|
Hi, everybody!
This is the end of the 5th week of classes, which means I'm a third of
my way through the term here.
Thursday was Forrest's birthday, so on Monday I went to get him a
present. I thought about returning to the market for that purple hat,
but I remembered that about a month ago, he had been fascinated by some
pillows embroidered with elephants he saw in an Indian-themed store
near Babilon language school, so I went there instead. The pillows
turned out to be way too expensive, but fortunately there were plenty
of other elephant-bedecked products available. I bought a small
wooden
box with a picture of an elephant on the lid (it seemed like it would
be sturdy enough to survive a plane ride back to the US, unlike the
thin, wooden elephant bookmarks) and decided to walk home, since the
store was right next to the Danube. It turned out that I had
miscalculated how far it was home--I thought I was crossing the Ersebet
Bridge, but it was actually the Szabadsag (Freedom) bridge, so it was
about a 2-km walk home. (Shortly after crossing the bridge, I saw a
sign on the bike path saying "Lanchid--1.8 km" or about that
distance.
The Lanchid is the bridge closest to my house.) Oh, well. It
was a
windy day but clear, so it was a nice day for a walk. I strolled along
the river and admired the foliage.
That evening, I had dinner at a small Chinese restaurant near my
house. I brought my number theory along, intending to get some work
done during dinner. When I arrived, I was the only customer, so the
waiter was delighted that I had come. He was even more delighted when
he found out that I spoke a little Hungarian, since most foreigners in
Hungary don't. (The waiter was not Chinese.) All through the
meal he
kept coming back to my table and asking me about my math (apparently he
really liked math and physics when he was in high school) and making
comments about the Hungarian educational system. I didn't understand
a
lot of what he said, but he was animated, and it was fun to pick out
what I did understand and try to carry out a conversation in Hungarian
with someone outside of my host family. I didn't get much work done,
but I left the restaurant so amused that it was worth it.
The rest of this week I've eaten dinner at home: bread, cheese, meat,
yogurt, and leftover chicken and rice from the Chinese restaurant.
Very tasty. Tonight I'll be going to St. Jupat's, a Hungarian-food
restaurant by Moszkva Ter, with a bunch of people to celebrate
Forrest's birthday.
On Wednesday I had Conjecture & Proof and Hungarian. In Hungarian
class we got our weekly journals back, as usual. Last week I had
written the conclusion to the 3-part story in which Peter Wimsey and
Harriet Vane solve the mystery of the stolen crown of St. Stephan.
(St. Stephan was Hungary's first king, who declared the country to be
Catholic, and his crown is a national treasure. It's on display in
the
Parliament.) I was quite proud of my story, so I was disappointed
when
our prof, Erika, handed it back covered in red ink, without any comment
about the plot of the story. Adding insult to injury, she also
returned some homework that we had done involving the
words "to," "from," "onto," etc. Even
though I had only written ten
simple sentences about how I set the table ("First, I take the plate
off of the shelf. Then I put it on the table..."), I had managed
to
make dozens of mistakes. How frustrating! I felt like I needed
a
break from schoolwork, so instead of working on the Conjecture and
Proof problems, I spent the evening reading "Pillars of the
Earth." I
was expecting it to be slow reading and hard to get into--it's about
building a cathedral! How exciting could it be?--but it turned out to
be really engaging. I read all of part one (there are 5 parts) that
night, and put the book in my backpack so I can read it on the metro to
& from school.
I stayed up later than I intended reading, so I was slow to get moving
on Thursday morning for my 8am Combinatorics class. I thought I was
late as I rushed to the metro station, but when I got on the metro,
there were Melody, Natalie and Jonah sitting together in the first
car! I sat with them and enjoyed the ride to school, where we arrived
just on time.
That's my news for this week. I hope you're all doing well, and I'll
talk to you again soon!
Viszlat,
Abra
|