Two down, two exams to go

Sometimes the best satire is the genuine, removed from context.  A user review of a Brooks Brothers cashmere cable-knit dog sweater:

Disappointed -- Date: April 12, 2010

Pros: fashionable

Cons: not flattering on my dog's body

My dog, Mingus, was irritated by the coarse texture of the cashmere, and the deep red did not offset her chocolate colored fur in the manner I had hoped. Additionally, the fit was too loose and made her appear heavier, despite weighing only the 13 pounds recommended by our veterinarian.

Poor little Mingus.

Why I happen to be looking at Brooks Bros dog sweaters is another question entirely...

Surreal

Two (semi-)surreal things I'd like to mention.

First, the weather in Budapest this weekend was wretched.  From Friday until yesterday (Tuesday), we had highs in the mid- and low-50s paired with near constant rain and howling wind.  Wind substantial enough to litter the sidewalks with small branches and clumps of leaves.  To go from improving weather, with some sunny days and temps in the 70s to four days of endless cold, gray, rainy, and windy is bizarre.  At some times I felt transported to a different time and place; at others like the weather was mimicking that impending-doom atmosphere that blows in right before a big storm, despite the absence of any big storm here.

Second, the favorites in the Giro d'Italia (Vinokourov, Evans, Basso, Nibali) today gave up nearly 13 minutes to a 50+ man breakaway group.  Now, with 10 days of racing left, a handful of riders from those 50 gained a substantial enough lead to stand a real chance of holding off the (former?) favorites for overall victory.  Wild.  Enormous slip-up on the part of teams BMC (Evans), Liquigas (Bass & Nibali), and Astana (Vinokourov).

Problems

Some problems are easy.  Some problems are hard until they explode in great white balls of heat.  Still other problems fight for what seems like ages, but one day they lie down and let you solve them.

Eventually, there's the antelope collapsed on the ground, and there's your spear pressed against its neck, but by this point the antelope has been your adversary for so long he seems more like an old friend.  Gotta eat.

Hungarian Trivia

For lunch today, I took the metro down to my favorite pizza place, Dob's.  You fill out a ticket for your pizza's size and toppings; my favorite is salami with hot peppers.  Today, despite ordering my favorite, the pizza came back with salami, black olives, onion, and corn.  This was one of those mistakes so baffling you just have to let it go... I will never understand how the cook translated my single check in the "hot peppers" box into three individual checks in the "black olives," "corn," and "onion" boxes.

Sometimes on the metro, I like to pass the time by reading the institutional literature on the walls of the car.  This time, I focused my attention on the "dog regulations" and found them amusing.  You can bring your dog on the subway if A) you muzzle and leash your dog, B) your dog is the only dog on the subway car, and C) you buy him a ticket or a monthly pass.  Humans need a passport-sized photo attached to their monthly pass but apparently they will waive this requirement for your dog. 

Considering that dogs must ride as ticketed passengers, I am curious how BKV (transit authority) treats other pet species.  I have seen a ferret riding the metro before, and I'm pretty sure he didn't have a validated ticket.

Speaking of pets, here's a funny exchange from the start of Conjecture & Proof today:

Prof. Csirmaz: And you all have heard about Schrödinger's cat?

Student: No

Prof: And have you just heard about Schrödinger?

Student: No

Prof: But you have heard of cats, though?

Do Tell...

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

-Franz Kafka, read by Bubbles in the final episode of The Wire

Some of you who know me well will understand the true depravity with which I have consumed the entire five-season HBO series The Wire.  I have rarely been fortunate enough to lay eyes on anything so engrossing and compelling.  The Wire is literature -- truly the Faulkner, the Dickens of this generation.

I'm sort of a late arrival to the party if you're a long-time fan (the show ran 2002 - 2008), but the show is just incredible.  If you've never seen it, see it.  Immensely entertaining and culturally rich.  People have basically written online all there is to write on The Wire (think one million monkeys on one million typewriters here), so I'll leave this short.  If you want to know more, break out those Google skills.  You owe it to yourself.  Now that I've finished the show, I'm trying to think of my favorite character -- the complexity and personality of the characters is one of the show's best features -- but I'm stuck thinking of five to ten that I loved.  Bubbles, the sometimes-recovering heroin addict, and Omar, the homosexual, principled stick-up artist, are probably my top two.  Slim Charles is another I enjoy, but his character suffers from a background role.

Some classic Omar, just to taste.  I guess this is a spoiler if you're a purist about that, but nothing major.

By coincidence, I noticed that David Simon, the creator of The Wire, has a new show called Treme, whose premier was this Sunday.  The show focuses on post-Katrina New Orleans in the neighborhood Treme.  It's HBO-only but may or may not have been downloadable moments after the premier on a popular peer-to-peer protocol whose name rhymes with "warrant".

Balkan Spring Break

I'm back on Hungarian soil, and naturally my editors at the Times are clamoring for my travel piece, so here goes.  Part one, at least.  To give you a sketch of my trip, I took a train down to Split, Croatia with a group of four others (Neal, Sam, Kumar, and Brett).  We moved on to Dubrovnik for a while, then continued to Mostar.  We scrapped plans for Sarajevo in favor of a little time in Zagreb and a more reasonable travel schedule.

