Parents Weekend!

Well, at least it felt like Parents weekend, like good old Dartmouth Days when parents get invited to come chill out on campus. Well this time they came to chill out in Budapest. Check out some pictures here.
I saw more of Budapest in that one weekend than I've seen so far the entire time I've been here (which is about to be 2 months! wow!)
We saw all the touristy attractions, went on a tour, had a good time in the thermal baths...
I could barely keep up.

In other news - I'm now done with 3 midterms! 1 more midterm and 1 paper to go, but that'll be AFTER Paris. That's right, I'm going to Paris - tomorrow! Wooohooo!

I'm excited. What's even more exciting is that Corey is coming to meet me there!
Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!
:)
Paris, here I come.

Saturday Fun Times

[Written on Sunday 10/16/05 3PM (Bud time)]

See entry below for the "detailed" narration behind these pictures...

What we're holding here is the "cultured" version of a tea bag (a contraption that holds the tea)


View of Basilica and Chain Bridge from the path leading up to the Royal Palace.

Royal Palace, from the side facing the Buda hills (not the side facing Pest)

Row of Hungarian flags at dusk
Royal Palce, lit up, with row of Hungarian flags (as I walk away from the palace and into the Old Town)


A cat with two fuzzy kittens and a shy little girl whose mom is trying to take her pictures next to the cat. This was underneat the row of Hungarian flags, as I was walking away from the palace.

No internet access, but I thought I’d write a little update anyway and post it up tomorrow (plus I don’t really feel like doing math right this second.)

Yesterday was pretty eventful for an average Saturday (an average Saturday in Hanover, middle of nowhere, New Hampshire anyway). It’s nice going to college in the city for once, especially a historical city with lots of touristy places to explore. If I had stayed in NY for college instead of going to Dartmouth I probably wouldn’t have taken advantage of it anyway (I didn’t take advantage of it while I was in high school that’s for sure).

So yesterday Kristen (my roomie) and I went to check out a cute café called Angelika at Batthyány tér. I read about it in one of the Budapest guides that was already in the apartment when we moved in. According to the description, it’s actually inside St. Anne’s Church, but sitting in it you wouldn’t really be able to tell except maybe for the stained glass windows - it looks like it’s just an attachment. What’s nice about Budapest (just like the rest of Europe I’m guessing) is that you can sit in a café for as long as you want even if you just bought a cup of tea and have finished it long ago. So I got a cup of green tea, a piece of cake, and we sat there doing homework for a while. I finished my Complex Analysis assignment, read over some of my notes… and then we asked for the check (they don’t bring it to you unless you ask, no matter how long you’ve been sitting there).

Then Kristen went back to the apartment to meet someone for a “Combo party” (i.e. to do Combinatorics 2 homework) and I decided to explore a little more of the Buda side. I’ve only been to the castle district/old city once up until yesterday and I haven’t gotten a chance to explore really.

I caught a tram two stops to Clark Ádám tér and climbed up a path to the Royal Palace (along the way stopping to take some pictures.) After wondering around the palace (where the Hungarian National Gallery also happens to be located) I made my way over to Disz tér over in the Castle Discrict. The guide book I used to find Angelika Café suggested a walk down Tóth Árpád Sétany, so that’s what I did. It was perfect timing too – the sun was just setting, so I could see pretty colors in the sky over the Buda Hills. Unfortunately my camera’s batteries died just as it started getting dark, but at least that gave me a chance to enjoy it through both my eyes (“no more 3 by 5…”).

I left the path for a little while to stop by and admire Matyas Church and the Fishermen’s Bastion on the other side of the old city, but then returned to my pretty route and finished it at the other end (where it met Anjou Bastya). (The castle district looks a little bit like a mini version of Manhattan island – it’s very thin across the middle, and elongated from tip to tip. So it was a very short walk to get from the far left of the district to the far right and a bit of a longer walk to get all the way from Disz tér to Anjou Bastya).

From there I walked down to Moszkva tér and caught the metro right back to the apartment. My whole escapade from the café all the way back to my cozy room took less than 2 hours.

Was going to write more, but gotta run.... The rest of the day saturday involved an outdoor concert with crazy lights, crazy hungarian rappers, and a crazy african band.

Budapest Quirks

Szia!
I'm finally updating, but not much has really been going on.
Since Vienna, classes have gotten into full swing - I'm taking 3 math classes, a comp sci class, and a philosophy class.. so the workload has me pretty busy.

In more exciting news though - I'm actually cooking shit. It's just a tad more difficult learning real cooking when you can't read the label and don't know wtf "shortening" is in English, nevermind Hungarian. Oh and Hungarians don't use baking soda. No really, it doesn't exist. No baking chocolate either. I discovered this only AFTER me and my roomate invited people from the program to a "brownies and cookies" night at our apartment. So now we gotta figure out real quick what we're going to make for this "brownies and cookies" night without baking soda or chocolate.

Budapest has plenty of little quirks like that - no rubbing alcohol or betadine at (what Americans would consider) drug stores. You have to go to a pharmacy, which isn't like a Rite Aid or Duane Reade or CVS in the states - it's a small little shop with a counter and you tell the pharmacist what you need and they get it for you. It's like the prescription pharmacy section of large drug stores except you have to go there for everyday things like rubbing alchohol.

My monthly transportation pass has officially expired yesterday without being checked even ONCE by the ticket control people. That's 6000 Ft (~ 30 bucks) down the drain. And they wonder why their public transportation system is going bankrupt? No one pays to use the damn thing. It might as well be free.

That's it for now...
what else do you want?