and therefore gave me a reason to actually go out and break out of the routine I'd gotten into. Admittedly to a certain extent that started on Friday when Bryan, Nora and I decided to go to the baths. We went to the Széchenyi baths in the city park. None of us had been yet so we didn't entirely know what we were doing, but the signs were pretty clear and the staff spoke enough English to give decent directions. The three of us split up, changed, and met back up outside in the hottest of the three baths where we ran into three more friends from BSM. It was snowing, which was actually quite pleasant while one was in the bath because the cool flakes helped counteract the heat. The snow made the towels wet and cold though, and the snow and general cold made getting out of one bath to go to a different one very unpleasant. Especially when I saw a large white patch on the ground and thought "dry tiles!" instead of "a couple millimeters of snow!" and tried to walk through it. (Apparently I really do need to wear my glasses almost all the time)
There are three large outdoor pools. One of them is quite hot, the others less warm. Of the others, one is primarily for people swimming laps, and the other has bubble jets and a whirlpool/current thing. We stayed for under three hours, so we got a refund. Admittedly the refund isn't very much, but it adds up and even 300 forints has quite a bit of buying power.
Saturday afternoon several of us went to Statue Park, which is a collection of the Soviet-era statues from the various street corners of Budapest in addition to examples of Soviet propoganda and an East German car. It was interesting, although it would have been nice to have more information about each of the statues. One, a giant statue of a soldier holding a flag, apparently used to stand on Gellert Hill, although I don't know whether he was there instead of the giant statue of St Gellert or stood blocking the saint. There's a couple replicas as well, including a replica of Stalin's boots. The rest of the statue was sawn off during one of the uprisings, leaving only the boots.
On the way back to Nora's we stopped off at Jégbüfé, the pastry shop we found near the language school. Then homework occurred until it was time to take the metro and then bus to the airport to meet Kate. Nora and I admittedly to being slightly anxious about our abilities to get back without having to have a night bus adventure so the entire group ended up going to get Kate and bring her back to Nora's.
Sunday we went to a church Kate knew of, then she and I ate with the rest of my hostfamily. That afternoon we met up with people at the Fishermen's bastion which was beautiful in the snow, and then all eight of us went to Ruszwurm and got cakes and hot chocolate. Apparently we hadn't had enough sweet things because we went back to Nora's, made cookies and watched Serenity.
Monday was mostly occupied with mathematics, so we stuffed Tuesday and Wednesday full of things around classes. Quite a few of which involved food. We had pancakes for brunch Tuesday morning, and ate dinner at the hummus bar. Kate and I spent the afternoon at the art museum. We were hoping to see the El Greco exhibit, but it had already closed. There was plenty of other things to see. I need to go back because we got kicked out before we were ready to leave. Castle Park was nice to wander around while waiting until it was time to meet people at the hummus bar, if a bit cold. After dinner four of us went to the baths. I had neglected to inform Kate that the baths were outdoor, so she was startled when I took her outside, but she enjoyed herself. Since it was much later the baths were much less crowded.
Wednesday I had classes and Kate sat in on Number Theory. Several of us went to Kádár(the eatery my Hungarian Language teacher had shown my class) for traditional Hungarian food, then went to Jégbüfé for breakfast and all tried bits of everyone else's cakes. I still like the Túrós táska the best, although this is partly because that one's the most likely to be warm from the ovens. Although there's this big apricot chocolate and icing thing which is pretty tasty, unfortunately they're usually sold out. The Marzipan cake slice was pretty good, and everything with chocolate in it has been delicious and I like this one apple pastry, especially the few times it's been warm from the oven. Their Kremes isn't as good as Ruszwurm's though.
Kate took off for the airport after lunch and the rest of us went back to class. It was really good to see her again, and it was a lot of fun to show her around the city in general and point out all my favorite spots, although in the time we had we weren't able to hit all of them. Ah well.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Snow!
Monday it started snowing far more seriously than it had thus far. Jen and I went to Ruszwurm and had hot chocolate and pastries, and we were met there by Nora and Emma. The four of us walked around Fishermen's Bastion for a little while, then Jen and I went and had dinner at Nora's. We ran into Bethany at the store and Jessica in the metro station so they came along as well. We made stir fry, which was good, and I tried to make boterkoek, which came out oddly, but we still polished off the entire pie plate of it. Apparently all that walking made us hungry.