A few general comments before we begin.  First, while I enjoy traveling, my productivity heavily depends on routine.  My routine takes a while to gain momentum, so to speak, so traveling does a number on my ability to do meaningful work.  That is, while at home, all the basics -- where to sleep, what to eat, etc -- are more or less automatic, and this leaves me free to pursue more cerebral tasks, like tending to my organic sod farm.  Second, I've come to a realization that my ideas about trains --  being "fast" and "inexpensive" -- are largely wrong.  If you're looking to dive into the pictures, this album should be public (let me know if it isn't).

We took an afternoon train from Budapest, routed to a sleeper car in Zagreb, and arrived Saturday morning in Split.  We five traveling companions rounded out a six-person cabin on the afternoon train with a Hungarian lady, maybe in her fifties.  Of course, we planned to spend the train ride drinking and came prepared but didn't want to offend this lady's sensibilities.  We figure Europeans won't mind a little low-key consumption, so we quietly dig into some beers.  Brett begins opening a bottle of wine but struggles with the fake cork for a while.  To our surprise/amusement/glee, our companion notices, gestures that he should bang the corkscrew down to loosen the cork, then indeed takes over and opens the bottle for him.  This woman is all business when it comes to cracking bottles.

The sommelier herself

She even makes a 15 minute project out of shaving down the now-expanded cork and wrapping the crumbling carved end in plastic to suitably reseal the bottle should the need arise.  Ridiculous.

As we cross the Croatian border, passport control climbs aboard, and customs officials follow.  At this and each ensuing border crossing, we were amused the predictable exchange:

"Anything to declare? Alcohol, cigarettes?"

*shrug* [each holding a can or bottle and surrounded by empties]

*control moves on to next car*

I got the feeling that items intended for personal consumption were exempt, but we didn't know and they didn't care.

We get off the train feeling pretty jolly in Zagreb with two hours to kill before the night train.  Neal and Kumar found a grocery store three minutes before closing time.  In what precious time they had, Kumar fell in love with a clerk named Amela, who urged him to skip Split and stay in Zagreb.  Charming idea but didn't happen.

We arrive a little after 7 the next morning in Split and make our way to the hostel.  Sam and Brett hit the sheets, but Kumar, Neal, and I feel decent enough to wander the town, exhausted, in search of breakfast and coffee.  I asked our hostel keeper where to find a coffee bar, to which she gave the Croatian shrug and said "everywhere."  No lie, every street in every town we visited had a coffee bar, where all you could purchase was coffee and booze.  Apparently they have not gotten the idea that food is a natural complement to beverage.  The proliferation of these coffee bars convinced me thoroughly that most of Croatia's people are employed as professional coffee drinkers.

We kept day one to some easy-going sightseeing and napping, but day two demanded big plans.  Armed with cameras and beach beers, we sought to test the Croatian coast's mettle.  

Not a bad sight

The riva

 The plaque below this supersized hook revealed that it commemorates the 1000th anniversary of the first written mention of fishing in Croatia.  A candidate for strangest monument ever.

 Following the coast, we came across this picturesque city park.  Beautifully raw, filled with green and clover.

 Further on, we found this nice perch...

 ...with a killer view of the Adriatic

 The late-March water still ran a little cold...

...but Kumar successfully found his way out to sea

Lots of relaxation [I heartily encourage anyone considering study abroad to seek a program in Croatia]

That night, we went out in search of Split nightlife.  After a semi-lame cocktail bar, we decided to follow the boots on the ground and found our way to a coffee bar that seemed decently occupied and stocked with draft beer.  Acceptable.  As we later learned, some unusual circumstances led the owner and bartender to start closing up around 11 instead of 12, but the bartender agreed to lock up and let us order a second round while watching some sort of Croatian rec-league soccer recap on TV.  Normally, I wouldn't bore you with such a scene, but we ended up hanging around a little as our bartender cleans up and ask her where to find a good disco in Split.  

The conversation that ensued was ridiculous and included the revelation that they were closing early because the bartender came to work hungover from Friday night and had been drinking vodka all day (and continued as she cleaned), incredulity that we would be interested in a techno club but didn't do drugs, the fact that Obama was a kurac (slang for, as she explained, "the third leg in between your legs"), and a rather abrupt change of tone, while we were laughing all the while at the ridiculousness of our situation, when she snapped at us and asked how we'd like it if she came to America and just laughed at us.  We apologized but explained that really wasn't the case.  Moments later, the conversation took regained rapport as if nothing happened, and we all left the bar with her promising to show us the best disco.  Little did we know, our bartender-come-guide was (/was becoming) literally the drunkest person in Croatia.  Our adventures involved drinking with a random group of Croatian high schoolers in a park, being introduced drunkenly as "the American people," finally finding the disco.  To cut this story mercifully short, she was thrown out of the bar within an hour or two for being too drunk after breaking a bottle on the dance floor (and subsequently tried to negotiate her fate with the bouncers by literally picking up the pieces one by one).  Our night ended sometime shortly thereafter, but not before a stop by a pizza vendor.  On that note, Croatia sells fantastic thin-crust pizza.  Absolutely amazing... the shrimp pizza from Planet Pizza Cut is not to be missed if you're ever in Split.

