricted viewing". Now, this is a stretch, because last time I saw a concert I was only able to see the large string basses, and anyone who took high school orchestra realizes that these instruments are not placed anywhere near the center of the stage. Thus, by restricted view, they generally mean, "approximately 5% of the stage can be easily seen". Another downside of the 2 dollar tickets is that you are not allowed to use the main doors. You are directed to a side entrance and ushered up what seems like thousands of concrete stairs before being forced to check your coat and pointed a seat that is at an elevation approximate to that of Mount Olympus. In any case, being that I love Romeo and Juliet, I thought 15 dollars was a cheap price to pay. What I didn't realize, is that with this mere sum, you were considered a real person, allowed to use the main door. Instead of the bleak concrete steps, you walked on a plush red velvet carpet up to the second level. The stairs looked rather what Cinderella's castle may be like on the inside, with chandeliers and murals on the ceilings, and intricate carvings decorating every point on the wall. At the second level you could enter a side room and buy a huge selection of delicacies, from pastries to good wines, all at very decent prices. As I wandered around with my Coca Cola Light, (even while I was mingling with the sophisticated, it can't be denied that I still prefer a good soft drink to any wine) I found myself on a grand balcony over looking Andrassy, one of the main streets in Budapest. I thought that this balcony was only for decoration. I guess not. When it came time to find my seats (I had really no idea where they were being that the ticket was in Hungarian and my directional knowledge is limited to 'right' and 'left') imagine my surprise when I was ushered through velvet walls to a box! There are three tiers of boxed seats in the opera house. I was on the top tier of them, directly in the middle. The compartment was decorated with mirrors and had red velvet chairs. The usher took my jacket and hung it on the wall for me and offered me a program. I was the first person to arrive in the box, and I suddenly felt very self-conscious about my apparel. I was wearing a casual-yet-pretty linen skirt and a nice top: clothing that would have been borderline overly formal for the nosebleed seats. However, when 6 people joined me in the box, and all of them were wearing tuxes or ball gowns, my fears were realized. I buried myself in my program to escape any questions, when I realized the program was entirely in Hungarian! Ah, I would be inconspicuous if I just continued "reading" the program, thus avoiding any conversation as well as not making it obvious that I was an American. I began to think of myself as a sophisticated Hungarian student whose very rich Hungarian parents sent to the ballet for the evening. However, a gentleman, noticing my interest in the Hungarian program, leaned over and started jabbering away in a language that sounded like something from Star Wars. Alas! My Hungarian cover was dissolving! What to do? I smiled and replied, "Igen," the Hungarian word for "yes." The man looked at me like I was crazy. Who knows what he initially asked that the reply could not have been affirmative. Maybe he asked what my name was, or what I thought of ballet, but in any case, I failed at my Hungarian alias, and the tuxedoed man ignored me. Whew. But anyway, the ballet was beautiful, the music beautiful, and although it was over 3 hours long with two intermissions, it felt like I blinked my eyes and it was done.
I have a second midterm in my Number Theory class on Thursday. I still am lost with the concept of arithmetic functions. It's not that I don't understand them, I just am incapable of figuring out how they might be important to my life. I told my teacher I didn't like them, and he said, "me neither, they are boring." At least I have affirmation that they suck. However, I LOVE the concept of Quadratic Residues. The proof of why the product of two primitive roots isn't a primitive root can be done in 3 lines using quadratic residues, and is just sooo pretty. However, I still will be spending the better part of my next three days studying.
In Combinatorics we're studying Graph Theory. I like it a lot. It's so applicable to every day life, and usually problems can be solved by contradiction: my favorite technique. Sometimes it's tricky figuring out precisely what the question is asking, but in general, it is WAY better than sampling combinatorial problems. Ick.
In Elementary Problem solving I have two different teachers, and so get exposed to SO much material. In my Monday class we're studying vectors. However, we don't translate these vectors into matrices, or use any linear algebra, rather, we're studying their properties in terms of strict geometry. I like it. On Wednesday we're doing a unit on game theory. I don't really like game theory, just because I find it so bland. It's problems like, "If we have a chessboard, and one rook on the chessboard, and we want to move it to the lower left corner, what should be the strategy so that we can always win against our opponent." A) I hate chessboard problems because I feel like it is a bastardization of my beloved chess, and B) seriously, who cares? But, still, I'm learning a lot.
In my History of Math class we will be traveling to the village of Szeged in rural Hungary where a lot of authentic Hungarian culture is preserved. I guess there's a university there that's really well renowned, and at which my teacher is a professor. We'll be visiting that college, as well as must-see Hungarian relics. I'm very excited!
In Hungarian, we are preparing for a bit of a scavenger hunt. My teacher will give us directions (in Hungarian) as to where he will be waiting for us, and apparently it will require us to take a lot of public transportation to find, therefore it's a bit of a test of our knowledge on Hungarian streets and methods of transportation. When we find him, we get to sit and drink tea and eat pastries and hang out in the Buda Hills for a while. It will be very nice.
That is my update on my life. I come back to America in a little over a month, and while I'm very reluctant to leave this place that I adore, I'm very excited to see my family and friends, and be in an English speaking environment.
I have a second midterm in my Number Theory class on Thursday. I still am lost with the concept of arithmetic functions. It's not that I don't understand them, I just am incapable of figuring out how they might be important to my life. I told my teacher I didn't like them, and he said, "me neither, they are boring." At least I have affirmation that they suck. However, I LOVE the concept of Quadratic Residues. The proof of why the product of two primitive roots isn't a primitive root can be done in 3 lines using quadratic residues, and is just sooo pretty. However, I still will be spending the better part of my next three days studying.
In Combinatorics we're studying Graph Theory. I like it a lot. It's so applicable to every day life, and usually problems can be solved by contradiction: my favorite technique. Sometimes it's tricky figuring out precisely what the question is asking, but in general, it is WAY better than sampling combinatorial problems. Ick.
In Elementary Problem solving I have two different teachers, and so get exposed to SO much material. In my Monday class we're studying vectors. However, we don't translate these vectors into matrices, or use any linear algebra, rather, we're studying their properties in terms of strict geometry. I like it. On Wednesday we're doing a unit on game theory. I don't really like game theory, just because I find it so bland. It's problems like, "If we have a chessboard, and one rook on the chessboard, and we want to move it to the lower left corner, what should be the strategy so that we can always win against our opponent." A) I hate chessboard problems because I feel like it is a bastardization of my beloved chess, and B) seriously, who cares? But, still, I'm learning a lot.
In my History of Math class we will be traveling to the village of Szeged in rural Hungary where a lot of authentic Hungarian culture is preserved. I guess there's a university there that's really well renowned, and at which my teacher is a professor. We'll be visiting that college, as well as must-see Hungarian relics. I'm very excited!
In Hungarian, we are preparing for a bit of a scavenger hunt. My teacher will give us directions (in Hungarian) as to where he will be waiting for us, and apparently it will require us to take a lot of public transportation to find, therefore it's a bit of a test of our knowledge on Hungarian streets and methods of transportation. When we find him, we get to sit and drink tea and eat pastries and hang out in the Buda Hills for a while. It will be very nice.
That is my update on my life. I come back to America in a little over a month, and while I'm very reluctant to leave this place that I adore, I'm very excited to see my family and friends, and be in an English speaking environment.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
More recollections from Istanbul and math
First and foremost, I added even more pictures of Istanbul to my picture account. Now, some more random memories of Istanbul:
* They fly the Turkish flag everywhere. They are so proud of that crescent moon and star that the logo decorates most art as well.
* I watched the cartoon Aladdin, and I couldn't help but notice how similar the narrator's actions at the beginning (when he's trying to sell the audience a lamp) are to the behaviors of the vendors in Turkey. Everyone is "my friend." Everything is "very good quality." Everything "will not break." What cracked me up is that the narrator tries to sell a "hookah and coffee-maker, that also makes fries." French fries are practically a food group in Turkey. Who knows how that started. Also, Turkish coffee is famous for a reason. Finally, there are hookahs, or "water pipes" offered to you at every restaurant, coffee shop, or bar.
* I forgot to tell about my experience at the Turkish baths. I went into the infamous baths with the expectation that they would be similar to the hot springs in Budapest: rather like expansive, steamy swimming pools. My, how I was mistaken. Turkish baths aren't bathtubs, they are public saunas where an experienced worker physically bathes you. Upon entering the building (which apparently was centuries old) women were directed one way, men another. From then on, the genders were completely separated. We were each given a locker where we placed our clothing, a thin piece of fabric that we assumed was a towel, and a something scratchy that looked rather like an oven-mitt. We moved through the corridors into a room full of toweled women, one of whom took pity on us and directed us to a side-door. We pushed the heavy flaps aside and entered into a broiling, humid, gigantic sauna. There was a raised marble platform upon which perhaps twenty women lay, mostly in the nude, on the mats that we had assumed were our towels. I understand the European lack of modesty, but this stopped me (momentarily) in my tracks. Anyway, we joined the ladies on the marble platform, which was pleasantly warm and soothing, gradually losing all reticence. As I got over the shock of my immediate situation, I started to notice the ammenities of the circular room in which I lay. There were basins into which running water fell every few feet around the rooms. Occasionally, a woman would stand and reach into the basin to pull out a shallow bowl, fill it with water, and pour it over herself. Anyway, the purpose of laying on this platform was literally to sweat out all the toxins in your body. After a while, a large, motherly woman would beckon you over to lie at the side of the platform. She first drenched you with water, and proceeded to vigorously scrub your entire body with the rough oven-mitt I mentioned earlier. Watching, I saw dead skin just peel away, taking the sweat and dirt from my pores with it. It almost hurt, but it was so satisfying it felt amazing. When you were absolutely smooth, you layed back down, and the lady took a huge basin of soapy water, filled some sort of enormous, bloated cloth with suds, and soaped you down. What proceeded was a washing of the body, but really it was more of a massage. It was the most decadent feeling of my life. After about 15 minutes of this soapy bath, they poured a pitcher of water on you to rinse the suds, and then took you to one of the basins of running water, where you sat as they shampooed and rinsed your hair. You were treated to one last thorough drenching before you were led to a slightly cooler room to drink tea, wrapped in cozy towels, and marvel at how you've never felt cleaner. The whole experience sounds simply weird in many ways, yet apparently the Turks used to rely on these public bathhouses to stay clean, and this is just an age-old tradition. Regardless, after shedding modesty, it was the most relaxing hour I can recall.
Now that I'm back to the routine of school, I thought I should give an update on how classes are going. I'm still in my five classes: Elementary Problem Solving, Combinatorics, Number Theory, Historical Aspects of Mathematics, and Intermediate Hungarian.
Problem solving is amazing. I have never been introduced to so many super topics in such an interesting and condensed manner. However, tomorrow I have a test/quiz on geometric inequalities and combinatorial set theory. I've been preparing for it for a couple of hours and feel generally pretty good. The trick to solving a geometric inequality is usually to use the triangle inequality, which is very easy.
My midterm in Combinatorics did not go well for me. However, the entire class did miserably on it, so at least I wasn't alone in my ignorance. It was just a poorly written test. After the midterm, we did a short session on the Catalan Numbers. I hate them. I can't explain why. It's the same unexplainable hatred I have for Dihedral groups. They're nice and pretty, yet I despise them. Thank goodness we're into the Principle of Inclusion and Exclusion, and moving on to Graph Theory. That stuff's all pretty interesting.
Number Theory is still brilliant. I love my teacher, and we're studying primitive roots. My teacher is always saying, "order is the soul of everything," and I'm starting to believe him. I like order better in this context than in group theory. It's prettier. I also was very happy with my midterm.
Historical Aspects of Mathematics is still very interesting but very long. I'm preparing for my final presentation, and I'm planning on speaking about Carl Sagan and his achievements as a pioneer in modern astronomy, as well as what makes him my personal hero.
Intermediate Hungarian is.... well.... it's Hungarian. Let us recall that Hungarian has 14 vowels, the word order doesn't have a set formula, there are more irregular verbs than not, and the conjugation of the verb depends on the number of a's u's and o's (plus the accents and strokes) verses the number of e's, and i's could go either way. UG. I'm getting better at the language, more because of immersion than anything else. The past two months I have successfully gotten a new metro pass speaking entirely in Hungarian. I also can order in restaurants, and exchange pleasantries on the street.
