Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. This has certainly not been intentional; I've been meaning to update the blog for a while, but have been incredibly busy. I've come to the realization that busyness affects blogging much more severely than it does other obligations I have. For instance, I've been meaning to clean my room for a long time now (gone are the days when my room looked like the pictures I posted here; gone too are my winter hat and gloves, buried somewhere in the mess, and with the rapidly plummeting temperatures, I need to clean up and find them soon) but have been too busy to do so. However, while being busy has kept my room in a state of disarray, it has not made the task of cleaning, when (if?) I eventually get around to it, any more difficult. With blogging, though, each day that goes by undocumented, represents another experience that I hope to chronicle here, meaning the task grows more and more daunting by the day. But I've realized that time has come to tackle the giant, even if it means reprioritizing my time, and so, despite the pile of reading I have not yet done for tomorrow, I'll begin with my first step in a lengthy recap: school.
Seeing as I came here for the explicit purpose of being a student at CEU, I've done remarkably little writing about my experience at the university. In fact, last time I mentioned it, I was still shopping classes and carrying a double workload. Well, not possessing any kind of superhuman intelligence, I was soon forced back down to Earth and scaled back my schedule to a mere five classes. My decision of which courses to take was made somewhat easier by the fact that I'm woefully behind on my requirements for the Cognitive Science major back at Yale, and several of the philosophy courses here were approved for my major by Brian Scholl (the all-powerful dictator of the undergraduate cog sci major at Yale). On an unrelated note, Brian, if for some unknown reason you're reading this (perhaps stumbling across my blog through a Google search for "brian scholl" and "superhuman intelligence"), let me express my belated gratitude for your approval of these courses (even the ones with dubious connection to cognitive science). As a result, my classes have a distinct philosophical bent. I'm taking: Moral Psychology, Self and Agency in Ancient Philosophy, and Ontogenetic and Philogenetic Origens of Folk Psychology and Naive Theory of Mind (hereafter to be referred to as OAPOOFPANTOM, for short). In addition to these, I'm taking Hungarian and the required undergraduate seminar, Introduction to Central Europe.
For the most part, I've been enjoying my classes. It's been tough being in PhD level philosophy courses (oh yeah, CEU is a grad school and, coincidentally, those courses that were so graciously approved for my major all happen to be PhD classes), not so much because of the content, but because of the other students. Not coming from a philosophy background, I manage to understand (the fundamentals of) the texts reasonably well, but I get lost quickly when one of the other students makes a comment relating the paper that we had been discussing to one of the many canonical works that I'm unfamiliar with.
The exception to this is OAPOOFPANTOM, which, while claiming to be a philosophy class, is really a thinly veiled cognitive psychology class. This is by far my favorite course, with a pair of great professors, a lively class, and subject matter that I not only find interesting, but feel fully immersed in and familiar with. This week, I even got to go visit my professors' infant cognition lab and, after working in the Yale Infant Cognition Center as a freshman, it was fun to be back in a baby lab environment. The experiments they were running were really interesting, and the 12-month-old babies that came in that day were unbelievably cute.
Hungarian class, though, is a very different story. Perhaps even more than in the philosophy classes, I feel completely like a fish out of water. For those unfamiliar with my inimitable skill with foreign languages, it only took me four years of high school Spanish in order to place myself squarely in the Elementary Spanish I class in college. Since then, I have continued to wade through language classes at an agonizingly slow pace, at least until I was stopped dead in my tracks by Hungarian, a language who's reputation did nothing to prepare me for the struggles I would face.
The Hungarian language is based on an alphabet with 44 letters. I'm not sure who decided it was necessary to have so many letters, expecially since some (e.g. "dzs" - yes, that is one letter) only occur in about five words in the language. There are 15 vowels, each with it's own sound (I can pronounce about half of them, on a good day), but the Hungarians use their plentiful vowels sparingly, maintaining a roughly constant 4:1 consonant to vowel ratio in each word. My pronunciation is generally terrible; for some reason I have difficulty differentiating the pronunciation of tizenegy (which means "eleven") from that of tizennégy ("fourteen") and I have even more difficulty understanding why the Hungarians insist on having two different numbers that are veritable homophones. Beyond spelling, the structure of the language seems to be based on an irrational love of prefixes and suffixes. Thus, a relatively simple word, like szent ("holy"), can quickly escalate into an unwieldy behemoth, like Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért ("for your [plural] repeated pretending to be undesecratable"), a word for which one can easily imagine the myriad uses. Yet for all my confusion surrounding the language, I'm actually really enjoying the class. It's a good group of students (with a few friends from my program) and the professor is great – animated, enthusiastic, mercifully patient, and perhaps mildly insane – and I love her, despite the fact that (or perhaps because) she has taken to cutting me off every time I'm supposed to speak in class, saving everyone from the embarrassment that would undoubtedly ensue.
My final class is the required Introduction to Central Europe. Before I applied to Central European University, I had no idea that Central Europe existed, much less what it was. Sadly, halfway through the course, I'm not sure I can honestly say I know any more on the subject now than I did before. And I think that's all the detail I will go into for Introduction to Central Europe, it being the one course for which I feel the need to call upon the mantra, "If you don't have something nice to say..."
But as I said, I enjoy my classes (even the required seminar has been a great source of group bonding for its conscripted student body). My only problem has been a growing frustration with the amount of time consumed by school. I find myself longingly thumbing through my Let's Go: Europe, compiling a lengthy list of places I'd like to visit before I fly back across the Atlantic. I can't help but feel that my primary reason for being in Europe is, well, to be in Europe, and that I get plenty of academia back in the States. So, I've boldly resolved to not let myself get stressed out by such petty things as class, or reading, or final papers, adopting the philosophy that "study abroad" really ought to be much less about the former and more about the latter.
And so, I'm setting school on the back burner and focusing more on travel. At least until my conscience (read: tuition-paying parents) forces me to begin working on those looming final papers.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Life outside my apartment
Okay, well my life has changed quite a bit since the days when a trip across the Danube qualified as a great adventure (not to belittle my day in the Buda hills, which was a very enjoyable outing). In the virtual eons since my last post, I have become an international traveler (since living abroad is beginning to feel rather sedentary), striking out into Austria and Croatia.
Part 1: Vienna
My first venture outside of Hungary was to the nearby city of Vienna. The expedition party consisted of me, Michelle, Lauren, and James (an American grad student at CEU who has become an honorary undergrad). Poorva and Irina also wanted to come, but due to a minor complication having to do with forged residence permits, weren’t allowed to leave the country. We woke up early Saturday morning and, after a 3 hour train ride, we arrived in Vienna.
Embarrassingly, we had done very little homework about what one ought to do in Vienna, but fortunately, we had James with us who, at some point in his colorful past, lived for a time in Vienna. Though he didn’t remember much about the city, he did tell us that the best part (“only interesting part”) of the city was the zoo and, more specifically, the bat cave. So we set off for the zoo for a real taste of Viennese culture.
