a párttal, a néppel, egy az utunk.

a párttal, a néppel, egy az utunk. 2 sept 2002 Sziasztok! (hungarian "hi all!") =) soooo, tomorrow finds me actually done with my first class of the semester -- how scary is that?... since last mail, i continued to do a lot of sightseeing around budapest again, and did some major studying since i had an exam tomorrow and have to have prospective ideas for my CC honors thesis for valpo emailed to my advisor this week!... it's definitely been busy!... anyhow, as is the new trend -- here's my outline followed by my babbling about this, that, and everything plus some... i thought i was being incredibly long winded (am probably still am) this way, but i've gotten even more "wow, i really enjoyed reading your email" comments since i've been here in europe than in forever, so i might as well keep it up! =P... enjoy! *people (meet the cast! =P) *language classes (part 3 -- dur finale) =P *my week -- gellert hill, budapest zoo, cave church, fireworks, and more! *quotes of the week (back in their own section because conversations have finally moved beyond "hi, what's your name? where do you go to school?" =P) *pictures *... and onward =P people (meet the cast! =P) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ not that you'll likely ever come across these people, but because i've talked about a lot of places so far and i'm actually getting to know people better now that i've been here a bit, i thought i'd drop a few names... then there's not explanation needed every time they come up in future adventures! =P first off, i live in a three bedroom apt. in buda, and since there's multiple bedrooms, i don't have a roommate but an apt. mate... her name is amanda, and she's a junior math/biochem major from st. olaf college... we get along really well and do plenty of things together but are hitting it off with totally different people in the program so that we have plenty of time doing separate things as well =)... yay for that... on wednesday, we're supposed to get a third apt.-mate named jennifer whom we know nothing about, but hopefully she'll be as good a apt. match as amanda and i are and it'll continue to be one big happy party =) other important people? -- alina and michelle are probably going to become good travelling buddies... although BSM only accepts american and canadian students, alina is from romania and michelle is from singapore, so both of them are already "studying abroad" for all of college in the states and found themselves here... both are very softspoken, but extremely cool to chat with and i really like hanging out with both. since there aren't many other girls here, the others, in their entirety so far, are arlene, emily, and kristin... they all live with a hungarian families (arlene and emily with the same family)... arlene was my travel buddy to get here, emily was my organ recital buddy a week and a half ago, and kristin was the only other girl in my section of our langauge class -- all fabulous as well although so far i don't always run into them as much as amanda, alina, and michelle so that's what? 7 girls out of 30ish people so far, so usually i'm out and about with lots of guys -- such is life with groups of math people =P... mason and i have really hit it off... we've been in the same section of the language class and have lots of common interests math and otherwise and are both from dur South!... he's the person i'm going to bug periodically for digital pictures to send while i'm here -- he takes them, and in return, i give him copies of how i've formatted them on my puter so that he can send out decent size pictures as well (the orginals are like 10 times what i've sent all y'all) and it's an excellent trade =)... jason and kristin are both southerners as well -- you have no idea what a bond this is in a group like this! =) other random people i've been around a bit so far -- eric, from las vegas, who will prolly become GRE study buddy as the semester goes on... andrei, canadian guy who is also mason's roommate... rahul, crazy guy from rutgers who's always in the middle of everything here, 2 jeremys, both in my section of the language course who we've just resorted to calling jeremy 1 and jeremy 2 (they're as different as night and day but both fun to talk to...), and 2 patricks (one we call pat was the first other student i met here... from RI and has a MAJOR northeastern accent, and the other we actually call patrick, who is pretty funny and excellent for playing cards with -- his goal for the semester is to hitchhike to greece at some point, as soon as he talks someone else into going with him!)... a very diverse but absolutely awesome bunch of people =P i could list on and on but this is more than you'll care to remember anyhow... amanda mentioned earlier in the week i've prolly done the best job of everyone of getting to know EVERY single person here... that statement made my day, because starting from scratch and not knowing anyone, it's a little unsettling to not have a set group of people to hang out with, and i've been a little frustrated about that... for some reason, amanda's comment helped me look at things differently enough and realize i AM finding a niche here, just as usual, it's not with one set group -- it's more of being comfortable with everybody here, which is very spiffy indeed... now that things are rolling, it's cool to be able to just find ANY of the 30 people here and be able to go off and do something fun... i've already taught a few how wonderful a game euchre is and have several others saying "party in a box" =P.... now that language