Vienna

This past weekend I went to Vienna with my roomate Kristen an 8 other people from BSM. There are lots of interesting things to see in Vienna, even with the grey and rainy weather we had last weekend. It was convenient too - less than 3 hours by train from Budapest.

Some pictures:

Our train ride into Vienna was pretty uneventful - we split up into two cabins and mostly discussed math throughout the ride. Here are the other four occupants of the cabin I rode in (Destiny, Kristen, Crystal, Elizabeth):


We arrived at Westend City Hostel and were given keys to our rooms and lockers. Kristen and I were in a separate room from the other 8 BSM people. Each room had 8 beds and one shower. (Not a happy situation.) There's no age limit for this particular hostel so we were lucky enough to have a retired woman sleeping right next to us on both nights - she snored and got up to go to the bathroom every hour...plus there were people screaming in the stairwell at various times throughout the early AM hours. Needless to say the first night I got barely any sleep at all (by the second night I was either too worn out from all the walking to care or had just gotten used to the situation.) The picture is of Kate (a girl from the UK who was one of the only occupants of the room that we actually met) and my roomate Kristen.

Dinner on the first night - Kristen and Destiny at our table. The group decided to "split up" - which involved me, Kristen, and Destiny going to a different restaurant while the other 7 all ate together. We were already paying the bill by the time the 7 of them started getting their first dishes. We left them there and wondered around the city nearby, coming back 30 minutes later.
Me and Kristen at our table drinking carbonated water. (No such thing as tap water in Europe - not unless you ask them for it very specifically - they just love charging people for water.)

Oh and I almost forgot - the (clearly not enforced) rule of our hostel. It's not particularly good English, but I guess they get their point across.

Comments on the rest of these pictures possibly to come later, I have homework to do. Here's a short summary:
Shonbrunn Palace - residence of the Hapsburgs - amazingly beautiful and unbelievingly HUGE. Fun times at the labyrinth and maze and children's games. An interesting tour throughout the inside of the palace - tons of walking throughout the gardens and other little nooks. Could definitely spend days exploring this place, it's beautiful.

"Giant" Ferris Wheel - Vienna's real proud of its ferris wheel, which withstood some wars as far as I've heard. That's all nice and dandy but it's not actually all that huge. The only cool thing about it is that it's got covered cars, so rain and cold weather don't ruin the fun. Also while we were waiting to get on, some "private" cabins went by with pretty curtains, wine bottles, and tasty treats, so I guess this ferris wheel has some popularity with the rich folk who want to rent out a cabin for a while and spin round and round in their own private "room".

House of Music - a fun and interactive music museum filled with information about the physics of sound (and about musicians and music as well of course). You get to conduct the Philharmonic at the end (and you actually get booed by the video tape if you mess up completely). A really cool place overall - every room has something for you to do - bang on huge drums, pluck some strings, write your own waltz music, etc. Well worth the time and money.. and was our last stop on the way back to the train staion and home to Budapest.

I have literally over 100 other pictures from Vienna of the beatiful buildings, of the palace, of the house of music, the ferris wheel, random fountains, etc. It's a pain to post them all up, or even just the best half... But Vienna was a fun place to visit, even if the weather wasn't cooperating.

Yumm Yumm

No more pictures for today, but a quick update on how things are going:

Looks like I'll be taking 4 math classes and 1 philosophy class. Bought 3 textbooks today, made dinner for me and my roomie from ravioli and frozen veggies - yummm. (Don't worry, they weren't frozen when we ate them)

I feel a lot less foreign in this place now, I'm getting used to it. I found out that all I really need to get along in most stores and outdoors is "thank you" "excuse me" "please" you're welcome" "sorry" , a couple of greetings, and the numbers from 1 to 10. Also good to know "exit" and "entrance"... otherwise people will look at you weird. (Not that I would know that from experience).

Nothing much is new really - had my second day of classes today and that went pretty well. Went to a travel agent to find out how much it'll cost me to get back home in December (I only bought a one way ticket to Budapest.) Then I went grocery shopping, had dinner, and now I'm here chatting with Corey (Hi Corey! who said I don't write about you?)

