Nap Hat: Parlamento Budapest

Nap Hat: Parlamento Budapest

Jo estet from the Marriott executive apartments on the Pest side of the Danube.  Today was our 6th day here in Hungary’s capital and where we finally got to enter the dooming Parliament building. However, before we were able to explore the edifice, we got to start our Saturday how anyone would: with two hours of Number Theory!  Prior to class we ate our meat, potatoes and croissants at the hotel (mmmmmm).  En route to class I almost face planted multiple times as road maintenance had yet to dump an ocean's worth of salt on each sidewalk.  

After learning about mathematical induction and eating some delectable csokoládé croissants, we headed over to The Hungarian Parliament Building. It is one of Europe's oldest legislative buildings that sits on the bank of the Danube River. The building itself is 268 meters long which is longer than The United States Capitol building. The grandeur of the Neo-Gothic parliament building is only rivaled by it's Baroque detailing, the jewel embedded Holy Crown of Hungary, and a hand-knitted 23 by 7 meter carpet!  

To settle our grumbling bellies we all had traditional Doner Kebab (better known as gyros) with a little extra flare typical of Hungary’s taste for spice. It was heavenly! To burn off the fatty tzatziki sauce we went for a 5 mile run from our palacade to Margaret Island.  The island is located in the middle of the Danube and has a single lane track that is 5 kilometers long around the perimeter of the island.   The island consists of trees, playgrounds, restaurants and hundreds of elementary school kids running around in matching blue tracksuits.  Unfortunately, “on your left” is not a phrase Erika equipped us with.

Now we're heading off to grab some food at one of our favorite restaurants, Kispentek Bistro&Bar!

SZIA!

Salih, Sam, and Syver

Day 5: Szentendre

We have officially made it through our first week of Number Theory! Well, we would have if the weather was more cooperative. Because the forecast calls for rain tomorrow, Bruce moved our weekend trip to Szentendre to this afternoon. Before heading out, we finished our last class of structured Hungarian learning. Both Erika and the class felt a little bittersweet that our time together had come to a close, so we gave her a bouquet of flowers chosen by our very own Sam and Salih to show her how much we appreciated her teaching. Erika was thrilled, and we soon returned to "Survival Hungarian," finishing up with the days of the week, greetings, goodbyes, and useful phrases for navigating our home for the next month. At the end of class, we all sang our favorite song, "Olvadás", once more. Before she left, Erika gave us a list of things to do in Budapest, as well as recommendations for those of us traveling to Vienna during our free weekend.

Now that we had some Hungarian under our belts, it was time to go on our field trip. As a class, we took the metro to Buda, where we lunched on crêpes at a restaurant called Nagyi Palacsintázója. Many chose the banana-and-nutella variety, while the options ranged from other fruity combinations to more savory selections, such as the classic Hawaiian (ham and pineapple). After lunch we boarded the train to Szentendre, and practiced our Hungarian to purchase tickets. Once in Szentendre we were met with a beautiful view of the town and the river Danube from a church courtyard atop a hill.

Aboard the H5

After stopping for some breathtaking views and photos, we visited a pair of museums in the city. The first was a museum of ceramic artwork by Margit Kovács, a 20th century artist who donated her works to a local museum. Their collection spans her entire career, beginning with pieces she made before the Second World War, and ending with some of her final works before her death in 1977. There was even a selection of "Hands On Art" in the museum, which many of us acknowledged as a very nice touch. For people raised not to touch art, it was daunting at first to feel the artwork, but it aided the understanding.

Following Bruce

Our last collective stop was at a small museum that exhibited about a dozen works of Micro Art. We had to use microscopes to see the artwork, as each piece is barely visible on its own. The artwork was beautiful on its own, and the amount of work needed to create art that small added to the experience.

A gold caravan in the eye of a needle.

Night view of Szentendre

After the museums, we were on our own. Many of us took this time to continue exploring Szentendre. Among the shops and restaurants, we found chessboards, puzzle boxes, ornate glass bottles, and a chocolate shop.

Tonight was the last night of professor dinners, so the remaining five of us went with Bruce and Jill to a pleasant restaurant that played 70s/80s disco and funk music. While the music seemed disconnected from the culinary experience, it was overall enjoyable.

Day view of Szentendre

Atop the hill in Szentendre

Tour guide Bruce

A view of the Danube from the church courtyard

Still does not feel natural...

- Erik, Matthew, and Jacob

Jan 7th 2016: Day Four, One More Day to Fluency

Szia! 

Day four of class, and we have only one more day of learning the Hungarian language.  Professor assures us that we will all be fluent by the end of the week, so I guess we have a lot to do tomorrow.  So far, I can only swear, ask for drinks, pick up Hungarian women, and most importantly, ask locals if I can pet their dog.  In math, we discussed Diophantine Equations.  We had an exhilarating proof that had most of the class staring dazed out the window by the end, due to the awe they felt from such mesmerizing mathematics. 