classes are done, and real classes start next week, a whole extra 15-20 people are coming in to get to meet, but yay for a most excellent group of folks to hang out with for the semester. =) language classes (part 3 -- dur finale) =P ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ what to say? 80 hours of intro language course in 2 weeks is an awful LOT to cram into your head at once!... fortunately, the teachers of the the intermediate hungarian class during the rest of the semester are the same ones as we've had so far, so they realize how quickly we've tried to cram new words and grammar into our heads and know it's not perfect yet =P my class has been an absolute riot... after we had an assigned sentence last week about samu (pronouned shamu) the dog who went from the egyetem (university) to the trafik (tobacconist)., we've been amused by hungarian names and all about driving our teacher nuts with more goofy examples... whenever we come across an irregular verb, we all burst out into marseilles (since ádám won't teach us the tune of the hungarian national anthem saying it's the most pessimistic song ever and he doesn't want to be sad in class)... the terms 1st person singular and 1st person plural have somehow turned into 1st player singular and 1st player gang as well.... 8 hours of language straight in a day does funny things to your head =P we've also managed to get in 15 minutes discussion every day on the proper use of y'all and gotten ádám to teach us the beginnings to several hungarian communist marching songs he had to sing lots when he was a small schoolkid here back in the day... interesting times indeed! (in case you're wondering, the subject line of this email reads "the party, the people, our one way") -- i still find it amazing that i'm livving in a country that just 12 years ago was part of the communist bloc.... major language-related accomplishments of the week: (1) i finally understand what the loudspeaker on the metro says as the doors close!: (take care the doors are closing)... not profound i know, but this was major since i'd been wondering what it says for two weeks now! (2) i read my first hungarian grafiti in its entirety: "jesus loves you"... although in hungarian it looks absolutely nothing like that =P (3) we learned the longest hungarian word ever (at least according to our teacher!) elkelkáposztásithatatlanságocitokért which more or less means "for your being not ready to be turned into little cabbage forever" -- how exciting is that? yay for fun times and learning lots, but thank gooodness for normal speed classes after this! =) my week -- gellert hill, budapest zoo, cave church, fireworks, and more! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ok, so again, i've done lots of sightseeing around town... but next week i'll have other cities to tell about (check out the last section of this email to see where =P)... for now, here's what i've been up to. =) gellert hill: last wednesday after class, andrew, andrei, mason and i got dinner and went to attack gellert hill... we had driven to the top on our bus tour week before this, but we weren't allowed to get out and look around then... first off history note: bishop gellert was sealed in a barrel in 1046 by folks who didn't like him trying to convert them to christianity; they threw him off this hill, which is pretty colossal, and into the duna.... today the hill's named after him and he's a famous hungarian martyr. the hill itself is on the southern end of central downtown, right along the river and rises 750 feet up... when you come across from the pest side, there's a HUGE statue of gellert holding up a cross over the city -- he's standing over a waterfall facing the river -- HUGE and incredible! (and this is only like 1/3 of the way up the hill)... when you get to the top, there's the hungarian citadel along with the liberation monument... (see pictures, attached!) =) more on the citadel... this structure dates back to the 1850s... it was built by the austria habsburgs at the beginning of the austro-hungarian empire... it was built to house 60 cannons that basically were there for the austrians to intimidate the hungarians... now, it's more of a tourist museum/restaurant area, but it's also amazing to walk around the building and see all the chips and holes in the wall from shells from WWII where they've just never repaired the building -- seeing that both here and elsewhere in town is really sobering to think how incredibly lucky america is to not have had war on our own land... (end of thought, but a big one) more on the liberation monument -- it's actually 3 statues, one of a woman holding a palm leaf, and two smaller ones on either side, one to represent progress, and one to represent stuggle with evil... this was originally built just post-WWII to honor the hungarian liberation by the russians at the start of the communist era here (although they modified it some when the russians left in 1990)... you can see this statue waaaay up high on the hill from many parts of the city and it was really cool to be right up there at the base of it as well =) so basically, we walked a bit of a ways across pest, all the way across elizabeth bridge, and up the hill around 6/7pm, no bus, no nothing...a bit steep some places, but doable, and the view the whole way is AMAZING... you can literally see the whole city as you wind your way up =) (see pictures attached)... we reached the top just before dusk, then got drinks and played chess while the sun went down and the city lit up for the night -- quite the spectacular view and