Tuesday I don't have class until noon. I got up at eight, ate breakfast, and then took a walk around Castle Hill and took pictures until my camera started complaining about it's batteries, but I managed to get some good ones. And Bryan found batteries at Tesco, so it's not a concern anymore.
This is the big bird at the top of castle hill.
The castle
From the square by Mathias church
This is the view down the steps to my street. My apartment building is on the right.
If I turn around from the last picture, this is what I see:
Chain Bridge:
Tuesday I don't have class until noon. I got up at eight, ate breakfast, and then took a walk around Castle Hill and took pictures until my camera started complaining about it's batteries, but I managed to get some good ones. And Bryan found batteries at Tesco, so it's not a concern anymore.
This is the big bird at the top of castle hill.
The castle
From the square by Mathias church
This is the view down the steps to my street. My apartment building is on the right.
If I turn around from the last picture, this is what I see:
Chain Bridge:
Friday, February 20, 2009
Life and pictures
I find it hard to believe I've been here over a month now. In some ways it seems like I just got here, and in other ways it feels like I've been here much longer. I feel somewhat guilty for not doing more touristy things, but it's so lovely just to live here. The castle district is so beautiful. I've also been fairly busy with classes and such. (I'm taking topics in geometry, combinatorics of hypergraphs, number theory and abstract algebra). I have done some walking around and picture taking, and the snow's made things quite beautiful, so here, pictures (They're not in chronological order).
St Steven's Basilica:
The following are from walking along the Danube on the Pest side with Nora and Bryan. The clouds were beautiful, so we took a bunch of pictures of Buda. The thing with the dome is the castle, the bridge is the chain bridge.
Fishermen's Bastion, Mathias Church covered in scaffolding, and the hilton hotel. I live just under the leftmost edge of the bastion.
St Anna's church and Batthany Ter (where the metro stop I use is. It's directly across the river from parliament which makes for a great view.)
Chain bridge and the castle:
Matthias Church, and Fishermen's Bastion in the rain
St Gellert. The statue is part of the way up to the citadel where Nora, Bryan and I had a picnic. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of much beyond this point from our climb on the hill because my camera batteries stopped working.
Nora and Bryan and lots of stairs:
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
I'm bad at keeping a diary...
It has been a busy week (and a half). I've been spending a fair amount of time with Bryan and Nora. Saturday we wandered around after class for a bit before finally finding a grocery store. We bought bread, salami, cheese, water and a bottle of wine and hiked up to the top of the Citadel. We ate lunch/dinner up there and watched the sun set. Budapest really is a beautiful city. We failed at opening the wine bottle with a pocket knife, so we went to my apartment (going by the castle in the process) and went to the top of castle hill by Mathias Church and the fishermen's bastion (which were by this point beautifully lit), looked out across the city to the parliament building and the chain bridge, and then found a bakery, bought some cake and found a bench on the fortifications to sit on and drink the wine and eat the cake while looking out over Buda.
Sunday Nora and I went to church together. It was a bilingual church held in an old theatre. Almost all of the singing was done in Hungarian, although some of the tunes were recognizable from English and most songs had English translations at the bottom. It was interesting picking out differences in translations, although for the most part the two of us had absolutely no clue what we were singing. After church we met up with Bryan and went to Varosliget and wandered around for a while. Ice skating is definitely on the to-do list. After that we stopped off at St Steven's Basilica and wandered around inside there. The building is so ornate it is hard to imagine actually attending church there. After that the three of us walked along the Danube on the Pest side for a bit. The sun was setting, and some of the clouds above the castle and Matthias Church were a gorgeous shade of pink. There's a stretch of path by the Danube that's lined with statues of old, worn shoes. I asked my teacher what they were, and she explained that they're a memorial to the Jews who were shut into the Danube during WWII.
For dinner I made chicken adobo at Bryan's apartment. Although the soy sauce was too sweet, I think. It tasted weird, at any rate. It's kind of fun cooking here, although things can be hard to find. The week was mostly full of going to school, studying, walking around, hanging out with people and being coldy. Thursday Eva made dinner and had me, Erika and her husband over for dinner, and Eva was the only one of us who was completely well. The food was good though!