 

Delicious food at the oldest
restaurant in Budapest

After class, our group split up, some opting to explore the city through running, others traveling to Buda to explore Fisherman's Bastion and Matthias Church.  Everyone wanted to take advantage of the wonderful weather we experienced here today.  It was nice to see the sunshine for the first time since arriving in Budapest.  The sunset was glorious from the vantage point offered by the magnificent Bastion.  Seeing Matthias Church lit up was fascinating.

After finishing a run, or enjoying the sights in Buda, the group decided to eat at the oldest restaurant in Budapest, Százéves Étterem, which was conveniently located next to the hotel. We experienced a homey atmosphere, complete with the lack of attention I usually receive at my house. The waiters switched our orders, and forgot to bring us our beverages. However, the food was delicious, and the ambiance excellent, complete with locals loudly singing along with the live band in Hungarian, which we couldn't understand. We might go back tomorrow after we acquire fluency after our last Hungarian language class.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, we got more pictures for display. 

- Michael Ahn, Derek Debliek, and Ryan Walser-Kuntz

On the way to Fisherman Bastion

Roomies photo at Matthias Church

Parliament lighting the way

Great view from Fisherman's Bastion

Beautiful Matthias Church and the sky

Dragon Meal 1: Peter

Dragon Meal 2: Michael is happy to get eaten

Dragon Meal 3: Sam

"This is not natural."

Day Three Slip Up

Jocie, Sam and Anabel

Unfortunately, the jet lag prevented us from remembering to post yesterday. So you, the lucky reader, get two blog posts today! We will be recapping our adventures on Wednesday, January 7th.

To start, we realized the bus trip to McDaniel College is much quicker than the metro. This helped since we were already running a bit late. You can probably tell this day was not going to be the best (although you are in for a surprise ending). Once we got to class, Erika (our Hungarian teacher) reviewed what we had learned the day before and then jumped right into to teaching us more numbers! Towards the end of class we learned a melodious Hungarian tune called "Olvadás," Anabel was particularly talented at reciting the song in an original, beauteous fashion. Here is a version of the song, we unfortunately could not find the version we learned in class.

After Hungarian class we were off to lunch! We found a quaint family restaurant that had lots of pasta on the menu, this was great because Anabel is vegetarian (if you're curious the Hungarian word for vegetarian is vegetariánus). Even though we went for the pasta, Anabel decided to get cheese and dill stuffed mushrooms which came with her favorite side dish, pilaf. Samantha and Jocie got the same pasta dish, it was ginormous. Anabel dared Jocie to eat the ENTIRE meal, but Jocie couldn't do it. We were, again, running a bit late to class so we sped through the rest of lunch.

For Number Theory that afternoon we learned the Euclidean Algorithm. This helped us find specific integers x, y that were solutions equations that we later learned were called Diophantine Equations. Professor Hanson loves his colored chalk and that day people became very invested in what color should be used for Theorems, it turned into quite the debate. After class we took the bus to Tesco, which was a bit of an excursion. Anabel became frustrated when she couldn't find any peanut butter (to which Jocie responded, "Europeans don't eat straight fat.") and the shelf checkout caused a few issues to say the least. The language barrier caused the woman at the register to giggle at Anabel's ignorance when it came to the Hungarian language.

After we got back to the hotel we worked on some homework and Jocie went off to dinner with Professor Hanson, Professor Dietz, Salih, Emma and Jonathan. They went to a very traditional Hungarian restaurant to eat, and walked by the residence where previous St. Olaf students in the program stayed before. Sam and Anabel, on the other hand, went to the oldest restaurant in Pest (which is right next to our hotel)! Both were delicious and relatively cheap.

After we converged back at the room, we decided to go listen to some live music at a restaurant down the street. Jocie met a few men from Norway and got to practice her Norwegian language skills. We had a fabulous time dancing to the music even though we couldn't understand the most of the songs. Clearly a change in the tone of our day three, as we went from zeros to heroes in a matter of hours! Then, we walked back to the hotel and went right to sleep. I'm sure you now understand why writing the blog post slipped our mind!

Overall our third day here in Budapest was very exciting. Here are a few photos. One of the bridges we see daily and a shot from a trolley ride. Sorry for the lack of photos, it was a busy day for us here in room 352 (for everyone that gets the joke)!

Szia!

Today marked the first full day of classes, starting with a crash course in Hungarian! It was a complex process involving some lingual acrobatics, lots of mispronunciation, and even more laughter, but our teacher Erika was very patient. After struggling through learning the basics (introductions and some simple phrases), we wandered into a cafe for lunch and promptly forgot everything. After lots of pointing and charades, we ordered hot chocolate, which turned out to be thick enough to eat off a spoon. Simply put, we will be drinking that with every meal from here on out. Although the drink wasn't the priciest thing on the menu, we're fairly sure that 199 forint (67 cent!!) pizza slices can't be beat anywhere. Stomaches full, we returned to the classroom to learn about greatest common divisors and two of the most important theorems of the entire course. Lots of different colored chalk for different terms and definitions meant a multicolored Professor Hanson.

