After that, the class focused a lot on useful vocabulary, such as fruits and vegetables, common household/classroom items, building names, colors, and adjectives. The grammar was a little more difficult. At first it was difficult to move beyond something like amerikai vagyok (lit. american i am). Hungarian grammar structure allows emphasis to be placed on certain words depending on their position in the sentence. It's a pretty interesting concept and I'm sure it would be easy to get used to if I continue to take the language. By the end of the course, our teacher said that we had learned (or been exposed to) some 2/3 of Hungarian grammar, which I think is pretty impressive for just 80 hours of class. Our section used all that we had learned to translate "Eye of the Tiger" into Hungarian and then perform it for the other sections. It was a lot of fun and really funny what some of the literal translations meant.
Now that the language course is over, the rest of the students have arrived and it's time for the math to start! There is a three week "shopping period" where students are allowed to sit it on any classes. Registration is at the end of the three weeks, at which point we have to choose the classes we want to continue with. I'm thinking about taking combinatorics 2, number theory, probability theory, conjecture & proof, and complex analysis in addition to intermediate Hungarian language and Hungarian art/culture. Obviously I won't be taking all of these around registration time, but these are the ones I'm currently interested in taking.
This past weekend some of my newfound friends and I went to Varosliget (City Park) to the open-air market they have there every Saturday. We were also somewhat lucky in that it was also a pig-slaughtering festival! No, we did not get to see any pigs being slaughtered, but we did get to see some little piglets being pulled around in a wagon of hay. We discovered some very good Hungarian food. One of the dishes we tried was mashed potatoes that had been fried in oil. We also ate what seemed to be some kind of cross between a hashbrown and latke. In any case, the food was amazing (not to mention the bits of sausage that they had fried up with some peppers, onions, and garlic). We may be going back there again for lunch.
The city is definitely a lot less foreign after spending three weeks here. It definitely helps knowing a bit of the language and also being here with other American students. We can laugh at all of the silly European things that they have here and also try to figure out how to say somewhat complicated--for us, at least--things in Hungarian. I'm definitely excited for the math to be starting, and I'm hoping that I will still have enough free time to explore the city.
Sziasztok!
Mathew
It's Europe, guys, go with it!
- Opera tickets cost as little as 400 Ft. (less than $2). If you buy the 400 Ft. tickets, though, you have to enter the opera house through a separate door on the side of the building. I guess they don't want us cheap students mingling with the rest of the audience
- The applause at events like the Opera is AMAZING. The traditional Hungarian way to express appreciation is to clap in unison. Imagine 1500 or so people all doing a slow clap at the same time, except when it gets fast enough, they just cut the beat in half and start over. It's really quite impressive.
- Boring paper notebooks can cost as much as 2000 Ft. ($10). I'd rather go to the opera...five times, thanks
- McDonald's is relatively expensive compared to other restaurants. Prices for value meals run above $5. Then again, they are very very clean and the food is actually edible. It's a pretty classy place and good for studying (and using the internet!)
- Gyros are like the hot dog/hamburger stands of the US. Almost 1/2 of the restaurants in Budapest are small fast food places that sell gyros...usually for less than $3. Yummy! =)
