Back in Pest

Not a bad place to work for an afternoon - a café above the Alexandria Bookstore on Andrassy, near the Oktogon in Pest.

So, I'm back from Germany. I can't even quite explain how good it was to be back there. Familiar town, familiar people, familiar language. I know which busses to take to get where, I could get to the university from my old apartment with my eyes closed (probably), and it was amazing how connected I felt to my surroundings when I could understand the people. I didn't realize how much I was missing that here. My Hungarian is certainly more than it was when I got here, but that's hardly remarkable. In fact, it would be a shame if anything but that were the case!  It was neat to realize (as I did a few times this weekend) how my vocabulary has been growing without my knowing it, but still - it's nothing to actually speaking the language of the country one is in.

And now, I'm sitting in this beautiful cafe, working on a presentation for tomorrow about Stochastic Calculus, Portfolio Theory, and the crazy models that my research partner/friend and I have been working on for the past -- two months? Is it that much already? Miklos mentioned this morning in Spectral Theory that we're more than halfway through the semester. I don't quite know how that happened.

On the runway again.

I'm staring out at the almost sunset (it will be setting in maybe an hour - which is ridiculous, because it's 3 in the afternoon) over the wide tarmac field in front of the Vienna Airport. I came on a bus from Budapest and in about two hours, I'll be hopping on a plane to Frankfurt. Even though here, the German is accented in an unfamiliar way, I still can understand people and I can read the signs around me - it's amazing how much more connected that makes me feel. Still, even as I was on the bus, I noticed my progress in Hungarian that had been going on without my knowledge - the kind of progress that happens when you live in a language, you know?  - for example, I got on the bus and the passport control folks came on. I saw their uniforms - "Rendőrség". And I thought, "That's funny. I wonder why the police uniforms are in German? We're still in Hungary." - the reason being, of course, that I understood 'Rendőrség' too quickly, I assumed it must have been German. So, that's only one word, and that is negligible progress, but I'll take what I can get. This is a strange language!

And so far, the Vienna airport is endearing itself to me. There are little pod-desk complexes set up every few gates. About four desks arranged in such a way that four are clumped together with a little screen in between each, two facing "north" if you will, a right handed one and a left handed one, and two facing "south" (also left handed and right handed) - but they're made out of couch-ish material. Not very squishy, but more comfortable than the hard plastic chairs. And each has some outlets, which is always nice for travelers, and the wifi is free. I have enough to work on that requires no internet that I would have been completely fine without it, but with the wifi, I can continue my tradition of checking in while traveling.

Even though the cup of tea and bottle of water I just bought definitely (I just checked on google) cost as much as my lunch out with a friend yesterday in Budapest, I'm excited to get out for the weekend. People have been going insane with stress about midterms. Students around me were dropping like flies - when asked how his weekend was, one of my friends replied, "I'm considering going into the countryside here and chopping wood for a living." Another replied in only sounds, not words. And all of us are wondering whether or not we are too young to have mid-life crises.

And I don't think the stress is worth it. Yesterday, my body made the shift from stress (which is a very active, tense feeling) to weariness. And I didn't like that one bit! Yeah, these classes are hard, but they aren't life. I have to remember to breathe. Hopefully, the other students will realize that, too - one of my friends said that he was going to take care of himself this weekend "no matter the cost". I think it's a shame that that has to be a big deal, that taking care of ourselves is something we do rarely. I think it's just because we're not the best with moderation - either in work or relaxation.

Speaking of work, though - I have to go and correct all of my previous homework assignments for Spectral Theory. That is our midterm - turning in everything again. It's a lot of work, but it's also rather neat to see how much we've learned in the semester so far. And I think that the things we're talking about in Spectral Theory and Algebraic Topology are about to meet in very unexpected way! If you are interested in some of the insane stuff we get up to in Algebraic Topology, check out this video.  This is what's called the 'Alexander Horned Sphere' - you don't need to know anything about it. Just know that from a topological standpoint, what is interesting about this is that it is simply a very, very strange sphere. (By sphere, I mean something like a basketball - not solid in the middle. Just the outside. The surface ((the outside)) is only two dimensional, but because of how it is connected, it has to "live" in three dimensional space.) Anyways, it's kinda cool!! Check it out. 

Eger

Wondering what the day would bring.

Peeking out the window...

To see the lovely main square of Eger.

Give me an old wooden door and a crumbling stone wall any day. 

We knew there was supposedly a place nearby where one could go horseback riding - only five minutes or so by car, so the books said. So, we decided to walk - and our walk took us outside the city limits on country roads with no sidewalks and thick brush on either side. This was when we, the intrepid travelers, stopped for some trail-mix sustenance.