I met up with Nora on Sunday and went to a very very small church. Nora and I increased the attendance by 20%. They were all very very friendly, but it was a bit intimidating it being so small and us being so obviously not regular attenders there. It was also interesting how official different people's roles were considering that just about everyone in the congregation was taking part in the service. That evening a big group of us got together at Sneha's apartment to celebrate her birthday and not going to TGI Friday's to watch the Superbowl. It's fun being in Budapest with a bunch of math majors and discussing whether P=NP and what people think of the axiom of choice.
More classes and colds the past couple of days. Today, however, we have a field trip to the immigration office. We're all sitting in the hallway outside Anna's office at the international school while we make sure all the documentation is in order. It's been cold and rainy (and snowy although it went away quickly), thus the many colds, so I don't know what we'll be doing this afternoon. It's hard to believe I've been here for as long as I have, but at the same time it feels like I've been here longer.
Sunday Nora and I went to church together. It was a bilingual church held in an old theatre. Almost all of the singing was done in Hungarian, although some of the tunes were recognizable from English and most songs had English translations at the bottom. It was interesting picking out differences in translations, although for the most part the two of us had absolutely no clue what we were singing. After church we met up with Bryan and went to Varosliget and wandered around for a while. Ice skating is definitely on the to-do list. After that we stopped off at St Steven's Basilica and wandered around inside there. The building is so ornate it is hard to imagine actually attending church there. After that the three of us walked along the Danube on the Pest side for a bit. The sun was setting, and some of the clouds above the castle and Matthias Church were a gorgeous shade of pink. There's a stretch of path by the Danube that's lined with statues of old, worn shoes. I asked my teacher what they were, and she explained that they're a memorial to the Jews who were shut into the Danube during WWII.
For dinner I made chicken adobo at Bryan's apartment. Although the soy sauce was too sweet, I think. It tasted weird, at any rate. It's kind of fun cooking here, although things can be hard to find. The week was mostly full of going to school, studying, walking around, hanging out with people and being coldy. Thursday Eva made dinner and had me, Erika and her husband over for dinner, and Eva was the only one of us who was completely well. The food was good though!
I met up with Nora on Sunday and went to a very very small church. Nora and I increased the attendance by 20%. They were all very very friendly, but it was a bit intimidating it being so small and us being so obviously not regular attenders there. It was also interesting how official different people's roles were considering that just about everyone in the congregation was taking part in the service. That evening a big group of us got together at Sneha's apartment to celebrate her birthday and not going to TGI Friday's to watch the Superbowl. It's fun being in Budapest with a bunch of math majors and discussing whether P=NP and what people think of the axiom of choice.
More classes and colds the past couple of days. Today, however, we have a field trip to the immigration office. We're all sitting in the hallway outside Anna's office at the international school while we make sure all the documentation is in order. It's been cold and rainy (and snowy although it went away quickly), thus the many colds, so I don't know what we'll be doing this afternoon. It's hard to believe I've been here for as long as I have, but at the same time it feels like I've been here longer.
Friday, January 23, 2009
More Language School, More Wandering
At breakfast this morning Eva gave me paprika szalami which, assuming I understood her properly, was made by Erika's father-in-law. (Erika is the younger of Eva's daughters). Less exciting were the pickled beets, although I ate those too. I'm really not a fan of pickled beets though, but according to Eva they're full of vitamins, so I will probably be seeing them again. She was making a gigantic salad with them this morning while I ate breakfast.
Anyway. Language school today was from nine until four, and was our first day where we had what will be the normal schedule, without random trips elsewhere. We had one teacher in the morning, and another in the afternoon. The morning teacher came in and began by speaking only Hungarian, making us introduce each other and asking questions about our age, nationalities, and other basics. It was somewhat nervewracking at first, but once I realized I could both understand her questions and answer them in something resembling proper Hungarian, it was almost exhilarating. Our teachers make us practice both writing and saying words and sentences a lot, both individually, in pairs, or as a group.
