Professor's Note

To all of the family and friends who have followed our journey,

By the time you read this, you may already have met your son or daughter at the airport or seen your friends back on campus. It is six a.m. Budapest time and the students are just waking up along the corridor of our guest house. Most of us will leave for the airport in about an hour to travel back to Minneapolis or other destinations.

I wanted to take a minute to thank the students for their terrific work in class, with the program and on the blog. You all did a fantastic job bringing our friends and family along with us on this adventure. I also want to thank you all one more time for a memorable month. I enjoyed the chance to get to know all of you, play cards well past by usual bedtime, do some math, share the Garrett tradition of "pol"ing and explore Hungary.

Safe travels to the group and all of you going off on more European adventures. See you on the Hill!

Best,
Tina

Gellert Baths and Futsall

This afternoon we took a class trip to the Gellert Baths. Most of us went to the Szechenyi Baths a few weeks ago. Gellert is simply another location of a bath...Szechenyi and Gellert are basically two separate swimming pools in Budapest, except that they have really warm water. Gellert had different pools for guys and girls, and I will spare you the gory details, but let's just say some guys showed more skin and butt-crack than we were ever hoping to see in Budapest.

Tonight some of us also attended a futsall game. Futsall is basically professional indoor soccer, played on a hard court smaller than a normal soccer field, and there are no boards on the sidelines. Since the field is smaller, teams play only 4 on 4 plus a goalie on each side. It's very fast-paced and exciting to watch. Hungary is hosting the European Championships, so we saw a quarterfinal game between Serbia and Portugal. I decided to cheer for Serbia, but they got smoked 5-1. It was great to experience something close to real European soccer.

We got 3rd-row seats a midfield for only $13! There some teenage Hungarian soccer dudes sitting directly in front of us. I couldn't help but notice that almost all of them had mullets! So, if you are a teenager and want to be like cool European teens, get yourself a mullet. Or, if you are not a teen and also want to be cool, get yourself a mullet as well. I have included a video recapping a lot of our experience at the futsall game, including our favorite part: the Euro-trash-hip-hop male dance team.

The Budapest final countdown continues (cue classic song by "Europe"). We only have three more nights here. I feel as though it is nearing time to leave. We have been stuck in this weird middle place between being tourists and being citizens of the city. We're neither, but a little bit of both. It's hard to live like a tourist for a whole month, but I also haven't felt the need to get very settled in because it's such a short trip. Don't get me wrong; I have had a wonderful time here and will never forget the experience. But you know when you feel it's time for something to be done? Others in the class may disagree, but I think it's time to be done in Budapest soon.

Our Last Week in Budapest

Updates from FREE Weekend:  Everyone got back safely and in one piece: the Vienna group returned on three different trains, although all were more or less a hundred Euros poorer; the boys survived in the Czech Republic; both of the international flights, from Amsterdam and Berlin, arrived without delay; and Tina returned from London with Cari whom we were all excited to meet.  Although the trips were a great change of pace from our everyday experience, we all felt ready to return to a "normal" life back in Budapest.    The best parts about our normal life here are the familiar surroundings, the quasi-familiar sounding language, and the Forint that is much more forgiving than the Euro.  We will have a rude and unfortunate awakening when we have to use our own US dollars that we know for certain isn't ours.  The Forint somewhat resembles Monopoly play money that we can use in real life but have no real concept of its actual value.  Conversion rates are enlightening to a certain degree, but I haven't fully grasped the worth of the currency.  

Similar to the change in currency is the change of culture throughout Europe. Whenever we crossed the border to another country we had to learn new cultural norms. This is very hard, especially after we barely know the culture of Budapest. Luckily, some things do stay the same, such as the public transportation systems. It was nice to know how to find our way around another country. Most things don't stay the sam

e. The language is one very obvious difference, along with currency. Trying to sift through your wallet of US dollars, Euros, and Forints for the correct currency is always difficult. Then of course when you are trying to pay people back with whatever currency that you may have is interesting when trying to remember the conversion rates. 

 

As we travel, we appreciate the familiarity of not only what the US has to offer when we return, but the aspects of Hungary that we have adopted as the norm and give us comfort.  For example, breakfast will seem incomplete without orange drink, hard boiled eggs, and the assortment of meat.  

