Quite a lot has happened since I last posted in February. The “shopping period” for classes is over, and they are now in full swing. I have settled on taking number theory (properties of integers), combinatorics (counting techniques), probability theory, complex analysis (imaginary function analysis), and the intermediate Hungarian language course. I have also opted to audit elementary problem solving.
Classes so far are much more intense than they are at St. Olaf. Problem sets take days to do, and it is very easy to spend several hours on one problem. A certain kind of elegance and intuition is involved in solving a lot of the problems, more so than just looking at the book/notes and modifying the ideas a bit. Especially in number theory and elementary problem solving, we are learning more than one way to solve each problem. This leads to the idea that there are “better” ways of solving problems, ways that are more elegant than plain induction or brute force.
Fortunately, I’ve been keeping a sort of personal diary, so it will be easier for me to recall the events of the past month:
Saturday February 21: I took the Hév (train) up to Szentendre where my “cousin” (who is actually a close family friend to my Aunt’s Hungarian family) Máté picked me up. We then drove about 1 ½ hours into the countryside to a small town called Héreg. This is where my Aunt Eva’s family lives, and they were having a little get-together combined with a welcome party for me. However, only two of them and Máté spoke English, so at times it was difficult to understand what they were talking about. I was able to have some “real” Hungarian food: paradicsomléves (tomato soup) and csirke paprikas (paprika chicken), both of which were really good. The Hungarian countryside is simply amazing, too, especially since when I went there was still a lot (ie 3 ft) of snow on the ground).
Friday-Sunday 2/28-3/1: A group of eleven of us went to Prague for the weekend! The train tickets were only about $60 and the hostel cost about $11 a night, so we were not complaining about the travel expenses! It was definitely a lot of fun. Prague felt a lot older than Budapest because some of the buildings (including the Charles Bridge) have been around for over 500 years. At the same time, however, it was so full of tourists that I wasn’t sure what the “real” Prague was supposed to be. We managed to entertain ourselves for two says seeing different parts of the city, eating the food, and drinking Czech beer. It was quite funny, really, that almost everywhere we went, the price per liter (or half liter) of beer was less expensive than water! Two of my friends, Sneha and Oliver, and I went to a classical concert in a church that had been built in 921. It was interesting to think about how the music we were listening to was about 500 years old, but the building itself was 500 years older than that. What kind of music did people listen to then? We weren’t sure… One of the worst parts about Prague was that we only knew one word: dekuji (thank you). It made me realize how comfortable I’ve gotten living in Budapest.
Pi Day (3/14/09) Saturday: This was probably the sunniest and clearest day we’ve had in Budapest so far. Nora, Peter (one of Nora’s college friends who is visiting), and I took a long walk through the city. For those of you familiar with the layout, we went from Ferenciak Tere all the way along the Danube to Margit Híd, then walked back south to the Castle District. It took about 3 hours to do all the walking, but it was a lot of fun and I took lots of pictures. On the way past Parlament, we past a Holocaust memorial—a row of iron shoes lined up on the river bank. They were placed there in rememberance of the Jews who were forced into the river and then shot when the Nazis took over Budapest. After crossing the river, we went up to the Castle District and took several pictures of the magnificent view.
3/15/09 Sunday: The Ides of March are an important day in Hungarian history. It was on this day in 1848 that the poet Petőfi stood upon the National Museum stairs and delivered a poem that roused the Magyars (Hungarians) to revolt against the current Hapsburg rulers. It need not be mentioned that the revolution failed (Hungarians haven’t won any wars in the last 800 years or so), but in their hearts the Magyar people feel obligated to pay homage to this man and this day. Some 150 years later, a whirlwind of color and sound and movement took over the same steps. Nora, Peter, and I went to see the celebration in the morning. For the equivalent of an independence day, the performance was spectacular! In spite of the light rain and repeated warnings about riots, this was an experience not worth missing.