Okay, so maybe the zoo was something slightly less specific to Vienna than, say the Hapsburg Palace which we walked past on our way to the zoo, and maybe we ought to have spent our limited time and money doing something else, but James promised us that the bat cave was truly spectacular and would be the highlight of Vienna. And so, as the grand finale of the zoo, we entered a small pitch-black room in the Rainforest House and finally got to feast our eyes on the bat cave, which looked something like this:
At this point, I desperately wish I could tell you that the cave was more impressive in person, but the above image pretty much sums up the “only interesting part” of Vienna. It was at precisely this moment that James lost all voting rights for deciding the rest of our itinerary.
We headed into the center of the city and walked around Stephansplatz, the central square that lies in the shadow of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. We had light lunch at a hole-in-the-wall pub, which was then followed by a less-light dessert stop at a pastry shop. We then wandered around the city, hoping to hit a few museums but arriving after closing time.
The closed museum served as a bit of a wake-up call to the fact that we still hadn’t figured out where we were going to sleep that night, so we set off looking for a hostel. Or a hotel. Or any place that had room, which turned out to be tougher than anticipated. Working our way door to door, we continually found there to be no room at the inn (with the exception of one referral we got to a place on the far side of town with “very reasonable rates” of €50 per person). Luckily, we finally found what turned out to be the last two hostel beds in town (two was all we needed since Michelle and James decided to head back to Budapest Saturday night on the 8:20 train; I won’t go into the details of how there wasn’t actually an 8:20 train and the two of them had to spend the night in a 24 hour bar, since this is technically a blog about my trip and, aside from the wall of angry bitterness that I encountered upon my return to Budapest, the 8:20 train fiasco actually had little impact on my own journey to Vienna).
Now with a place to sleep, Lauren and I set out to get dinner at a nearby Viennese restaurant. Based on this small sample size, I can conclude that Viennese food is based largely on pork and cabbage, is extremely rich, comes in large portions, and evidently takes about 2 hours to prepare. We emerged from the restaurant close to 11 and headed back to the hostel, where we soon went to sleep.
The next day we set out to take in more Viennese sights. First up was the Jesuit Church. We were lured in by the flyers advertising a Haydn performance that morning, but the church, itself, proved to be well worth the visit.
Next we poked our heads into St. Stephen’s Cathedral, keeping our visit short to avoid being caught with our barely concealed gelatos. Then we hit up the Albertina art museum, the highlight of which was a special exhibit on Van Gogh, featuring all of the sketches he did in preparation for his more famous painted works. Finally, we went on a tour of the Vienna State Opera, an absolutely grand building, not so unlike the opera house I visited in Paris (the primary difference being that this time the tour took me backstage, sparing me the trouble of sneaking past the rope barriers). We also got to sit in the house and watch as they set up for that night’s opera.
Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the opera house, though, was that they sold standing room tickets for all their shows for a mere €3. Since neither Lauren nor I had any Monday morning classes, we decided on a whim to stick around for an extra night and see an opera.
We stopped by the box office, only to be temporarily disappointed by the news that the opera was sold out. But, the woman behind the counter continued, there were student rush tickets available for The Producers.
Now, for those of you who don’t know, The Producers is a musical comedy by Mel Brooks about two Jewish producers who put on the doomed-for-failure musical about the life of Adolf Hitler. I’m not sure who’s idea it was to take this show, translate it into German, and send it on tour through the former Third Reich, but it seemed to too unique an opportunity to pass up.
And so it was that, after yet another desperate (though ultimately successful) search for a hostel, we found ourselves at the Ronacher theater. Not understanding German (and thus having to rely on my intimate knowledge with the English version), I have to admit the show itself seemed pretty similar to the version I saw in New York a few years ago. Sure, there were minor differences, like the portrayal of the two New York Jews by a pair of fair-haired, blue-eyed actors, but for the most part, the production was pretty similar. The larger difference was the audience’s reaction. First of all, the theater was half empty (or half full, I suppose, depending on one’s outlook on life). I wasn’t sure if this was because musicals, in general, aren’t terribly beloved in the city that gave rise to Mozart and Strauss, or if a satirical Nazi farce just wasn’t the Austrians’ cup of tea. There did seem to be an uncomfortable silence during the, usually comic, scene in which the producers are forced, against their will, to swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler. By the end of the show, though, everyone was getting into it, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to leave the theater humming “Frühling für Hitler.”
The next morning, we caught a train back to Budapest and I resumed my scholarly life for the next five days.
Part 2: Zagreb (it's the capital of Croatia, for those of you with geographic educations as paltry as my own)
As part of our study abroad program, we get taken on one international group trip of our (somewhat restricted by logistical feasibility) choice. Zagreb was the group’s selection and so, Friday evening, we all boarded the train: Monica, Karl, eleven CEU students (Tristan opted not to come), and two wannabe CEU students (Casey's roommates, and my former spelunking partners, Matt and Flo).
The trip went smoothly for about four hours. The train ride was uneventful, and passed with general merriment and many card games. Then we reached the Hungary-Croatia border and things very quickly got much more dramatic. Irina and Poorva, proudly sporting new (legitimate) residence permits, were freely allowed to leave Hungary. However, it turns out that only US and EU citizens are allowed into Croatia without a visa. For a split second, we hoped the border guards might be compassionate, but somewhere around the time when the guards climbed up through each removable ceiling panel to check for stowaways, it became clear that there was no way they were letting either a Georgian or an Indian enter the country, and our two companions were escorted off the train, with Karl and Monica fretfully bustling after them. We waited anxiously on the train, hoping things would work out for Irina and Poorva, and praying that Monica or Karl would get back on the train before it carried us away into the unknown. The train lurched back into motion and, after a brief moment of terrifying independence, Monica emerged back into our car and explained that Karl would be taking the two detainees to Hungary’s cultural capital city of Pecs (I later learned that they had a great time in Pecs, and it has been added to my cities-I-want-to-visit list). And so, reduced in number, we continued our train ride rather uneventfully (unless you count the temporary confusion of losing our train tickets, but that was easily handled by paying the conductor €32 cash – presumably for new tickets, but one can never be sure, especially given that neither Croatia nor Hungary actually operates on the Euro).
We arrived in Zagreb and checked into our hostel. A school-funded trip comes with inherent pros and cons: we didn’t have to pay for accommodations, but CEU didn’t shell out too much for the sake of our comfort. The hostel was clean and comfortable, if completely devoid of character, but at least it far exceeded our expectations, given the reviews we had all nervously read online in the days leading up to the trip (reviews generally like this one). Fortunately, we managed to spice up the dorm rooms, making use of the large lockers and spare linens.
That night, we explored the city. Zagreb was, overall, far more beautiful than I had been expecting, especially since I had been anticipating a bombed-out Soviet skeleton. On the contrary, the city was tranquil and pristine and we wandered around the surprisingly peaceful streets up to a hill with a nice view of the nighttime cityscape.
