A Bicikli

So, I'm done with the travel memoirs for now.  On to the fantastic, adventurous day I had yesterday.

After a lazy morning, I decide it's high time to take a shower.  My bathroom is quite spacious, and the shower is nice and roomy.

(Aside - Some interesting things about European bathrooms in general: The shower has a temperature knob with actual numbers (in Celsius of course), which is great, because I now know that I like 39 degrees.  The toilets are very strangely built so that there is a small hole in near the front of the bowl, the rest being more of a shelf - perhaps to avoid unwanted splash landings - and have 2 flushers.  Bathrooms often have towel warmers and washing machines (though dryers are completely unknown here).)

Anyway, the shower head is on a hose that you have to hold as it lacks a wall fixture, which gets annoying.  Feeling innovative, I grabbed an Ethernet cable, tied some knots, and we now have a working shower head holder.  This is my second successful shower head hanging in the past year, but I won't let it go to my head.

Shower completed, I get the sudden urge to go out and be active (weird, I know).  We have had a bike sitting in the closet all semester, and I decide it's high time to go for a ride.  Oh...flat tires.

Then I remember that Alex wanted to play some ping pong.  So I go to Tesco, buy a paddle, some balls, and a bike pump, and head to the park.

Alex: [Pointing] I think those are the tables over there.
We approach the tables.  They don't have nets.
Us: ....?
Me: If only we had some rocks and a long stick, we could set the rocks on either side of the table and lay the stick on top.  Let's look around for some.
Alex: Like these? [Holds up 2 bricks and a very straight stick that are sitting under the table.  Apparently I'm not the first person to have that idea.]
We play ping pong and philosophize for 2 hours.


Arriving home, it's bike time:

1. Pump tires:
1. Figure out how the darned nozzle connection works (10 minutes)
2. Pump (15 minutes)
2. Fix broken saddle mount
1. Locate effective building materials (ie: string, pliers, paper clips, zip ties etc.)
2. Settle for cardboard and twist tie.
3. Tinker (10 min)
3. Mount panniers (20 minutes)

By the time I leave for a ride, it's about midnight.  After about 3 minutes of trying to word a joke, I'll give up and just say that I went 3 km in the completely wrong direction, ending up surrounded by Chinese billboards and what looked like a cross between circus grounds and an internment camp (also in Chinese).  After a lot of wrong turns, I make it home by following the signs to the Tesco Hipermarket (it's better than a supermarket).

At least I get to ride to school now, saving me some time in the morning.  The downside is that I live on the 4th floor.

Webpages that may or may not be relevant:

• http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS393US393&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=define%3A+panniers

Bratislava and Szeged

These trips were on different weekends, but both single day excursions.  Hopefully I won't make this too long.

Bratislava:
We arrive, meet a hostel owner that rivals The Four Seasons in hospitality, and make our way out, intending to do the "3 Hour Tour of Bratislava" which can be found in the official tourism pamphlet.  The weather was beautiful and we were in only our t-shirts (causing me to momentarily wonder where I had forgotten my jacket as we left a restaurant).  Needless to say, the tour took us to all the most important sites in the capital of Slovakia, including:

this statue of a photographer,

this statue of the town dandy,

and "the only statue in Europe coming out of a hole in the ground."

Conclusion: there's not much in Bratislava.  Much more exciting were:

these 2 pigeons mating,

this fantastic graffiti,

and ordering the "Lunch of student who want to disport himself to his girl-friend."

Szeged:

There are exactly three highlights of this trip:

1. The trip was organized by BSM (that's my program) and included a colloquium lecture on "Volume in Higher Dimensions."  As I've never been to a colloquium, I didn't know what to expect, but was very pleased.  Turns out that the volume of a "sphere" of radius 1 in n dimensions approaches zero as n approaches infinity.  There were some other interesting results as well. 
2. We toured the big church in town (the name escapes me at the moment).  What was nice about it is that, unlike most of the notable churches around here, it is only about 100 years old.  Not only was the outside constructed from brick,
3. 
4. but the interior had arches and geometric decorations very reminiscent of a mosque.
5. 
   
   
   
   
   It was also decorated with murals of figures from the Old Testament, which made for some good guessing games.
6. Breakfast at the Cow Restaurant (actual name unknown) included half-liter mugs of chocolate milk.  It was so good.  Also, when 20+ people walked in at the same time, the person at the counter just laughed.