A short aside: in the past few years, some of the Hungarian rightists have chosen this day to start demonstrations against the current regimes. Usually towards the evening, these demonstrations have turned into riots. We were specifically told to avoid certain areas of the city, for in the past there have been prolonged fights between rioters and police. In 2007, for example, the riots lasted for days after the Independence Day. It was so bad that the trains would not stop at some of the metro stations because it was too dangerous. Also, as a precaution, the city removed the very nice 4/6 trams that run on the main “ring road” of the city and replaced them with older trams in case anything bad happened. Fortunately, and most probably because of the rain, it was a quiet night. We heard later that only about 12 people were arrested, certainly an improvement over the last few years. If you are interested in what the riots were like, youtube has several civilian videos of the scenes. Just search “March 15 2007 Budapest”.
In the morning when we went, the police were taking as many precautions as possible, including metal detectors that we had to go through to get to the Museum. However once the performance started, we forgot about the warnings. At one point, all of the Hungarians in the crowd started reciting something in unison, which we discovered later was Petőfi’s original poem, Nemzeti Dal. It is quite a long poem, and that everyone had it memorized was quite impressive. One of the repeated lines is (in English): “We vow, we vow! We vow to be slaves no longer!” which sounded much more powerful when recited (with gusto!) by a crowd of about 1000 Hungarians. A rearrangement of it was also sung by some professional performers, and though we didn’t understand most of the words, the music and tones invoked a sense of struggle and pride. After this there was another part where the 5 main speakers/singers all declared after one another, “Itthon vagyok, és Magyar!”, “Here, I am home, and Hungarian!” I realized how united they were, not because of a common country, as in the US, but as a common people who have struggled and survived with each other for over a millennium.
3/21/09 Saturday: It is still hard to me to comprehend how easy and inexpensive it is to see really amazing musical and theatrical performances. On this past Thursday afternoon, Nora, Peter, Brian, and I went to the opera house to buy tickets for Wagner’s Tannhäuser for 400 Ft (<$2). However, when we were waiting in line, we saw a poster advertising the Spring Music Festival and happened to see that Hey! Joshua Bell was on it. It was exciting to see this, because earlier that week we had translated a Hungarian article about how he played as a street performer in the Washington DC metro station. Not only that, but he was playing the next day! We asked the desk worker where we can get tickets, and he directs us to a separate box office a little farther down on Ándrássy Út. We go there, but they tell us that they don’t have any tickets left. While there, we notice that Phantom of the Opera is coming to the city for the next few weeks or so. We inquire about that, and find that we can tickets for that at another theatre on the Ring Road. They also mention yet another ticket office where we might have better luck with our Joshua Bell ticket search. We find the third ticket office and again inquire about the tickets. Unfortunately, they were sold out. But but BUT, the lady said that since we are students, we have the option of showing up about an hour early to the performance and buying standing room tickets. And how much are these tickets? 300 Forints!!!!! That’s like paying $1.35 to see Joshua Bell and a very, VERY good Hungarian orchestra. So of course we went to it last night, all six of us (Me, Sári, Nora, Peter, Brian, and Sneha). WOW, what a performance. I can see why people say he’s such a good violinist. He’s also a very animated performer and had to wipe sweat off of his face and violin during the movements. As a special treat, he announced that he would play an “American folk song”, which turned out to be Yankee Doodle Dandy! It was very, very good. We are hoping that the Phantom performance will be comparable to what it is in the US. As a plus, it’s in Hungarian! Now if only Les Miserables would come… =)
After two months of living here, I can see why people say Budapest is such an amazing city. I could easily see myself coming back here after college and studying for an even longer period of time, or even living here for a few years. It would be a good challenge to be somewhat fluent in Hungarian, too. But until then, I should focus on my studies. I will definitely try to keep my blog posts a bit more regular after this, and I apologize for the belatedness of this one and how long it is.
Sziastok!
Mátyás
For the more mathematically inclined, here’s some food for thought from the conjecture and proof course (don’t worry, we’ve already solved this one): Show that you can cut apart a unit square (1x1) into four pieces of equal area with a total cut strictly less than 2 units.