Coming down the hill, we discovered a late-night bakery, and it was here that I discovered a love for Croatian sweets – an obsession that was to become the theme of the weekend (enabled by the irresistibly low Croatian prices).
The next morning, after a breakfast of a chocolate pastry and a cup of hot chocolate that could only have been a chocolate bar heated to a liquid state and then topped with homemade whipped cream, we set out with Monica to explore the city.
We saw the Cathedral, the famous roof of some famous church (for those up on their Zagreb history), and a historic alter in a stone underpass.
And, as is wont to happen on Monica’s tours, we also found ourselves on an authentic Croatian playground.
Walking around the city, we naturally worked up an appetite (despite a couple of stops at seductive gelaterias we passed along the way), and therefore made short work of the array of cakes we ordered at a decadent Croatian dessert shop. The below pictures were taken a mere five minutes apart.
After “lunch” we wrapped up our sightseeing with a visit to the opera house (seems to have become a pattern for me in these European capitals - this one earned major points for not charging admission, though it lost a few for not allowing photography).
The next morning began as all great mornings do: with hot chocolate, this time from Tolkien House, a pub decorated to resemble Middle Earth and boasting the best hot chocolate in the city.
Then it was off to a large park on the outskirts of the city. We walked through expanses of magically misty woods (which honestly did more to conjure to mind images of hobbits and elves than the Tolkien House).
And after the park, we returned to the city's center, and wrapped up the trip in the most fitting fashion possible: at a combination gelato/cake delicatessen. Then it was back on the train, and, six hours later, we were back in Budapest, preparing for another week of school, and wondering if, maybe we ought to have done a bit more reading over the weekend. Oh well, I'm not really here for the classes, am I? At least not when there's so much fine cake to be eaten.
Part 1: Vienna
My first venture outside of Hungary was to the nearby city of Vienna. The expedition party consisted of me, Michelle, Lauren, and James (an American grad student at CEU who has become an honorary undergrad). Poorva and Irina also wanted to come, but due to a minor complication having to do with forged residence permits, weren’t allowed to leave the country. We woke up early Saturday morning and, after a 3 hour train ride, we arrived in Vienna.
Embarrassingly, we had done very little homework about what one ought to do in Vienna, but fortunately, we had James with us who, at some point in his colorful past, lived for a time in Vienna. Though he didn’t remember much about the city, he did tell us that the best part (“only interesting part”) of the city was the zoo and, more specifically, the bat cave. So we set off for the zoo for a real taste of Viennese culture.
Okay, so maybe the zoo was something slightly less specific to Vienna than, say the Hapsburg Palace which we walked past on our way to the zoo, and maybe we ought to have spent our limited time and money doing something else, but James promised us that the bat cave was truly spectacular and would be the highlight of Vienna. And so, as the grand finale of the zoo, we entered a small pitch-black room in the Rainforest House and finally got to feast our eyes on the bat cave, which looked something like this:
At this point, I desperately wish I could tell you that the cave was more impressive in person, but the above image pretty much sums up the “only interesting part” of Vienna. It was at precisely this moment that James lost all voting rights for deciding the rest of our itinerary.
We headed into the center of the city and walked around Stephansplatz, the central square that lies in the shadow of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. We had light lunch at a hole-in-the-wall pub, which was then followed by a less-light dessert stop at a pastry shop. We then wandered around the city, hoping to hit a few museums but arriving after closing time.
The closed museum served as a bit of a wake-up call to the fact that we still hadn’t figured out where we were going to sleep that night, so we set off looking for a hostel. Or a hotel. Or any place that had room, which turned out to be tougher than anticipated. Working our way door to door, we continually found there to be no room at the inn (with the exception of one referral we got to a place on the far side of town with “very reasonable rates” of €50 per person). Luckily, we finally found what turned out to be the last two hostel beds in town (two was all we needed since Michelle and James decided to head back to Budapest Saturday night on the 8:20 train; I won’t go into the details of how there wasn’t actually an 8:20 train and the two of them had to spend the night in a 24 hour bar, since this is technically a blog about my trip and, aside from the wall of angry bitterness that I encountered upon my return to Budapest, the 8:20 train fiasco actually had little impact on my own journey to Vienna).
Now with a place to sleep, Lauren and I set out to get dinner at a nearby Viennese restaurant. Based on this small sample size, I can conclude that Viennese food is based largely on pork and cabbage, is extremely rich, comes in large portions, and evidently takes about 2 hours to prepare. We emerged from the restaurant close to 11 and headed back to the hostel, where we soon went to sleep.
The next day we set out to take in more Viennese sights. First up was the Jesuit Church. We were lured in by the flyers advertising a Haydn performance that morning, but the church, itself, proved to be well worth the visit.
We stopped by the box office, only to be temporarily disappointed by the news that the opera was sold out. But, the woman behind the counter continued, there were student rush tickets available for The Producers.
Now, for those of you who don’t know, The Producers is a musical comedy by Mel Brooks about two Jewish producers who put on the doomed-for-failure musical about the life of Adolf Hitler. I’m not sure who’s idea it was to take this show, translate it into German, and send it on tour through the former Third Reich, but it seemed to too unique an opportunity to pass up.
And so it was that, after yet another desperate (though ultimately successful) search for a hostel, we found ourselves at the Ronacher theater. Not understanding German (and thus having to rely on my intimate knowledge with the English version), I have to admit the show itself seemed pretty similar to the version I saw in New York a few years ago. Sure, there were minor differences, like the portrayal of the two New York Jews by a pair of fair-haired, blue-eyed actors, but for the most part, the production was pretty similar. The larger difference was the audience’s reaction. First of all, the theater was half empty (or half full, I suppose, depending on one’s outlook on life). I wasn’t sure if this was because musicals, in general, aren’t terribly beloved in the city that gave rise to Mozart and Strauss, or if a satirical Nazi farce just wasn’t the Austrians’ cup of tea. There did seem to be an uncomfortable silence during the, usually comic, scene in which the producers are forced, against their will, to swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler. By the end of the show, though, everyone was getting into it, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to leave the theater humming “Frühling für Hitler.”
The next morning, we caught a train back to Budapest and I resumed my scholarly life for the next five days.
Part 2: Zagreb (it's the capital of Croatia, for those of you with geographic educations as paltry as my own)
As part of our study abroad program, we get taken on one international group trip of our (somewhat restricted by logistical feasibility) choice. Zagreb was the group’s selection and so, Friday evening, we all boarded the train: Monica, Karl, eleven CEU students (Tristan opted not to come), and two wannabe CEU students (Casey's roommates, and my former spelunking partners, Matt and Flo).