We had a half hour break during the morning. Jen (one of the girls in my language school group) and I walked around several blocks, including going by the silver willow statue which commemorates the Hungarian Jews who were victims of the Holocaust. The language school is directly across from the main synagogue, and is in what used to be the Jewish ghetto. I promise I'll get pictures once the weather clears up. We still had about ten minutes of break left when Jen and I ran into Sneha and Helen (apartment mates of Jen's. I spent a fair amount of time talking to Sneha on the tour of the city with the Hungarian students. She shared my enthusiasm for the architecture), who offered us tastes of their hot chocolate that they'd just bought from a shop they were raving about. It was really really good hot chocolate, so Jen and I went over to get some for ourselves. It turned out to be quite pricey, but it was fun to try once. I got hazelnut hot chocolate, which had peanuts and some sort of wafer thing mixed into the drink as well as strong hazelnut flavoring.
During our hourlong break for Lunch, John (From my language group. Not the Jon I walked around Budapest with earlier. ) showed Jen, Helen and I a gyros place he and his apartment mate Homer (also in our language group. Helen's not in our language group but she joined us as we were heading out) had discovered since they live very near the school. It was good, and quite cheap too.
After class finished Nora, Bryan and I took the metro to the international school so Bryan could photocopy his passport and while we were at it set up accounts on the school computers. I also figured out where the Scottish Anglican church is so I can go there Sunday. Then we hopped back on the metro and headed to Hero's Square. It was dark by this time, and the statues were beautifully lit. Although I'm not sure why Saint Isztvan's halo appears to be of iron while the other saint's halo is shiny and gold looking. After this we went to Nora's apartment to see if Bethany wanted to come join us in eating somewhere, but she had already eaten with Amy and Erica, and opted to stay at Nora and Amy's apartment, where she could use the internet.
The three of us headed out again and decided to go to the Buda side of the Danube and eat there, possibly at the pancake restaurant. After some indecision, we chose another restaurant where we, feeling unadventerous, ordered two pizzas. The restaurant owner was very friendly, and, in addition to the pizzas, insisted we try some pálinka, some goulash, and some dumplings and beef (without charge). The pizzas were quite good, particularly since they were nowhere near as greasy as a typical American pizza. We had fun trying to order the toppings in Hungarian. All in all, the meal was fairly cheap considering the amount of food we got.
We were planning on going to the top of castle hill and walking around for a bit, but first decided to swing by my apartment for various reasons. However, once we'd all flopped down in my room, there was very little motive to move, so we just talked instead. There'll be other days to wander around the Buda hills. I'm so glad I'm here for several months.
And now I need to go do my homework since we have class tomorrow. At least it is only until two in the afternoon, so we should have about two and a half hours of light to wander in.
Anyway. Language school today was from nine until four, and was our first day where we had what will be the normal schedule, without random trips elsewhere. We had one teacher in the morning, and another in the afternoon. The morning teacher came in and began by speaking only Hungarian, making us introduce each other and asking questions about our age, nationalities, and other basics. It was somewhat nervewracking at first, but once I realized I could both understand her questions and answer them in something resembling proper Hungarian, it was almost exhilarating. Our teachers make us practice both writing and saying words and sentences a lot, both individually, in pairs, or as a group.
We had a half hour break during the morning. Jen (one of the girls in my language school group) and I walked around several blocks, including going by the silver willow statue which commemorates the Hungarian Jews who were victims of the Holocaust. The language school is directly across from the main synagogue, and is in what used to be the Jewish ghetto. I promise I'll get pictures once the weather clears up. We still had about ten minutes of break left when Jen and I ran into Sneha and Helen (apartment mates of Jen's. I spent a fair amount of time talking to Sneha on the tour of the city with the Hungarian students. She shared my enthusiasm for the architecture), who offered us tastes of their hot chocolate that they'd just bought from a shop they were raving about. It was really really good hot chocolate, so Jen and I went over to get some for ourselves. It turned out to be quite pricey, but it was fun to try once. I got hazelnut hot chocolate, which had peanuts and some sort of wafer thing mixed into the drink as well as strong hazelnut flavoring.
During our hourlong break for Lunch, John (From my language group. Not the Jon I walked around Budapest with earlier. ) showed Jen, Helen and I a gyros place he and his apartment mate Homer (also in our language group. Helen's not in our language group but she joined us as we were heading out) had discovered since they live very near the school. It was good, and quite cheap too.