Many of us will have suitcases filled with Jó Reggelt and Milka bars that have replaced the comfort foods we usually resort to in the US.  Even though we are leaving soon, there are the little things about Budapest that we aren't ready to give up just yet.  

A Serene Day in Sentendre

Some of the students who stayed in Hungary continued their set of daytrips on Saturday by catching a train to Szentendre. Szentendre (meaning Saint Andrew in Hungarian) is a town of 23,500 people about 10 miles north of Budapest. This small town is known for its museums, galleries, artists and small shops spread throughout the streets.

Szentendre is a beautiful town built along side the Danube. Despite the cold weather, we decided to take a walk down the bank of the Danube. With the addition of the snow on the ground, this scenic tour was quite stunning. At some places, there were streams running into the Danube that were small enough to feature some frozen wonders.

This trip was definitely worth more than the 530 forinths (less than $3) we each payed to go. It's definitely a good daytrip for those staying in Budapest. Also, who can resist a town whose baseball club is known as the Szentendre Sleepwalkers!

A Profile of the Beautiful City of Pécs

On friday morning, a group of three of us left on a 9:45 train to Pécs (pronounced "Pay-tch"). Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located about 130 miles south of Budapest. Pécs was selected to be one of 2010's European Capitals of Culture, along side of Essen (Germany) and Istanbul (Turkey). This honorable designation allows European cities to showcase their cultural significance on an international level. Since Pécs was a class day-trip for last year's interim in Budapest program, a few of us had already been to Pécs and were excited to see the changes being made for this new year.



Once we got off the train and trekked to the center of the city, we immediately began to notice a lot of construction. It seems that a lot of the changes and renovations being put into place for the year as a European Capital of Culture are still going on. Large monuments were taped off and guarded while renovations were made. We could only imagine how beautiful the city is going to look in the snow-free spring and summer.

Despite the associated cold, we welcomed the huge flakes of snow that really set the mood as we hiked up some of the hills to get great views of the city. While Pécs is a fairly large city (about 150,000 people), it had a smaller town feel and appearance.

Where in the World is...

While nobody knows where Carmen Sandiago is, we thought you would be interested in hearing where all of the Number Theory students (and professor) were going for the free weekend.

The largest group of students (a whopping 9 of them) is taking the weekend to Vienna (Austria), a historically popular choice for the Budapest interim's free weekend. Several students are making the 7 hour ride to Prague (Czech Republic) while a handful are staying in Hungary, making day trips to cities and towns such as Pecs, Szentendre and Tokaj. A few daring people are flying to larger and farther away cities such as Amsterdam, Berlin and London.

Curious Characters

After three weeks in Hungary, I can comfortably say that I've met a number of animated individuals. Whether or not this has anything to do with Hungarian culture itself is up for grabs, but the cultural differences almost have to contribute.

Exhibit A: for a couple of days in a row this week, a few of us ate lunch at a restaurant called Kadar. Supposedly it serves non-kosher, "traditional" Jewish-Hungarian cuisine, whatever that means. Whatever, it's delicious. Anyway, the menu changes from day to day, the prices are very reasonable, and the man and woman running the eatery are extrememly likable. The man we refer to as "The Doctor" because he wears a large white shirt every day and has a physicianly disposition and low voice. Plus he knows now to come over to our table and translate the menu when we walk in, almost like he's going over charts with illiterate patients. Now, both days we were somehow swindled into buying dessert! The first day the woman simply brought the succulent apple-meringue pastry to the table and, at that point, who's going to say no? The second day The Doctor saw that I'd finished my soup and began describing something delicious with his less-than-perfect English. I thought he was asking me how my meal had been and describing how they made the mushroom soup, so I nodded enthusiastically so that he knew I'd enjoyed my meal. Well, of course, 2 minutes later I had a plate of goodies in front of me again, which the boys along graciously lapped up. To wrap it all up, The Doctor helped me with my coat as we were leaving and said "Szia tomorrow!" I wasn't sure if he was saying "Szia", which is good-bye in Hungarian, or attempting an American "see ya", but either way it was very endearing. Unfortunately, we haven't returned for a third visit yet.