Sunday included some more exploration.  Neal, Kumar, and I discovered a stretch of shoreline across a wall from our perch (see above) that we conjecture (half-jokingly) was an abandoned Serb naval yard.  Judge for yourself.

Bigfoot-esque proof that Dalmatians indeed roam the Dalmatian Coast

We climbed the surprisingly large Marjan Hill [click picture to enlarge]...

...and caught a decent sunset over Split

Monday, our last day in Split, we took a ferry to Brac, a nearby island, and spent the day exploring/sitting on a beach.  Nothing exciting, but nice.

  Kumar bedecked in his long-sought sunglasses on the ferry

Approaching Brac

Another view from the ferry

The marina at Supetar on Brac

R

Rocky beaches and blue waters

Tangled up in blue...

I got up a little early on Tuesday, our final morning in Split, to soak in a few final sights before we bussed down to Dubrovnik.

The cool but not touristy fish market ran every morning 

Seafood for every palate

 A final look at Diocletian's Place ruins

We bid Neal and Kumar (who were returning to Budapest) goodbye, and hopped on the bus.

Coming and Going

Sorry to have disappointed my regular readers with a dearth of posts lately.  One last good post before I head off for spring break.

Katie came to visit the first week of March, and we had a great time exploring Budapest together.

 Budapest -- two thumbs up! (at the Ludwig Museum)

Budapest has an unusual number of bronze statues of famous Hungarians.  I think Budapest must have gone through a period of extreme fondness for producing these.

One of many.

Cool church a few blocks from my house

At the Great Market, Katie went straight for the mulled wine.  (Just kidding; it is delicious and I recommended it.)

Visiting the Castle Hill district

Enjoying a sunny afternoon on Castle Hill.

Katie was a fan of Budapest's many graffitos...

...and I was a fan of scaling the local architecture.

The Iron Curtain sculpture outside Terror Háza.

Seeing Degas to Picasso at the Fine Arts Museum

Just hangin out.

Hungary's deep-fried specialty, lángos.

Since Katie's visit, it's been back to life as usual in Budapest.  I have several observations.  First, it has come to my attention that may Budapesters are under the impression that they are dog owners, when in fact, they are owners of large wolves and other non-domesticated members of genus canis.  For an idea of the size of Budapest's average dog, see below:

The one in back.

All kidding aside, Budapest seems to have an unusually high number of dogs for a big city, and many of these dogs are quite large.

Budapest also seems to not care so much about inefficiency.  The most glaring example of this lack is the metro checking system.  You either buy a ticket or pass to ride the metro, bus, tram, or trolley (four different systems?  really?) and you have to validate your ticket in one of the self-serve ticket punchers at the beginning of your journey.  This system is enforced by checkers, who occasionally greet you as you exit the metro, and you are fined 6000 HUF if you are riding without a pass or a validated ticket.  Sounds fine?  In addition to this already semi-clumsy system, each and every metro station employs 2 to 4 individuals to look at your pass/ticket as you walk toward the escalator down to the platform.  All these guys do is stand there and glance at passes/tickets and (in theory, although I never see this) inform people without a proper ticket.  Anyhow.  I am also amused by the city's solution to a sidewalk under construction along Museum Boulevard (a fairly big-traffic street downtown).  No, don't redirect pedestrian traffic to the other side of the street, where there is a perfectly good sidewalk.  Yes, let's shut down an entire lane of traffic on this side and designate it as a sidewalk.  Brilliant.

I'll close with, first, a couple of youtube videos and then some interesting math problems.

I love this video (click the image again to watch it on youtube's website and read the story behind the fan-created video to the right).

Loving some March Madness.

And now for the math.  To respect Prof. Csirmaz's desire for his problems to remain relatively un-Google-able, I ask that if you want to discuss them with me, do so by email.  These are the coolest of the often-cool Conjecture and Proof problems from last week's set.

A) Find a function f: R->R such that f(f(x)) = -x for all real x.
Can you find such a function that is continuous at 0 and 1?
Can you find such a function continuous on R?

B) We have n+1 positive integers whose prime factors are among the first n prime numbers.  Show that you can pick some (at least one, but maybe all) of the numbers such that their product is a perfect square.

Sziasztok!

The National

Just replace LA with Berlin, and this is basically what's going down.

Hello again

I'm not sure how I'm going to return to normalcy with the blog after the ~2 week hiatus... chronological catch-up isn't so feasible, so I'll probably go for a smattering of impressions and topics.  To start, just some potpourri.

I saw a man crying in the subway as Katie and I came back from dinner on my birthday.  I saw him from the side at first and thought there was just a wire running down his cheek -- one straight line of tears down from each eye, not wiping or sniffling, just a thousand-mile stare across the tracks.