Buda Castle

view of the Pest side: Parliament building (left)
and the Chain Bridge

Classes done for the day, a group of us hopped on a bus for our first trip to BUDA (YAY), the other side of the city across the river. On our agenda was the Buda Castle. Fun fact number one, it was first built in 1265 and housed the Hungarian kings. Fun fact number two, Katy Perry used the courtyard in her music video for Firework (Side note, we promptly paused our writing to watch the video and it's totally legit *freaking oooout*). After returning to our Pest homeland, we visited a cat cafe to do our homework. Number theory problems, however interesting, paled in comparison to having 10 cats wandering past your table. Hungry from yet another very full day, we dined at Indigo Indian Restaurant. The food, as seems to be a reoccurring theme in this city, had our tastebuds dancing. After finishing all our delicious food however, it took a full table of nine math majors almost 10 minutes to figure out how to split the bill using only Hungarian cash.

dinner at the Indian restaurant

bravo to Lucas for finishing all his food!
#cleanplateclub

While we had a lovely dinner on our own, other friends have been assigned to different "date nights" with the professors and a small group of students to learn more about each other and Budapest's food and culture. After dinner, the hotel's sauna is a popular way to relax and warm up after a day in the cold, although 104 degrees Celsius might be just a bit too toasty for our taste. Having such busy days is great for adjusting to a new sleeping schedule, and we've found jet lag isn't too much of an issue when we collapse into bed. Speaking of sleeping, it's past our bedtime. Check in tomorrow for more adventures.

With love, the weakest links (Brynna, Annika, and Sydney)

squad goals

"Does it look like I'm holding the statue?
...this does not feel natural..."

fun times, fun times

hot chocolate ft. a lurking Matthew

Day 1: The Division Algorithm

Szia from your Budabuddies in Budapest!

Budapest airport

We made it to Budapest after 17ish hours of travel. We started off on an exciting note with a 45 minute delay in our first flight due to unforeseen baggage complications. But after that, everything went smoothly (and all our bags thankfully arrived with us in Budapest). We passed the time playing Uno, watching movies, and chatting with strangers, who regaled us with their riveting tales of clown school and software engineering.

Oles abroad

We arrived in Budapest around 4:00pm local time, exhausted but excited. After a white-knuckled bus ride to our hotel, we checked in, took quick naps, and got ready for dinner at a restaurant called Bor la Bor, where the waiter was horrified at Professor Hanson's request that no one be served alcohol. To add to the waiter's dismay, all but two of us ordered water. Following a fantastic meal, and some get-to-know-you table conversations, we headed back to the hotel for a much-appreciated sleep.

Group dinner at Bor la Bor

This morning, we went for breakfast in the hotel before meeting up with our group to travel to McDaniel College, where we'll be having class. After arriving at the college, we went on a walking tour of the city to learn more about the place we'll call home for the next month. The tour was full of beautiful buildings and monuments, in addition to delightful historical commentary by our tour guide, András. We began at the college and made a giant loop of the city taking in the sights, such as Lady Liberty with her palm frond, Buda Castle, the Presidential Palace, a few of the rebuilt bridges, and the ornate Parliament building; all while getting more acquainted with the buses and trams. It was a bit chilly on the tour with temperatures at -7 degrees Celsius, and a light dusting of snow that made us feel right at home. To warm up a bit our group walked around St. Stephen's Basilica where we took in the beautiful interior and saw the Holy Right Hand. We concluded our walking tour at the Central Market Hall where we were treated to a delicious lunch of Langos, or Hungarian fried bread with various toppings. In a word? Delicious.

András in action!

It was cold, but college in MN has prepared us for all kinds of weather!

The Parliament building + tram

We returned to the college around 2:00, and then we got down to business (to defeat the num(bers)). Did you know that the division algorithm does not include division? Now you do! Once class was over we split up to explore the city, finish our homework, and do whatever we wanted on our own. For dinner this week, Spruce-y Bruce and the lovely Jill will be taking small groups of us out to dinner to get to know us better and help us get to know each other. Another small group of us went to dinner at the oldest restaurant in Pest, where we were treated to some traditional goulash and amazing leek soup whilst being serenaded by a group playing gypsy music.

Attempted group picture - better one to come later

Tomorrow we have our first Hungarian language class and more math to look forward to, but now it's time for bed. Jó éjszakát!

The Quad Squad (Marit, Charlotte, Caitlin, and Emma)

Here's some proof that everyone arrived safely. I'm not sure I got all 25 students, and I'm a terrible photographer, but parents might enjoy seeing their kids.

--Jill