Exhibit B: Today we heard a lecture on a topic we could actually follow: Number Theory! Csaba Szabo was as crazy as his name looks! He gave what I considered to be the most engaging lecture thus far, excitedly slamming the sliding-chalk boards back and forth as he sketched illegible proofs out for us :) Being in the front row was a bit intimidating, as class participation was expected, but worth it. It's hard not to hold back giggles with a guy who asks us to find differences between numbers like "7 to the huge" and "29 to the lot".. The discussion pinnacled with a consideration of "how many trees you can see in the middle of the woods", assuming of course the trees are only located at every integer location like "all NORMAL forests". Turns out you can only see the trees that have coordinates that are relatively prime! Exciting, huh? And the probability that if you choose 2 numbers they're relatively prime? 6/pi squared. It still boggles my mind that we can assign finite numbers to ideas like that. Sorry, non-math followers! Point and case: Hungarians+Chalkboards=Inspiration.

As you can see from this elegant illustration (:

On another note, one of my favorite hobbies these past few weeks has undoubtedly been people- watching. Our commute across town every morning and afternoon carries us through some very energetic, busy crowds--presumably Hungarians on their routine commute to and from work or school. Over the weeks, my top three observations are: Hungarian commuters are polite, affectionate, and very, very stylish.

Polite: Even now that the strikes are over, public trams and subway stations are often very full, with people constantly sitting, standing, exiting, entering, stumbling from jerky stops (or maybe that's just us tourists) on the packed cars. Despite it all, and even with the language barriers, I've noticed that the elderly and handicap are always given a seat, that "excuse me" or "sorry" are frequently muttered, and that both passengers and drivers (usually) wait patiently for everyone to exit and enter the vehicles at each stop. And, in the unthinkable occasion when an Ole finds him or herself a bit turned around and unsure which direction he or she wants to go on a tram, it is plausible that a random Hungarian man or two who speak not a drop of English would patiently spend a solid five minutes pointing and gesturing until the student finally figured out where he or she was. Not that that has ever happened.

Affectionate: French kissing isn't only in France!

Very, Very Stylish: If you are a woman between the ages of 15 and 30 and you are every wondering what you could wear to fit in in Budapest, I guarantee a pair of dark-washed skinny jeans, tall black boots, and a black pea-coat with a cashmere scarf would do the trick! A few of us girls grabbed a quick lunch today then spent the rest of our hour shopping for what else but skinny jeans and boots. Tina warned us before we left that blacks, browns, and greys would be the most common colors on the streets, and she was right about that!

But enough stereotyping. To wrap it up, we are all anxiously looking forward to this weekend! After a week full of math, Tina has graciously given us tomorrow and Saturday off, so we are free to travel the world (okay... Central Europe). We are going in several directions... a group of about nine of us are catching the train to Vienna in the morning, while another group is headed to Prague, and a few daring individuals are catching flights to other exotic destinations. We are all hoping to find decent youth hostels for a reasonable price. The Euro isn't quite as friendly toward an American tourist as the Hungarian Forint, so we're all bracing ourselves for a pricey weekend! I have no doubt it will be well worth it, though... considering we've managed to entertain ourselves in Budapest for three weeks, I'm sure a weekend anywhere will be an absolute blast.

Hurdles in Hungary

Whenever anybody travels it is likely that they will run into a language barrier. We have definitely found many instances of miscommunications and blunders caused by our lack of Hungarian language expertise. We would like to share a few of these stories with you.

An instance where knowledge of a few more Hungarian vocabulary words could have come in handy was in the pastry shop. I would expect that in a pastry shop they would sell, you know, pastries. Typically the words alma (apple), csokoládé (chocolate), and cukor (sugar) are pretty useful and sufficient to get something deliciously sweet. However, one day I really wanted a jelly pastry. I found the perfect one, and I could see the red jelly peeking out of the edges. When I got back to the hotel, I bit into my pastry to find a hot dog. The red stuff? That was ketchup. What I learned: pastry shops in Hungary sell pizza and hot dog pastries (if you can still call them pastries) mixed in with the sugary ones, so don't buy a mystery pastry unless you are feeling adventurous.

Another oddity that many of us students have noticed is that when we hear a foreign language we immediately want to respond, not with English, but with whatever other foreign language we know. For instance, we who have taken Spanish feel the need to say adios, sí, or no comprendo. It doesn't help when you find Hungarian words spelled the same as a Spanish word but pronounced completely differently. "Este" in Spanish means "this," but in Hungarian it means "evening." So when one of our classmates tried pointing to a food item he wanted to buy saying "este" the vendor could not figure out what the food had to do with that evening.