That's all folks.
* They fly the Turkish flag everywhere. They are so proud of that crescent moon and star that the logo decorates most art as well.
* I watched the cartoon Aladdin, and I couldn't help but notice how similar the narrator's actions at the beginning (when he's trying to sell the audience a lamp) are to the behaviors of the vendors in Turkey. Everyone is "my friend." Everything is "very good quality." Everything "will not break." What cracked me up is that the narrator tries to sell a "hookah and coffee-maker, that also makes fries." French fries are practically a food group in Turkey. Who knows how that started. Also, Turkish coffee is famous for a reason. Finally, there are hookahs, or "water pipes" offered to you at every restaurant, coffee shop, or bar.
* I forgot to tell about my experience at the Turkish baths. I went into the infamous baths with the expectation that they would be similar to the hot springs in Budapest: rather like expansive, steamy swimming pools. My, how I was mistaken. Turkish baths aren't bathtubs, they are public saunas where an experienced worker physically bathes you. Upon entering the building (which apparently was centuries old) women were directed one way, men another. From then on, the genders were completely separated. We were each given a locker where we placed our clothing, a thin piece of fabric that we assumed was a towel, and a something scratchy that looked rather like an oven-mitt. We moved through the corridors into a room full of toweled women, one of whom took pity on us and directed us to a side-door. We pushed the heavy flaps aside and entered into a broiling, humid, gigantic sauna. There was a raised marble platform upon which perhaps twenty women lay, mostly in the nude, on the mats that we had assumed were our towels. I understand the European lack of modesty, but this stopped me (momentarily) in my tracks. Anyway, we joined the ladies on the marble platform, which was pleasantly warm and soothing, gradually losing all reticence. As I got over the shock of my immediate situation, I started to notice the ammenities of the circular room in which I lay. There were basins into which running water fell every few feet around the rooms. Occasionally, a woman would stand and reach into the basin to pull out a shallow bowl, fill it with water, and pour it over herself. Anyway, the purpose of laying on this platform was literally to sweat out all the toxins in your body. After a while, a large, motherly woman would beckon you over to lie at the side of the platform. She first drenched you with water, and proceeded to vigorously scrub your entire body with the rough oven-mitt I mentioned earlier. Watching, I saw dead skin just peel away, taking the sweat and dirt from my pores with it. It almost hurt, but it was so satisfying it felt amazing. When you were absolutely smooth, you layed back down, and the lady took a huge basin of soapy water, filled some sort of enormous, bloated cloth with suds, and soaped you down. What proceeded was a washing of the body, but really it was more of a massage. It was the most decadent feeling of my life. After about 15 minutes of this soapy bath, they poured a pitcher of water on you to rinse the suds, and then took you to one of the basins of running water, where you sat as they shampooed and rinsed your hair. You were treated to one last thorough drenching before you were led to a slightly cooler room to drink tea, wrapped in cozy towels, and marvel at how you've never felt cleaner. The whole experience sounds simply weird in many ways, yet apparently the Turks used to rely on these public bathhouses to stay clean, and this is just an age-old tradition. Regardless, after shedding modesty, it was the most relaxing hour I can recall.
Now that I'm back to the routine of school, I thought I should give an update on how classes are going. I'm still in my five classes: Elementary Problem Solving, Combinatorics, Number Theory, Historical Aspects of Mathematics, and Intermediate Hungarian.
Problem solving is amazing. I have never been introduced to so many super topics in such an interesting and condensed manner. However, tomorrow I have a test/quiz on geometric inequalities and combinatorial set theory. I've been preparing for it for a couple of hours and feel generally pretty good. The trick to solving a geometric inequality is usually to use the triangle inequality, which is very easy.
My midterm in Combinatorics did not go well for me. However, the entire class did miserably on it, so at least I wasn't alone in my ignorance. It was just a poorly written test. After the midterm, we did a short session on the Catalan Numbers. I hate them. I can't explain why. It's the same unexplainable hatred I have for Dihedral groups. They're nice and pretty, yet I despise them. Thank goodness we're into the Principle of Inclusion and Exclusion, and moving on to Graph Theory. That stuff's all pretty interesting.
Number Theory is still brilliant. I love my teacher, and we're studying primitive roots. My teacher is always saying, "order is the soul of everything," and I'm starting to believe him. I like order better in this context than in group theory. It's prettier. I also was very happy with my midterm.
Historical Aspects of Mathematics is still very interesting but very long. I'm preparing for my final presentation, and I'm planning on speaking about Carl Sagan and his achievements as a pioneer in modern astronomy, as well as what makes him my personal hero.
Intermediate Hungarian is.... well.... it's Hungarian. Let us recall that Hungarian has 14 vowels, the word order doesn't have a set formula, there are more irregular verbs than not, and the conjugation of the verb depends on the number of a's u's and o's (plus the accents and strokes) verses the number of e's, and i's could go either way. UG. I'm getting better at the language, more because of immersion than anything else. The past two months I have successfully gotten a new metro pass speaking entirely in Hungarian. I also can order in restaurants, and exchange pleasantries on the street.
That's all folks.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Istanbul Pictures
I posted pictures on my picture website! They are under the album title "Istanbul" and can be reached at betsyjane.myphotoalbum.com. Keep checking for more as I have time to post them!
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Arabian Nights
I'm back from my adventures in Istanbul! The city is, as my mom described, "sticky with history." What follows is hopefully a comprehensive account of my recent escapades.
The first couple of days I have already described in my earlier blog post. I saw three main tourist attractions in the first couple of days: The Haggia Sophia (or Aya Sofia to Turks), the Blue Mosque, and the Grand Bazaar. These are amazing, as I have already described. However, another tourism destination is the Topkapi Palace. This is where the various Sultans of the fallen empires resided. While the grounds have been preserved and/or renovated, the treasury of the palace was transformed into a museum of the valuables gathered throughout the days of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. There was an 86 karat diamond on display, thrones made entirely of gold, studded with huge rubies, pearls, and emeralds, pendants worn by daughters of sultans or given as gifts to tombs that featured emeralds the size of the palm of my hand. What I found interesting about the huge diamond was that after the empire fell, it was found in a rubbish heap by a merchant who in turn sold it for the price of two spoons. Eventually its authenticity was determined and it was placed in the museum. Set aside and out of place was the arm and skull of John the Baptist. I'm not sure how they ended up in a Muslim country such as Istanbul, but it was cool. Further in the depths of the castle there was a sacred room which many Muslims observe as a pilgrimage destination. In it were relics of the Prophet Muhammad, including his seal, a letter written in his hand, hairs from his beard, hairs from his head, and his tooth (these latter parts contained inside magnificent boxes). There was even the original binding of the Qur'an. It was truly chilling. We paid extra to go into the Harem of the palace. It wasn't really that cool, honestly. However, the quarters of the Queen Mother were quite stunning, as was the bedroom of the Sultan.
One day we climbed to the top of the Galata tower. The history of this tower is really amazing. It was built originally for defensive purposes, and changed over the years to suit different armies, and even an astronomer. One of the first men to fly jumped from this tower. He devised a sort of hang-glider and leapt from the top, landing some distance away. He was originally going to be commended by the ruler, but reconsidering, he was deemed a threat to security and executed. Anyway, the view from the top was amazing. We had to cross the bridge to the "new" part of the city to reach this tower. The bridge is a destination for fishermen, and every inch of the side is lined with locals hoping to catch the big one. Near this bridge there is a fish market. I have an extreme fright of fish so I didn't go to this landmark, but apparently you could pick any fish you wanted and they'd fry it for you on the spot. Yuck.
Much cooler than the icky fish was the Spice Bazaar. This place sold mainly spices, teas, and Turkish Delight. There was the occasional vendor who sold henna or Baklava, but mostly there were bins and bins filled with the oranges and browns of spices, and the brilliant colors of the teas. I bought some of my favorite tea I've ever had: some sort of rose hip tea. I think it's actually an instant tea mix mimicking the real tea, but it's what they serve at restaurants and it's absolutely delicious. I also bought some Turkish delight. My mom asked me if it was good enough to sell my soul to the White Witch and betray Narnia (sorry, C. S. Lewis reference) and I think that while it's veeery good, only the Chocolate Turkish Delight would tempt me into the treachery of Edmund Pevensie.
Continuing along the vein of Narnia, anyone who has read the series knows the city of Tashbaan from "The Horse and His Boy." Similarly, readers of "Arabian Nights", or the book "Phantom" can visualize precisely what Istanbul looks like. It's a city built into a hill with Mosques everywhere. Dark skinned vendors spread through the streets calling the merits of their wares. People carry huge trays of bread on their heads past open air markets of huge pears, pomegranites and pineapples. Walking through the streets is like rereading a favorite book.
We took two day trips: one down the Bosphorus strait to a village in Asia, the second to the Princes' islands in the Marmara Sea. The Asian village was beautiful. There were palm trees and grass everywhere with adolescents selling ice-cream at family-owned shops (the father was busy selling his fresh fish). The main attraction of this place was the ruins of a castle at the highest point of land visible. This castle was built during the Byzantine empire and are slowly crumbing down. There's plenty of it left, though, and people are welcome to climb around on it. Should a tourist fall, they would no doubt plummet to their death, but we all helped each other and climbed all over the ruins, taking in the magnificent view of the strait. It was fascinating standing where armored soldiers stood years and years ago, fighting for their lives with medieval weaponry. The second trip we took was to the Princes' Islands, called this because often nobility of sorts were crowned on these Isles. There were no vehicles on the island we toured. There were only bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. We rented bikes for a few Turkish Lira an hour and toured the entire island. This unfortunately involved going uphill for half of the time since we ended up at the top of the island. This particular endeavor left me sweaty, panting, grouchy, and all too aware of my two month hiatus from dancing and being in shape. However, we ate a picnic on a ledge looking over the sea. It took a bit of agility to reach the spot, but after getting there we lay and stared and stared and stared at the view in front of us. It was all green with purple flowers and fuzzy yellow bees zipping around. After resting and eating (and getting magnificently sun burnt) for an hour and a half, we continued on the bike ride, which was, to my intense glee, downhill. On this side of the island we got a view of the sea rather than forestry, so it was hard to watch the road with sparkly water just to the right. We made it back to the ferry and returned to Istanbul. We set off at 9 am and returned at 8pm, when we went right to dinner without even stopping at our rooms. We were all too tired even to eat (well, except for some of the boys, who could eat anything at any time of the day or night) which was a pity because it was a beautiful meal of hummus and eggplant and almond and pistachio and chicken and lamb and..... everything.
Some observations about Turkey:
*There are tulips everywhere. It's beautiful. It's not just a tulip here and there, there are fields of them. I guess this derives from some Sultan who especially liked tulips.
*The olives are really great.
*Everything is made from Pistachio, and nuts are sold on the street at ridiculously cheap prices.
*After finding out we were from America, the first thing Turkish people asked us was simply, "Bush??" If we implied that we didn't like the current status of our government, they laughed, gave us thumbs up, and were very friendly. Americans are obviously not too popular in the Middle East. In fact, to make life easier, when we bartered at the market we often said we were from Canada to avoid any nasty political situation.
*More women had their heads covered than not. However, these women would walk around holding hands with their husbands and kissing the children. I think we often give these Muslim women the stereotypes of being "untouchable." Only a few women (although more than I'm used to seeing) wore full Birkas.
*There is a problem with stray cats and dogs. They are everywhere, although some appear to be tagged, as though the city knows they're out there. It's heartbreaking to see all of them, yet we didn't even pet them because who knows what they pick up on the streets.
*The inequality of the sexes was very apparent. There were never women working in any establishment. Occasionally there would be a woman selling scarves on the street, but there were never women in paid positions. This prejudice was also apparent in the restrooms, where the facilities were merely sanitary holes in the ground.
*The security at Arabic airports is even harsher than in the United States, with several checkpoints, including one before you even enter the main part of the air port.
That's all I have the energy to write at the moment. I will upload pictures soon, but I have been lurking in this tea shop for the better part of two hours, and since it's Easter Sunday I feel like I should leave and maybe let them close up a bit early. I will write a comment as soon as I put pictures up. I have hundreds! Happy Easter!