Oh, and also the most wonderful playground this side of Vienna:

Conclusion: Blogger's formatting tools are not up to scratch.


Webpages that may or may not be relevant:

• Prague Pictures
• Szeged and Bratislava Pictures
• Billy Jean

Prague

In the past few weeks, I've traveled to Prague, Bratislava, and Szeged (a city in Hungary).  I didn't bother writing about them as I've already done some travel summaries.  I'll try to post some of the more amusing highlights from each of these.

Prague:
Our hostel in Prague was fantastically close to the Old Town Square, the center of tourism in the city.  This afforded me a great opportunity to look at the local, 600+ year old astronomical clock:

Legend has it that the maker was blinded for his efforts - but only to ensure that its equal could never be constructed in another city.  The blind clockmaker (something Mother Nature can't even achieve) had his revenge; he removed a single, small gear from the inner workings, vexing everyone who tried to fix it for decades after.

Later, we saw an amazing Cathedral.  The purple light that shined through the stained glass was beautiful:

Next, we made our way to the Lennon (not, as we had previously thought, the Lenin wall):

Incidentally, I'm currently wearing that exact outfit.

The next day was a pretty somber day.  We toured the one-of-a-kind Museum of Torture.  I was a lot more disturbed than I expected to be.  It was very fascinating, but also very upsetting that these gruesome (you don't want to know) tortures were inflicted joyfully and by law on fellow human beings.  This prompted much discussion about witchcraft, the Holocaust, and current affairs.

We made our way to the Jewish Quarter, where we walked through a number of synagogues, one of which (Pinchas Synagogue) is a Holocaust Memorial.  Filling every available inch of wall space are the names of 78,000+ Czech Jews killed during the Holocaust.  The number doesn't feel real until you are surrounded by rooms and rooms of the names, no more than half an inch tall, all around you.

A better part of the group I was travelling with were not only non-Jews, they had (a) zero Jewish friends at home and (b) never been in a synagogue.  I spent the day as a cultural, historical, and religious tour guide, which was a lot of fun.

Well, it seems like I've rambled on much longer than I intended, so read the next post (which, annoyingly enough, appears above this one) for Bratislava and Szeged (much shorter, I promise).

Webpages that may or may not be relevant:

• http://utf.mff.cuni.cz/Relativity/orloj.htm
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henley_shirt

a785236's Youtube Channel

I'll post videos from my travels.  Right now, these consist of street performers.

Also, I've read about 400 pages of Sherlock Holmes in the last week.


Webpages that may or may not be relevant:

• http://www.youtube.com/user/a785236

Carnival in Venice

This past weekend, 11 of us went to Venice.

Friday, at 20:00, we all board an overnight bus to Venice.  As we begin the journey, the on-board movie begins; fittingly enough, it was The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino as Shylock.  It was very good.  The movie ends, it's 22:30, the seats are uncomfortable, none of us are tired, and we are scheduled to arrive in Venice at 6:00 to begin our weekend.  It looked bleak.

7.5 hours later, it still looked bleak.  In fact, it looked like this:

Turns out, arriving at 6:00 was the best possible scenario.  As we would soon find out, Venice was overrun by tourists from about 9:00 to 3:00 (the next morning).  This wholly unpleasant hour of arrival meant that for about 3 hours, we had the whole of Venice to ourselves.  With no map, all we knew was that the bus station is on the west side of the island.  Conveniently enough, the sun rises in the east, guiding us to San Marcos Square.  The sunrise was beautiful:

Walking around the city while it was empty, dead ends around every corner, and pedestrian paths and winding canals between strange looking buildings, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was in some new sequel to Myst.  It's a very unique city and roaming aimlessly doesn't get boring.

Anyway, I won't give you a play-by-play of the whole weekend - just a synopsis:

Saturday was reserved for walking around, people watching, eating street food, and generally enjoying the city and the atmosphere.  San Marcos Square was a treat; it's filled with strange architecture,

 a view of the Grand Canal,

and - most notably - very wealthy Carnival-goers who spend hundreds of dollars on their costumes.

(don't let the fact that you can see the ground mislead you - this picture was taken before 10:00)

Saturday night, we go to an Italian restaurant (they just call them "restaurants" in Venice...weird) where we get pizza and gnocchi (we weren't blown away) and chianti (we were very pleased), before joining the island-wide late-night party that is Saturday night during Carnival.  During the course of the hazy night, our large group gets separated into 4.  Astoundingly, we all meet up on the boat to our hostel.  Did I mention that public transportation is by boat?