I'll have to have an eating post soon -- many delicious foods discovered here in Budapest.  Langos, gyros, Klassz, et al.

Be a philosopher, but amid all your philosophy be still a man. - David Hume

Oh, and I turned 21 on Monday.  No big deal.

Rickroll'd

I know I wasn't planning to blog again until Wednesday, but sometimes special circumstances tear us from our promises.

Case in point, tonight I walked into the local 24 hour grocery and heard the greatest song of the 80s:

They play some ridiculous American pop in Budapest, but Rick Astley is in another league.  There's nothing I wouldn't give for that denim two-piece.

Correction:  Astley is British.  Not sure if this is America's loss or gain.

On Hiatus

I've been away for a while -- Katie has been visiting this week, and we've had a fantastic time exploring Budapest together.  I'll be back on the blogging grind come Wednesday.  See you then.

Recommended Viewing: Joseph Beuys and the Coyote

This post isn't really related to the main themes of this blog, but you don't have to read it if you don't want to.  Okay?

 I Like America and America Likes Me, Joesph Beuys, 1974

Photo copyright Caroline Tisdall

The Joseph Beuys story is one of the most captivating and iconic artist stories of all time.  As a young man, Beuys flew for the Luftwaffe as a rear gunner in a bomber unit.  In 1943, his plane was shot down in the Crimea.  Beuys claims he was discovered in the snow by nomadic Tartars, who nursed him back to health with natural medicines.  He remained unconscious until after he was returned to a German field hospital, but he maintains that the images of the Tartars and their healing methods penetrated his subconscious.  Most notably, he recalls being packed in animal fat and wrapped in felt to help his body retain heat.  Read more about his story at the wikipedia page linked above.  Regardless of the story's truth, these images and materials featured prominently in his art for the rest of his life.

Beuys was later among the most influential art figures of the 20th century.  His first trip to America was to mark the opening of the René Block Gallery in New York with a performance art piece.  The piece, I Like America and America Likes Me, began with Bueys's ride directly from the airport to the gallery in the back of an ambulance.  At the gallery, he spent three days in a room with a coyote, interacting with the animal as the situation dictated.  After the three days, he was taken back to the airport, again directly by ambulance.  Beuys later explained his mode of transportation: "I wanted to isolate myself, insulate myself, see nothing of America other than the coyote."  This video clip gives more about the work and Beuys's life, well worth the 15 minutes.  If the quicktime video doesn't work for you, I believe you can select a different format.

Tidbits

One of the greatest oddities of class in Hungary:  the chalkboard erasers are giant sponges.  The building's meticulous cleaning staff washes the boards daily and stocks them every morning with a damp sponge.  It drives me nuts when my topology prof doesn't wait for the board to dry completely before he starts writing again... you end up with this smudgy, broken haze of writing rather than clean lines of chalk.   Speaking of the cleaning staff, they must mop the stairs twice a day here... it seems like they are always doing that.

Maybe a greater cultural difference still, nay, perhaps the greatest single divider of Eastern and Western culture for an entire generation:  the preference of how to demarcate the endpoints of a conversation.  While many cultures in the West, such as the US, France, and Spain, choose to indicate which is the beginning and which is the end, most Hungarians are content to simply indicate "This is one side of our conversation."

In the US, we say "hello" and "goodbye."  In France, one says "bonjour" and "adieu."  In Hungary, however, you will often hear "helló" and, indeed, "helló."  I can't tell you how many times I've had to double-take as I left a store to hear the shopkeeper yell "helló" on my way out.  Did I forget something?  Am I stealing something? Oh, wait... no.  Furthermore, one can even observe a blending-zone of these preferences in Spain.  One can specify the side, as with "buenos días" and "hasta la vista, baby" or one can simply be content with "ciao" and "ciao."  Oh, the wonders never cease.

The grossest phenomenon I've ever witnessed:  no fewer than three times have I seen someone pick a particularly long cigarette butt off the ground, presumably to finish what its original owner did not.  Big-city dwellers, I ask you:  Is this a universal hobo practice or is it limited to Eastern Europe?

Side note:  Hungarians will (sometimes vigorously) contest the point that Hungary is not in Eastern Europe, but rather in Central Europe.  They have a valid cultural and historical argument, but I suspect that the Iron Curtain will define much of the east/west division of Europe for my generation.  Eastern and Central Europe are perhaps the most poorly defined regions in the entire world, though, so maybe Hungary will wiggle its way across that line.

To continue that side note, I am boggled by how devastating WWII was to Hungary.  At the Terror House museum, I read that WWII destroyed every bridge crossing the Danube in Budapest (eight cross it today, I think maybe six or seven crossed it before WWII) and 40% or more of the entire national wealth.  That is staggering.  What's more, to think the oldest generation of Hungarians today bore witness to all of this as young adults.  Quite a silent sadness -- I suppose it is far enough removed that people don't talk about or notice it as much anymore.