The first couple of days I have already described in my earlier blog post. I saw three main tourist attractions in the first couple of days: The Haggia Sophia (or Aya Sofia to Turks), the Blue Mosque, and the Grand Bazaar. These are amazing, as I have already described. However, another tourism destination is the Topkapi Palace. This is where the various Sultans of the fallen empires resided. While the grounds have been preserved and/or renovated, the treasury of the palace was transformed into a museum of the valuables gathered throughout the days of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. There was an 86 karat diamond on display, thrones made entirely of gold, studded with huge rubies, pearls, and emeralds, pendants worn by daughters of sultans or given as gifts to tombs that featured emeralds the size of the palm of my hand. What I found interesting about the huge diamond was that after the empire fell, it was found in a rubbish heap by a merchant who in turn sold it for the price of two spoons. Eventually its authenticity was determined and it was placed in the museum. Set aside and out of place was the arm and skull of John the Baptist. I'm not sure how they ended up in a Muslim country such as Istanbul, but it was cool. Further in the depths of the castle there was a sacred room which many Muslims observe as a pilgrimage destination. In it were relics of the Prophet Muhammad, including his seal, a letter written in his hand, hairs from his beard, hairs from his head, and his tooth (these latter parts contained inside magnificent boxes). There was even the original binding of the Qur'an. It was truly chilling. We paid extra to go into the Harem of the palace. It wasn't really that cool, honestly. However, the quarters of the Queen Mother were quite stunning, as was the bedroom of the Sultan.
One day we climbed to the top of the Galata tower. The history of this tower is really amazing. It was built originally for defensive purposes, and changed over the years to suit different armies, and even an astronomer. One of the first men to fly jumped from this tower. He devised a sort of hang-glider and leapt from the top, landing some distance away. He was originally going to be commended by the ruler, but reconsidering, he was deemed a threat to security and executed. Anyway, the view from the top was amazing. We had to cross the bridge to the "new" part of the city to reach this tower. The bridge is a destination for fishermen, and every inch of the side is lined with locals hoping to catch the big one. Near this bridge there is a fish market. I have an extreme fright of fish so I didn't go to this landmark, but apparently you could pick any fish you wanted and they'd fry it for you on the spot. Yuck.
Much cooler than the icky fish was the Spice Bazaar. This place sold mainly spices, teas, and Turkish Delight. There was the occasional vendor who sold henna or Baklava, but mostly there were bins and bins filled with the oranges and browns of spices, and the brilliant colors of the teas. I bought some of my favorite tea I've ever had: some sort of rose hip tea. I think it's actually an instant tea mix mimicking the real tea, but it's what they serve at restaurants and it's absolutely delicious. I also bought some Turkish delight. My mom asked me if it was good enough to sell my soul to the White Witch and betray Narnia (sorry, C. S. Lewis reference) and I think that while it's veeery good, only the Chocolate Turkish Delight would tempt me into the treachery of Edmund Pevensie.
Continuing along the vein of Narnia, anyone who has read the series knows the city of Tashbaan from "The Horse and His Boy." Similarly, readers of "Arabian Nights", or the book "Phantom" can visualize precisely what Istanbul looks like. It's a city built into a hill with Mosques everywhere. Dark skinned vendors spread through the streets calling the merits of their wares. People carry huge trays of bread on their heads past open air markets of huge pears, pomegranites and pineapples. Walking through the streets is like rereading a favorite book.
We took two day trips: one down the Bosphorus strait to a village in Asia, the second to the Princes' islands in the Marmara Sea. The Asian village was beautiful. There were palm trees and grass everywhere with adolescents selling ice-cream at family-owned shops (the father was busy selling his fresh fish). The main attraction of this place was the ruins of a castle at the highest point of land visible. This castle was built during the Byzantine empire and are slowly crumbing down. There's plenty of it left, though, and people are welcome to climb around on it. Should a tourist fall, they would no doubt plummet to their death, but we all helped each other and climbed all over the ruins, taking in the magnificent view of the strait. It was fascinating standing where armored soldiers stood years and years ago, fighting for their lives with medieval weaponry. The second trip we took was to the Princes' Islands, called this because often nobility of sorts were crowned on these Isles. There were no vehicles on the island we toured. There were only bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. We rented bikes for a few Turkish Lira an hour and toured the entire island. This unfortunately involved going uphill for half of the time since we ended up at the top of the island. This particular endeavor left me sweaty, panting, grouchy, and all too aware of my two month hiatus from dancing and being in shape. However, we ate a picnic on a ledge looking over the sea. It took a bit of agility to reach the spot, but after getting there we lay and stared and stared and stared at the view in front of us. It was all green with purple flowers and fuzzy yellow bees zipping around. After resting and eating (and getting magnificently sun burnt) for an hour and a half, we continued on the bike ride, which was, to my intense glee, downhill. On this side of the island we got a view of the sea rather than forestry, so it was hard to watch the road with sparkly water just to the right. We made it back to the ferry and returned to Istanbul. We set off at 9 am and returned at 8pm, when we went right to dinner without even stopping at our rooms. We were all too tired even to eat (well, except for some of the boys, who could eat anything at any time of the day or night) which was a pity because it was a beautiful meal of hummus and eggplant and almond and pistachio and chicken and lamb and..... everything.
Some observations about Turkey:
*There are tulips everywhere. It's beautiful. It's not just a tulip here and there, there are fields of them. I guess this derives from some Sultan who especially liked tulips.
*The olives are really great.
*Everything is made from Pistachio, and nuts are sold on the street at ridiculously cheap prices.
*After finding out we were from America, the first thing Turkish people asked us was simply, "Bush??" If we implied that we didn't like the current status of our government, they laughed, gave us thumbs up, and were very friendly. Americans are obviously not too popular in the Middle East. In fact, to make life easier, when we bartered at the market we often said we were from Canada to avoid any nasty political situation.
*More women had their heads covered than not. However, these women would walk around holding hands with their husbands and kissing the children. I think we often give these Muslim women the stereotypes of being "untouchable." Only a few women (although more than I'm used to seeing) wore full Birkas.
*There is a problem with stray cats and dogs. They are everywhere, although some appear to be tagged, as though the city knows they're out there. It's heartbreaking to see all of them, yet we didn't even pet them because who knows what they pick up on the streets.
*The inequality of the sexes was very apparent. There were never women working in any establishment. Occasionally there would be a woman selling scarves on the street, but there were never women in paid positions. This prejudice was also apparent in the restrooms, where the facilities were merely sanitary holes in the ground.
*The security at Arabic airports is even harsher than in the United States, with several checkpoints, including one before you even enter the main part of the air port.
That's all I have the energy to write at the moment. I will upload pictures soon, but I have been lurking in this tea shop for the better part of two hours, and since it's Easter Sunday I feel like I should leave and maybe let them close up a bit early. I will write a comment as soon as I put pictures up. I have hundreds! Happy Easter!
Monday, April 02, 2007
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
I'm in Istanbul, Turkey! It is simply fantastic. I don't even know where to begin explaining it. My hostel is situated directly between the Haggia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. The Haggia Sophia is a very famous church. It's design is that of a Mosque, I believe because it was converted to Christianity not long after it's construction. The interior is familiar, yet very different. It looks like a church, but much more Turkish. That sounds so bland and predictable, but it's a very interesting combination of taking crosses and putting them under huge Turkish hieroglyphics painted on the walls. When I have a better, faster internet connection, I'll post pictures of both the exterior and the interior.
The Blue Mosque is much newer, but more fascinating. Everyone has been in a church before, but no many people have been inside one of the most famous mosques in the world. Before entering you have to take off your shoes. Women must cover their heads with scarfs. Entering the mosque, there is a huge area for the men to pray. Off to the side, gated, there is a tiny hut for the women. While this troubles my feminist insticts, I am in their territory and I will respect their culture. The really cool thing about the Muslim religion happens at prayer time. At dawn, sunset, and three other times every day, each mosque (and there are tons and tons of them here) have a singer amplified over the city calling the population to prayer. They sing in an acopela, Turkish style. It's hard to describe unless you hear it. It's like yodeling meets African prayers.
We went to the Grand Bazaar today. It's the largest shopping center in the world. One of our group likened it to the small intestine. The area it takes up is seemingly small until you unravel it. Then it's longer than one would ever suspect. Inside the market they sell scarves, chess and backgammon sets, fake designer purses, Turkish delicacies, Turkish carpets, and many many other things. You have to haggle with the merchants, which is really fun, although mildly stressful. They are very aggressive. They call out to you, "excuse me," and "yes please" to get your attention. They try to usher you inside the shops and show you their wares. I was called the most beautiful lady in Istanbul, a Spice Girl and one of Charlies' Angels in a very short time span. Also, one man tried to sell me a carpet "for my dowry". Yikes! Welcome to Turkey!!
I had Turkish Ravioli yesterday. It was meat-stuffed pasta in a yogurt sauce with chili and garlic. It was really wonderful. Everything ordered here is in "yogurt." It's rather like sour creme, but a little runnier and sweeter. The other day I had chicken shish-kabob. It was really good, although it tasted surprisingly similar to the kebabs my mom makes on her grill. With every mean they give you a sweet white bread that doesn't need any butter. It's delicious.
Everyone is really quite nice here. While some of the time they are only nice in an attempt to sell you something, most of the time they are a genuine group of people who are all too ready to laugh and tease. It's a huge change from the cold Hungarians. It took some getting-used-to, but I think it'll be tough to return to the formality of Budapest.
When I have more time and a better internet connection speed I will post some absolutely fantastic pictures, so stay tuned. I'm here for 6 more days so there will be plenty of adventure to document!
The Blue Mosque is much newer, but more fascinating. Everyone has been in a church before, but no many people have been inside one of the most famous mosques in the world. Before entering you have to take off your shoes. Women must cover their heads with scarfs. Entering the mosque, there is a huge area for the men to pray. Off to the side, gated, there is a tiny hut for the women. While this troubles my feminist insticts, I am in their territory and I will respect their culture. The really cool thing about the Muslim religion happens at prayer time. At dawn, sunset, and three other times every day, each mosque (and there are tons and tons of them here) have a singer amplified over the city calling the population to prayer. They sing in an acopela, Turkish style. It's hard to describe unless you hear it. It's like yodeling meets African prayers.
We went to the Grand Bazaar today. It's the largest shopping center in the world. One of our group likened it to the small intestine. The area it takes up is seemingly small until you unravel it. Then it's longer than one would ever suspect. Inside the market they sell scarves, chess and backgammon sets, fake designer purses, Turkish delicacies, Turkish carpets, and many many other things. You have to haggle with the merchants, which is really fun, although mildly stressful. They are very aggressive. They call out to you, "excuse me," and "yes please" to get your attention. They try to usher you inside the shops and show you their wares. I was called the most beautiful lady in Istanbul, a Spice Girl and one of Charlies' Angels in a very short time span. Also, one man tried to sell me a carpet "for my dowry". Yikes! Welcome to Turkey!!
I had Turkish Ravioli yesterday. It was meat-stuffed pasta in a yogurt sauce with chili and garlic. It was really wonderful. Everything ordered here is in "yogurt." It's rather like sour creme, but a little runnier and sweeter. The other day I had chicken shish-kabob. It was really good, although it tasted surprisingly similar to the kebabs my mom makes on her grill. With every mean they give you a sweet white bread that doesn't need any butter. It's delicious.
Everyone is really quite nice here. While some of the time they are only nice in an attempt to sell you something, most of the time they are a genuine group of people who are all too ready to laugh and tease. It's a huge change from the cold Hungarians. It took some getting-used-to, but I think it'll be tough to return to the formality of Budapest.
When I have more time and a better internet connection speed I will post some absolutely fantastic pictures, so stay tuned. I'm here for 6 more days so there will be plenty of adventure to document!