At times we find that store owners also get frustrated with our Hungarian deficiency. There is a convenience store around the corner from our hotel called the CBA where we frequently stop for snacks. Many shops such as the CBA like costumers to pay with exact change. One student's purchase totaled 310 forints, so she paid with 400 forints which seemed close enough to the total to make a vendor happy. The cashier began angrily chattering at her, but the look of confusion on the student's face made the cashier more frustrated. The student first thought that there was something wrong with the purchase or the amount of money that she tried to pay with. Finally, after lots of hand motions, confusion, and anger the cashier realized the student had no smaller coins to pay with. So the cashier threw her the change and grumpily helped the next person in line.

Even opening doors in Hungary proves to be a serious challenge; do you push to open the door or pull? We are math students, but somehow a 50/50 probability to get this question right seems to end in 100% failure. We honestly cannot figure out why we all have so much trouble with this simple aspect of life. Occasionally we find the words tolni (push) and húzni (pull) on the doors, but then it is a matter of remembering which Hungarian word means which English word.

While we have learned many key Hungarian phrases, we still find ourselves in funny situations that make great stories. The entire interim trip is a learning experience, and we tend to learn more from our struggles (except we still have not learned how to open the doors on the first attempt).

Rubik’s Cubes!

Budapest is a city full of many different museums, one of which is the Iparművészeti Múzeum, or the Museum of Applied Arts, which several students visited today on our free afternoon. (The museum is readily recognizable by its green tiled roof and dome as seen in the picture.)
The Budapest museum was the third applied arts museum created in Europe, only after the ones in London and Vienna. It boasts a large collection of artistic furniture, glassware, metalwork, and the second largest collection of Ottoman Turkish rugs! But perhaps the most interesting exhibit in the museum, especially for math students, was the collection of puzzle blocks and games, including the Rubik’s Cube and many other variations on a similar theme. The exhibit even included a giant block puzzle colored to resemble a watermelon that visitors could rearrange and play with!

Already in this blog, we have been introduced to famous mathematicians Paul Erdős and Alfréd Rényi. It is worthwhile to introduce you to a few more famous Hungarians, both connected with the Applied Arts’ puzzle exhibit. The first is Ernő Rubik, the inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, which was prominently showcased in the exhibit. Rubik was born in Budapest and became a designer, architect and university professor. The first prototype of the Rubik’s cube was created in 1974, and first marked under the name of “magic cube” in 1975. It was not until 1980 that the toy was renamed “Rubik’s Cube” after its inventor. Rubik can be seen with his invention in the picture to the left. This year, 2010, the Rubik’s Cube will celebrate its 30^th anniversary! (For more information on the Rubik’s Cube check out www.rubiks.com)

Another important Hungarian connected with the Iparművészeti Múzeum exhibit is Tibor Szentivanyi. All of the colorful brainteaser puzzles on display came from his collection. Szentivanyi was also born in Budapest and studied computer technology at the Budapest University of Technology. He became a well-known computer engineer but it is said his real passion was puzzles and games. He became both an inventor and collector of puzzle games. After the invention of the Rubik’s Cube, Szentivanyi played a key role in marketing the toy worldwide. He even organized the first ever Rubik’s Cube World Championship in 1982, right here in Budapest!

These two influential Hungarians represent another reason why we are studying here in Budapest... not only are we here because of Budapest's strong mathematics history but also we are here for the fun and new experiences! Just as Rubik's Cubes are both mathy and fun - our trip has been full of math, new experiences, and fun!

Several students participated in a Professor's Dinner tonight at an upscale restaurant called Apostolok. After extensive work on renovations of the restaurant that opened in 1902, the Apostolok reopened a couple years ago and still attracts guests with traditional Hungarian dishes. The group of students started out with a cold starter that included the infamous Hungarian goose liver. They then went on to eat main entrees which include plates of tenderloin steak, lamb, salmon, and chicken paprika. The group then headed to a dessert cafe, where they indulged themselves in a plethora of traditional Hungarian sweets.