Sunday, we tour the Correr Museum (a general purpose museum), the Doge's Palace, and a church or 2.  I highly recommend the Doge's Palace.  It includes an prison, armory, the government complex, and the Doge's living quarters (in reverse order).  Given the very unique governmental structure of Venice (read about it below), the complex felt like a combination of the White House and Parliament (except more Italian).  It was very big, very interesting, and very much worth the 4 euros to get in (not to mention escaping the crowds).

By the time Sunday night rolls around, we are dead.  A quick accounting showed that by the time we boarded the bus, we had been in Venice for 50 hours, 5 of which involved sleeping, after a sleepless 10 hour drive from Budapest.

Tuesday morning, we compared the sleep we got on Monday. Salem won with 17 hours.


Webpages that may or may not be relevant:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice
• http://www.tickitaly.com/tickets/venice-clock-tower.php
• http://danehjoon.tumblr.com/post/3552383521/its-very-venezia

Agame: A Game

If it wasn't 3:00 am, I would try to make this post more clever.

While in Venice, a lethargic game of Contact morphed into a competition to see who could name the best 'A' words with quality determined by general consensus (ex: assuage, azalea).  Then we struck upon something interesting: some 'A' words can be separated into "A" and "the-rest-of-the-word" where the latter is still a word. (ex: aspire = a + spire).  This started a new game - find as many such words as possible.

Notes:

• Phonetic answers are okay.  For example, "abalone" is not quite "a" + "bologna," but still notable.
• A word of the form "A" + "double consonant" + "stuff" is completely acceptable.  For example, "acclimate."
• Extra points for words that are:
• more than 2 syllables
• pronounced very differently when concatenated than when separated
• Other letters are possible (ex: bemused, beaches (that's be + aches))

Have fun!  Leave answers in the comments.

Webpages that may or may not be relevant:

• http://readdancebliss.blogspot.com/2007/09/egg-salad-game_15.html

Weird Stuff About Hungary

I'm stealing this post verbatim from a friend's Facebook note.

- The hungarian word for hello / goodbye is pronounced "see ya" ... this was confusing the first day

- Hungarians still use "hello" but to them it also means "goodbye" ... this is still  confusing

- Sugar here is less sweet (it's not from sugar cane) 

- Vectors are underlined

- The contradiction symbol they use is a lightning bolt.  this is awesome.  

- Exclamation points do not mean the same thing here as they do elsewhere ... none of us have figured out what they <span> </span>mean here

- The word for 'kitty' is still one sound away from a slang word for breast (cica and cici) vs (kitty and titty)

- They have super markets.  was not expecting that.  

- "I'm Hot" means "i'm Gay"

- The dogs here are all very well trained.  Srsly.  Probably because the others get run over.

- The leading quotation mark is a subscript

- Games are not "strategic" they are "tactical"

- They don't have "tounge twisters" they have "tounge breakers"

- english "Cookie"  is hungarian for "weiner" or "pee pee" (childish word for penis)

- I get a cheese pastry every day for $0.50  It's a sizable pastry

- Coffee stores sell women's lingerie

- I'm a millionair here   

- Old men do play chess in the hot baths.  

- I don't get their humor: Why do elephants have white feet? It's camoflauge for when they swim upside down in milk.

- You aren't "done" with a question, you are 'ready' ... no idea what we are ready for.  

Webpages that may or may not be relevant:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_contradiction#Notation 

Wednesday Afternoons

There's a group of us who meet up after class on Wednesdays.  Here's what we do.

Step 1 - Snack

Gyros, langos, palancsinta, or a pastry

Step 2 - Just the Good Beers

Some of the others visit a tiny store called Just the Good Beers - a beertique if you will - where they buy expensive beers.

Step 3 - Cards

Spades, Bridge, Cribbage, BS, or Rummy

Step 4 - Dinner

On the way to the dinner-host's apartment, we stop at the market and split the cost of groceries.  Then we cook and eat a good dinner.  There's always leftovers.

Step 5 - Schmooze

What's a good game to play after dinner?....Contact!  As a side note, it's nice to play with math majors because things like Peano Arithmetic and the Penrose Triangle come up.

UPDATE:
We've since started watching Lord of the Rings and playing Settlers of Catan.  Best day of the week.

Webpages that may or may not be relevant:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(word_game)
• http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PenroseTriangle.html