Monday, March 26, 2007
Rendorseg
The most surreal thing happened to me tonight. I was in my apartment with my roommate Kristen, each of us studying in our bedrooms for our Number Theory midterm tomorrow. Suddenly, our doorbell rang. It was quite a shock since we only vaguely realized that we even had a doorbell (our friends don't use it, let alone knock) and certainly we weren't familiar with the sound it makes. We both (eventually) simultaneously came to the conclusion that our mythological doorbell was being utilized, and since it's a bit easier for me to get to the door from my bedroom than it is for Kristen, I approached the entrance. All I could see was a shapeless shadow outside the door since my own reflection was peering brightly back at me. We lock our door when we're inside, just for safety's sake, and I certainly had no plans on unlocking for a faceless silhouette. Thus, I smashed my face up against the window to try to get a better look, and saw a badge reading, "RENDORSEG" glaring back at me. This translates to "police". I hurriedly made to open the door, but forgot that it was locked and made quite a spectacle of myself tugging and fumbling at the handle. When I finally got the door open, the lady police officer said something I didn't quite catch. Humbly I replied, in Hungarian, "I'm sorry, I don't understand, I'm American" (which is one of the most useful phrases I've learned). She looked at me and repeated herself more slowly, only this time I recognized the word Deutsch. Ah! She wanted to know if I spoke German! I hastily cast my mind about, compiling all the German I knew. The list contained two things: "good day", and "where is the library," both phrases I have learned from my mother's high school German schooling, and also the extent of her German vocabulary to date. Thus, I had to admit that I didn't speak German and tried my luck with Spanish. It didn't work. In any case, the Police woman pointed at me and to my roommate who had peered around the corner by this time, and said, "pizza?" At a loss for any better answer, I said, "no." She repeated, "pizza??" in a more prodding tone. Again I replied with my brilliant answer of "no". She looked over the balcony at a tenant who was peering up at us and spoke in Hungarian, obviously explaining that we had not acknowledged the aforementioned pizza. The police officer turned back to me and said, "ok, very sorry" and left. Now, I don't know if we were being asked if we stole a pizza, if the Hungarian police deliver pizza during their downtime, or if there's a Hungarian phrase that sounds like "pizza" but really means, "excuse me, is this your lost dog?" I guess I'll never know.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Prague and Family
Last weekend I traveled via bus to Prague. It was not a comfortable journey, but it was inexpensive and definitely better than an airplane. Ideally we would have had movies playing, but there was something broken.... or something..... In any case, I got a lot of my combinatorics homework done on the ride. We arrived in Prague around midnight, and by 1:00 we still hadn't found our hostel even though we knew that it was somewhere in a radius of about 3 blocks from us. We called a cab which took us about 30 yards, but successfully got us to our lodging and our beds. In my defense, Prague's streets are not user-friendly. The longest straight line in the city is about a block, then the road curves or bends, or just plain ends. The streets are also cobblestone, so we were really obnoxious dragging our wheelie suitcases through these back roads, sounding as though a group of tap dancers were making their way down the streets in the dead of night.
Exploring Prague was very different from anything I'd seen so far. It reminded me of Disney World. Everything was beautiful and larger than life and expensive. The entire city catered toward the tourist industry. There was no authentic Czech culture, just cookie cutter souveneirs and people dressed in costume to make the atmosphere feel authentic. The view from the city is phenomenal, and the architecture is really grand, yet I felt that I could have gotten the same ambiance from a theme park in America. In fact, I heard more English than I do walking down the streets of my hometown.
However, the very good thing about the city is that I got to meet up with my mom and sister! We met at the famous Prague astronomical clock (which is very pretty, yet very anti-climactic). Some friends and I walked around the city with them and soaked up the "culture." My mom bought me a garnet ring. Garnet is huge in Prague. My ring is a very simple but pretty silver setting, and the stone looks black except when it catches the light, then it flashes bright red. It's amazing.
My favorite part about the city was, ironically enough, a church. It was not a tourist trap, rather it was merely a place of worship that had remained standing and un-rennovated. It was the most gothic structure I have ever seen, or even imagined. It had beautiful stain-glass windows, and statues, cherubs, and gargoyles, and paintings so old that they appeared black. There was a statue that my family found extremely moving. I placed pictures of it (and, in fact, the whole tripm in a different album called "Prague" on my picture website). The statue was part of a larger arrangement of statues featuring the typical Christian display of death. However, there was a lady who was positioned over a book, crying. It looked as though she simply couldn't hold her head up she was so torn with grief. I have never seen a statue portray such human feeling as this one did. On closer inspection, she even had stone tears. Aside from these fantastic sculptures and works of art spread throughout the church, there was a continual theme of triangles with eyes inside of them.... symbol of the Free-Masons. Say what you want about Dan Brown and his "conspiracy theories" and ability to write, but as an avid reader of Angels and Demons, I wanted to send a telegram to Dan Brown right then and there, saying, "You're right!" Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati for a basic explanation of the conspiracy theory involing the freemasons and the Illuminati. The church reeked of history and emotion, and to make the experience even more chilling, the entire time we wandered the space, there was an organist practicing. The organ's pipes spanned a space of about 30 feet, and were almost twice as tall. My mom, as a former organist, hypothesized that there must be 5 or 6 keyboards the musician was using. The organ music made me feel as though I had stepped into some 5th dimension of The Phantom of the Opera, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Da Vinci Code. It was really fantastic.
We had beautiful weather, and it was very very very nice to hang out with my family. One of my friends told me that after meeting my mom and sister, I will never be a mystery to her again. True enough, we share a sense of humor that may not be similar to many peoples', but we enjoy each others' company and the laughter it brings. I traveled with them back to Budapest. I hope I was an okay tour guide; unfortunately the approach of midterm exams put a damper on my schedule of free time.
On that note, school is going very well. After doing this semester, I look at courses offered at Gustavus Adolphus, and instead of seeing the course number and title, and thinking, "Oh jeez, that looks so hard and boring," I recognize the concepts discussed and am really mad that I don't have time to take every class offered. Also, after this mathematics program, I will never be intimidated by an upper-level math class again.
Today is the first day of spring. I hope the weather is improving over there in the states! Check out my pictures at http://betsyjane.myphotoalbum.com.
Exploring Prague was very different from anything I'd seen so far. It reminded me of Disney World. Everything was beautiful and larger than life and expensive. The entire city catered toward the tourist industry. There was no authentic Czech culture, just cookie cutter souveneirs and people dressed in costume to make the atmosphere feel authentic. The view from the city is phenomenal, and the architecture is really grand, yet I felt that I could have gotten the same ambiance from a theme park in America. In fact, I heard more English than I do walking down the streets of my hometown.
However, the very good thing about the city is that I got to meet up with my mom and sister! We met at the famous Prague astronomical clock (which is very pretty, yet very anti-climactic). Some friends and I walked around the city with them and soaked up the "culture." My mom bought me a garnet ring. Garnet is huge in Prague. My ring is a very simple but pretty silver setting, and the stone looks black except when it catches the light, then it flashes bright red. It's amazing.
My favorite part about the city was, ironically enough, a church. It was not a tourist trap, rather it was merely a place of worship that had remained standing and un-rennovated. It was the most gothic structure I have ever seen, or even imagined. It had beautiful stain-glass windows, and statues, cherubs, and gargoyles, and paintings so old that they appeared black. There was a statue that my family found extremely moving. I placed pictures of it (and, in fact, the whole tripm in a different album called "Prague" on my picture website). The statue was part of a larger arrangement of statues featuring the typical Christian display of death. However, there was a lady who was positioned over a book, crying. It looked as though she simply couldn't hold her head up she was so torn with grief. I have never seen a statue portray such human feeling as this one did. On closer inspection, she even had stone tears. Aside from these fantastic sculptures and works of art spread throughout the church, there was a continual theme of triangles with eyes inside of them.... symbol of the Free-Masons. Say what you want about Dan Brown and his "conspiracy theories" and ability to write, but as an avid reader of Angels and Demons, I wanted to send a telegram to Dan Brown right then and there, saying, "You're right!" Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illuminati for a basic explanation of the conspiracy theory involing the freemasons and the Illuminati. The church reeked of history and emotion, and to make the experience even more chilling, the entire time we wandered the space, there was an organist practicing. The organ's pipes spanned a space of about 30 feet, and were almost twice as tall. My mom, as a former organist, hypothesized that there must be 5 or 6 keyboards the musician was using. The organ music made me feel as though I had stepped into some 5th dimension of The Phantom of the Opera, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Da Vinci Code. It was really fantastic.
We had beautiful weather, and it was very very very nice to hang out with my family. One of my friends told me that after meeting my mom and sister, I will never be a mystery to her again. True enough, we share a sense of humor that may not be similar to many peoples', but we enjoy each others' company and the laughter it brings. I traveled with them back to Budapest. I hope I was an okay tour guide; unfortunately the approach of midterm exams put a damper on my schedule of free time.
On that note, school is going very well. After doing this semester, I look at courses offered at Gustavus Adolphus, and instead of seeing the course number and title, and thinking, "Oh jeez, that looks so hard and boring," I recognize the concepts discussed and am really mad that I don't have time to take every class offered. Also, after this mathematics program, I will never be intimidated by an upper-level math class again.
Today is the first day of spring. I hope the weather is improving over there in the states! Check out my pictures at http://betsyjane.myphotoalbum.com.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Statue Park and Margit Island
Today I went to Statue Park. Statue Park is one of Hungary's most famous attractions. When all of the tyrannous governments finally fell in Hungary, someone had the bright thought to gather up all the statues and relics of political leaders and tributes to communism, and hide them away for a while so they didn't get destroyed a la The Berlin Wall. When the political realm became calmer, this guy took all these statues and created an outdoor museum open to the publc. For less than five dollars you can climb around on statues of Lenin and Stalin, sit on the feet of huge memorials, and buy CD's of "Hits from Communism". There are lots of red stars everywhere and the statues are laid out mildly helter-skelter. It's quite a process to get to the park as it's located outside of Budapest on the Buda side. We took a round about way and utilized the metro, a tram, and a bus. The bus stops and you step out into a ditch. There is no bus stop or anything defining the place as a public transit line. You traipse through weeds and dirt and emerge at a creepy-looking building. When you go in, all you can see is red stars: watches with red stars, flasks with red stars, post cards with red stars.... This, I found out, is because you actually enter the gift shop before the museum. However, the feeling of unease is heightened by the fact that there are hearty communistic marches being played through the speakers. I posted some new pictures on my picture website of the park. They're much better at explaining the atmosphere than I could ever hope to be.
My other news is that I finally went to Margit Island. This island, named after Saint Margaret, is located in the middle of the Danube, close to the center of the city. It's like a theme park atmosphere! There's a track around the outside which runs around 5 kilometers. Hard-core athletes and social runners alike use this path. Inside the track there's a petting zoo, swimming pools, parks, soccer fields and open areas, little stands that sell hotdogs and mulled wine, and the ruins of the convent where Saint Margaret was sent in the 13th century. The ruins were really cool because they were so authentically old and, well, ruined. I put a couple pictures up of the ruins, as well as of a peacock. In the zoo, there was a large establishment of peacocks, and while most of them had their feathers sedately folded on their backs, there was one zestful male who felt the winds of spring, and thus mating season. He had his plume ravishingly extended. Everytime a female peacock would walk by, he'd shake his feathers until they buzzed and rattled, and sort of arc them around her. It was beautiful, yet a bit silly to watch.
This weekend is a long one for me. There's a holiday on Thursday that is celebrated twice a year here in Hungary, and thus, I don't have school. Unfortunately, last fall when the same holiday was celebrated, the celebrations turned political in nature, and soon turned into riots. It's predicted that the same thing will happen again this time around. Even worse, those riots will be about 4 minutes from me since they're held primarily at Astoria, and I live near there. However, luckily this is the weekend my mom and sister are coming into Prague, so since I have some days off, I'm taking a bus to meet them there! I don't have to be around the riots, thank goodness! In America I might find it interesting to watch a political uproar, but here in Hungary where I really don't know the judicial or legal system, and the only words I recognize are things like, "excuse me," and "apple," it may no be the best idea to become politcally active at this point.
That's about it. Have a great early Daylight Savings Time America!
My other news is that I finally went to Margit Island. This island, named after Saint Margaret, is located in the middle of the Danube, close to the center of the city. It's like a theme park atmosphere! There's a track around the outside which runs around 5 kilometers. Hard-core athletes and social runners alike use this path. Inside the track there's a petting zoo, swimming pools, parks, soccer fields and open areas, little stands that sell hotdogs and mulled wine, and the ruins of the convent where Saint Margaret was sent in the 13th century. The ruins were really cool because they were so authentically old and, well, ruined. I put a couple pictures up of the ruins, as well as of a peacock. In the zoo, there was a large establishment of peacocks, and while most of them had their feathers sedately folded on their backs, there was one zestful male who felt the winds of spring, and thus mating season. He had his plume ravishingly extended. Everytime a female peacock would walk by, he'd shake his feathers until they buzzed and rattled, and sort of arc them around her. It was beautiful, yet a bit silly to watch.