After class finished Nora, Bryan and I took the metro to the international school so Bryan could photocopy his passport and while we were at it set up accounts on the school computers. I also figured out where the Scottish Anglican church is so I can go there Sunday. Then we hopped back on the metro and headed to Hero's Square. It was dark by this time, and the statues were beautifully lit. Although I'm not sure why Saint Isztvan's halo appears to be of iron while the other saint's halo is shiny and gold looking. After this we went to Nora's apartment to see if Bethany wanted to come join us in eating somewhere, but she had already eaten with Amy and Erica, and opted to stay at Nora and Amy's apartment, where she could use the internet.
The three of us headed out again and decided to go to the Buda side of the Danube and eat there, possibly at the pancake restaurant. After some indecision, we chose another restaurant where we, feeling unadventerous, ordered two pizzas. The restaurant owner was very friendly, and, in addition to the pizzas, insisted we try some pálinka, some goulash, and some dumplings and beef (without charge). The pizzas were quite good, particularly since they were nowhere near as greasy as a typical American pizza. We had fun trying to order the toppings in Hungarian. All in all, the meal was fairly cheap considering the amount of food we got.
We were planning on going to the top of castle hill and walking around for a bit, but first decided to swing by my apartment for various reasons. However, once we'd all flopped down in my room, there was very little motive to move, so we just talked instead. There'll be other days to wander around the Buda hills. I'm so glad I'm here for several months.
And now I need to go do my homework since we have class tomorrow. At least it is only until two in the afternoon, so we should have about two and a half hours of light to wander in.
Language School
Tuesday I rested in the morning, then walked around a bit and finally met up with Jon, Joseph and Min-Soon on Margaret Island. I think I'll have to visit again when it gets warmer and the trees stop looking so bare. It was a very overcast day, which didn't help much. The sun did make an appearance when we were at the north point of the island. The sunlight coming through the clouds and reflecting across the Danube was beautiful while it lasted at least. That evening I went to Bryan's host family's home to watch the inauguration. I was the only person who made it, but talking to Bryan was nice. I'm going to enjoy this semester surrounded by fellow mathematicians.
Wednesday the language school started. There are roughly thirty students enrolled in the language program, all of us are BSM students. We're split into three groups, my group has 12 people in it. We had one teacher for the first two days, but I think we have three teachers total, who rotate around. Today we had two different ones. All three seem very good teachers.
Wednesday class began at 9:00 and went until 12:30 with a half hour break in the middle. Then a couple of Hungarian students arrived and took us around the city. We first went to the huge indoor market where we ate lunch. I split a fried Hungarian flat bread known as Lángos with sour cream and cheese on it with Nora. Bryan got blood sausage, and both Nora and I tried a little bit of it. It was alright, but I prefer regular sausage. After we'd finished eating, our guides took us outside the Opera House, and we voted to walk back to school, rather than take a tram, despite the fact that by this point it was raining. Not too hard, but by the end of the walk most of us were quite damp.
I love the architecture in Budapest. Some of the buildings have beautiful carvings on them. And they'll be right next to buildings that are completely different architecturally. The contrast just makes it more interesting. We got back to the school around three in the afternoon, and our guide offered to take those interested pub-hopping sometime when the weather was better. Some members of the group seemed inordinately excited at this proposition. Others of us were somewhat interested, but a little bit dubious. We went back to class, and finished the day around 4:30.
After class a group of us went to Nora and Amy's apartment for dinner. We played cards, then ate. It was nice to see the inside of another apartment. It was fairly large (Hungarians really like really high ceilings, incidentally. Except on metros). At least both bedrooms were quite large, but there wasn't really anything resembling a living room. Just a tiled kitchen/dining area. Dinner consisted of ravioli, bread and omelettes which, due to the lack of non-stick coating and despite Mat's best efforts, turned out to be rather more like scrambled eggs with lots of stuff mixed in. After dinner Bryan, Bethany, Nora and I walked around the city together, particularly along the Danube. It was raining, but we had umbrellas by this time. Budapest is a very beautiful city. It's particularly neat to stand on the Elizabeth bridge and look out and see the lights of the chain bridge off in the misty, rainy distance. The citadel is also lit up rather spectacularly, as is the Mathias church and fishermen's basilica.
I don't think I'll be lacking for exercise this semester.