Notes on Hungarian Culture & History

While walking around Budapest, we come to notice some common fashion trends, the winter-wear, in particular. Hungarians tend to wear rather bland clothing. Their jackets are either neutral or dark in color; the only time you will see Hungarians wearing bright colors is if they are trucking around in their 1980's style full-body snowsuits. It is always easy for us to find two particular students on our trip; one has a bright yellow jacket while another has a tall, red hat.

There are also obvious by gender differences in dress; men do have different styles than women. I know, weird.

So, college-aged men wear the "swishy" winter jackets that we're used to, jeans, and brown or black shoes. While men older than this wear a leather jacket and a billed hat with furred edges. But by no means do they wear hats that are all made of fur; nothing close to those Russian style hats.

The women's styles split the population into differing age groups. The females that are our age wear skinny jeans tightly tucked underneath their knee-high boots. They either wear baggy hats or beanies, often with a crocheted flower attached and a long pea coat. Not too different is the clothing for middle aged women. Long down coats and a billed hat is the uniform for middle aged women. Their pants are typically not tucked into their boots. Lastly come the women over the age of 65. As if it is a coming of age tradition, these women wear full length fur coats. If they can't afford those, they have hats which are nothing but fur. (As pictured) It seems as if some women save money their entire lives to have enough to purchase a fur coat as such.

These are just simple observations by someone who knows little about fashion. We wish there were more pictures, but it can be rather awkward to just take pictures of strangers. When the opportunity arises, we will take and add more photos. I hope you enjoy what is here.

Now back to the strike. I know, you are all wondering how it's going. Well, don't worry, it's over now. We hopped on the tram to class this morning and smiled the whole way there.

Our cultural event this afternoon lasted much longer than expected today. We had the opportunity to watch and discuss A Hidember (The Bridgeman) with Andras, husband of our language teacher Erika. This Hungarian film (with English subtitles) tells the life story of Count Szechenyi Istvan, a 19th century Hungarian aristocrat. Szechenyi seems to be remembered most for his opposition to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and his initiation of the construction of the first official bridge connecting Buda and Pest. The bridge (Lanchid, or the Chain Bridge) was completed in 1849 - almost 30 years before the unification of the two cities. Before its opening, the Danube had to be crossed by boat or an unreliable pontoon bridge, limiting travel between Buda and Pest. Szechenyi however, dreamed of a permanent bridge that would be accessible to all Hungarian people.

The Szechenyi Chain Bridge is still around today, but not in its original form. Stone lion statues were added to the ends of the bridge in 1852. It's rumored that their sculptor was mocked so much for the lions not having tongues that he jumped off the bridge into the Danube in shame.
For the record, the lions do indeed have tongues... they're just not visible while standing in front of the lions and looking up at them. Later on during World War II, the bridge was damaged by the Germans and had to be rebuilt in 1949 in its original form.

A Hidember certainly enlightened us with the significance to names that we see all over Budapest. Szechenyi himself can be found on the otezer (5000) forint bill, has a thermal bath and metro stop with his namesake, and has statues and even a memorial museum in Budapest. It's no wonder he is referred to as the 'greatest Hungarian!'

The film also gave us a little insight into historical figures Kossuth Lajos, Wesselenyi Miklos, and Batthyany Lajos. These three men also have either metro or tram stops (and squares or streets) named after them... it seems that Hungarians have a consistent way of commemorating their political heroes! We certainly can now recognize the meaning behind the names we see everywhere, adding a whole new depth to the city. At the very least, it was interesting to learn so much about transportation on the day that the trams finally returned to us!

Plans for our free weekend coming up are forming, as a large group went to dinner tonight to plan their upcoming excursion to Vienna. Destinations being considered by other students are Croatia, London, and Amsterdam, with a few students opting to remain in Budapest and continue to explore all that this city has to offer.

P.S. A Slovakian snowman.

Good Thing We Don't Have To Drive

Upon our arrival to Budapest back in the first week of January, we experienced our first taste of Hungarian driving as our bus driver managed to quickly navigate the streets of Budapest, confidently squeezing the bus in between cars and onto narrow streets. This more aggressive style of driving continued to come to our attention as we rode the tram (or walked) to and from school. Sometimes it almost seems that drivers here speed up when they see a pedestrian crossing the street in front of them!

The traffic signs in Hungary differ from their American counter-parts, which has brought both confusion and amusement as we try to guess what some of the signs mean. We can only assume that foreigners traveling in America experience a similar situation.