This weekend is a long one for me. There's a holiday on Thursday that is celebrated twice a year here in Hungary, and thus, I don't have school. Unfortunately, last fall when the same holiday was celebrated, the celebrations turned political in nature, and soon turned into riots. It's predicted that the same thing will happen again this time around. Even worse, those riots will be about 4 minutes from me since they're held primarily at Astoria, and I live near there. However, luckily this is the weekend my mom and sister are coming into Prague, so since I have some days off, I'm taking a bus to meet them there! I don't have to be around the riots, thank goodness! In America I might find it interesting to watch a political uproar, but here in Hungary where I really don't know the judicial or legal system, and the only words I recognize are things like, "excuse me," and "apple," it may no be the best idea to become politcally active at this point.
That's about it. Have a great early Daylight Savings Time America!
Monday, March 05, 2007
pictures from poland!
I added new pictures to my picture website. Go to http://betsyjane.myphotoalbum.com and click the album called "Poland".
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Krakow
On Thursday evening I took the night train to Krakow, Poland. Krakow has a very long, rich history involving religious strife, war, communism, hardship, all culminating to make a truly amazing city. I don't like Poland as much as I LOVE Budapest. However, it has been a great experience being here.
The night train is really comfortable, provided you get a sleeper car. We had the foresight to pay a bit extra for this amenity and slept many of the hours of the journey away. It is about 10.5 hours via train to Krakow. However, it's fairly inexpensive, and as long as you get to sleep en route, it's a great deal for me. The only hitch in the ordeal was the boarder crossings. I was in a berth with two other girls, happily sleeping in our layered bunks. Someone knocked viciously at the door, and assuming it was our other friends in the berth several doors down, we yelled mildly obscene things regarding their inability to let us sleep in peace. When the knocking didn't desist, and instead became steadily louder, we grumpily flung the door open. Imagine our surprise when in marched several European men in fur hats demanding for our passports! I suppose we should have forseen this mild difficulty, but somehow we didn't think about the fact that we would be passing through Slovakia to get to Poland. Therefore, without this foresight, we were not in an appropriate state of dress for male visitors, and thus followed a series of very awkward encounters, made even more nerve-wracking by the language barrier. To add to the trouble, my sleepy friend tried to be friendly and inquired if we were in Slovenia, which is apparently a far different place than Slovakia and tested the patience of the boarder patrols.
We found our hostel with little difficulty with the help of a cab. Being that we live in Hungary, we're very profficient at sign language and we know to write down words that we'll need and point to them, rather than try to pronounce them. The hostel is called "The Stranger Hostel" and is spectacular. It's sort of like summer camp. Everyone is our age, traveling the world just for the heck of it. The facility was really clean and homey; I would return in a heartbeat. I'm actually currently at the hostel using one of the computers they have available for our use. It's pretty cool.
The first day we were here, we literally explored. We knew nothing of Poland, so we set off into "Old Town" and promptly discovered a fabulous open air market. Everything here is dirt cheap and fantastic. I had a blast shopping and comparing the different stalls. In our explorations, we found or way into a Polish restaurant where I had what seemed to be some sort of potato dumplings in cheese. We explored the castle, which was really cool because it was so old. In fact, that's the neat thing about this entire city. One day we took a guided tour of the city, and when we passed a Synagogue, they said, "the is the newest synagogue, built in the early 19th century." In America, our OLDEST buildings were built around that time. On this guided tour we got to see the Jewish Ghetto and Oskar Schindler's factory. This was really moving at the time, but nothing could prepare me for what I saw today.
We went on a guided tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau, the two most famous concentration camps where over 1.5 million people were murdered. These camps are located about an hour and a half outside of Krakow, and so our hostel arranged a tour for us that included transportation. We started at Auschwitz, which was the original death camp, and the first to employ the use of Cyclone-B, the gas the Nazis sprayed into the gas chambers where all those "unfit for labor" were sent. Those who couldn't handle such work included the elderly, the sick, the crippled, children, and pregnant women. Auschwitz was set up as a bit of a museum, with exhibits in the original barracks. It was astounding. In one of the barracks, there was a display of items confiscated from Jewish prisoners, or taken from the bodies of those put to death. Most of such items were sent to Germany to be sold, and that which remained in the camps, waiting to be shipped, was burned to hide the evidence of the nazi horrors. What remained for us to see was only a tiny fraction of the belongings of prisoners. There were huge rooms stacked with these belongings. There were thousands of toothbrushes, combs, pots and pans, prosthetic limbs, shoes, and eye glasses. There was also a room full of the hair shorn from women. This hair was used to make the blankets given to the Jewish prisoners. Like the rest of the items, the hair was stacked to the ceiling. It gave a horrifying idea of the number of people who died, and suddenly turned anonomous victims into real humans. We were also taken into the one remaining gas chamber and furnace. It was the original chamber made by the nazis. I don't think it takes explaining what that experience was like. We then went to Birkenau, which was made by Auschwitz prisoners because Auschwitz was becoming too small. As far as the eye could see, wooden, uninsulated barrocks lay across the land, or ruins of chimneys standing where barrocks used to be. In the center of this expanse was a rail road where prisoners were unloaded. We stood in the exact place that the Nazi "doctor" stood to make the decision whether each prisoner lived or died.
This was just earlier today that I experienced this, so hopefully I will be able to write another blog more eloquently describing certains horrors and emotions I felt. I wrote an e-mail home, however, and noted that I have an entirely different perspective on history in general, especially the holocaust.
On a happier note, we also toured the church St. Mary's, ate a lot of Polish food, fed really tame pigeons from our hands, experienced the Polish night life, and took loooooots of pictures. As soon as I get back to my computer, I will put these pictures on my picture website. I'm going to make a new album, so therefore these new pictures will not show up on the reel near the top of my blog. You'll have to go to the link on the right side of the page. It will take you directly to the site.
I hope all is well, and I can assure everyone that there is waaaaay too much acordian music in Poland.
The night train is really comfortable, provided you get a sleeper car. We had the foresight to pay a bit extra for this amenity and slept many of the hours of the journey away. It is about 10.5 hours via train to Krakow. However, it's fairly inexpensive, and as long as you get to sleep en route, it's a great deal for me. The only hitch in the ordeal was the boarder crossings. I was in a berth with two other girls, happily sleeping in our layered bunks. Someone knocked viciously at the door, and assuming it was our other friends in the berth several doors down, we yelled mildly obscene things regarding their inability to let us sleep in peace. When the knocking didn't desist, and instead became steadily louder, we grumpily flung the door open. Imagine our surprise when in marched several European men in fur hats demanding for our passports! I suppose we should have forseen this mild difficulty, but somehow we didn't think about the fact that we would be passing through Slovakia to get to Poland. Therefore, without this foresight, we were not in an appropriate state of dress for male visitors, and thus followed a series of very awkward encounters, made even more nerve-wracking by the language barrier. To add to the trouble, my sleepy friend tried to be friendly and inquired if we were in Slovenia, which is apparently a far different place than Slovakia and tested the patience of the boarder patrols.
We found our hostel with little difficulty with the help of a cab. Being that we live in Hungary, we're very profficient at sign language and we know to write down words that we'll need and point to them, rather than try to pronounce them. The hostel is called "The Stranger Hostel" and is spectacular. It's sort of like summer camp. Everyone is our age, traveling the world just for the heck of it. The facility was really clean and homey; I would return in a heartbeat. I'm actually currently at the hostel using one of the computers they have available for our use. It's pretty cool.
The first day we were here, we literally explored. We knew nothing of Poland, so we set off into "Old Town" and promptly discovered a fabulous open air market. Everything here is dirt cheap and fantastic. I had a blast shopping and comparing the different stalls. In our explorations, we found or way into a Polish restaurant where I had what seemed to be some sort of potato dumplings in cheese. We explored the castle, which was really cool because it was so old. In fact, that's the neat thing about this entire city. One day we took a guided tour of the city, and when we passed a Synagogue, they said, "the is the newest synagogue, built in the early 19th century." In America, our OLDEST buildings were built around that time. On this guided tour we got to see the Jewish Ghetto and Oskar Schindler's factory. This was really moving at the time, but nothing could prepare me for what I saw today.
We went on a guided tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau, the two most famous concentration camps where over 1.5 million people were murdered. These camps are located about an hour and a half outside of Krakow, and so our hostel arranged a tour for us that included transportation. We started at Auschwitz, which was the original death camp, and the first to employ the use of Cyclone-B, the gas the Nazis sprayed into the gas chambers where all those "unfit for labor" were sent. Those who couldn't handle such work included the elderly, the sick, the crippled, children, and pregnant women. Auschwitz was set up as a bit of a museum, with exhibits in the original barracks. It was astounding. In one of the barracks, there was a display of items confiscated from Jewish prisoners, or taken from the bodies of those put to death. Most of such items were sent to Germany to be sold, and that which remained in the camps, waiting to be shipped, was burned to hide the evidence of the nazi horrors. What remained for us to see was only a tiny fraction of the belongings of prisoners. There were huge rooms stacked with these belongings. There were thousands of toothbrushes, combs, pots and pans, prosthetic limbs, shoes, and eye glasses. There was also a room full of the hair shorn from women. This hair was used to make the blankets given to the Jewish prisoners. Like the rest of the items, the hair was stacked to the ceiling. It gave a horrifying idea of the number of people who died, and suddenly turned anonomous victims into real humans. We were also taken into the one remaining gas chamber and furnace. It was the original chamber made by the nazis. I don't think it takes explaining what that experience was like. We then went to Birkenau, which was made by Auschwitz prisoners because Auschwitz was becoming too small. As far as the eye could see, wooden, uninsulated barrocks lay across the land, or ruins of chimneys standing where barrocks used to be. In the center of this expanse was a rail road where prisoners were unloaded. We stood in the exact place that the Nazi "doctor" stood to make the decision whether each prisoner lived or died.
This was just earlier today that I experienced this, so hopefully I will be able to write another blog more eloquently describing certains horrors and emotions I felt. I wrote an e-mail home, however, and noted that I have an entirely different perspective on history in general, especially the holocaust.
On a happier note, we also toured the church St. Mary's, ate a lot of Polish food, fed really tame pigeons from our hands, experienced the Polish night life, and took loooooots of pictures. As soon as I get back to my computer, I will put these pictures on my picture website. I'm going to make a new album, so therefore these new pictures will not show up on the reel near the top of my blog. You'll have to go to the link on the right side of the page. It will take you directly to the site.
I hope all is well, and I can assure everyone that there is waaaaay too much acordian music in Poland.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Wine Tasting
Hungary is famous for it's wine. They have been creating wines for thousands of years, so they really know what they're doing. http://www.winesofhungary.com/history.htm. Yestery I went to the Hungarian House of Wines to wine taste. It was astounding. It's located in Buda, rather near Fisherman's Bastian. You enter and are greeted by a very distinguished gentleman in a three piece suit. The price for admission is 4000 forints, which is around 20 US dollars. It was worth every penny. With admission you are given a wine glass, a bag of bready croutons that cleanse the pallet, and a map of the wine cellar. You descend some concrete stairs to a well-lit, impeccable basement absolutely filled with wine. There are over 700 varieties to try, with about 60 bottles open at a time. You walk through a labyrinth of passage ways and little caves filled with wine bottles. Whenever you see an open bottle that you'd like to try, you uncork it, and pour as much as you desire into your wine glass. The wines are arranged by region with a mural behind them describing their history and taste in German, Hungarian, and English. I was happily wandering the halls, and I stopped to try a white wine that had an interesting bottle (because, unfortunately, that's as much as I know about the quality of wines). I sipped it, trying my best to look like a connoiseur, and rather vacantly read the history of this particular region. I was startled to realize that the very wine I was drinking used to be drunk on wedding nights to encourage the birth of a male heir. Needless to say, I moved on past this particular exhibit. You are allowed 2 hours in the cellar, but no one really checks up on you, so realistically, you could sample wines for hours at a time. It was a very interesting place to people watch. There were men who looked as if they live in mansions and smoke cigars, but there were also foreigners with backpacks who were thrilled at the "all you can drink in two hours" rule. There were families with mothers carrying young children, holding hands with smiley fathers. There was a bachelorette party getting a guided tour. It was definitely a cross section of the world.