The trip went smoothly for about four hours. The train ride was uneventful, and passed with general merriment and many card games. Then we reached the Hungary-Croatia border and things very quickly got much more dramatic. Irina and Poorva, proudly sporting new (legitimate) residence permits, were freely allowed to leave Hungary. However, it turns out that only US and EU citizens are allowed into Croatia without a visa. For a split second, we hoped the border guards might be compassionate, but somewhere around the time when the guards climbed up through each removable ceiling panel to check for stowaways, it became clear that there was no way they were letting either a Georgian or an Indian enter the country, and our two companions were escorted off the train, with Karl and Monica fretfully bustling after them. We waited anxiously on the train, hoping things would work out for Irina and Poorva, and praying that Monica or Karl would get back on the train before it carried us away into the unknown. The train lurched back into motion and, after a brief moment of terrifying independence, Monica emerged back into our car and explained that Karl would be taking the two detainees to Hungary’s cultural capital city of Pecs (I later learned that they had a great time in Pecs, and it has been added to my cities-I-want-to-visit list). And so, reduced in number, we continued our train ride rather uneventfully (unless you count the temporary confusion of losing our train tickets, but that was easily handled by paying the conductor €32 cash – presumably for new tickets, but one can never be sure, especially given that neither Croatia nor Hungary actually operates on the Euro).
We arrived in Zagreb and checked into our hostel. A school-funded trip comes with inherent pros and cons: we didn’t have to pay for accommodations, but CEU didn’t shell out too much for the sake of our comfort. The hostel was clean and comfortable, if completely devoid of character, but at least it far exceeded our expectations, given the reviews we had all nervously read online in the days leading up to the trip (reviews generally like this one). Fortunately, we managed to spice up the dorm rooms, making use of the large lockers and spare linens.
That night, we explored the city. Zagreb was, overall, far more beautiful than I had been expecting, especially since I had been anticipating a bombed-out Soviet skeleton. On the contrary, the city was tranquil and pristine and we wandered around the surprisingly peaceful streets up to a hill with a nice view of the nighttime cityscape.
The next morning, after a breakfast of a chocolate pastry and a cup of hot chocolate that could only have been a chocolate bar heated to a liquid state and then topped with homemade whipped cream, we set out with Monica to explore the city.
We saw the Cathedral, the famous roof of some famous church (for those up on their Zagreb history), and a historic alter in a stone underpass.
And, as is wont to happen on Monica’s tours, we also found ourselves on an authentic Croatian playground.
Walking around the city, we naturally worked up an appetite (despite a couple of stops at seductive gelaterias we passed along the way), and therefore made short work of the array of cakes we ordered at a decadent Croatian dessert shop. The below pictures were taken a mere five minutes apart.
The next morning began as all great mornings do: with hot chocolate, this time from Tolkien House, a pub decorated to resemble Middle Earth and boasting the best hot chocolate in the city.
Then it was off to a large park on the outskirts of the city. We walked through expanses of magically misty woods (which honestly did more to conjure to mind images of hobbits and elves than the Tolkien House).
And after the park, we returned to the city's center, and wrapped up the trip in the most fitting fashion possible: at a combination gelato/cake delicatessen. Then it was back on the train, and, six hours later, we were back in Budapest, preparing for another week of school, and wondering if, maybe we ought to have done a bit more reading over the weekend. Oh well, I'm not really here for the classes, am I? At least not when there's so much fine cake to be eaten.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Out and about (when I used to go out)
My deepest apologies for taking so long to post. School has struck with a vengeance and, what with my bloated course load, the grad school reading requirements, and the mindless procrastination implicit in large amounts of reading, I haven't had a chance to write on the blog. I realize, though, that I owe an update to everyone who is either curious about my activity or simply looking for a way to procrastinate and so, here is a brief recap of my life since Zero Week.
Perhaps in anticipation of the impending evaporation of free time, I spent the weekend before classes (actually) started engaged in various cultural activities. Saturday morning dawned grey, rainy, and frigid - the perfect morning for our prearranged walking tour of Budapest! Feeling some combination of excitement and obligation, we all gathered at CEU at 10:00, bracing ourselves for the four-hour urban trek ("we all," in this case, refers to myself, Lauren, Casey, Poorva, and Noel - the only five undergraduates who managed to drag themselve out of bed and brave the elements). Our tourguide, Jeff, a CEU PhD student, led us around downtown Pest, providing historical context for the city that I'd spent the past two weeks ignorantly bustling through. The walk led us along the Danube river walk where riverside strolls used to be a common custom (Jeff informed us that strolling as a hobby died out in Northern Europe in the mid-twentieth century, a fact that, shivering in the cold, I found not altogether unsurprising). We continued through Pest's famous shopping district, Vaci utca (where the West first penetrated Soviet control, in the form of a still existent McDonalds) and continued on through the Jewish quarter, where we saw the Dohány Synagogue and the Holocaust Memorial.
Along the way, we learned about Hungarian architecture and politics, which, Jeff informed us, are consistently linked. Apparently, the National Theatre and the Palace of Arts (which we didn't actually see) were built three years and fifty meters apart by opposing parliamentary regimes and the city's residents always love one structure and abhor the other, a distinction that always falls precisely along political party lines.
The tour wrapped up at around 3:30 and, right on cue, the sun came out. Not wanting to let irony get the best of us, Casey, Noel, and I headed off to get gelato and, along the way, wandered through a couple of street fairs. The first fair seemed to be, as far as we could tell, an outdoor karaoke competition. Various young performers took turns singing and dancing to prerecorded music, while an eager throng crowded around the stage or watched on the giant TV screen that had been erected in the square ("square" here is usedin the loosest sense, since the whole thing had actually been set up on a side street and the crowd had to part every couple minutes in order to let traffic through).
The karaoke didn't do a lot for us – maybe it's a Hungarian thing – but we had fun working our way through the crowd until we got to a spot where we could be seen on the giant TV screen.
The next fair we came to was sort of a sustainable energy festival. There were demonstrations of hybrid cars, information booths about clean energy, modern art pieces that seemed to evoke environmentalist sentiments, and other pieces of art that didn't really evoke much at all, except a profound curiosity about why they were part of the sustainable energy fair.
That night, we hung out at the apartment and enjoyed a quiet night at home. Well, if you can call it a quiet night when there are SWAT teams marching up and down your street dressed in full riot gear. Why were there SWAT teams on our street? Well, if you're curious, follow the first link below, unless you happen to be my parents, anxious about their son living 4,000 miles away, in which case you should go to the second link below.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/lk733573-hungary-protest-clash/
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g274887-i263-k797492-Riot_in_Budapest_Is_it_safe-Budapest.html
Sunday morning I slept in, did a bit of reading in anticipation of classes starting, and then walked through my third street fair of the weekend. This one really had it all, a large stage with more karaoke, more energy-efficient car demonstrations, and street vendors selling Hungarian sweets.
That night, we attended the Budapest Jazz Festival. Karl, our program's co-director, had gotten everyone tickets, promising a night of great jazz and a chance to see the beautiful Palace of the Arts (which, he mentioned, is unfortunately next door to the "absolutely hideous" National Theatre).
So, here's a fun game: Learn your Hungarian politcal views! Which building below do you find more attractive?
If you chose the Palace of Arts, on the left, then your politcal views most closely align with the Hungarian Socialist Party. If you prefer the National Theatre (right), then you belong with the Fidesz Hungarian Civic Union. Well, at least according to Jeff.