Okuyama no Sushi

I rallied a group of six (Kylee, Joe, Kumar, Lydia, Caitlin, and myself) to venture into Óbuda for what I heard was Budapest's most legitimate sushi.  Óbuda is a historical section of Budapest, literally "Old Buda."  Óbuda, Buda, and Pest fused in 1873 to form the city of Budapest.  Our destination was Okuyama no Sushi.  I had read a number of positive reviews, and I also had faith in the fact ethnic restaurants with atrocious websites tend to be authentic, if not extremely polished.

Indeed, we arrived at Kolosy tér, walked through the courtyard and downstairs to the basement to find Okuyama-san and his comfortable Japanese restaurant.  The dining space was fairly small, but didn't feel cramped at all, even filled nearly to capacity.  They give their tables, which provide seating for 25 - 30 at the most, plenty of space.  We all ordered sushi, but Kylee, having never tried sushi before (or fish outside its "stick" form, for that matter), was a bit apprehensive.  We steered her toward the California roll, which we hoped would be a success.  Kumar and I both ordered the small nigiri-and-roll combo, while Lydia, Caitlin, and Joe each ordered individual rolls.  Joe was perhaps the most adventurous and ordered the squid roll.  The house menu is mostly classic sushi: nigiri and basic, one- or two-ingredient rolls.  Definitely not abreast of the American souped-up maki sushi movement, which according to your sense of purity, could be good or bad.

A delicious bowl of miso soup (plenty of substance -- sprouts, kombu, scallions, tofu, and a mushroom or two) and a bottle of cold sake for the table helped the fairly short wait pass quickly.  I hadn't ever tried sake before but enjoyed it.  I thought the flavor was very gentle and a little bit like flowers.  Good, even thought it was a bit too sweet for my taste.

My sushi came with a single avocado-and-salmon roll and five pieces of nigiri:  salmon, shrimp, tamago (sweetened egg omelet), and ... the last two.  By sight and a little research, I'm fairly sure one piece was just shiromi, or seasonal white fish (or possibly it was white tuna, but I don't believe so), and the other was scallop.  I'm tempted to digress into commentary on my sushi research, but I'll save that for the postscript.

The reactions:  I enjoyed my sushi thoroughly and thought it fairly high quality, especially for a landlocked country without much interest in sushi.  I believe I read in a review that Okuyama-san flies his fish in freshly from abroad.  The scallop nigiri was very interesting -- delicate to the point of melting, a bit sticky, very moist, and semi-sweet.  The tamago was good:  I've always been intrigued, as it is a bit of a stand-out, both aesthetically and in that it is not fish, but I've never ordered it before.  This will probably join the group of my sushi regulars.  Joe was not such a fan of his squid roll, nor was anyone else at the table but me... I didn't find it thrilling, but the texture was interesting.  Not as rubbery as octopus, but like an extremely dense block of gelatin that chews (without difficulty) into a more watery gelly.  The flavor is there, but I can't say much about it... extremely light and non-offensive.  Kumar gave rave reviews to his plate, the same as mine.

Kylee, our sushi virgin, began her adventure with a dab of wasabi on the end of a chopstick.  So little, in fact, that I wasn't sure she'd get the taste.  I suppose I should have introduced the fact that Kylee dislikes spicy food of all sorts (she claims bell peppers are hot), as she did, indeed, get the taste.  Quite the reaction, and Lydia suggested some pickled ginger to ease the heat.  Unfortunately, pickled ginger has a kick of its own, so I'm not sure it really helped the situation.  Anyhow, on to the first bite of California roll.... not so favorable.  I should say this was a bit unusual by my experience of California rolls: a big, silver-dollar sized roll with a fat, thumbnail sized chunk of avocado at the center along with a piece of imitation crab stick.  Kylee was opposed to, I think, the texture of the nori on the outside of the roll, and perhaps the big chunk of avocado, too.  The salmon roll produced a similar reaction, but Kumar kindly offered half of his salmon nigiri (it takes a very generous man to share his nigiri), which she proclaimed the best of the three she tried.

One reviewer noted online that he often sees a table or two of Japanese people when he eats at Okuyama no Sushi, which he said he rarely saw at other Budapest sushi restaurants, and indeed, three Japanese men were enjoying a long dinner and conversation at the table next to us.  They seemed to have been there long before we arrived and stayed even after we finished our hour-plus dinner.  I liked the restaurant a lot and will be back.  The portions are a little on the small-and-expensive side, but not unusually so for sushi (they perhaps seem smaller and more expensive under the lens of Budapest's $2.50 street gyros and nearly-free produce).

To follow up on my sushi research, Slashfood has a fairly informative series on sushi basics.  Among other things, I learned that sushi purists dip nigiri fish-side down, in order to not sully the sweet, vinegared rice; that sushi purists also don't mix wasabi into the soy sauce, but rather apply it directly to the fish; and that picking up nigiri with your fingers is acceptable.  Info potpourri:

Katsoubushi is a dried, fermented, and smoked skipjack tuna that becomes almost wood-like and is shaved to produce shavings for dashi, the broth that is the stock for miso soup.