On a vastly different note, we finally have heat and hot water after 5 days of going without it. We noticed one night that we didn't have hot water, so the next morning we called our landlord, who told us that that problem had happened last semester, and gave us a fix for it. We were happy, took showers in peace, and assumed the problem was fixed. Two hours later there was no hot water again, and the fix didn't work; rather it made our hot water heater emit disturbing, sputtering noises. We woke the next morning in frosty conditions. Suddenly, it occurred to us that we hadn't paid our utility bill!! After much deliberation we figured out how much we owed, and ran to the post office (where you pay the bills). We handed the bill to the lady behind the counter, and she started speaking rapid Hungarian and gesticulating madly, waving around a yellow sheet of paper. We assumed that maybe we needed such a piece of paper, so we returned to our apartment, unearthed a yellowish tab, and ran back to the post office. We handed over the money and the yellow sheet, and she returned a receipt. We waited all day in hope that our utilities would come back on. Over 24 hours passed, and still no heat, no hot water. We asked around, and it turns out that there was no way our utilities could be shut off, so something must be broken in our apartment. So, our landlord came over, and indeed, something was very very broken. They sent over a repair man later that night to fix the problem. It turns out that it was a hugely difficult problem dealing with the inner computer (or something like that) so he had to come back the next day with the correct parts. However, the repair man didn't speak a word of English. Of course he picked me to try to talk to about the problem and he waved a wrench around talking sedatly in Hungarian, as if by speaking veeeery slowly I would magically understand the Hungarian words for things like "boiler" and "thermostat." After a phone consultation with our landlord, we arranged that he would stop by the next morning between 9 and 10 to fix the problem. Around 4:00 he finally came. By this time, our apartment was so icy that it was necessary to wear mittens. I was in a fantastic mood all day, as one can easily imagine. In any case, we now have heat, hot water, and apparently a new water boiler.
Happy Heat and Wine!
PS, I added pictures of some of my friends and I at the Hungarian House of Wines.
On a vastly different note, we finally have heat and hot water after 5 days of going without it. We noticed one night that we didn't have hot water, so the next morning we called our landlord, who told us that that problem had happened last semester, and gave us a fix for it. We were happy, took showers in peace, and assumed the problem was fixed. Two hours later there was no hot water again, and the fix didn't work; rather it made our hot water heater emit disturbing, sputtering noises. We woke the next morning in frosty conditions. Suddenly, it occurred to us that we hadn't paid our utility bill!! After much deliberation we figured out how much we owed, and ran to the post office (where you pay the bills). We handed the bill to the lady behind the counter, and she started speaking rapid Hungarian and gesticulating madly, waving around a yellow sheet of paper. We assumed that maybe we needed such a piece of paper, so we returned to our apartment, unearthed a yellowish tab, and ran back to the post office. We handed over the money and the yellow sheet, and she returned a receipt. We waited all day in hope that our utilities would come back on. Over 24 hours passed, and still no heat, no hot water. We asked around, and it turns out that there was no way our utilities could be shut off, so something must be broken in our apartment. So, our landlord came over, and indeed, something was very very broken. They sent over a repair man later that night to fix the problem. It turns out that it was a hugely difficult problem dealing with the inner computer (or something like that) so he had to come back the next day with the correct parts. However, the repair man didn't speak a word of English. Of course he picked me to try to talk to about the problem and he waved a wrench around talking sedatly in Hungarian, as if by speaking veeeery slowly I would magically understand the Hungarian words for things like "boiler" and "thermostat." After a phone consultation with our landlord, we arranged that he would stop by the next morning between 9 and 10 to fix the problem. Around 4:00 he finally came. By this time, our apartment was so icy that it was necessary to wear mittens. I was in a fantastic mood all day, as one can easily imagine. In any case, we now have heat, hot water, and apparently a new water boiler.
Happy Heat and Wine!
PS, I added pictures of some of my friends and I at the Hungarian House of Wines.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The "powers" that be...
Is there a power of 2 that contains every digit from 0-9 the same number of times?
Another way of saying it is....
You have an integer in which every digit from 0-9 appears, and each digit appears exactly the same number of times. Is this a power of 2?
This was a question I was given in Number Theory yesterday, and even though it's mildly trivial, for whatever reason, I really enjoyed it. The answer is no... but I'm not going to explain why until later.
I found out yesterday that next year at Gustavus I get to live with one of my very best friends in the newest, nicest dorm on campus. She was given the position of CF (the same thing as an "RA") in the dormitory called Southwest, and she got to choose one person to live with. We each get our own room, but we share a living area. I'm very proud of her for being given this job, because everyone wants to be the CF in Southwest!
In a couple of weeks, my mom and my sister are coming to visit me. They have an itinerary of three cities beginning in Prague. A neat feature of the BSM program is that they incorporate two four-day weekends into the schedule of classes. Unfortunately this means having class on two Saturdays to make up for it, but it is nevertheless really nice. During the first of these four day weekends, my mom and sister are arriving in Prague, and so therefore, I am able to come and meet them! Not only will it give me an opportunity to visit the Czech Republic, but I also get to spend more time with my family! A couple of days later, I will ride a night train back to Budapest with them, and then be able to show them around this fantastic city for about three days. They go on to Vienna, but I can't go with them since I will have class. I'm really excited!!
Either this weekend or next weekend I am going to go to Krakow. Apparently it's just gorgeous. Some students who were here last semester said that it was their favorite destination. I have a sneaking suspicion it will end up being next weekend because more people will be able to go with us. Also, this weekend there is a very reknowned scholar coming to speak to the mathematics students, and we all want to attend his presentation.
One of my favorite places to do homework is a shop called Kom Kom Czokolad. It's a Dutch chocolate shop where they sell truffles and hot chocolate. This hot chocolate is not the awful, watery American stuff. It is literally melted down chocolate. They give you a spoon to help you eat it since it is so thick. They also give you a small glass of water since it is so rich. It is absolutely beyond belief. However, they have huge tables and multiple levels, so it's ideal for spreading out and doing math either alone or with a group.
Now, here way to solve the problem I posed earlier. Take an integer with digits 0-9. It doesn't matter what order they appear because the trick here is to add them up. So you have 1+2+3+...+9+0. This equals 45. If each digit appears more than once, you know that each digit appears exactly the same number of times. Therefore, this summation of the digits can be simply multiplied by a constant, giving k(1+2+3+...+9+0). Regardless of what k is, we know that the number must be divisible by 3, since the sum of the digits is 45, and 45 is divisible by 3. However, by the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, 2^n will never be divisible by three. Basically, this is merely stating that 2 times 2 times 2 times 2.... etc will never be divisible by three since each positive integer has a unique prime factorization, and a power of 2 will therefore never contain a 3 within it's factorization. Thus, we have proved that an integer containing all digits the same number of times will never be a power of two. Like I said earlier, this is pretty trivial.... but I like it!
Happy (Ash) Wednesday!
Another way of saying it is....
You have an integer in which every digit from 0-9 appears, and each digit appears exactly the same number of times. Is this a power of 2?
This was a question I was given in Number Theory yesterday, and even though it's mildly trivial, for whatever reason, I really enjoyed it. The answer is no... but I'm not going to explain why until later.
I found out yesterday that next year at Gustavus I get to live with one of my very best friends in the newest, nicest dorm on campus. She was given the position of CF (the same thing as an "RA") in the dormitory called Southwest, and she got to choose one person to live with. We each get our own room, but we share a living area. I'm very proud of her for being given this job, because everyone wants to be the CF in Southwest!
In a couple of weeks, my mom and my sister are coming to visit me. They have an itinerary of three cities beginning in Prague. A neat feature of the BSM program is that they incorporate two four-day weekends into the schedule of classes. Unfortunately this means having class on two Saturdays to make up for it, but it is nevertheless really nice. During the first of these four day weekends, my mom and sister are arriving in Prague, and so therefore, I am able to come and meet them! Not only will it give me an opportunity to visit the Czech Republic, but I also get to spend more time with my family! A couple of days later, I will ride a night train back to Budapest with them, and then be able to show them around this fantastic city for about three days. They go on to Vienna, but I can't go with them since I will have class. I'm really excited!!
Either this weekend or next weekend I am going to go to Krakow. Apparently it's just gorgeous. Some students who were here last semester said that it was their favorite destination. I have a sneaking suspicion it will end up being next weekend because more people will be able to go with us. Also, this weekend there is a very reknowned scholar coming to speak to the mathematics students, and we all want to attend his presentation.
One of my favorite places to do homework is a shop called Kom Kom Czokolad. It's a Dutch chocolate shop where they sell truffles and hot chocolate. This hot chocolate is not the awful, watery American stuff. It is literally melted down chocolate. They give you a spoon to help you eat it since it is so thick. They also give you a small glass of water since it is so rich. It is absolutely beyond belief. However, they have huge tables and multiple levels, so it's ideal for spreading out and doing math either alone or with a group.
Now, here way to solve the problem I posed earlier. Take an integer with digits 0-9. It doesn't matter what order they appear because the trick here is to add them up. So you have 1+2+3+...+9+0. This equals 45. If each digit appears more than once, you know that each digit appears exactly the same number of times. Therefore, this summation of the digits can be simply multiplied by a constant, giving k(1+2+3+...+9+0). Regardless of what k is, we know that the number must be divisible by 3, since the sum of the digits is 45, and 45 is divisible by 3. However, by the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, 2^n will never be divisible by three. Basically, this is merely stating that 2 times 2 times 2 times 2.... etc will never be divisible by three since each positive integer has a unique prime factorization, and a power of 2 will therefore never contain a 3 within it's factorization. Thus, we have proved that an integer containing all digits the same number of times will never be a power of two. Like I said earlier, this is pretty trivial.... but I like it!
Happy (Ash) Wednesday!
Friday, February 16, 2007
Last night I went to a movie put on by the BSM program. It was a documentary called "N is a Number" following the life of Pal Erdös, a Hungarian mathematician viewed as a god by the mathematics community, and completely unknown by everyone else. The movie was fascinating! Erdös lived an incredible life, and I'm very disappointed that the world doesn't know more about him. He has done for Mathematics what Newton has done for Physics, however, the general populace doesn't recognize this. I suppose the idea of Newton "discovering" gravity, a force which we all can feel every day, is a lot more palatable to the normal person than Erdös's conjecture of the additive number theory on arithmetic progressions in divergent series. Nonetheless, here is a link to a very good biography of Pal (or Paul) Erdös from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdős. Wikipedia is not a good source for purely credible information, but in a case like this, it's a very useful insight. Also, here is a link for the movie that we watched. I think the Gustavus Math Department should add it to their collection, as it is very very good. http://www.zalafilms.com/films/nisanumber.html.
My classes are simply amazing. I just love Number Theory. It is one of those classes where the answer is always right there, it just takes a flash of light to see it. Sometimes that flash comes after 2 days of work, sometimes after 1 hour. It's an abstract subject, but not nearly as dry as algebra. My teacher actually had lunch with the aforementioned Paul Erdös and he solved one of Erdös's unsolvable problems. I'm in awe.
Combinatorics is really really good. There are two classes offered, Combinatorics A and Combinatorics B. The "A" class moves faster, but I (like the majority of the Combinatorics students) chose to be in the "B" class. I have every ability to be in the faster class, but the fact remains that I can't understand a word of the other professor's English. Oh well, I can't complain as I am in Hungary. My Combinatorics class is really really interesting. However, yesterday we proved the binomial theorem in about 8 different ways. When the professor said, "And now we will prove it using the Taylor Series," I just about vomited. It was interesting, yes, but after the previous 7 proofs displaying the accuracy of the Binomial Theorem, I was simply not interested in the Calculus way of proving it.
Elementary Problem solving is soooo cool. It reminds me a lot of a super J-term class I took called Mathematical Gems. The point of the class is to cultivate logic and train the students to see the less obvious ways of solving obsure math problems. However, they do this by showing us scores of random, absolutely fascinating problems. Remember the trick you learned in 6th grade: if you add up all the digits in the number and that sum is divisible by 9, the number is divisible by 9 (the same with 3). I always thought that was just a bit of a party trick, but nothing more. I have used it countless times in Elementary Problem Solving, and even a couple times in Number Theory. It's amazing what such a trivial shortcut can tell you about the nature of numbers.