And, yeah, the jazz was good too.
Once classes started, my free time basically disappeared. I'm hoping this was due mostly to the fact that I was taking so many classes and not because that's just how this semester will be. I didn't really manage to accomplish much worth noting until this past Sunday, when Lauren and I, looking to escape the monotony of student life, went for a hike through the Buda hills. Improvising our route, we took a bus that deposited us somewhere outside the city and set off into the woods. We soon linked up with a network of hiking trails, populated by Hungarian hikers with a propensity for dressing in matching outfits.
We eventually made it to the top of the hill, from whence we could enjoy the luxury of riding back down into the city on a chair lift.
The hiking was really quite beautiful, and offered a bit of consolation for the fact that, since arriving in Budapest, I haven't done any traveling. This coming weekend, I plan to remedy that, as I'm hoping to make it to Vienna.
Perhaps in anticipation of the impending evaporation of free time, I spent the weekend before classes (actually) started engaged in various cultural activities. Saturday morning dawned grey, rainy, and frigid - the perfect morning for our prearranged walking tour of Budapest! Feeling some combination of excitement and obligation, we all gathered at CEU at 10:00, bracing ourselves for the four-hour urban trek ("we all," in this case, refers to myself, Lauren, Casey, Poorva, and Noel - the only five undergraduates who managed to drag themselve out of bed and brave the elements). Our tourguide, Jeff, a CEU PhD student, led us around downtown Pest, providing historical context for the city that I'd spent the past two weeks ignorantly bustling through. The walk led us along the Danube river walk where riverside strolls used to be a common custom (Jeff informed us that strolling as a hobby died out in Northern Europe in the mid-twentieth century, a fact that, shivering in the cold, I found not altogether unsurprising). We continued through Pest's famous shopping district, Vaci utca (where the West first penetrated Soviet control, in the form of a still existent McDonalds) and continued on through the Jewish quarter, where we saw the Dohány Synagogue and the Holocaust Memorial.
Along the way, we learned about Hungarian architecture and politics, which, Jeff informed us, are consistently linked. Apparently, the National Theatre and the Palace of Arts (which we didn't actually see) were built three years and fifty meters apart by opposing parliamentary regimes and the city's residents always love one structure and abhor the other, a distinction that always falls precisely along political party lines.
The tour wrapped up at around 3:30 and, right on cue, the sun came out. Not wanting to let irony get the best of us, Casey, Noel, and I headed off to get gelato and, along the way, wandered through a couple of street fairs. The first fair seemed to be, as far as we could tell, an outdoor karaoke competition. Various young performers took turns singing and dancing to prerecorded music, while an eager throng crowded around the stage or watched on the giant TV screen that had been erected in the square ("square" here is usedin the loosest sense, since the whole thing had actually been set up on a side street and the crowd had to part every couple minutes in order to let traffic through).
The karaoke didn't do a lot for us – maybe it's a Hungarian thing – but we had fun working our way through the crowd until we got to a spot where we could be seen on the giant TV screen.
That night, we hung out at the apartment and enjoyed a quiet night at home. Well, if you can call it a quiet night when there are SWAT teams marching up and down your street dressed in full riot gear. Why were there SWAT teams on our street? Well, if you're curious, follow the first link below, unless you happen to be my parents, anxious about their son living 4,000 miles away, in which case you should go to the second link below.
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/lk733573-hungary-protest-clash/
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g274887-i263-k797492-Riot_in_Budapest_Is_it_safe-Budapest.html
Sunday morning I slept in, did a bit of reading in anticipation of classes starting, and then walked through my third street fair of the weekend. This one really had it all, a large stage with more karaoke, more energy-efficient car demonstrations, and street vendors selling Hungarian sweets.
That night, we attended the Budapest Jazz Festival. Karl, our program's co-director, had gotten everyone tickets, promising a night of great jazz and a chance to see the beautiful Palace of the Arts (which, he mentioned, is unfortunately next door to the "absolutely hideous" National Theatre).
So, here's a fun game: Learn your Hungarian politcal views! Which building below do you find more attractive?
If you chose the Palace of Arts, on the left, then your politcal views most closely align with the Hungarian Socialist Party. If you prefer the National Theatre (right), then you belong with the Fidesz Hungarian Civic Union. Well, at least according to Jeff.
And, yeah, the jazz was good too.
Once classes started, my free time basically disappeared. I'm hoping this was due mostly to the fact that I was taking so many classes and not because that's just how this semester will be. I didn't really manage to accomplish much worth noting until this past Sunday, when Lauren and I, looking to escape the monotony of student life, went for a hike through the Buda hills. Improvising our route, we took a bus that deposited us somewhere outside the city and set off into the woods. We soon linked up with a network of hiking trails, populated by Hungarian hikers with a propensity for dressing in matching outfits.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Zero Week
School has started. Kind of. This past week was "Zero Week" at CEU, though it's rather unclear whether the week is so named because of its temporal location (i.e. immediately preceding Week 1) or because of the amount that one learns during this period. Basically, Zero Week is a chance to attend, not classes, but class information sessions, in which the professor talks, ostensibly, about the class, and students get to decide if they want to take the course. There's no homework or anything, all you have to do is decide which courses to take.
And thus, I failed in the one goal of Zero Week, as I still don't know what classes I'll be taking. My indecision was, of course, partly the fault of my own vacillating nature, but was largely due to the complete dearth of information about the available classes.
Syllabi, rather than being distributed for informational purposes, are kept under lock and key for fear of academic plagiarism, and can only be cajoled out of professors with great persistance. None of the courses have any books associated with them, using, instead, course packets which can usually only be examined after a non-refundable purchase (assuming you can figure out where to get the course packets, which varies by department). There is no centralized course catalogue; rather, each department has its own website which, if you're lucky, lists the courses for the current semester. Similarly, each department runs courses on its own schedule, with no visible attempt to synchronize across the university. Of course, scheduling is rather a secondary issue, since the schedule during Zero Week in no way correlates with the actual class schedule, so the two classes you sat in on back to back on Tuesday afternoon might end up overlapping by 35 minutes and actually meet on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
However, beneath the layers of confused bureaucracy, the courses I've seen look really great (I think...as I said, it can be hard to tell). Since the add/drop period extends for the next 6 weeks or so, I've simply signed up for a ton of courses, in hopes that actually attending a real class will give me a better sense of which ones I want to ultimately take. So, for the next week, I will be signed up for 9 classes:
Introduction to Central Europe - my one required course, it's a history seminar that will provide the twelve undergrads on my program with a basic...yeah...introduction to Central Europe.