One especially-noteworthy difference with traffic signals is that of the traffic light. While the colors and order are the same as American traffic lights, the traffic lights in Hungary display the yellow light not only to signal a period of yielding before the light turns red, but also to show that a red light will be turning green soon. This is demonstrated by lighting up both the red light and yellow light at the same time for a few seconds before turning green.

While walking around Budapest, it is hard not to notice a lot of graffiti on the ground, walls, traffic signs or anywhere it can fit. Unfortunately, this sometimes includes some graffiti on otherwise pretty statues and buildings, despite the efforts of the “I love Budapest” (Szeretem Budapestet) initiative. This program is a volunteer program that was put into place in recent years to remove graffiti from public buildings. (To read more about efforts on removing graffiti in Budapest, read an interesting interview at the Budapest Times website)

While some people view all graffiti as purely a form of vandalism, a lot of the graffiti in Budapest is done especially delicately to form a beautiful peace of art. These pieces of art add a lot of character to Budapest.

A few more of the confusing/humorous street signs.

A Chuck Palahniuk (author of some noteable works such as Fight Club) quote on the path to the freedom statue.

A graffiti potpourri on Gellert Hill

Hungarian Food, a Day at the Zoo (and no connection between the two!)

Eating in Hungary has been quite a new, and for the most part delicious, experience. Probably Hungary's most famous specialty is its ubiquitous paprika, which comes in various degrees of spiciness, including edes (sweet) and csipos (hot!). One of our classmates had an... educational experience with paprika paste at our class luncheon Saturday at St. Jupat, a good Hungarian eatery with enormous portions, reasonable prices, and lots of free csapviz (tap water). (Quite a few restaurants do not serve tap water, even though it is safe to drink; instead they sell small bottles of water.) In keeping with St. Jupat's large servings, they brought a full gravy boat of spicy paprika paste to a table where several students had soup. One of them added a significant proportion of the paste to his soup, in search of some spice. Boy, did he get it, and then some! On the whole, it was a nice meal, and many of the guys 'pol'ed food from women who could not finish their helpings. (At right is roasted turkey breast with a dill and corn cream sauce, served with seasoned rice, potato croquettes, and lightly pickled cabbage -- yum!)

Mat has been an invaluable resource in suggesting some hot spots in Budapest, including pastry shops. Ben's personal favorite is Ruszwurm, a cukraszda nestled in the quaint cobblestoned streets of Castle Hill, less than a block from St Matyas Church. Its tortes, cakes, and other sweets, are works of art for both the eyes and tastebuds to enjoy. Perhaps Ruszwurm is best known for its kremes, 2.5 inches of smooth, light, slightly sweet custard, embraced by upper and lower flaky, buttery pastry.

Ruszwurm's hazi csokolade tejszinhabbal (hot chocolate with whipped cream) is the best hot chocolate Ben has tasted in his life. It is like drinking a 70 % Cacao dark chocolate bar, with whipped cream -- the real deal: slightly sweet, thick and wholesome; not the thin white stuff that comes out of a can or plastic coolwhip from an equally plastic tub. As the whipped cream melts into the piping hot chocolate, a beautiful marriage is formed, as a chocolate tide streaked with ivory rises within the mug, threatening to spill over the sides if one does not soon begin to sip.

Other Hungarian gustatory traditions are less familiar to us Americans. The second Professor's dinner at the chic Bock Bistro on Andrassi Ut, offered a nice sampling of Hungarian specialties foreign to the American palate. For an appetizer, the group ordered a meat and cheese platter, which included 2 goat cheeses native to Hungary, paprika infused salami, and duck breast stuffed with goose liver. With the bread that accompanied the meal, instead of butter -- much to one of our classmates' dismay -- lard laced with bacon bits was served as a lubricant for the toothsome bread. While some shunned the lard, others quite enjoyed its pork flavor, given that it was spread thinly enough on the bread!

The main course included such dishes/side dishes as veal stew, eel, and crostini smothered in caramelized onions and... pig's ear! This latter component consisted of small squares of a thin, brittle white substance (cartilage?), sandwiched between one or two light brown, translucent layers of fat. The idea of eating pig's ear was harder to get over than the flavor, which was quite inoffensive and generally of pork. It is certainly safe to say that the Hungarians are much more thorough in their use of the entire animal than Americans (see photo of pig parts at the central market).

