A Couple of Anecdotes

I have been a neglectful blogger. The past few weeks have gone by and I haven't written a word. To be sure there have been some funny, interesting, or bizarre encounters that would make amuzing, light anecdotes, but I just haven't been motivated enough to write them down. This can be taken as an indication to the type of program I am participating. Currently, my mind is occupied by my impending Probability midterm that was supposed to be last Friday, but was moved to tomorrow. While I usually like to get things such as these over and done with instead of putting it off, this is an exception. While the increased length of time I have spent worrying about this test is a downside, I greatly needed the extra week to study. I was magnificently foolish when I first got to Budapest and signed up for Probability thinking it would be a breeze. Quite the contrary is true. I am struggling immensely. The computational aspect of the course is not all that difficult, in fact the hardest operation I've come across is integrating by parts, something I haven't done since high school. It's the interpretation and organization of the problem and information that has given, and is giving, me the most trouble. There are also so many different formulas and distributions that I get lost in the symbols and lose sight of their applications to real world scenarios. Ultimately, it has been my anxiety over this coming test for the past few weeks that has kept me from blabbering on about various happenings in my blog.

Although I should be in bed right now, I have gotten my second wind (which is often the case when one gets off task, in my case studying). Today was an unusual day. I had to use my most useful Hungarian phrase, "Nem beszélek magyarul," three different times. On a day to day basis, I usually can manage to go about my business without awkward encounters with natives with whom I can't communicate, however, today was not a normal day. My first encounter was with a woman who stopped me in the metro station who gave me a consoling rub on the arm once I communicated to her that I didn't understand her, which is far better than the usual scoffs. The second encounter was with one of the ticket checkers who stopped me because he couldn't see my picture that goes with my monthly metro pass. Once he had stopped another commuter and pointed to their picture, I quickly took my pass out of his confiscating hand and flipped it over to show him my picture, and was allowed to continue on my way. That entire episode would have been circumvented had I understood the general gist of what he was saying, though, frankly, so could practically all encounters here. The third encounter was when I was approached while waiting for the train by a beggar. I had actually been approached by this same beggar once before, and didn't appreciate the repeat of events.

Another interesting anecdote takes place in one of my favorite hang outs, Costa Coffee. My friend and I got met at Costa to work on out weekly problem sets in Combinatorics and Probability, not a week goes by when I don't need to get outside help on my homework. She got there first, and manged to score the premier seats upstairs. This table is highly coveted by all the patrons of Costa for its enormous brown leather, heavily cushioned, comfy armchairs and it's location next to a large window overlooking the intersection of Andrassy útca and Bajscy Zsilinszky útca. I often get distracted when sitting in these chairs, and instead of working diligently, I often gaze through the window and people watch from my high perch above the bustle of the street. That day, I determinedly sank into the armchair across from my friend, and opened my notebooks. We sat there for hours pondering mathematical proofs and working our way through exercises. After several hours we were both so saturated with math that we could barely stand to sit in the presence of our notebooks any longer, not to mention we were starving and our legs were quickly forgetting what it was like to walk around. I wanted to stay just a little longer to finish a download on my computer (one must use free wifi whenever one can). Suddenly, the loft was a bustle of activity. Several men with bag of equipment and came up the stairs and began setting up filming equipment. One of the men approached my friend and asked her something in Hungarian to which she told him she didn't understand, so he left us alone. It ended up to be some sort of interview. There is a possibility that if the camera was not zoomed in closely to the interviewee's face, I could be in the background of the shot. I could become an anonymous star of Hungarian television, playing a confused American student in a coffee shop in Budapest as my debut role. I have a strong feeling I shouldn't get my hopes up and should keep laboring through my mathematics school work.

Well, I hope this has made up somewhat for my sparse blog entries in recent weeks. It's no amazing adventure, but it's all I've got.

Time to Kill

Again I am sitting on a train carrying me away from Budapest. Again I am behind on my blog. I have yet to recount the second half of my trip to Croatia, but instead of immediately delving into past events as if no time has passed, I choose to depict reality. For, time has passed. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, have all gone by, and with them, noteworthy and not so noteworthy events have transpired. Some of them may well appear in this blog, others may only take the form of verbal anecdotes told on a whim as a result of a source that stimulates remembrance, and most will make their home on the shores of my memory to be slowly washed away with time.

It is from yet another train car with houses, cars, and the haze brought only by a sky threatening to rain speeding by that I think a couple of weeks back to Croatia. Appropriately, I traversed this exact length of track along Lake Balaton en route to Zagreb; however, today the lake itself is my destination. After a day dominated my rain, the sun rose on a rainless city the next morning. We awoke early to catch the early ferry over to Hvar Island, specifically the town Stari Grad. On the way to the ferry terminal we again stopped at our pastry shop and I eagerly picked up one of my long, nut filled pastries as well as a loaf of bread for lunch on the island. After the pastry shop, we stopped at an open air market near the water and picked up apples and cheese to complete our picnic lunch. We easily bought tickets for our ferry and headed aboard.

