Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
To Bratislava and Back
I'm back from Bratislava, and all in one piece. The 36 hours I spent in Slovakia were nothing short of an adventure. We saw museums, statues, castles, mausoleums, old buildings and new buildings. Of course we went to pubs, ate like kings in restaurants and even made some new Slovak friends. I'll tell the story in detail when I have some time this week. For now, enjoy my pictures online and check out this clip from the movie Eurotrip. Bratislava isn't exactly how its depicted in the movie, but its close.
Friday, March 5, 2010
In Soviet Russia, Theorem Proves You!
I know I have to post more about my weekend a week ago, but I can't right now. Tomorrow I'm leaving with Andy and Taole for Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. We are catching the 9:28am train from the Keleti train station to arrive in Bratislava at 12 noon. We will explore the castle that dominates the city and walk around in the historic downtown. We plan to spend the night in a hostel and return to Budapest sometime Sunday evening. I'll post pictures and a detailed narrative of the weekend trip as soon as I get back and have a break from school, which are less frequent each week. To tide you over, here is quick recap of what I did last Saturday and Sunday, February 27 and 28:
Mutual of Omaha by Rachel Shukert - Nerve.com
An essay on BBYO shenanigans. Gotta love those Jewish youth groups.
Pava Utca Synagogue and Corvin Mozi
Phew! That was a long break from posting. A lot has happened since I last posted, so I will fly by and tell ya'll all about it.
A week ago, Friday, February 26, I finally found my way to the Pava Utca Synagogue next door to my apartment. Thanks to advice from Nurit who works for the Jewish Agency, I was showered, shaved, and ready to go when I walked over to the Holocaust Museum at 5 pm. I wasn't sure where exactly I needed to go, but after some goose chasing with the museum employees and security guards, I found myself standing in a tiny but beautiful sanctuary. After a minute or two a guy named Daniel, who looked about my age, came by and showed me around. He took me upstairs to the dining room where the Kabbalat Shabbat would be held. There were three other people up there hanging out, an adult couple and another younger guy named Andrash. Andrash and Daniel could speak English but the couple could not. Regardless, within five minutes of meeting me, the older man asked me to come to the synagogue for Passover. Everyone was really nice. For the night I was a novelty: a visitor from America. The service started in the downstairs sanctuary at 6:30pm. About 30 people attended the service most of which were from my dad's generation. It was a neolog service, which Daniel told me is a unique Hungarian "traditional" service. More observant than reform but not orthodox. It looked more like the Texas Hillel conservative service to me. The men and women sat in the same room but on different sides without a mehitza in between. Most of the service was conducted in Hebrew with melodies that I was used to back home. I stayed to eat for Kabbalat Shabbat and met more people of the congregation. I'm now Facebook friends with several of the people and on the email listserv for the Pava Synagogue. I'll be in touch with them and plan on going to more services throughout the semester.
After I finished eating I went with my roommate Andy to go see The Book of Eli at the Corvin Mozi (movie theatre) across the street. The movie was in English with Hungarian subtitles. The Corvin Mozi was once the site of a battle between revolutionaries and the Russian army in October 1956 during the Uprising. There are several plaques commemorating the sacrifice made by the Hungarian fighters, many of which were children. There is even a life-size statue of a 13 year old boy holding a rifle outside the theater. Inside the Corvin Mozi looks like any American movie theater. We bought our tickets, 1300 forints ($7), and sat down in the theater. A few minutes later a man shuffled by and said we were in his seats. I was confused since I knew no one was sitting there before, but then he pointed out that seats are assigned. In fact, my ticket had a row and seat number printed on it. By coincidence we were only one row off of our assigned seats, but stayed in the wrong seats anyway since no one seemed to have a problem.
I will update more tomorrow. I've gotta go to sleep.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Registration, Rendezvous with Karoly & Tibor
Last Thursday, a week ago, was the official registration day for our math classes at BSM. I posted earlier the classes I intended to sign up for, but there is one change I have to make. I've decided not to take graph theory at all, not even audit it. I was initially planning on auditing it, which means that I would have to attend the four hours of class a week. But when I went to bed last night knowing that I'd have to wake up extra early to go to graph theory I said, "forget it." Plus, I'll be able to use those extra four hours to work on analytical number theory and for that class every minute counts. So now my schedule is the same as before but without graph theory. That means that I have three classes on both Monday and Friday and one class each on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. My schedule looks like a dumb bell.
The day before that, Wednesday, February 24, I was able to finally meet a local Hungarian on non-math terms. He is a 20-year-old student named Karoly and is a relative of Cathy Hirt, a family friend from when I used to live in Fort Worth. When my mom told her that I was living in Budapest, she gave me the email address of her Karoly, who is her cousin. A few days ago I emailed him and we made plans to meet up. In between bouts of number theory study sessions, I met Karoly and his friend Tibor at Baross utca to go to a nearby bar called Andersen Pub. I knew it was him since he was wearing his burnt orange UT hat, which made me feel immediately at home. The pub was just like all the other pubs I've been to in Budapest, we entered Andersen's by descending the claustrophobic stairs to the main sitting area which seems to extend indefinitely through a series of catacombs underneath a building. A big feature of Andersen's is their Meter of Beer, where you get ten small glasses of draught placed in a wooden trough a meter long. Karoly, Tibor and I talked about the differences between America and Hungary and what its like to be in school and go to bars and clubs in either place. This is, of course, the only things that college students do no matter what country you live in. I had a great time meeting both of them and look forward to hanging out with them in the future.
Also, my youngest sister Rachel turned 16! Happy Birthday, Rachel! Have fun driving!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