Thursday we had class from 9:00 until 1:15, again with one half hour break partway in between. Then Anna appeared to walk us to the international college, where we ate lunch in the cafeteria in the basement of the school. Convenient as the cafeteria is, I rather doubt I'll be eating there frequently. We were issued our magnetic cards to get into the school itself and got some more important phone numbers, signed the fire contract, and other administrative details. The head of the Babilon Language School came to give us a cultural discourse, which was entertaining. He commented that it was a fairly Hungarian phenomenon to have a Scottish man lecturing American students about Hungarian customs. After that, the Hungarian head of the BSM program gave us a basic overview of the program.
By then it was about five o'clock. It had been a rather busy past few days, and I opted to go back to the apartment and recuperate, work on homework, and attempt to catch up on this, rather than do anything more interesting.
I am very, very, glad that I am taking the language program. Hungarian is a fascinating language. In some ways it's frustrating because the language teachers are trying to teach us what we'll be needing, while at the same time trying to cover grammar fundamentals, so we're sort of getting a slightly disorganized mix of grammar, vocabulary and sentences which would be good to memorize until we can get enough grammar and vocabulary to understand them completely. The full days of learning Hungarian are intense, but it's working. Already we're able to start to pick out some words from advertisements, or understand polite greeting questions between two people. Actually, it's somewhat amusing how excited we get when we pick out a word we understand. Metro stations are good places to practice trying to dissect vocabulary and grammar.
The suffix system of Hungarian is so completely different from both French and English, and it's interesting just trying to pull words apart. While it's somewhat annoying to have to spend time doing homework as opposed to exploring, translating dialogues is rather fun, if quite a bit humbling since I have to use the dictionary to look up just about every other word or more.
Wednesday the language school started. There are roughly thirty students enrolled in the language program, all of us are BSM students. We're split into three groups, my group has 12 people in it. We had one teacher for the first two days, but I think we have three teachers total, who rotate around. Today we had two different ones. All three seem very good teachers.
Wednesday class began at 9:00 and went until 12:30 with a half hour break in the middle. Then a couple of Hungarian students arrived and took us around the city. We first went to the huge indoor market where we ate lunch. I split a fried Hungarian flat bread known as Lángos with sour cream and cheese on it with Nora. Bryan got blood sausage, and both Nora and I tried a little bit of it. It was alright, but I prefer regular sausage. After we'd finished eating, our guides took us outside the Opera House, and we voted to walk back to school, rather than take a tram, despite the fact that by this point it was raining. Not too hard, but by the end of the walk most of us were quite damp.
I love the architecture in Budapest. Some of the buildings have beautiful carvings on them. And they'll be right next to buildings that are completely different architecturally. The contrast just makes it more interesting. We got back to the school around three in the afternoon, and our guide offered to take those interested pub-hopping sometime when the weather was better. Some members of the group seemed inordinately excited at this proposition. Others of us were somewhat interested, but a little bit dubious. We went back to class, and finished the day around 4:30.
After class a group of us went to Nora and Amy's apartment for dinner. We played cards, then ate. It was nice to see the inside of another apartment. It was fairly large (Hungarians really like really high ceilings, incidentally. Except on metros). At least both bedrooms were quite large, but there wasn't really anything resembling a living room. Just a tiled kitchen/dining area. Dinner consisted of ravioli, bread and omelettes which, due to the lack of non-stick coating and despite Mat's best efforts, turned out to be rather more like scrambled eggs with lots of stuff mixed in. After dinner Bryan, Bethany, Nora and I walked around the city together, particularly along the Danube. It was raining, but we had umbrellas by this time. Budapest is a very beautiful city. It's particularly neat to stand on the Elizabeth bridge and look out and see the lights of the chain bridge off in the misty, rainy distance. The citadel is also lit up rather spectacularly, as is the Mathias church and fishermen's basilica.
I don't think I'll be lacking for exercise this semester.
Thursday we had class from 9:00 until 1:15, again with one half hour break partway in between. Then Anna appeared to walk us to the international college, where we ate lunch in the cafeteria in the basement of the school. Convenient as the cafeteria is, I rather doubt I'll be eating there frequently. We were issued our magnetic cards to get into the school itself and got some more important phone numbers, signed the fire contract, and other administrative details. The head of the Babilon Language School came to give us a cultural discourse, which was entertaining. He commented that it was a fairly Hungarian phenomenon to have a Scottish man lecturing American students about Hungarian customs. After that, the Hungarian head of the BSM program gave us a basic overview of the program.