Real wasabi is awesome but unfortunately no one serves it (to wit: the site claims that even in Japan, only five percent of sushi shops use real, fresh wasabi).  The link also elaborates on the don't-add-wasabi-to-soy-sauce point, from the opposite perspective:  real wasabi is expensive and hand-grated, so diluting it in soy sauce is seen as a waste.

Finally, gari, the pickled ginger which accompanies sushi (and which I happen to adore), is naturally light brown and is of higher quality when served this way, as opposed to bright pink.  I think it's delicious either way, but the light brown gari served at Okuyama no Sushi was definitely softer and a bit different in flavor than the typical pink stuff.

Fat Tuesday, Indeed

A group of BSM students and I got together for Fat Tuesday celebrations.  Lydia played host and cooked an incredible number of pancakes for the crowd.  Her blog post covers it thoroughly, so I'll leave you with that.  Those Catholics know how to eat.

Monday No. 1092

This morning, 8 am, Mathematical Logic.  2 hours of frantic recitation of definitions and conventions to get everyone on the same page.  Not too bad considering; I followed almost everything, and the potential for interest still remains.  I'll definitely stick with it to see at least what next week is like.  A gem from Prof. Szabo: "Truth is sometimes a hopeless task."

Conjecture and Proof went well, going over our first problem set, and a few various topics in vector spaces.  Finally came Classical Algebra, the three-week course which sounded promising.  Emphasis on "sounded."  The prof is a retired St. Olaf guy who comes in to run a January term in number theory for St. Olaf kids and then sticks around to teach three weeks of classical algebra.  We reviewed topics from session 1 in both sessions 2 and 3, in fairly minute detail each time.  He seems to rejoice in doing long polynomial expansions on the board and concluding that they must equal to 1... or negative 1... oh no, wait, that's negative 1 so that must be negative 1 to the third power, which is negative 1... so yes, equal to one.  Or at least that's what we spend a quarter of our lecture time doing.  We also covered the proofs of the principle of mathematical induction (which he claimed most of us probably saw in grade school??) and the division algorithm in exquisite detail.  Which of course required a five-minute presentation of the well-ordering principle as background knowledge, complete with hemming and hawing about how to pose the definition:  to treat bounded above and bounded below as separate cases which imply maximal and minimal values, respectively, or to simply say "bounded" and be done with it, or, wait!, perhaps just bounded below and leave the bounded above case to symmetry.  Thankfully he spared us the proof.  This seems to be a total dud of a class, which is unfortunate given that the material is, indeed, "classic."  Fortunately, we only meet three more times.

Pigskin and Spelunking

A group of us played touch football Friday afternoon in Városliget (covered in 6+ inches of snow).  The game was a blast, but I'm sore in an uncountably infinite number of ways.  Head-to-toe, putting-socks-on-hurts sore.  Worth it, though.

Unicycling has been coming along nicely.  I can tell I'm improving a good bit (as I hadn't ridden much at all in a year at least) and developing some new skills that I've been working on.  Riding backwards is at the top of the list, as is learning to stall (stay in one place with minimal motion).  I've spent a good bit of time riding around the breezeway at my apartment building and through the courtyard and have gotten a few momentary spectators.  I brought the unicycle out to Hero's Square before the football game and rode around there a bit.  My friends say some tourists snapped pictures of me while I was riding.

Finally, a group of us went to see the labyrinth beneath the castle (which is really not a castle at all) over in Buda.  I heard good reviews and was looking forward to some unique history, but I was sorely disappointed.  The labyrinth began as a series of caves carved out by the numerous hot springs beneath Budapest. The caves were supposedly occupied by prehistoric man.  Later, the Hungarians adopted this underground network and built it up for use as a cellar and military resource.  In WWII and the Soviet era, the labyrinth was adapted for use as an underground bunker and reinforced with concrete.  Some time in the 90s, restoration efforts began, and the labyrinth opened to the public.

I was expecting a museum-like recreation, segmented by different periods and historical commentary. In reality, however, the labyrinth dangles somewhere between comedy and tragedy.  An absolute mangling of history, yet at the same time so ridiculously hokey as to make me laugh.  Stage one is the "prehistoric labyrinth" which is a bizarre amalgam of corny, stereotypical cave painting and Egyptian/Easter Island-esque statuary.  About as detached from any cultural authenticity as possible.

 Seriously?   

(All cave images courtesy of wikipedia commons.)

Their tribute to the terra cotta army.

Stage two is the "historical labyrinth," which consists of some cheesy Christian symbology, wells with iron grates and ominous music subtly emanating from their depths, and a Dionysus-themed room, complete with a four-sided wine fountain (smelling strongly of vinegar), festive harp music, and wilted ivy.

Devastatingly corny.

The wine fountain.  You know, for the next time you're looking to booze in a dark, musty cave.