As with most American delicacies, Hungary has its own counterpart. A striking example comes to mind - the potato chip. Yes, the fried, salty snack which provides the perfect crunch to accompany almost any meal. In Hungary, we don't find a standard potato chip, rather to find what we would call "Original", we would purchase the Chio brand of chip "+20% salt."

In addition to other standard American varieties of the potato chip like cheese, sour cream and onion, and barbeque, the shelves of Hungarian stores are the home to two distinct flavors: paprika and bacon.

The paprika flavor is not at all that surprising when it can be found at almost every corner here in Budapest. In America, many use ketchup to add a little flavor to fries, hamburgers, and to some, almost anything. However, in Hungary, people find that adding paprika gives their meal exactly the right flavor. The paprika chips provide a sweet and mild flavor to coat the taste buds while showing an important attribute of Hungarian culture.

Bacon on the other hand is quite common in the United States. However, we find that Hungarians prefer a slightly different type of bacon. While many Americans choose their bacon with a higher percentage of meat, Hungarians choose bacon with a very high percentage of fat. It
is not uncommon when walking through the market to find slabs of bacon that appear to be 100% fat. These values cross over into their chip selection as well. After tasting this flavor new to us, we did find that there was a slight smoky taste; however we felt that the chips lacked the meaty taste we correlate with bacon. We suppose the Chio brand aims towards the fattier bacon that Hungarians are used to. By no means was this flavor unappealing (in fact I may buy another bag soon!) but it is simply unusual to our Americanized taste buds.

A last note on food: tonight, several members of the class went to Aranybarany, an upscale Hungarian restaurant with live gypsy music! Here is a video excerpt of a mellow tune. Enjoy!

While here in Budapest, students have tried to find some more diverse ways to entertain themselves. On a free afternoon, a group of students traveled to the Budapest Zoo to get their "animal fix" -- besides the pigeons that reside here in the city. Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my! -- Oh yes!

Within the first few exhibits, the students came across quite a sight -- a dancing elephant! Yes, that is right, the elephant was swaying its trunk while moving its body side to side pasting smiles on the group. We then remembered that the Budapest Circus is located next door to the zoo. Are the elephants working double time? Maybe...

The group also soon discovered that the zoo is less strict than the zoos in America. They found less distance placed between the animals and the visitors themselves. They found the giraffes in their indoor shelter from the cold with only a set of bars separating these magestic animals from their observers. A group of Hungarian visitors simply walked up, held out some food, and the giraffes gladly accepted the snack from the giving hands.

But that is not all! Though the group thought the bars holding the giraffes in formed minimal security for the large animals, they found an even more shocking discovery. Some animals were running free (within animal houses, of course!). The prime example - sloths! Yes, in a small primate house, the group found a pair of two-toed sloths climbing across the walking path. Not only did the sloths reach out to our fellow students, but a daring student reached back. Yes, Greg made some great new friends at the zoo.

Overall great trip? No doubt!

Is that the 47?!

Closing in on a week of the transit workers strike, we are getting pretty good at navigating the city on foot. Most of complaining related to the lack of transit has subsided. Yet today we witnessed one lone number 47 tram which is was the preferred method of transportation to school.





We didn't have class today and used the majority of the day to navigate ourselve around the city. However, our whole group went on a tour of the Parliament Building together and had lunch together, which proved to be a memorable experience. Since we have been here, we have found that a lot of Hungarians are pround and informative about the history of Hungary. It seems like every significant building, like the Parilament Building, has some history that dates back to the 19th century, but WWII and the Cold War played significant parts in it as well. For example, the crown jewels that we saw were stolen during the Cold War and returned to Hungary by the US in the 1980s. Also, we saw some famous works of art that were created (and preserved) due to the wars.


Some of the members in the group experienced the night life of Budapest and went to the A38, a jazz/dance club on the Buda side of the city. It was a great night that was filled with great food, good music, lots of twenty-something year olds, and a lot of dancing. This club was mentioned in several magazines as "hot spots" to hit while in Budapest, so we were happy to be able to experience that part of the city life.


With midterms over with and only two weeks left of the trip, we are hoping to gain the most out of this experience, even with the transportion mishaps.