The History of Math (or whatever it's called) is mildly boring considering how it's 2.5 hours of straight lecture, but the information is amazing. He really molds the class to the student's interests. The other day he asked if anyone was interested in physics (since studying mathematical history forcesa deviation into physics) and I rather shyly raised my hand, as an interest in physics around mathematicians is often a reason for persecution. He asked me what I was interested in, and I said Astronomy (because I love astronomy more than anything.) He looked at me and said, "Ahh, astronomy. Very good. Today we talk about astronomy. Good?" He is absolutely brilliant, having three Ph.D's and an extra Hungarian title that means he's one of the best scholars. Ask him anything and he'll know the answer.
I went to Intermediate Hungarian Language. I don't like this language at all, but the class will be really really easy, and who knows, maybe I'll learn something along the way.
I decided against topology. I really enjoyed it (sort of) but the teacher didn't work for me, and I had to face the facts, I just don't have the mathematical background for it without a concrete course in Real Analysis.
I went to a store a lot like Walmart that is an English chain. It was wonderful. I found Peanut Butter and flour tortillas. There was one brand of peanut butter, and it took up about a square foot on the shelf. The next aisle over was completely dedicated to cheeses of all different sorts. They really do things differently over here. I love Eastern Europe, but it's tiring needing to go to a million different shops for everything. At this store, they sold shampoo, school supplies, food, books, cameras, silverware.... the works.
Sorry that this was long. I'm just giving an update! Happy Friday!
My classes are simply amazing. I just love Number Theory. It is one of those classes where the answer is always right there, it just takes a flash of light to see it. Sometimes that flash comes after 2 days of work, sometimes after 1 hour. It's an abstract subject, but not nearly as dry as algebra. My teacher actually had lunch with the aforementioned Paul Erdös and he solved one of Erdös's unsolvable problems. I'm in awe.
Combinatorics is really really good. There are two classes offered, Combinatorics A and Combinatorics B. The "A" class moves faster, but I (like the majority of the Combinatorics students) chose to be in the "B" class. I have every ability to be in the faster class, but the fact remains that I can't understand a word of the other professor's English. Oh well, I can't complain as I am in Hungary. My Combinatorics class is really really interesting. However, yesterday we proved the binomial theorem in about 8 different ways. When the professor said, "And now we will prove it using the Taylor Series," I just about vomited. It was interesting, yes, but after the previous 7 proofs displaying the accuracy of the Binomial Theorem, I was simply not interested in the Calculus way of proving it.
Elementary Problem solving is soooo cool. It reminds me a lot of a super J-term class I took called Mathematical Gems. The point of the class is to cultivate logic and train the students to see the less obvious ways of solving obsure math problems. However, they do this by showing us scores of random, absolutely fascinating problems. Remember the trick you learned in 6th grade: if you add up all the digits in the number and that sum is divisible by 9, the number is divisible by 9 (the same with 3). I always thought that was just a bit of a party trick, but nothing more. I have used it countless times in Elementary Problem Solving, and even a couple times in Number Theory. It's amazing what such a trivial shortcut can tell you about the nature of numbers.
The History of Math (or whatever it's called) is mildly boring considering how it's 2.5 hours of straight lecture, but the information is amazing. He really molds the class to the student's interests. The other day he asked if anyone was interested in physics (since studying mathematical history forcesa deviation into physics) and I rather shyly raised my hand, as an interest in physics around mathematicians is often a reason for persecution. He asked me what I was interested in, and I said Astronomy (because I love astronomy more than anything.) He looked at me and said, "Ahh, astronomy. Very good. Today we talk about astronomy. Good?" He is absolutely brilliant, having three Ph.D's and an extra Hungarian title that means he's one of the best scholars. Ask him anything and he'll know the answer.
I went to Intermediate Hungarian Language. I don't like this language at all, but the class will be really really easy, and who knows, maybe I'll learn something along the way.
I decided against topology. I really enjoyed it (sort of) but the teacher didn't work for me, and I had to face the facts, I just don't have the mathematical background for it without a concrete course in Real Analysis.
I went to a store a lot like Walmart that is an English chain. It was wonderful. I found Peanut Butter and flour tortillas. There was one brand of peanut butter, and it took up about a square foot on the shelf. The next aisle over was completely dedicated to cheeses of all different sorts. They really do things differently over here. I love Eastern Europe, but it's tiring needing to go to a million different shops for everything. At this store, they sold shampoo, school supplies, food, books, cameras, silverware.... the works.
Sorry that this was long. I'm just giving an update! Happy Friday!
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Applause, Please.
Happy Valentine's Day! I read that Hungary didn't celebrate Valentine's Day until 1989. I wonder if that has something to do with the end of the communist era.
On Monday night I went to see the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra at the Opera House. It was fantastic. They played three pieces (the last one had three movements) and an encore. I wrote an e-mail home describing the Hungarian style of composure as a bit of a war of winds versus strings. It was very climactic. There was a flute solo unlike anything I had ever heard. It began with one flautist, adding another flute and a piccolo as it went on. As a former French Horn player, I'll admit to not respecting the flute as much as I perhaps should. However, this solo was beyond belief. At the end of the piece, the concert master not only had the flautist stand, but he went back to her and took her hand. It was really touching.
I can't believe I have not written about the Hungarian method of appluading. It's fantastic. At the end of a show, the audience claps their hands in the "normal" American manner. However, somehow the clapping suddenly synchronizes into a single sound. Rather than a cachophany of sounds, there's a definite beat. After a minute or so of this rhythm, the beat suddenly turns half-time for a bit. Then the beat starts to speed up until it's going crazy fast! This might be repeated several times, meaning that the audience desires an encore. It's a really endearing method that displays unity. When a huge number of people work together to do something as cohesive as creating a beat, it's really stunning.
I have to go to class. I'll give a mathematical update later!
On Monday night I went to see the Hungarian Philharmonic Orchestra at the Opera House. It was fantastic. They played three pieces (the last one had three movements) and an encore. I wrote an e-mail home describing the Hungarian style of composure as a bit of a war of winds versus strings. It was very climactic. There was a flute solo unlike anything I had ever heard. It began with one flautist, adding another flute and a piccolo as it went on. As a former French Horn player, I'll admit to not respecting the flute as much as I perhaps should. However, this solo was beyond belief. At the end of the piece, the concert master not only had the flautist stand, but he went back to her and took her hand. It was really touching.
I can't believe I have not written about the Hungarian method of appluading. It's fantastic. At the end of a show, the audience claps their hands in the "normal" American manner. However, somehow the clapping suddenly synchronizes into a single sound. Rather than a cachophany of sounds, there's a definite beat. After a minute or so of this rhythm, the beat suddenly turns half-time for a bit. Then the beat starts to speed up until it's going crazy fast! This might be repeated several times, meaning that the audience desires an encore. It's a really endearing method that displays unity. When a huge number of people work together to do something as cohesive as creating a beat, it's really stunning.
I have to go to class. I'll give a mathematical update later!
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Some new pictures
I added a few pictures that I have taken over the past couple of weeks. Included are the pictures of the cake that failed, the silver tree outside the Synagogue, and inside the Opera house.
Tomorrow is my first Real Functions and Measures class. I'm very very very excited for it! I hope it's as good as I've been making myself believe it will be. If it ends up flopping, I think I will take the Elementary Problem Solving class in its stead, as it is offered at the same time. I only wish Elementary Problem Solving had a more important sounding name. Multi-Variable Calculus sounds very intimidating and important, even though it's not, really. Elementary Problem Solving sounds trivial. Oh well, don't judge a book by it's cover.
I had a very uneventful weekend. I am unfortunately coming down with a cold or something that renders me reluctant to leave my warm apartment. I have cough drops that were recommended to me by one of the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics workers, and it's strange taking medicine whose directions I cannot understand. The high point is that I'm not alone in my ailment. Over half of the students in the program have exactly the same symptoms, making me realize that perhaps we spend too much time around each other.
On Thursday I'll have been here exactly one month. That is very surreal, as I feel like I have lived in this city for years, but at the same time I feel as though I just arrived.
Tomorrow is my first Real Functions and Measures class. I'm very very very excited for it! I hope it's as good as I've been making myself believe it will be. If it ends up flopping, I think I will take the Elementary Problem Solving class in its stead, as it is offered at the same time. I only wish Elementary Problem Solving had a more important sounding name. Multi-Variable Calculus sounds very intimidating and important, even though it's not, really. Elementary Problem Solving sounds trivial. Oh well, don't judge a book by it's cover.
I had a very uneventful weekend. I am unfortunately coming down with a cold or something that renders me reluctant to leave my warm apartment. I have cough drops that were recommended to me by one of the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics workers, and it's strange taking medicine whose directions I cannot understand. The high point is that I'm not alone in my ailment. Over half of the students in the program have exactly the same symptoms, making me realize that perhaps we spend too much time around each other.
On Thursday I'll have been here exactly one month. That is very surreal, as I feel like I have lived in this city for years, but at the same time I feel as though I just arrived.
Friday, February 09, 2007
z=y?
I promise the title of this post isn't a math equation. Actually, it's in regards to Hungarian computers. The school in which I study has a computer lab for student use. It's a very nice lab with printing facilities and fast computers. I bring my computer to school with me, so I don't have much occasion to use this amenity, however, I decided I should set up an account with the school so that I can use the computers should necessity arise. I went to the tech services room and asked if I could set up an account and he replied with the cursory "of course" (side note: in Hungary, in a service-type setting, if you ask for something, they never say "yes," rather they say, "of course." This phrase doesn't have the high-and-mighty connotation that it has in the USA, rather, it's a cordial statement implying servitude.) He asked me to type my last name in a field box (actually he asked for my family name... I love Europe) which I accomplished no problem. Predictably, he asked for my first name, which I was surprised to see came out at Eliyabeth. In Hungary the z and the y keys' places are switched on the keyboard!?! I didn't forsee that! Taking a closer look at the keyboard, the "@" sign is not on the "2" key. Instead there's the pounds sign, as in the currency of England. The @ sign take the place of the quotation marks. In Hungary they don't use quotes. If I were to write dialogue, it would look like this:
,How are you?'
,I'm fine, thanks.'
Europe is just so efficient: they never have superflous stuff like we do in America.
In terms of math, I had my first combinatorics class. It's great! When I asked someone what combinatorics is, they replied, "say you have 6 blue turtles, and 11 red turtles, how many ways can you stack them?" I'm not sure how turtles were picked to be the subject of the example, nevertheless, that's combinatorics in a nutshell. My favorite thing about it is that it has NUMBERS! Math doesn't have numbers anymore, only letters. While keeping math restricted to variables forces generality (which is fascinating!) it's really nice to have such concrete problems! My Abstract Algebra teacher suggested that I take it, knowing that I miss numbers, and I am so grateful that she recommended it! I actually see a lot of computer science in Combinatorics. I am NOT a computer scientist; it's too frusterating and picky for me. However, the ideas behind it are amazing, and so using the techniques of recursion to solve a math problem is really cool.
It was one of my best friend and roommate's 21st birthday last night. A couple of us made her a cake! In terms of culinary techniques, I have no talent. I have been known to ruin "just-add-water brownies" and Macoroni and Cheese made from a box with a cheese powder. Thus, under the best circumstances, baking a cake is a nerve-racking endeavor. Therefore, when my friend Sarah brought the cake mix to my apartment, imagine my bewilderment when I saw that the very long, complicated directions were in Hungarian! There were four packages of different mixes, and we also had to add other ingredients. One of the mixes didn't congeal into frosting like (we think) it was supposed to, and another one turned into a concrete-esque substance. The picture showed that there were cherries in the cake, but the word our dictionary gave for cherries never appeared in the directions. So we guessed an got a bunch of cherries. We poured a package marked "gelezin" into them, hoping that maybe it would turn into a jello-like mix. It didn't. We put the cherries into the soupy frosting thinking that it might help it congeal. It didn't. So we picked the cherries out and put them into the concrete substance, thinking that perhaps they would dilute the concoction. It sort of worked, and so we spooned some of the soupy (now pink) frosting into the concrete and came up with a happy medium that was pink and tasted like.... nothing. As soon as I put my pictures on my computer, I'll upload one of what the cake was SUPPOSED to look like, and what it ended up looking like. They are two very different pictures. Surprisingly, it was edible! But only barely. Maybe I need to continue with my Hungarian lessons.
Happy Friday!