Stage three brings you to perhaps the strangest part of the cave, the "other-worldly labyrinth."  The exhibit is framed as a set of archeological discoveries made in the numerous caves of the Buda hills, and each fenced-off rock specimen is accompanied by a placard explaining the find, complete with date and location of find, plus some speculation about age and origin.  The first find you encounter is said to be a footprint that archeologists later discovered to be of non-homo-sapien origin.  The print, the sign continues, has provided the basis for classification of a new species of ancient man who died out roughly 43 million years ago.  Oddly enough, the specimen looks like a sneaker print embedded in rock.  We continue to other bits of rocky strata with imprints discovered in the Buda hills, ostensibly traces of this mystery civilization, yet still the oddity continues -- the imprints are all modern items.  Among them, an ATM machine (O, what commentary), a laptop, a solo cup, and strangest of all, a gigantic rock (15 feet high) cut away to reveal the negative image of a glass Coca-Cola bottle.  I have no idea who came up with this garbage or exactly what their message was, but at best it seemed insipid, confusing, out of line with their love of cheesy historical recreation, and poorly executed.

One of the "specimens"

Other bits of the cave included little nooks and side-rooms and the "Labyrinth of Courage," which is a totally dark passage with a rope to guide you.  Potentially cool until the rope leads you to a brightly-lit side room with some huge copper sun tacked to the wall.  Snore.  A projection room ran a 10-minute film that was perhaps the height of this farce.  The film included lots of people dressed in velvety outfits with animal masks dancing around the cave and acting creepy.

I'll give it a little credit; the labyrinth itself was a neat structure and the atmosphere was definitely a little ominous.  That said, if you can't create a creepy atmosphere with 1200 meters of dimly-lit, rocky, prehistoric cave, then you're really doing something special.  Anyhow, my disappointment with this tragedy grows with each recollection.  Shame on whoever runs the labyrinth.  In line with it's dedication to being hokey, the website touts the attraction as one of the "Seven Underground Wonders of the World."

Sigh.  Budapest has many wonders, but the labyrinth in its present state is not one of them.

First week update

It's been a while since my last post and not a word yet about classes.  This week was the first of three shopping weeks, but I think I've figured out what my schedule will look like:

Topology
Theory of Computation
Conjecture and Proof
Masters of European Film

I may end up taking Mathematical Logic, but haven't been to a class yet.  It only meets once a week, and the first meeting conflicted with Film.  The class has been rescheduled to Monday mornings, however, so I'll be able to attend.  I've heard from others this class is less interesting than the Advanced Theory in Paint Drying seminar, but I think the subject is intriguing -- I'll have to see firsthand.

Topology seems good so far.  Very rigorous and ground-up style math.  I sat in on a day of Advanced Abstract Algebra, but the professor seemed boring, and nothing really jumped out at me.  As much as I enjoyed Abstract Algebra, this second level will have to wait for another time.  Theory of Computation, to my delight, is actually one of my favorites:  the prof and the material both are engaging.  We've been working with finite automata for the first two classes.  They remind me a lot of the Markov chain models we saw in Math Modeling.

Conjecture and Proof is a bit hard to sum up -- a lot like a course in competition-style math.  The lectures haven't taken any direct course yet; I think it will most likely follow a potpourri of topics.  The weekly problem sets are meaty, tough, and engaging, so that is a big plus.  The prof says not to share the problems online, though, so as to not spoil the delight of fresh problems for future students.  If I violate this omerta, I'll have a Hungarian headhunter named Laci (pronounced LAT-see) on my tracks.  I suppose I'm allowed to disclose the topics, at least:  this week, two proofs of irrationality, one analysis/function proof, one domino/chessboard proof, and one problem about kids and chocolate.  The professor notes on our problem sheet: "(This is a sad problem.)" as the kids just pass the chocolate around the table rather than eat it.

The film course seems good.  It's focus is analysis of early-to-mid-20th century film, so a lot of the material is black-and-white (and some silents).  Not exactly my favorite type, but I'm interested in film analysis and a classical basis of knowledge is never a bad one.

Unicycling Abroad

Some of you may know that I dabble with a unicycle at home in the States.  I picked it back up again right before leaving for abroad, for lack of math to keep me busy, and was a bit misty-eyed to leave it behind.  Lo, little did I know, but the Hungarian god of one-wheeled pursuits would bestow upon me a unicycle in Budapest.  As they say, the lord works in mysterious ways; indeed, the unicycle was to be found in the closet at Ranjan's apartment.  Ranjan, not knowing how to use a unicycle, was happy to lend it to me; I in return offered lessons to anyone eager to learn.

With most basketball courts and other open spaces covered in snow, space for riding is a bit slim, but the courtyard and breezeway of my apartment building have been okay for a little fiddling.  I hear the Russian Circus is holding tryouts in the Budapest Gym next week.

When your only tool is the bottom half of a percolator, everything tends to look like a thumbtack

Time for some home improvements.  My room here is equipped with some generous loft space, so I decided to make use of it as a bedroom.  Lucas and I moved my bed up there, and I got some curtains from Ikea to hang from the railings.  Naturally, the curtains needed a little trimming and then to be secured in place, but our apartment is a little thin on tools.  Fortunately, the bottom half of my percolator is pretty dense (ie works as a hammer), we have a chopping knife and a cutting board (perfect from trimming curtains), and thumbtacks are cheap at Tesco.  In my opinion, the results aren't bad.