The ferry ride was thankfully uneventful, which is always hoped for while traveling. The ride to Stari Grad took two hours. We started the trip by getting coffee and lounging in the ferry cabin before heading upstairs to the outdoor sitting deck. It was a gorgeous day. The sun was finally shining and we spent the rest of the ride enjoying the weather while alternatively reading, talking, taking pictures, and gaping at our surroundings. The ferry's passage through small coastal islands was very reminiscent of my ferry ride in New Zealand from Auckland to Waiheke Island.

Our arrival on Hvar Island left us a bit confused. We had seen the town from the ferry, but had docked a couple kilometers away from it. Once disembarking, we couldn't figure out how we were supposed to get over to the town other than by taxi or walking on a very narrow shoulder of the islands highway. Neither appealed to us, so after taking the shoulder several meters and then realizing it was a sure fire way to get ourselves killed, we asked. We were directed to a foot path to the left of the ferry dock that was unmarked, but nevertheless looked promising. After the short walk around through a wooded area we came to the edge of the town. Stari Grad is a very picturesque little island town. However, I was surprised to see that it was picturesque Italian. I honestly felt like I had been transported out of Croatia and into a small Italian town. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised considering that on the island I was far closer to Italy than I was to Croatia's capital.

Without an agenda, we picked a direction and began walking. We wandered through narrow streets lined with buildings like a gapless wall that rose on either side of us. We soon came upon a a church that we were able to walk through and into an inner courtyard full of lime trees and other greenery. The inner garden was surrounded by a wall of arches. Back outside, we continued wandering the cobble stoned streets in search of an important sight I had read about online. We never did find it, but we managed to find other touristy type buildings that we were directed to by ever helpful brown signs. Within about an hour or so, we had explored most of the town and decided to stop at a park and sit on a bench and eat lunch. Our lunch of bread, cheese, and apples was delicious. After lunch we went to explore the other side of the town on the opposing side of the small harbor that the town surrounded, but found only roads leading out into the rural area surrounding the town. With nothing else left to do, and several hours until our ferry, we had to get creative of how to spend our remaining time. We ended up walking down to a small pebbly beach that I'm sure is crowded in summer, but with the time of year and light drizzle that had begun, was deserted. We spent a few minutes on the beach collecting cool looking pebbles and trying to skip rocks on the surface of the rain pockmarked water. After that, we attempted to get a coffee/beer at a café that had been crowded when we came into town, but we were turned away because it was now closed. We found another café around the corner and sat down and ordered. Shortly after sitting down we were visited my a local dog that Franky affectionately named Mr. Magoo. He was adorable and just hung out next to our table or under our chairs in the hope of receiving some food. Occasionally, he wandered off to solicit food from other patrons of the café or passers by. At one point he declared the small plaza we were located in his territory by ensuring that another dog that came by made his way out of the plaza. We eagerly watched this amusing endeavor. At one point he bounded, ears flapping like wings across the plaza with a speed we didn't think he had. It was hilarious the way his ears flopped when he ran. Oh Mr. Magoo, what a character.

After the café, we walked back along the path to the ferry dock and stopped at a peach along the way to stick our feet in. The water was a bit chilly, but it was crystal clear and felt good on our weary, traveling feet. We weren't at the peach long before we headed back into town where Franky and Claire got two huge 1.5 liter bottles of beer to drink while we whiled away the hours scanning the horizon. I was anxious to get back to Split, but at the same time it was nice to be somewhat bored.

The time passed and it was time again to get on the ferry. The ride back was similar to the ride over, and two hours later, we were pulling into the Split ferry terminal. We walked back to our hostel to drop our stuff off, and then decided to splurge on dinner in an actual restaurant instead of going to one of the many pizza joints nearby. The restaurant was nice, but our waiter was a bit weird. I think he could tell he wasn't going to get much of a tip out of us ragged looking college kids, so he didn't pay much attention to us. There were a couple of English speaking couples at nearby tables, so I spent part of the evening somewhat eves dropping.