Szia!

Pictures

Some pictures from the last couple of days:

My roomate Kristen in front of the Basilica:


A hot spring in front of the thermal baths in City Park:


The Thermal Bath Building in City Park:


And, of course, Parliament:



Chain Bridge across the Danube (aka Duna)The Danube....

Castle at night:


Chain Bridge and... ?? some cool building - I forget what's called.. National something

Thermal Baths and Getting Around Budapest

Turns out we don’t have access to the internet on the weekends, so I’m sitting here in my room typing this up and it’ll get posted sometime on Monday.

I’m thinking about taking 5 classes even though I can only transfer 4 over to Dartmouth. We have a couple of weeks before final registration so I have the time to visit a lot of different classes this week – I’ll see how hard the classes seem and try to figure out if I have the time for 5 or not. So far I’m taking Complex Analysis, Theory of Computing, Graph Theory, and a philosophy class. The three math/comp sci classes are supposed to be pretty intense, but maybe I can audit a number theory or topology class. The more exposure I have to different topics in math the easier it’ll be for me to decide later on what kind of grad school I want to attend and what I want to focus on.

So it’s been 5 days since I arrived here, I can hardly believe it. I don’t feel nearly as helpless and lost as I did on the first day. Besides, my roommate came back from Prague on Friday and I haven’t had to go everywhere by myself for the last two days. The apartment isn’t quite so lonely anymore.

On Friday she took me to the Buda side. We got out at the stop right by the Danube where we could see the Parliament building, then crossed over the chain bridge back to the Pest side, walked past the Basilica, and back to our apartment. It’s amazing that most tourist attractions and interesting parts of Budapest are pretty much within walking distance of each other.

The public transportation system isn’t quite as advanced as that of NYC, but it also doesn’t need to be – Budapest just isn’t such a huge city. Unlike in NYC, trains and busses in Budapest are always on time and run much more often. You won’t be left standing around for longer than 5 -7 minutes. During peak times the trains average 3.5 minutes or less. A single ride ticket is cheaper than, but not nearly as flexible as a single ride on the MTA. You can only travel in one direction on any one metro line or bus without transferring (there are only 3 metro lines). You have to pay extra for a ticket that allows you one transfer. (There are also cheaper tickets if you’re only traveling for 3 stops).

The annoying thing about the transportation is that if you don’t buy a weekly or monthly pass then you’re left buying single ride tickets at annoying machines each time you want to ride. There’s no such thing as a Metrocard – you can’t just keep a small plastic card on you with say, 10 or 15 rides on it. I heard you can buy booklets of 10-15 tickets – but that option isn’t available on the machines so you have to wait on line at the window. The tickets are little pieces of paper that you HAVE to keep on you after you enter the station. You have to keep track of which ticket you entered on and discard old tickets to make sure you don’t have 5 old tickets lying around in your pocket. Otherwise if you get stopped and asked for your ticket on your way out, you might get fined if you don’t find your most recent one – stamped with today’s date and validated on the line or bus that you’re riding.

It’s a PAIN IN THE ASS. Which is why I just bought a 30 day pass and moved on with my life (not cheap, even by NY standards, but soooo convenient. It’s half price for students, but I’m not officially a student here :( )

Moving on…

Thermal baths! Budapest is famous for them – they’re even supposed to have medicinal healing powers. My roomie Kristen and I went to the Szechenyi Baths in City Park yesterday – very cool. Lot’s of hot baths of various sizes and temperatures spread out over 5 or 6 rooms, plus sauna and a steam room. Apparently there was a large outside bath with chess boards as well that we somehow missed. It’ll definitely be something to look forward to during the cold November/December months.

This is getting way too long so I’ll stop for now. Once classes start (tomorrow) I’m sure I’ll have better things to do than talk about the transportation system in Budapest for 2 paragraphs, so enjoy the boring details while you can :)

My Home in Budapest

I went food shopping for the first time today at Kaiser's (a large grocery store). I figured out all by myself that you have to weigh the fruit and veggies and then press a button to let the scale know what you're weighing and then the scale spits out a price sticker that you stick on your bag. Pretty high tech - nothing like the russian and chinese grocery places in Brooklyn.

