Weekend, in brief.

It's a bit past midnight and I'm planning to be up by around six tomorrow, so I don't have much time. This weekend was good - I recuperated in many ways from the week, became more stressed out in a few other ways, but also had some good and exciting ideas. The actual math part of this program is getting closer and closer, and I'm excited. I'm also getting to know other folks in the program here better, and that makes all the difference. I just returned from a fun potluck which had all the ingredients for a good time - good food, more people than chairs, some wine, and a temperamental fuse that righted itself just in time for both a stir fry to be made and cookies to be baked. On my way home, I walked through a movie set. It's cheaper to film things in Budapest than it lots of other places - this set looked quite old-timey, with a schnazzy old car and someone walking purposefully down a red carpet into a fancy hotel. Lots of cameras, lots of people, and I tapped someone on the arm briefly to ask if I could walk through and then used the brief pause in the action to scamper across. Kind of exciting!

Here are a few images of the weekend - starting with hiking in the Buda hills and looking down over the city, then a chairlift back down the mountain before an adventure to Memento Park, a rather desolate park area way south of the city on the Buda side where all the old Soviet statues that were in and around Budapest have been collected together and "made to stare at each other", as a friend's guidebook stated. A somber but rewarding visit.