By then it was about five o'clock. It had been a rather busy past few days, and I opted to go back to the apartment and recuperate, work on homework, and attempt to catch up on this, rather than do anything more interesting.
I am very, very, glad that I am taking the language program. Hungarian is a fascinating language. In some ways it's frustrating because the language teachers are trying to teach us what we'll be needing, while at the same time trying to cover grammar fundamentals, so we're sort of getting a slightly disorganized mix of grammar, vocabulary and sentences which would be good to memorize until we can get enough grammar and vocabulary to understand them completely. The full days of learning Hungarian are intense, but it's working. Already we're able to start to pick out some words from advertisements, or understand polite greeting questions between two people. Actually, it's somewhat amusing how excited we get when we pick out a word we understand. Metro stations are good places to practice trying to dissect vocabulary and grammar.
The suffix system of Hungarian is so completely different from both French and English, and it's interesting just trying to pull words apart. While it's somewhat annoying to have to spend time doing homework as opposed to exploring, translating dialogues is rather fun, if quite a bit humbling since I have to use the dictionary to look up just about every other word or more.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Városliget
I valiantly located two English-speaking churches on the Buda side, and then wimped out when it came to puzzling out the bus schedule and figuring out how to actually get there. It seemed to be a project that required more familiarity with Budapest's public transit system than I'd acquired in three days. I didn't do much new on Sunday in general. There are a lot of Italian tv shows dubbed in Hungarian on TV, or at any rate on Sunday afternoons judging from the glimpses I got. Sunday evening there was a concert on TV. I think Eva was telling me that the soloist violinist was the first chair of the Hungarian/Budapest symphony. At any rate, he was quite good.
Monday I decided to visit the City Park, Városliget. At the last minute I decided to send an e-mail out to the people I knew were already in Budapest to see if any of them wanted to meet me there at three, although I wasn't expecting much since I knew Tyler, for one, was having difficult getting internet access. I left that morning with a picnic lunch. It was a really pretty day; "szep napot" was Eva's comment as I headed out the door. Getting to the park was far easier than I had expected, given my experience with finding the language school. The main thing that helped was that I finally figured out where the signs explaining what stop you are at are. It probably should have been obvious previously. Ah well.
The park is large, with plenty of open space to throw a frisbee around, although probably people will be more interested in that once the weather warms up somewhat, and we find more of a routine. And actually learn how to get in touch with each other. In the meantime, part of the pond has been drained and turned into a skating rink. I haven't been out there yet, but I would like to. Speaking of ice, almost all the fountains I have come across so far are turned off. There was one in the park which was. Sort of.
I wandered around a fair bit, mainly locating places such as the Zoo, the amusement park, one of the city baths, but didn't actually go inside any of these. I ate lunch by the statue of George Washington, which was funded by Hungarian immigrants to the United States.
I also walked through the Vajdahunyad Castle which displays different periods of architecture in one building. It was initially built for the millennial exhibition out of cardboard and wood, but it was rebuilt out of stone due to it's popularity. I've heard good things about the agricultural museum the castle houses, but again did not go inside.
By this time it was past noon, but with a couple hours yet until three o'clock, so I decided to get back on the metro and try to locate the International College. I made it to the metro stop directly outside the train station without difficulties, but got completely turned around by all the construction. I got a rather scenic tour of that area of the city, which consists of some very lovely old buildings mounted with large metal and electric advertisements for such things as Burger King and HBO. Particularly in the square directly outside the train station. I finally found the square where the school was located, but wasn't entirely sure which of the large old buildings was the college. I headed back to the metro station and went back to the castle in the park.
To my surprise, I saw two people wandering around, one of them with a map exactly like the one I'd been issued at the airport by Anna. I hailed them, and while we were standing around making introductions a group of three other BSM students approached having heard us speaking English and seen Andrew's map. It turned out that Andrew, who was one of the people I'd e-mailed, had passed the message of the meeting place on. The six of us explored the park some more, including some corners I hadn't stumbled across yet. Then we went down to Heroes' Square.