,How are you?'
,I'm fine, thanks.'
Europe is just so efficient: they never have superflous stuff like we do in America.
In terms of math, I had my first combinatorics class. It's great! When I asked someone what combinatorics is, they replied, "say you have 6 blue turtles, and 11 red turtles, how many ways can you stack them?" I'm not sure how turtles were picked to be the subject of the example, nevertheless, that's combinatorics in a nutshell. My favorite thing about it is that it has NUMBERS! Math doesn't have numbers anymore, only letters. While keeping math restricted to variables forces generality (which is fascinating!) it's really nice to have such concrete problems! My Abstract Algebra teacher suggested that I take it, knowing that I miss numbers, and I am so grateful that she recommended it! I actually see a lot of computer science in Combinatorics. I am NOT a computer scientist; it's too frusterating and picky for me. However, the ideas behind it are amazing, and so using the techniques of recursion to solve a math problem is really cool.
It was one of my best friend and roommate's 21st birthday last night. A couple of us made her a cake! In terms of culinary techniques, I have no talent. I have been known to ruin "just-add-water brownies" and Macoroni and Cheese made from a box with a cheese powder. Thus, under the best circumstances, baking a cake is a nerve-racking endeavor. Therefore, when my friend Sarah brought the cake mix to my apartment, imagine my bewilderment when I saw that the very long, complicated directions were in Hungarian! There were four packages of different mixes, and we also had to add other ingredients. One of the mixes didn't congeal into frosting like (we think) it was supposed to, and another one turned into a concrete-esque substance. The picture showed that there were cherries in the cake, but the word our dictionary gave for cherries never appeared in the directions. So we guessed an got a bunch of cherries. We poured a package marked "gelezin" into them, hoping that maybe it would turn into a jello-like mix. It didn't. We put the cherries into the soupy frosting thinking that it might help it congeal. It didn't. So we picked the cherries out and put them into the concrete substance, thinking that perhaps they would dilute the concoction. It sort of worked, and so we spooned some of the soupy (now pink) frosting into the concrete and came up with a happy medium that was pink and tasted like.... nothing. As soon as I put my pictures on my computer, I'll upload one of what the cake was SUPPOSED to look like, and what it ended up looking like. They are two very different pictures. Surprisingly, it was edible! But only barely. Maybe I need to continue with my Hungarian lessons.
Happy Friday!
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Math classes!
My math classes have started! They are, so far, fantastic. As an update, rather than taking Hungarian Arts and Culture, I decided to take a class called Historical Aspects of Mathematics. It's three hours, once a week, and I think it will be very very interesting. The guy who is teaching it worked at the Mayo Clinic for a long time, so next time I get a chance to speak with him, I'll ask him about his experience. We worked through the way early civilizations found the answer to the quadratic equation using a compass. It was really facsinating, although ancient civilizations didn't know about negative numbers, so they had to use really obscure methods. As the teacher said, "they didn't understand negative goats, or negative wives, so they couldn't understand negative numbers." It really made me think what we might be missing just because we do not have the capacity to understand as of yet.
I attended a class called Elementary Problem Solving. While I'm not going to take it, it was a really neat experience for two hours. We had to find the center of a circle using only the ability to draw another circle from two points and a straight edge. We could not measure. It was really interesting and required extensive use of tangents and knowledge of trigonometry within circles.
I have not had Combinatorics or Real Functions and Measures yet, but I'm really excited for both of them. Today was my first day of Topology. It's intense. I have never had a real analysis course, so I might end up auditing it. It will be a really interesting class alongside my Real Functions and Measures course, but I think I'd prefer not to get credit for it and just learn about it in preparation for my last classes at Gustavus.
Number Theory... I can't say enough good things about number theory. It is the type of math that made me into a math major. We spent all two hours proving properties of prime numbers. When I first read the book Contact by Carl Sagan and learned about the subtelties of primes I knew I was in love. Now that I have a class focusing entirely on primes, parities, and the elegance of numbers I think I'm in love. I'm taking it with the less popular of the two teachers. However, I really like his teaching style, and the other guy is only popular because he's so eccentric. He is the type of teacher who calls students out in class expecting them to give an answer. While that style might work for some students, I prefer not to spend the entire class period nervous that I'll get called on and give an incorrect answer. There are so many unsolved problems in Number Theory, it's positively addicting. I really need to look through my notes though, I'm rusty on the binomial theorem, which is pretty crucial.
Other than class, I went ice skating on the huge ice skating rink the other day. It was a lot of fun, although I used muscles I didn't know I have. I didn't fall though! My ballet training makes it difficult for me to hold the appropriate stance for skating, thus usually leading to fights with gravity, with myself as the defeated party. It was a victorious experience.
I had my first Hungarian Goulash last night. It was fantastic and very inexpensive. It was rather like beef broth with tomato soup thrown in but watered down. It was not spicy in the way Mexican food is spicy, rather, it was flavorful and eclectic. It had beef, potatoes, and carrots in it.
To get to school I have to take Tram number 74. I've never had a commute to school before, other than walking or driving, or perhaps getting dropped off at the school bus. I walk a block down from my apartment and take a turn for two blocks. There's a stop there at which a tram stops every 5-7 minutes. I take it for 3 stops, and it drops me off less than a block from my school. On the way back I have to walk about three blocks to get to the nearest stop, but it lets me off about a block away from my apartment. It's a very efficient system and I feel sophisticated when I use it.
That's it for now. Happy Wednesday!
I attended a class called Elementary Problem Solving. While I'm not going to take it, it was a really neat experience for two hours. We had to find the center of a circle using only the ability to draw another circle from two points and a straight edge. We could not measure. It was really interesting and required extensive use of tangents and knowledge of trigonometry within circles.
I have not had Combinatorics or Real Functions and Measures yet, but I'm really excited for both of them. Today was my first day of Topology. It's intense. I have never had a real analysis course, so I might end up auditing it. It will be a really interesting class alongside my Real Functions and Measures course, but I think I'd prefer not to get credit for it and just learn about it in preparation for my last classes at Gustavus.
Number Theory... I can't say enough good things about number theory. It is the type of math that made me into a math major. We spent all two hours proving properties of prime numbers. When I first read the book Contact by Carl Sagan and learned about the subtelties of primes I knew I was in love. Now that I have a class focusing entirely on primes, parities, and the elegance of numbers I think I'm in love. I'm taking it with the less popular of the two teachers. However, I really like his teaching style, and the other guy is only popular because he's so eccentric. He is the type of teacher who calls students out in class expecting them to give an answer. While that style might work for some students, I prefer not to spend the entire class period nervous that I'll get called on and give an incorrect answer. There are so many unsolved problems in Number Theory, it's positively addicting. I really need to look through my notes though, I'm rusty on the binomial theorem, which is pretty crucial.
Other than class, I went ice skating on the huge ice skating rink the other day. It was a lot of fun, although I used muscles I didn't know I have. I didn't fall though! My ballet training makes it difficult for me to hold the appropriate stance for skating, thus usually leading to fights with gravity, with myself as the defeated party. It was a victorious experience.
I had my first Hungarian Goulash last night. It was fantastic and very inexpensive. It was rather like beef broth with tomato soup thrown in but watered down. It was not spicy in the way Mexican food is spicy, rather, it was flavorful and eclectic. It had beef, potatoes, and carrots in it.
To get to school I have to take Tram number 74. I've never had a commute to school before, other than walking or driving, or perhaps getting dropped off at the school bus. I walk a block down from my apartment and take a turn for two blocks. There's a stop there at which a tram stops every 5-7 minutes. I take it for 3 stops, and it drops me off less than a block from my school. On the way back I have to walk about three blocks to get to the nearest stop, but it lets me off about a block away from my apartment. It's a very efficient system and I feel sophisticated when I use it.
That's it for now. Happy Wednesday!
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Some newly learned advice and what I miss from America
First of all, anyone who is thinking about coming to Budapest for the BSM program, or really any form of study should BRING THEIR OWN SCHOOL SUPPLIES! We went to buy notebooks and such earlier today and it was a very taxing experience. First of all, their notebooks are 70 pages max, and are either wide ruled, so narrow ruled writing on the lines would be impossible, or graph paper. Most Europeans take notes on graph paper, and I'm sure I'd love the system if I was used to it, but for now, I'm sticking to my own system. Also, pocket folders don't really exist. There aren't pockets in any binders or notebooks, and their version of "folders" are rather like fold out boxes in which papers can be placed and then protected by a cover. The fantastic BIC pens and pencils are not available; you must buy pens and pencils basically one at a time. To wrap it all up, 6 notebooks, six folders, six pens, and six pencils cost me around 35 dollars. Again, just remember to bring your own school supplies because it's a pain here!
Now, we've been compiling a list of things we miss from the United States. We love this city so much that we feel like we need to keep in touch with what we like about America so we won't be miserable when we have to leave. So, here goes he list of things to appreciate from America.
**Diet Coke (they only have Coke Light which is much different from Diet Coke)
**Clothes Dryers (everything must hang dry)
**English (pretty self-explanatory)
**Public Restrooms that don't cost money
**Waiters who bring you the check in a restaurant rather than the customers having to ask for it
**Peanut Butter
**Refills on tap water
**cheap cell phone service
**Skim Milk
**Easy internet connections
**Abundant Mexican Restaurants
**American clothes sizes
**Safety and Fire regulations
**sound-proof glass and walls
**No smoking sections
**shower curtains (you have to be creative with shower-taking methods or else the bathroom will flood)
**Being on the same time zone as parents and friends
**TARGET! I wish I could count how many times I say "I need a Target!"
That's a pretty comprehensive list as of now. Enjoy American luxuries!
Now, we've been compiling a list of things we miss from the United States. We love this city so much that we feel like we need to keep in touch with what we like about America so we won't be miserable when we have to leave. So, here goes he list of things to appreciate from America.
**Diet Coke (they only have Coke Light which is much different from Diet Coke)
**Clothes Dryers (everything must hang dry)
**English (pretty self-explanatory)
**Public Restrooms that don't cost money
**Waiters who bring you the check in a restaurant rather than the customers having to ask for it
**Peanut Butter
**Refills on tap water
**cheap cell phone service
**Skim Milk
**Easy internet connections
**Abundant Mexican Restaurants
**American clothes sizes
**Safety and Fire regulations
**sound-proof glass and walls
**No smoking sections
**shower curtains (you have to be creative with shower-taking methods or else the bathroom will flood)
**Being on the same time zone as parents and friends
**TARGET! I wish I could count how many times I say "I need a Target!"
That's a pretty comprehensive list as of now. Enjoy American luxuries!
Friday, February 02, 2007
Language barriers
I'm struggling with the Hungarian language. It has 14 vowels... enough said. I decided not to take Hungarian for the entire semester; rather, I'm going to take a class called Hungarian Arts and Culture. The interesting thing about being in a culture with a language so vastly different from ours is the way in which we compensate. All of the students I'm with find ourselves slipping into Spanish or French depending on what we took in high school. Since we know that English is not an option, I guess it's inherent to try the language that we speak that's not English. People say things to me and I'll reply with Si instead of Igen. Instead of saying bocsenat for excuse me, I'll say perdoname. So strange.
I'm in the process of figuring out what classes I'll take. After talking to students who were here last semester, I've (maybe) decided on taking Number Theory, Combinatorics, Topology, and mayyyybe a class called Real Functions and Measures. Then I'll take the Hungarian Arts and Culture class in addition to the math. The weird thing is that I ended up without class on Fridays, and if I don't end up taking the Real Functions class, I won't have class on Mondays either. There are students here who plan their schedules around not having class on Friday, I was just lucky enough to have had it work out coincidentally.
We have a welcome session and party this afternoon. I think it should be a very good time because we got to talk to the professors and ask questions.
I'm in the process of figuring out what classes I'll take. After talking to students who were here last semester, I've (maybe) decided on taking Number Theory, Combinatorics, Topology, and mayyyybe a class called Real Functions and Measures. Then I'll take the Hungarian Arts and Culture class in addition to the math. The weird thing is that I ended up without class on Fridays, and if I don't end up taking the Real Functions class, I won't have class on Mondays either. There are students here who plan their schedules around not having class on Friday, I was just lucky enough to have had it work out coincidentally.
We have a welcome session and party this afternoon. I think it should be a very good time because we got to talk to the professors and ask questions.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