The bank I went to was pretty high tech too - no lines of fuming customers. You walk up to a machine, click on one of 7 or 8 buttons depending on what you need (deposit, withdrawal, exchange currency, etc.) and the machine spits out a ticket with a number on it the first digit of which was your choice. (I clicked 7, for currency exchange, and I got number 704). Then you sit down on soft comfy benches and wait until your number comes up on the screen telling you which teller to go to. Pretty smooth...

Airport Post #2

(Written Sept 7th 7AM, Swedish time - or 1AM Eastern time)

I’m in Sweden! Well, in a Swedish airport anyway. I’ve got about 3 hours until the second part of my flight and I have a hunch that this is going to be a pretty small plane.

It turns out the damn Swedes are more tech savvy than us Americans – they’ve got the whole airport hooked up to high speed wireless internet. It’s not free of course, and since I have no idea what 70.00 SEK is translated into US dollars I’m not about to pull out my credit card and pay for it. If I get bored enough I might wander over to the info desk and ask them to convert for me.

I’ve also found out that the chatty family sitting next to me in the waiting room at Newark was Italian (sneaked a peak at their passports). That explains why it sounded close to French, but I’m surprised I didn’t recognize it. I guess I was concentrating too much on the fact that we were flying to Scandinavia and Italy didn’t even cross my mind.

The flight to Stockholm was pretty normal. The plane was only half full so I lucked out with two seats all to myself – both a window AND an aisle! (And I was worried….) We were fed well – 2 meals and a snack. I watched the first part of “Guess Who” and most of “Hostage”, played some backgammon, battleship, and even a lame version of that worm game. Popped two Tylenol PMs at the beginning of the flight and slept pretty well between those two movies.

Among the first voices I heard upon leaving the plane were these two guys walking towards a different gate and speaking in Russian! Russians are everywhere….

Airport Post

(Written Sept. 6th around 4pm)

Here we go. I’m at the airport now, awaiting my 13+ hour flight to Budapest (through Stockholm). Thirty minutes left till boarding, and the plane should be off at 5:20PM. This trip brings many firsts for me – my first flight by myself, my first time staying in a foreign country for more than 2 weeks (not counting moving to the US of course), my first time spending time in a country where I don’t know the language.

I’m nervous, but also tired which tends to cancel out the nervousness. I didn’t get to bed till 4AM yesterday and was woken up around 7:30 by my mom to say goodbye. I finally got up shortly after 10 and got myself ready. Spent over an hour at a bank in Bay Ridge trying to make a deposit – one teller, 30 people waiting… how dare people take an extra long weekend after Labor Day, ya know?

Corey and Leon (my bro) took me to the airport with all my bulky luggage, that wasn’t too eventful. I said my good-byes and off I went to pretend to be all independent and responsible. The security checks weren’t any different than for any domestic flight I’ve taken, kind of disappointing. Why come to the airport a whole extra hour earlier if they don’t even frisk you any more than they normally would?

Well, what else can I say?

There’s a family sitting next to me speaking some language I don’t understand. It’s not Hungarian, but sounds close to French and close to Hungarian at the same time. Maybe it’s Swedish or Finnish? Whatever it is, they’re chatting away right over all the super important announcements from our flight’s gate.

It looks like I won’t be in an aisle OR window seat – 46B, doesn’t sound promising.

Well, I don’t know when I’ll get to post this, since I sure as hell ain’t paying airport prices for an internet connection. I’ll be in Budapest at 1:35PM Sept 7^th (Hungary time). That’s 7:35AM for you East Coast people.

Viszlat!

Meet Baldy

That's right, I finally did it. I chopped off my hair on my 20th birthday (this Thursday).


Before:



After:


And it's not over yet, just wait until Monday! Muahaha.

I'm scaring myself.