Moral Psychology - a philosophy course exploring moral obligations in light of modern research suggesting that much of our personality may be genetic
The Future of Human Nature - a history course looking at the historical and contemporary effects of science and religion on our understanding of human nature
Public International Law - a standard course in international law, made particularly interesting by the promise of a European perspective on the legality of American public policy
Evolution of the European Political Order - this IR course purports to somehow examine how European international relations changed from Ancient Greece up through the French Revolution - a whopping assignment, but one that would greatly benefit my heretofore piecemeal education about Europe
Philosophy of Language - musings on how our understanding of the world is shaped by how we define it
Self and Agency in Ancient Philosophy - a look at how human nauture was treated in classical times, with fun topics like exploring Oedipus Rex's culpability for his pre-determined actions
Ontogenetic and Philogenetic Origins of Folk Psychology and Naïve Theory of Mind: Developmental, Comparative, Evolutionary, and Neuroscience Perspectives - ...um...you know how I said it was hard to tell exactly what some of the courses were about? Basically, this one's team-taught by two highly recommended infant cognition researchers, teaching a philosophy course about how we interpret the minds of others. Or something like that.
Elementary Hungarian - the one course who's material seems even more cryptic than the one I just described. Seriously, Hungarian is an absolutely ridiculous language and I am very skeptical of the assumption that this language is learnable.
So, that's my courseload for the first week. Eventually I'll have to narrow this down from 28 credits to a more manageable 15 or 16, but hopefully it will be easier after sitting in on a week of classes. In the meantime, any suggestions anyone might have would be greatly appreciated.
Despite it being Zero Week, I did manage to learn a fair amount this past week, although none of this learning transpired in the classroom. Breifly, here's what I learned in the past week:
- the lock on the gate into our building is broken, meaning the key only works sporadically
- if, when entering our building, you push the key down as you turn it, the door usually opens
- if, when entering our building, you reach your arm through the gate, contort it around to the right, and push the electronic unlock button, the door always opens
- cooking is made much more difficult when you can't identify items in the store
- according to Poorva, it's not that hard to make fried rice
- it, apparently, is hard to make fried rice as well as Poorva does
- getting up for early classes is no easier in Hungary than it is in the U.S.
- according to weather.com, Budapest seems to always be colder and rainier than both Northampton and New Haven
- it's lucky that I'm the type of person who would be happy to eat peanut butter and jelly every day for lunch
- you apparently cannot buy peanut butter anywhere in Budapest
- I'm not the type of person who would be happy to eat nutella and jelly sandwiches every day for lunch
- dishwasher soap is hard to find, especially when one doesn't know how to say "dishwasher soap" in Hungarian
- washing dishes by hand isn't that bad
- they have dishwasher soap at bigger grocery stores - it's in the same aisle as instant hot cocoa
- a dishwasher is rather impractical when you only have six sets of dishes
- washing dishes by hand really isn't that bad
- they have Ben and Jerry's in Budapest!
- it's about $13 a pint
- Hungarian ice cream is pretty good too
- Hungarian frisbee teams are very receptive to having visiting Americans come play with them
- basic Hungarian cable includes four American networks - they are all music channels
- Amerian television shows, made available on the networks' websites, are unavailable in Hungary
- youtube.com has a good selection of television and movies, if you don't mind watching them in 8-minute chunks
- paprika chips are delicious
Classes start for real on Sept. 22, at which time I expect to supplement my worldly education with some academics.
And thus, I failed in the one goal of Zero Week, as I still don't know what classes I'll be taking. My indecision was, of course, partly the fault of my own vacillating nature, but was largely due to the complete dearth of information about the available classes.
Syllabi, rather than being distributed for informational purposes, are kept under lock and key for fear of academic plagiarism, and can only be cajoled out of professors with great persistance. None of the courses have any books associated with them, using, instead, course packets which can usually only be examined after a non-refundable purchase (assuming you can figure out where to get the course packets, which varies by department). There is no centralized course catalogue; rather, each department has its own website which, if you're lucky, lists the courses for the current semester. Similarly, each department runs courses on its own schedule, with no visible attempt to synchronize across the university. Of course, scheduling is rather a secondary issue, since the schedule during Zero Week in no way correlates with the actual class schedule, so the two classes you sat in on back to back on Tuesday afternoon might end up overlapping by 35 minutes and actually meet on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
However, beneath the layers of confused bureaucracy, the courses I've seen look really great (I think...as I said, it can be hard to tell). Since the add/drop period extends for the next 6 weeks or so, I've simply signed up for a ton of courses, in hopes that actually attending a real class will give me a better sense of which ones I want to ultimately take. So, for the next week, I will be signed up for 9 classes:
Introduction to Central Europe - my one required course, it's a history seminar that will provide the twelve undergrads on my program with a basic...yeah...introduction to Central Europe.
Moral Psychology - a philosophy course exploring moral obligations in light of modern research suggesting that much of our personality may be genetic
The Future of Human Nature - a history course looking at the historical and contemporary effects of science and religion on our understanding of human nature
Public International Law - a standard course in international law, made particularly interesting by the promise of a European perspective on the legality of American public policy
Evolution of the European Political Order - this IR course purports to somehow examine how European international relations changed from Ancient Greece up through the French Revolution - a whopping assignment, but one that would greatly benefit my heretofore piecemeal education about Europe
Philosophy of Language - musings on how our understanding of the world is shaped by how we define it
Self and Agency in Ancient Philosophy - a look at how human nauture was treated in classical times, with fun topics like exploring Oedipus Rex's culpability for his pre-determined actions
Ontogenetic and Philogenetic Origins of Folk Psychology and Naïve Theory of Mind: Developmental, Comparative, Evolutionary, and Neuroscience Perspectives - ...um...you know how I said it was hard to tell exactly what some of the courses were about? Basically, this one's team-taught by two highly recommended infant cognition researchers, teaching a philosophy course about how we interpret the minds of others. Or something like that.
Elementary Hungarian - the one course who's material seems even more cryptic than the one I just described. Seriously, Hungarian is an absolutely ridiculous language and I am very skeptical of the assumption that this language is learnable.
So, that's my courseload for the first week. Eventually I'll have to narrow this down from 28 credits to a more manageable 15 or 16, but hopefully it will be easier after sitting in on a week of classes. In the meantime, any suggestions anyone might have would be greatly appreciated.
Despite it being Zero Week, I did manage to learn a fair amount this past week, although none of this learning transpired in the classroom. Breifly, here's what I learned in the past week:
- the lock on the gate into our building is broken, meaning the key only works sporadically
- if, when entering our building, you push the key down as you turn it, the door usually opens
- if, when entering our building, you reach your arm through the gate, contort it around to the right, and push the electronic unlock button, the door always opens
- cooking is made much more difficult when you can't identify items in the store
- according to Poorva, it's not that hard to make fried rice
- it, apparently, is hard to make fried rice as well as Poorva does
- getting up for early classes is no easier in Hungary than it is in the U.S.
- according to weather.com, Budapest seems to always be colder and rainier than both Northampton and New Haven
- it's lucky that I'm the type of person who would be happy to eat peanut butter and jelly every day for lunch
- you apparently cannot buy peanut butter anywhere in Budapest
- I'm not the type of person who would be happy to eat nutella and jelly sandwiches every day for lunch
- dishwasher soap is hard to find, especially when one doesn't know how to say "dishwasher soap" in Hungarian
- washing dishes by hand isn't that bad
- they have dishwasher soap at bigger grocery stores - it's in the same aisle as instant hot cocoa
- a dishwasher is rather impractical when you only have six sets of dishes
- washing dishes by hand really isn't that bad
- they have Ben and Jerry's in Budapest!