 

The modified loft

The handiwork.  Complete with rolled hems.

A few miscellaneous Hungarian things before I go.  First, one of my favorite Hungarian objects, the 100 forint coin.

A pretty coin, plus the perfect size and weight.... kind of like a big, fat nickle.

Second, I picked up a set of four little brushed stainless steel bowls from Ikea (where I indeed ate meatballs for dinner every night since Tuesday.  The 100 forint deal, however, is now over, so my appetite for meatballs is sated and will remain so for a good while.).  These bowls were, again, an ideal little bit of metal.  Just an object with the right weight, size, heft about it.  They're fairly useless except for holding a few coins or maybe a spice or condiment, but the price was right and if nothing else, they'll make fair decor.  Anyhow, I'm mentioning these because they have an interesting property:  if you spin them with the curved side down, eventually they get off-balance, spin on an edge, and then very reliably tip over and fall flat-side down.  This takes no special effort to get them off balance; just set one a-spinning and every time it will tip over.  To wit:

Finally, I went with a group of BSM students today to Városliget (City Park) for the annual outdoor festival celebrating the Mangalitsa pig.  This breed is a woolly, fatty pig which was developed as a cross-breed in Serbia and Hungary in the early 1800s.  The real Hungarian spelling is Mangalica, as the Hungarian "c" is pronounced like an English "ts," like in "its."  The New York Times has a good article on the Mangalitsa pig and its return to favor in American cuisine.

The festival was outdoors and had tons of booths selling Hungarian knick-knacks and treats.  There was a booth selling 30 or 40 different types of jam, and I bought jars of elderberry and quince jams (for you, Mom).  Also, a number of stalls sold delicious marzipan (also on display:  a half-scale marzipan pig).  We tried some of the sausage and the pork stew, both of which were wonderful, fresh, and appropriately fatty.  Anyhow, snow (and its dreaded cousin, slush) has returned to Budapest, and as I often like to joke before a cold track workout, it sure feels like hog-killin' weather.

Let the Maths Begin

You, my dear readers, may be doubting my pretenses of having come to Budapest to study math.  Indeed, these two or three weeks of language school may have deceived all of us here in Budapest, too, but the study of "maths" begins on Monday.  For those interested, our schedule and syllabi are online.  Our three week shopping period sounds much more legitimate than those advertised by every liberal arts college in America; registration doesn't even occur until the end of the three weeks.  With that in mind, here's what I'm sampling.

AAL (Advanced Abstract Algebra)
C&P (Conjecture and Proof) or MPS (Mathematical Problem Solving)
CLA (A three-week refresher/competency course in classical algebra, intended to cover topics often left out of the American curriculum)
TOP (Topology)
FILM (Film Analysis - Grand Masters of European Film)
THC (Theory of Computing)
LOG (Mathematical Logic, held as a reading course for now)
GAL (Galois Theory, also as a reading course for now)

The deal with reading/regular courses:  if enrollment for any class is 6 or greater, the class is a regular, twice-weekly class.  If enrollment for an advanced class falls below 6 but stays above 3, the class is held as a reading class and meets once weekly, with a lot of the material left to the student (hence, "reading" class).  If an introductory class's enrollment falls below 6, or an advanced class below 3, they are canceled.

I'm fairly certain about taking topology, film, and conjecture & proof.  Advanced algebra is a likely pick.  Theory of computing, galois theory, and logic will probably yield a fifth class, depending on how the workload seems.

Playin' Hooky

A group of us decided to ditch language school (which has become somewhat laborious) for the day and instead go out to see more of the city.  I met up with Joe, Neal, and Jared by the Astoria metro stop and we headed out to see Margit Island.  Beautiful place even in the winter:  lots of open space, and a zoo to boot.

Pretty duck at the zoo on Margit

The view of Parliament from Buda (we stopped over on our way to Margit).  Note the icy Danube.

Some pretty steeples on a church in Buda.

We left Margit and met up with Ranjan to see Terror Háza, which took us several hours (no cameras inside, sorry!).  Terror Háza is a museum of the fascist and communist days of Hungary, specifically of their secret police forces, which operated out of the very same building as the museum.  As you can see on the wikipedia page, the museum and it's intentions carry more than a bit of political charge.  Regardless, it's a good sight, and the museum's design is aesthetically very good.

Where else could the day end but Ikea?  Back down the yellow line (the second oldest metro line in the world, only to London), up the red line to the end, and into Meatball Palace.  I shot a few pictures of the signs regarding the deal for translating on Google once I got home, and as I suspected, the deal is limited to one plate per customer.  Regardless, all of Budapest seems to have a tacit agreement to ignore this regulation (damn Swedes) and rejoice over heavily-subsidized meatballs.

The best deal in the history of food.