Finally, it was time to head back. We went to bed early because we had to wake up at the crack of dawn to catch our train home. In the morning, we headed down to the train terminal and upon buying tickets back to Zagreb, we were told that no trains would be running that day due to construction, but that the railway company had arranged for buses. After buying our tickets, we headed over to the bus terminal and after asking which bus was the 7:30 to Zagreb, the woman looked at me like I was an idiot and told me that the next bus to Zagreb was at 8:10. Very confused, we schlepped our stuff back to the train station to ask again where the bus was. It turns out it was behind the train station building right next to the track. After a little confusion with a man also waiting for the bus, about where we were standing, and then stuffing all of our food in Franky's suitcase to put under the bus because we weren't allowed to bring food on, we got on the bus. The ride was beautiful! In a blur we were traversing seasides, mountains, and flat lands. Then, we were once again back in Zagreb, and then finally, pulling into Budapest's Keleti Palyaudvar.

The Birth of the Card of Unbeatability

After a very long day of traveling the day before, I woke up with the sun. In fact, I woke up before the sun. Upon awakening, I noticed two things. One, my companions were still fast asleep, and two, the steady rhythm of rain was very apparent outside of our window. I decided to shower and lay in my bed until my companions woke up. A couple of hours later, all three of us were awake and ready to hit the streets of Split. The rain had abated momentarily, so we decided to go to a large park we had seen on the map. We made a pit stop at a bakery just down the street and around the corner where Claire and I discovered a wonderful pastry that was about a foot long and filled with a sugary and chopped nut concoction. It was absolutely delicious!

By the time we got to the park, the rain had returned, but it was only drizzling. We started walking along the path in a nicely wooded area next to the shore and oddly enough didn't notice that it had subsequently started pouring. We somehow deluded ourselves into thinking that despite the heavier and heavier rainfall, it was still only a measly drizzle. I finally came back to reality when the thigh of my pants were sticking to me. Within a minute my entire pants were soaking. With every step I took I could feel the added weight of the water. We quickly abandoned our efforts to walk all the way through the park to the lighthouse on the other side and took refuge under the overhang of a small building home to some vending machines. We stood there for several minutes, checked the map, and then realized we would just have to walk back in the downpour. Left with no other option, for we had no idea how long the rain would last, we left our shelter and made our way back to our hostel, pant legs sticking, shoes squelching, and coats dripping.

Back in our hostel we immediately stripped out of our wet clothes and threw on dry clothes. We then hung all of our clothes up to dry on the balcony outside our room (don't worry, it was covered, just in case you were thinking we put our clothes to dry outside in the rain). After a while of sitting in our hostel, we noticed the rain had once again eased up. We threw on our soaking shoes onto bare feet and ran down the street to a convenience store to get beer. On an impulse I threw in a thick Croatian newspaper to ball up and stick in my shoes.

Later that day after newspaper had soaked up some of the water in our shoes and we had spent as much time as we could in our room, we again put on our damp shoes (mine soulless because that was the wettest part) and went to explore Split a little bit. We ended up in Diocletian's Palace, the world's most complete and preserved ruins of a Roman palace. Built at the turn of the fourth century AD as Diocletian's place of retirement, it was abandoned by the Romans and then reinhabitated by residents fleeing barbarians in the seventh century. The palace has been occupied ever since, and is now home to shops, cafés, and museums. The architecture of the palace was spectacular and made me forget I was in Croatia. Instead, I felt transported to Italy.

After wandering around the palace, we set our sights for finding the beach. We made it to the shore, but found, instead of sandy beaches, cement pool sides. I have since then named them peaches because they are a cross between a pool and a beach. I was disappointed that there weren't actual sand beaches, or at least none that we found. We wandered around the deserted structures ordinarily teeming with life and activity in summer, but were deserted due to the weather and season. Then, the rain began again, and refusing to get more clothes soaking wet, we headed back to the hostel, but not before we each made a point to stand at the edge of a peach and touch the Adriatic Sea.

We spent a relaxing evening hiding from the rain. We ventured out only to grab pizza at a pizza joint down the street. There were pizzerias everywhere! You couldn't walk down a single street and not see some sort of sign advertising pizza. I ended up spending the evening attempting to finish my Prague blog and look up ferry times for the next day. I had the idea to try to take a ferry to one of the coastal islands the next day. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out the ferry schedule. The one I got from the ferry ticket office was in Croatian, so that made life a bit more difficult. Luckily, I was able to find one in English online. While I made use of the hostels free internet, I listened in on Claire and Franky making up a game with Belot cards they had found in the hostel's kitchen. It was the most ridiculous thing to listen to. It was absolutely hilarious. They invited me to play, but frankly it was funnier just to sit and watch. They ended up creating a game like war, but with bizarre rules, like the six of Christmas balls (a.k.a. the card of unbeatability) would trump any card except for flowers. And, the player who played the six of Christmas balls would have to say "Jo Keleti jo," (with enthusiasm) before collecting the cards they had just won or the other person would get to take the cards. Like I said, hilarious!