well worth the hike up!... absolutely incredible! budapest zoo: this weekend, amanda, eric, and i made a day of visiting things we all wanted to see, the first of which was the zoo -- apparently they're known for their high hippo fertility rate, which they attribute to the fact that budapest is full of hot baths and they add a special mineral solution to the hippo water... i don't ask -- i just repeat *interesting* facts =P.... *the* other main sight to see there is the elephant house -- the building is pretty ornate for an animal house at a zoo -- it features a tall tower that takes 96 stairs up a very very steep spiral staircase to get up, but from the top you can see a large part of the city and pretty much the whole zoo, so it's worth the climb =).... for dad -- parts looked just like our backyard -- they had touloose geese, mute swams, guinea fowl, various random chickens, goats (one looked just like ruthie), llamas, etc. they also had a fairly new baby gorilla, a baby kangaroo, and a very small baby giraffe... other interesting things i found different about the budapest zoo as compared to american zoos i've been to -- they actually had a farm dog on dispplay in the children's petting area, as if no one has a dog =)... it was also neat because you could get within touching distance of almost ALL the animals (camels, giraffes, etc. included!), much unlike an american zoo where there's moats and stuff in the way... the especially cool thing was that unlike how i've seen at like memphis zoo, etc., there weren't really problems with people throwing weird things at the animals or trying to get too close, and since the people had a totally different demeanour around the animals, the animals had a totally different response to the people -- it was as if they were equally interested in us... i was especially impressed by a few of the things i saw in the reptile house that i don't remember ever seeing before -- what i wrote down (for dad) was a matamata, weber's sailing lizard, and a reimann's snaknecked turtle -- those three were the funniest shaped animals i had ever seen! the zoo also had a labyrinth of trees to find your way in out of and overall was one of the greenest places i've been in town! fabulous visit indeed! =) etc., etc., etc.: on our way back to the subway from the zoo, we stopped by the vajdahunyad castle complex, which isn't one building but many -- they're all copies of famous buildings throughout hungary over time and really impressive to stand in front of -- there's museums inside too that we didn't have time for, but we did find the statue of anonymous... it's a famous statue of a hooded monk sitting with a pen in one hand and a huge book next to him, and the statue has no eyes! (hence the title 'statue of anonymous')... paul erdos, famous mathematician, used to have that statue as one of his favorite meeting spots back in the day. nearby, we also passed hero's square again, which i described last time -- on the end of the square we didn't walk through last week is hungary's tomb of the unknown soldier... we got more excellent pictures and were just impressed to soak in that whole part of town again after that, we absolutely had to see the holy right since it was on our way back... so it was off to the basilica again to check it out... this isn't to be weird or disrespectful or anything, it's just so fascinatingly random to me that a country would save their first king's hand for a whole millenium! anyhow, that is, we could have seen it except when we got to the basilica there was a wedding going on -- although other tourists were milling around, (and some even sat down in the back for the wedding!), we felt it would be a little disrespectful to stay and left again -- i'm starting to believe it's not really there now that we've tried to see it twice and not succeeded yet! =)... one of these days.... we also tracked down a couple english bookstores in downtown Pest which will be especially key to me in writing my CC thesis for valpo, as one in particular has shelves and shelves and shelves of eastern european history/politics/culture, whereas stuff specifically like what i want about hungary i've seen 3 books total of in the states! the other store has a large fiction section and i found an out of print co-authored book by douglas adams i had never seen before... this store was also the first place i've seen lots of english magazines and newspapers besides the budapest sun (an english language weekly i pick up regularly -- only news about budapest though)... including time (europe edition), newsweek, wall street journal, and (for everyone who has ever taken a CS class at valpo....) dr. dobb's journal (go figure finding *that* in a small off-the-beaten path store in downtown budapest....) =P... anyhow, i was excited to know the resources are there =) finally, we went over to gellert hill again to check out the cave church... this is exactly what it sounds like -- gellert hill has a lot of rock in it, not just soil, and for forever there's been this naturally formed cave at the base of it that's visible from a long ways away... back in the 1920s, an order of monks from poland converted it into a church that still holds services today and is connected to a monastary, also under the hill... i've been in caves before, but always caves that were set up to point out geology kind of stuff -- it was really really cool to be in a cave that is functionally used for something else and besides that it was absolutely beautiful! belated fireworks: saturday night, they also finally shot off the fireworks from st. istván's