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:
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
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:
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.
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:
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
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:
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:
Friday, March 4, 2011
Weird Stuff About Hungary
I'm stealing this post verbatim from a friend's Facebook note.
Webpages that may or may not be relevant:
- 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:
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Wednesday Afternoons
There's a group of us who meet up after class on Wednesdays. Here's what we do.
UPDATE:
We've since started watching Lord of the Rings and playing Settlers of Catan. Best day of the week.
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:
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
A Paradigm Shift
This semester, I have picked up a habit that for years I believed disgusting, vile, and absurd - I do math in pen.
Webpages that may or may not be relevant:
Math from grade 1 to about freshman year of college is all about calculating. It's pretty boring and you tend to make a lot of silly mistakes, requiring lots of erasing. It's also not particularly difficult (at least conceptually). Because of my experience erasing lines and lines of work when forgetting to carry an exponent around, and because I have never had to go back and refer to previous work, I had done all math in pencil.
"Real" math is different. Homework problems are sentences; solutions are paragraphs. Instead of having to crunch numbers, you have to grapple with an idea. This semester, Csaba (the animated Number Theory professor) said something the first day that really struck me:
Never use pencil when you're doing math, only pen. If you make a mistake, don't scribble it out so you can never read it again. Just cross it out with a single line. That way, if you try a new method and realize that your first approach was right, it is still there on the page to remind you. If the idea was sound, but it didn't work for that problem, it might work for another problem. If it turns out that it was nonsense, you just won't look at it ever again.It struck me as an interesting philosophy, so I tried it out the first day. I haven't looked back.
Webpages that may or may not be relevant:
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