- it's about $13 a pint
- Hungarian ice cream is pretty good too
- Hungarian frisbee teams are very receptive to having visiting Americans come play with them
- basic Hungarian cable includes four American networks - they are all music channels
- Amerian television shows, made available on the networks' websites, are unavailable in Hungary
- youtube.com has a good selection of television and movies, if you don't mind watching them in 8-minute chunks
- paprika chips are delicious
Classes start for real on Sept. 22, at which time I expect to supplement my worldly education with some academics.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Weekend Update
This “Weekend Update” is really just a thinly disguised continuation of my last post, separated in a desperate attempt to avoid entries of entirely unwieldy lengths. Mark Twain once famously apologized “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” This pithy statement on the difficulty of conciseness has always struck me as piercingly accurate and is, I'm afraid, this blog entry’s sole instance of brevity. And so, as I continue my backlogged update, I have to apologize for the ensuing verbosity, but I simply haven’t had time to write a short entry.
We settled into the apartment on Thursday, christening the place with an impromptu dinner party, if such an elegant name can rightly be applied to the improvised meal we, along with our two pairs of CEU neighbors, threw together. But what was lacking in style (the meal was "BYO silverware"), was easily made up for in taste, as we dined on garlic bread, salad, vegetarian(?) pâté, and Pasta a la Poorva.
Friday marked the beginning of our long weekend before school started. To call it a long weekend is really rather inaccurate, as, in reality, it was simply the last three day stretch of a week in which we had no responsibilities, but with the search for a place to live finally behind me, it felt like I had three final days of relaxation before classes began. Friday morning the whole CEU group (minus a few stragglers who, for one reason or another, didn't make it) headed up the Danube on our first (and only? the program is loosely structured and it's always kind of a mystery what the next week might hold) field trip. We traveled upstream for about an hour on a tourist-laden boat, cruising through waters so vibrantly green that they made one doubt, simultaneously, the Hungarian sewer system and Johan Strauss’s eyesight.
The crowded boat docked in Szentendre and the throngs piled out to see the quaint little village and the charming way in which the rustic Hungarians make a living off selling souvenirs to tourists. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch (we all ordered the daily menu, which, according to our not-quite-fluent waiter, was vegetarian soup with pork, chicken with french fries, and fruit with cream for dessert).
Then we hopped on a bus and headed out to the Hungarian Open Air Museum. The museum is, apparently, the largest open air museum in the world, and represents a giant historical model of the country of Hungary, with each region represented in a geographically corresponding region of the museum (almost as if Plymouth Plantation, Historic Williamsburg, and...I don't know...Disney's California Adventure were all packed into one large area and arranged with geographical accuracy). Much of the museum accorded with my expectations. There were ancient houses equipped with handcrafted furniture
There were also, though, more cryptic elements to the Open Air Museum. Our wanderings led us past pop art sculptures of furniture, gaudy bricolage scarecrows, and numerous wooden playgrounds.
Monica, our study abroad program director and make-shift museum tour guide, could offer little explanation of these more bizarre museum elements, but she enthusiastically joined us in our hands-on education of, apparently, Hungarian culture.
If you can’t immediately identify the polar bear or the turtle in the above photographs, try squinting your eyes and tipping your head back and forth. If you still can’t see them, well, that’s kind of what it was like being in the caves as well.
Our tour emerged back above ground next to a small fire pit, which was surrounded by four elderly Hungarians enjoying a late lunch. While the rest of the tour hurried off, we paused for a minute, trying to identify what type of food was being roasted over the fire. It was some sort of white, greasy meat, and looked rather like the fat that one sees trimmed away from cuts of pork. As we stood there, one of the men motioned for us to come and join them around the fire and, eager for a genuine Hungarian experience, we eased ourselves onto the logs surrounding the make-shift barbecue. Our hosts’ English was, if anything, worse than our Hungarian, but with gestures and much confused laughter, they managed to offer us some of their lunch. It was, indeed, pig fat.
We sat with them for a while, conversing as best we could (if our confused interactions could really be called conversing). Lauren introduced herself and explained that she was an American student studying history. The rest of us smiled and nodded. The Hungarians (Gypsies? We weren't quite sure) introduced themselves and said something we couldn’t understand. We all smiled and shrugged apologetically. I pointed to my pig fat and, unsure how to say, “Hey, this isn’t that bad, and certainly better than I expected pig fat to taste,” simply smiled and said “finom” (delicious). One of the old men, unsurprisingly more enamored with Lauren’s Hungarian than my own, wrote out for her his name, address, and phone number, and made it quite clear that he hoped for reciprocation. Lauren accepted his advances with a polite smile and managed to communicate that she didn’t have a phone. The rest of hid our laughter in our pig fat and tried not to draw attention to the cell-phone shaped bulge in Lauren’s pocket. The “conversation” continued in this vein for about half an hour, at which point we decided to head home. We said our goodbyes and thanks and, after a confused flurry of handshakes (along with one overly enthusiastic hug), we headed off once more through the hills of Buda back to the city, very pleased with ourselves for having turned our touristy outing into such an authentic experience.
Back at the apartment that night, I spent the evening preparing myself for the first week of school and trying to coax my stomach into more thoroughly digesting the pig fat.
We settled into the apartment on Thursday, christening the place with an impromptu dinner party, if such an elegant name can rightly be applied to the improvised meal we, along with our two pairs of CEU neighbors, threw together. But what was lacking in style (the meal was "BYO silverware"), was easily made up for in taste, as we dined on garlic bread, salad, vegetarian(?) pâté, and Pasta a la Poorva.
Friday marked the beginning of our long weekend before school started. To call it a long weekend is really rather inaccurate, as, in reality, it was simply the last three day stretch of a week in which we had no responsibilities, but with the search for a place to live finally behind me, it felt like I had three final days of relaxation before classes began. Friday morning the whole CEU group (minus a few stragglers who, for one reason or another, didn't make it) headed up the Danube on our first (and only? the program is loosely structured and it's always kind of a mystery what the next week might hold) field trip. We traveled upstream for about an hour on a tourist-laden boat, cruising through waters so vibrantly green that they made one doubt, simultaneously, the Hungarian sewer system and Johan Strauss’s eyesight.
The crowded boat docked in Szentendre and the throngs piled out to see the quaint little village and the charming way in which the rustic Hungarians make a living off selling souvenirs to tourists. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch (we all ordered the daily menu, which, according to our not-quite-fluent waiter, was vegetarian soup with pork, chicken with french fries, and fruit with cream for dessert).