day that had been postponed due to flooding elsewhere in the country -- when they say big fireworks, they're not kidding... but think about it -- this is the equivalent of if america would decide that because there's flooding in say maine, to postpone 4th of july fireworks and celebrations in DC until like july 15... i still find it incredible that the hungarian government did this! ok, so about the display -- every guide book we've read, everything we've seen, says budapest celebrates aug.20 with a huge dramatic fireworks display -- so the expectation is: ok, i like fireworks, they'll be big and pretty and i don't want to miss them, but there won't be anything i haven't seen before -- um wrong!... ok, first off, think about the geography of budapest, and really, this is the absolute *perfect* venue for a major fireworks display -- you have pest, which is totally flat (excellent for viewing), a river full of bridges (empty space w/o buildings = potential to do some really spiffy extra stuff), and then buda which has some majorly collosal size hills (excellent for shooting fireworks from so that they're impossible to miss)!... most people were either right along the river banks or on the bridges, which were closed off to traffic for the event... we ended up in the middle of the chain bridge, and for the display, we actually climbed the cables and sat about 8 feet off the ground to watch, and this turned out to be the ideal place to be -- first off, they had huge speakers atttached to the bridges and all along the river playing music... once the show was about to begin, they actually turned out all the street lights along the river and all the lights on the bridges at once -- there were dozens and dozens of boats between chain bridge and elizabeth bridge (the two bridges in the center of everything, elizabeth is right adjacent to gellert hill and the chain bridge is the next bridge north) all lit up in red white and green (the colors of hungary)... once the fireworks started, they matched up with the music on the speakers, and here's where things got really impressive -- they weren't just shooting fireworks off of gellert hill, although that was the main spot -- there were HUGE fireworks being shot from about 6, maybe even 7 different locations right along the river all around us, all synchronized to be one huge panoramic display -- in between loud bursts, there were laser lights running over the river and drawing shapes on buildings on the opposite side coming from the top floors of 2 major hotels in pest and from the top of the royal palace in buda -- i actually saw some kinds of fireworks i had never seen before and can't think of how to describe them -- 7 sets at once, plus three coordinated laser shows is a LOT to take in at once! on top of that, on the very tops of the columns on the chain bridge and all along elizabeth bridge there were people juggling/spinning batons and hoops of fire as well! -- at some points, the whole citadel on top of gellert looked like it was totally ablaze in flame! -- for the grand finale, not only was there the expected lots and lots of fireworks at once thing, it was coming from multiple directions, the laser lights were writing all kinds of things on the buildings along the riverfront and lighting up the river, and THEN, they practically set elizabeth bridge on fire!... literally, for the whole length of the bridge it was lit up in bright white, with fire going all the way from the bridge down to the water -- it was a HUGE cascade of light for nearly 5 whole minutes! i hope i've explained this well -- it merits this long of a paragraph, as i've NEVER seen ANYTHING like it!!!! -- the whole thing lasted well over half an hour, closer to 45 minutes -- even when i was going to bed 4 hours later, the laser lights could still be seen all over the city -- when hungary puts on a fireworks display, they're not messing around!!! ICB revisited: as if i don't have enough to chat about already this time!, on sunday i went back to international church of budapest again -- i couldn't go last week because of the required tour of town for class, but lots and lots of people remembered me from two weeks ago. since it was the first sunday of the month, the service was longer for communion and for children's church combined with regular church (normally they have the kids go out separate halfway through).... the worship music was absolutely awesome as this week we had special guest worship leaders -- several guys from the congregation who are from various parts of africa put together and ensemble and led for the week -- the harmonies were absolutely awesome -- this congregation can SING!.... after church was even longer b/c it's not summer anymore, so every other week they have a coffee/chat hour afterwards, and one of the girls i was sitting near made sure i came -- after that, all the 20/30 somethings went out for lunch and they invited me out with -- i think i'm gonna have an absolute blast getting to know these people. this week i was out with hank (a 30 something guy who does a lot of church building work in albania), dorian (romanian guy who works with hank some, and otherwise is just around budapest), shalom (i think she's one of the pastors' daughter, but has grown up around here more or less), zsofi (=sophie, who is hungarian and just chooses to come to the international church), cristina (who, from her fluency, etc. has been here quite awhile but i think is orginally from elsewhere), and julie (gal from chicago who's working here for GE for 6 months) -- to me it was really awesome to be out