After this we stood around talking for a bit. Joseph, Jon and Min-Soon all shared an apartment near the train station, within about fifteen minutes walk of both schools. Because of this, they hadn't been automatically provided with transportation passes, but they decided that they were going to want them anyway. To do this they wanted to get some stuff from their apartment, so we decided to split up, and meet up on Tuesday on Margaret Island around one o'clock. Andrew, Bobbie and I took the metro back to the metro stop closest to where I lived. Incidentally, the escalators in the metro stations are really long (it takes about a minute to get up or down some of them if you're standing still, and they are not slow moving). Also, the hand belt things move at a different speed from the actual steps. I've never noticed that anywhere else, although I don't know that I've ever been on such long escalators either.. Anyway, by the time we get off the metro, it was dark, despite being before six. My metro stop is directly across the Danube from parliament. We ate at a pancake/crepe place at the station. The square the station is at is pretty, especially with the church. I have no idea what church it is.
After eating, the Andrew and Bobbie showed me Mammut, which is a giant shopping mall a couple of stops down on the metro line. Afterwards I returned to the apartment, while the two of them headed off for McDonalds where they could get free internet.
Monday I decided to visit the City Park, Városliget. At the last minute I decided to send an e-mail out to the people I knew were already in Budapest to see if any of them wanted to meet me there at three, although I wasn't expecting much since I knew Tyler, for one, was having difficult getting internet access. I left that morning with a picnic lunch. It was a really pretty day; "szep napot" was Eva's comment as I headed out the door. Getting to the park was far easier than I had expected, given my experience with finding the language school. The main thing that helped was that I finally figured out where the signs explaining what stop you are at are. It probably should have been obvious previously. Ah well.
The park is large, with plenty of open space to throw a frisbee around, although probably people will be more interested in that once the weather warms up somewhat, and we find more of a routine. And actually learn how to get in touch with each other. In the meantime, part of the pond has been drained and turned into a skating rink. I haven't been out there yet, but I would like to. Speaking of ice, almost all the fountains I have come across so far are turned off. There was one in the park which was. Sort of.I wandered around a fair bit, mainly locating places such as the Zoo, the amusement park, one of the city baths, but didn't actually go inside any of these. I ate lunch by the statue of George Washington, which was funded by Hungarian immigrants to the United States.
I also walked through the Vajdahunyad Castle which displays different periods of architecture in one building. It was initially built for the millennial exhibition out of cardboard and wood, but it was rebuilt out of stone due to it's popularity. I've heard good things about the agricultural museum the castle houses, but again did not go inside.
By this time it was past noon, but with a couple hours yet until three o'clock, so I decided to get back on the metro and try to locate the International College. I made it to the metro stop directly outside the train station without difficulties, but got completely turned around by all the construction. I got a rather scenic tour of that area of the city, which consists of some very lovely old buildings mounted with large metal and electric advertisements for such things as Burger King and HBO. Particularly in the square directly outside the train station. I finally found the square where the school was located, but wasn't entirely sure which of the large old buildings was the college. I headed back to the metro station and went back to the castle in the park.
To my surprise, I saw two people wandering around, one of them with a map exactly like the one I'd been issued at the airport by Anna. I hailed them, and while we were standing around making introductions a group of three other BSM students approached having heard us speaking English and seen Andrew's map. It turned out that Andrew, who was one of the people I'd e-mailed, had passed the message of the meeting place on. The six of us explored the park some more, including some corners I hadn't stumbled across yet. Then we went down to Heroes' Square.
After this we stood around talking for a bit. Joseph, Jon and Min-Soon all shared an apartment near the train station, within about fifteen minutes walk of both schools. Because of this, they hadn't been automatically provided with transportation passes, but they decided that they were going to want them anyway. To do this they wanted to get some stuff from their apartment, so we decided to split up, and meet up on Tuesday on Margaret Island around one o'clock. Andrew, Bobbie and I took the metro back to the metro stop closest to where I lived. Incidentally, the escalators in the metro stations are really long (it takes about a minute to get up or down some of them if you're standing still, and they are not slow moving). Also, the hand belt things move at a different speed from the actual steps. I've never noticed that anywhere else, although I don't know that I've ever been on such long escalators either.. Anyway, by the time we get off the metro, it was dark, despite being before six. My metro stop is directly across the Danube from parliament. We ate at a pancake/crepe place at the station. The square the station is at is pretty, especially with the church. I have no idea what church it is.
After eating, the Andrew and Bobbie showed me Mammut, which is a giant shopping mall a couple of stops down on the metro line. Afterwards I returned to the apartment, while the two of them headed off for McDonalds where they could get free internet.
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