Then we hopped on a bus and headed out to the Hungarian Open Air Museum. The museum is, apparently, the largest open air museum in the world, and represents a giant historical model of the country of Hungary, with each region represented in a geographically corresponding region of the museum (almost as if Plymouth Plantation, Historic Williamsburg, and...I don't know...Disney's California Adventure were all packed into one large area and arranged with geographical accuracy). Much of the museum accorded with my expectations. There were ancient houses equipped with handcrafted furniture
stone ovens with thatched roofs that would have had the Yale Fire Marshall doling out citations like he got paid on commission
and the large empty field, simply labeled as the “Great Hungarian Plain.”
and the large empty field, simply labeled as the “Great Hungarian Plain.”
There were also, though, more cryptic elements to the Open Air Museum. Our wanderings led us past pop art sculptures of furniture, gaudy bricolage scarecrows, and numerous wooden playgrounds.
Monica, our study abroad program director and make-shift museum tour guide, could offer little explanation of these more bizarre museum elements, but she enthusiastically joined us in our hands-on education of, apparently, Hungarian culture.
After returning to Budapest (by train) and going out to dinner at the fun and affordable Hummus Bar, I went over to the nearby apartment of my co-CEU-ers, Lauren and Michelle where we watched I ♥ Huckabees, at least until I began nodding off and went home to sleep.
I spent Saturday morning learning my way around the neighborhood. Turns out our flat is within one block of four mini-grocery stores (one open 24-7), a produce market, a specialty foods store, a bakery, a stationery store, two cafes (one with free internet), countless bars, an Indian restaurant, and a store called Monocikli, which I can only assume sells unicycles.
I spent Saturday morning learning my way around the neighborhood. Turns out our flat is within one block of four mini-grocery stores (one open 24-7), a produce market, a specialty foods store, a bakery, a stationery store, two cafes (one with free internet), countless bars, an Indian restaurant, and a store called Monocikli, which I can only assume sells unicycles.
At two o’clock I headed over to a nearby park, where I met up with some other American students, in Budapest for a study abroad math program, and played a game of pick-up frisbee. It was great fun and I intend to play with them often, in addition to trying to tap into the Hungarian Ultimate scene. Later that afternoon, Irina, Lauren, and I hit up IKEA, hoping to find school supplies, but ultimately getting lost somewhere amongst the sofas, and somehow emerging with only a few kitchen utensils to show for our efforts.
That night, we all set out for Szimpla, a great outdoor bar in which our merry band bonded on our first night in town. Szimpla hadn’t changed, but the whether had – in less than a week the daily high temperature plummeted from a record-setting 34 degrees to a mere 19° (with nighttime lows around 6°). So we left Szimpla and retreated to the warmth of our apartment. Winter, apparently, comes early in Budapest, and I’ve a hunch this recent cold spell is just the beginning.
The cold struck again on Sunday. I had made plans to go kayaking on the Green Danube with a few other people, but when the day dawned grey and raw, we opted, instead, to explore the caves of the Buda hills. Our spelunking party consisted of myself, Lauren and Casey (both members of my program), and Casey’s two roommates, Matt and Flor (both members of a different study abroad program - something involving engineering, I think). It turned out that most of our exploring would actually take place attempting to find the caves (a difficult task since we weren’t really sure how to get there and Lauren, our most proficient Hungarian speaker, only knew about ten phrases, most pertaining to introductions, ordering food in a restaurant, or explaining that one is an American student studying history). Hopping from bus to bus and trekking through the Buda countryside, we eventually found the caves and enjoyed an afternoon deep beneath the rolling hills upon which we had spent the morning wandering.
Our guided tour took us past stalagmites and stalactites,
That night, we all set out for Szimpla, a great outdoor bar in which our merry band bonded on our first night in town. Szimpla hadn’t changed, but the whether had – in less than a week the daily high temperature plummeted from a record-setting 34 degrees to a mere 19° (with nighttime lows around 6°). So we left Szimpla and retreated to the warmth of our apartment. Winter, apparently, comes early in Budapest, and I’ve a hunch this recent cold spell is just the beginning.
The cold struck again on Sunday. I had made plans to go kayaking on the Green Danube with a few other people, but when the day dawned grey and raw, we opted, instead, to explore the caves of the Buda hills. Our spelunking party consisted of myself, Lauren and Casey (both members of my program), and Casey’s two roommates, Matt and Flor (both members of a different study abroad program - something involving engineering, I think). It turned out that most of our exploring would actually take place attempting to find the caves (a difficult task since we weren’t really sure how to get there and Lauren, our most proficient Hungarian speaker, only knew about ten phrases, most pertaining to introductions, ordering food in a restaurant, or explaining that one is an American student studying history). Hopping from bus to bus and trekking through the Buda countryside, we eventually found the caves and enjoyed an afternoon deep beneath the rolling hills upon which we had spent the morning wandering.
Our guided tour took us past stalagmites and stalactites,
mineral growths resembling Swiss cheese and cauliflower,
and countless rock formations that our tour guide eagerly identified as resembling various animals.
If you can’t immediately identify the polar bear or the turtle in the above photographs, try squinting your eyes and tipping your head back and forth. If you still can’t see them, well, that’s kind of what it was like being in the caves as well.
Our tour emerged back above ground next to a small fire pit, which was surrounded by four elderly Hungarians enjoying a late lunch. While the rest of the tour hurried off, we paused for a minute, trying to identify what type of food was being roasted over the fire. It was some sort of white, greasy meat, and looked rather like the fat that one sees trimmed away from cuts of pork. As we stood there, one of the men motioned for us to come and join them around the fire and, eager for a genuine Hungarian experience, we eased ourselves onto the logs surrounding the make-shift barbecue. Our hosts’ English was, if anything, worse than our Hungarian, but with gestures and much confused laughter, they managed to offer us some of their lunch. It was, indeed, pig fat.
We sat with them for a while, conversing as best we could (if our confused interactions could really be called conversing). Lauren introduced herself and explained that she was an American student studying history. The rest of us smiled and nodded. The Hungarians (Gypsies? We weren't quite sure) introduced themselves and said something we couldn’t understand. We all smiled and shrugged apologetically. I pointed to my pig fat and, unsure how to say, “Hey, this isn’t that bad, and certainly better than I expected pig fat to taste,” simply smiled and said “finom” (delicious). One of the old men, unsurprisingly more enamored with Lauren’s Hungarian than my own, wrote out for her his name, address, and phone number, and made it quite clear that he hoped for reciprocation. Lauren accepted his advances with a polite smile and managed to communicate that she didn’t have a phone. The rest of hid our laughter in our pig fat and tried not to draw attention to the cell-phone shaped bulge in Lauren’s pocket. The “conversation” continued in this vein for about half an hour, at which point we decided to head home. We said our goodbyes and thanks and, after a confused flurry of handshakes (along with one overly enthusiastic hug), we headed off once more through the hills of Buda back to the city, very pleased with ourselves for having turned our touristy outing into such an authentic experience.
Back at the apartment that night, I spent the evening preparing myself for the first week of school and trying to coax my stomach into more thoroughly digesting the pig fat.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)