with such a diverse group of people, and although i love being out with the BSMers too, it was cool to see the town with some veterans and actual hungarians =P -- oh, and pastor glenn (the head pastoor) was telling julie and me (both of whom "used to" play flute) that he's been praying for a violin and a flute to add to the worship mix for awhile and he's gonna get one of us to play somehow or another -- who knows if the silly thing (my flute) might turn up here somehow eventually =P -- it was just a party in a box kinda day -- i already know i'm gonna miss these people when i leave -- also, reminiscent of valpo style, they're totally all about lots of hugs for everyone, but even more so! -- yay for absolutely awesome people =) profound ICB question of the week: can *you* close a banana? .... and finally(!) that's about it.... =) quotes of the week (back in their own section because conversations have finally moved beyond "hi, what's your name? where do you go to school?" =P) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ profound quote of the week: you can never be too small for God to use, but you can be too big. ~pastor glenn if you aren't a hugging type person, we will MAKE you into one -- it's like the first rule of ICB -- welcome to the club! ~hank lara, you did NOT just say yay -- *no one* says that! ~andrew (i purposely use yay even more than normal now) =P awww, c'mon now... no one knows the answer? electric shocks for you all! ~ádám (our hungarian teacher) andrew: so ádám, you know the bars in the metro that you hang on to when it's moving? you know the metros here move really fast and if you don't hold on, you could fall down... do you think that's how eastern europeans got so good at gymnastics? ádám: what?!? andrew: does the name béla not mean anything to you? ádám: ok, so, instead of hungarian class, you mean to say that there's this funny guy doing gymnastics in the metro named béla -- NOW i understand your problems... um no, not really i beg to differ -- this is not a 'contemporary social problem' - this is a 'simple logistics problem'! ~andrei patrick: kérek egy krepp fahéj, két csoki, és harmincs hawaii (i'd like one cinnmon crepe, two chocolate, and thirty hawaiian) waitress: huh? patrick: harmincs haw-a-ii (thinking that was the problem) waitress: huh? patrick: harmincs HAW-A-II! waitress: harmincs?!?!? patrick: harmincs.... oh! wait... waitress: három (three) patrick: igen... három hawaii... bocsánat!... három (yes, three hawaiian... sorry!... three) (oops! =P... this quote will live in infamy and probably haunt him the rest of his stay here =P) ádám: and of course hungarian drivers, you know, are the 2nd worst drivers ever mason: who's the first? ádám: the devil... hungarian drivers are 2nd worst ONLY to the devil. kristin:...but some countries in europe are basically just a mix of all the people in bordering countries and they call themselves a new nation -- like belgium... belgians are just a mix of the people in nearby countries, but they call themselves different... that's what i'm talking about... andrei: so basically you're saying belgium is one big party in a box? (success! -- my phrases are spreading!) pictures ~~~~~~~~~ 5 more to share from my adventures... hope you enjoy =) (a) a shot of downtown pest from halfway up gellert hill... see the orange roof building in the front? behind that and a little to the left is a red roof building... and immediately behind that is a long rectangular brown building with an arch in the middle.... the brown building with the arch is at the front of the street where i go to the internet cafe all the time... about 2 blocks right of that (south) is where we've been going for language classes =) don't you feel informed now! =P (b) central statue of the liberation monument in front of the citadel on gellert hill (c) waterfall and statue of gellert, taken while standing over the duna on elizabeth bridge... the statue of gellert (in the middle of the white semicircle up top) is between 1/3 and 1/2 way up the whole hill -- the bulk of dur hill lies to the left =P (d) nighttime cityscape from top of gellert hill... bridge in the middle is the chain bridge (the one you got a daytime picture of last time), dome on the left (buda side) is the hungarian royal castle, dome on the right(pest side) is the parliament building. (e) group shot at the budapest parade mentioned last week... faces from left to right: eric, ben, amanda, jason, patrick, mason, me, arlene, and andrei ... and onward =P ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ so yeah, this next week is a transition week... lots of new BSMers coming... language class done, real classes starting in a week... in light of the break, most of us who have been here a couple weeks are traveling... i'm leaving wednesday morning for vienna with alina and emily... it's less than 150 miles from here, which isn't bad at all!... we plan to check out one of their big castles (there are a few to choose from), and to find the huge famous ferris wheel =) -- and whatever else we can pack in in 2 days =)... i find it amazing that in under 3 hours i can just ride off to a totally different country here -- might as well take advantage of that while i have the chance, right? =P.... we'll be back friday in time for bsm orientation to real classes and then it's finally time to settle into a groove for the semester! =) i also find it amazing that i've been here nearly 3 weeks already and we've done soooo much and have yet to hit the main schedule of things yet!... anyhow, that's plenty for now -- visontlátásra! lara =)