My friend Dan ahead of me, as we reached the summit of the hill that was basically our entire walk out of the city. It was our 'if it's not here, we'll turn back' point on the road.

And this was what we discovered there. To the right on another hill, we could see many, many horses - and we knew we were on the right track.

Kaia even made a friend at the top of the hill.

Dan has worked at vineyards before and taught us a bit about harvesting grapes with the aid of a few that had been left on the vine.

We made it to the riding place just around lunchtime, where there was a fabulous restaurant waiting for us.

Dan and Kaia, with two glasses of wine. The waiter/restaurant owner didn't speak any English, so I was speaking to him in German. I asked for two glasses of wine for the other two and just for some water for me, and he looked at me and simply said, "Why?" To which I had to smile and order a glass also for myself. It was some of the best wine I've ever had. And as you can see, in Hungary, a glass is a proper glass!

Some furry friends that weren't horses, but that I was very, very glad to see.

This one reminded me so very much of my own Abby. It was good for my soul to play with a dog again!

And that was our day in Eger. We made our way back to town, saw the castle, had some dinner, and piled on to a train, sleepy and happy, to come back to Budapest. We did end up riding at this fabulous place surrounded by vineyards. We each got the chance to ride and at first, I thought would be boring - on the website, it had seemed like trail riding would be the thing, but then it ended up being more in a paddock and with the horse on a lead. And, exciting for all of us, it was English style riding, not western. I thought I would be bored, like I said - but when my turn came, it was like a proper (and lovely!) lesson! I only walked and trotted for the whole time, but they taught me a lot about my posture while riding, had me do various things with my arms while riding to show that you don't need them to hold on at all - even to twist and touch my right hand to my left foot and vice-versa while trotting rather quickly! It was beautiful to be on a horse again, even though English riding is like a dusty memory for me. I hope I get the chance to do it again soon.

And it was fun to get to use my German, fun to have a weekend (or even just a day) with no math in it. I gave myself the day completely off, and I'm very glad to have done so. Tomorrow things can begin again, as I suppose they must. But this was a grand, grand day out!

Morning in Eger.

A real bed instead of a couch-bed for me last night, and this view out of my window. :) I'm looking forward to today!

Trains will always make me think of Germany.

But this weekend, I’m leaving from Keleti Pályaudvar, not from Mainz Hauptbahnhof , I have a ‘jegy’, not a ‘Fahrkarte’. But when I get the shiny, square-shaped ticket, when I settle into mostly-inflexible inevitably blue-fabric-covered chairs, when I see the conductor coming with his strange clicking device to check my ticket – I’m always in Germany in my head. I miss it.

This weekend, though, I am going to Eger – a small town about an hour and a half away from Budapest (not quite sure in which direction yet- though, if I think about how the sun looks outside of the window – I’m guessing North? Northeast? I’ll check.) Along with an apparently lovely church and town square, this place is also host to an amazing national park with lots of caves (complete with thrilling stalactites, etc.) , and a valley called ‘Valley of the Beautiful Women’ (okay, in some translations, ‘Siren Valley’, but I like the first one) which is the home of many tiny shops bearing the fruit of the many vineyards in the area. 

And it’s not like I don’t have homework this weekend. On the contrary – there is as much as there always is, if not a bit more (midterm season – also that ‘you-wanted-to-apply-to-gradschool-right-then-now’s-the-time’ season). And I know I will be spending some of this weekend doing that homework. But I’m excited to sit in a different café, to have a different view out of the window. To walk somewhere different in the mornings… And, yes, to have some fun. I realized how little of the city/country I had seen earlier this week – it was an intense moment as I realized I had never even been to the Bascilica, only been on the Buda side of the river three times, only ever leave my tiny neighborhood (which includes the BSM school) at most once per week. And sure, I’ve got a lot of fun math to prove for it. But man, I’m here. I need to actually be here. 

Which is why last week, I went to see a friend of mine perform with some fellow musicians that he found when he moved here and has been playing with ever since. This was their first gig that wasn’t on a sidewalk in front of the Buda castle, and it went well! And now, a trip to Eger.

And next weekend? A trip to Germany. This math is like a treadmill. I have to keep going or I will fall off, but it’s not like I can actually finish it all, fast as I might go, hard as I might push. So, why not have some fun?

What else can I say.

It was a great lunch!

He's done it again.

So, I spent most of today trying to force my brain back into work mode. It didn't go well. My head was so determined to relax since I had fought the fight, defeated the test, and I had been promising it the award of relaxation since I registered for the test in June -- and at the same time, even if I hadn't wanted to relax, it was so dead after all the anxiety and stress that it couldn't function well anyway.

So, I spent a long time today all but actually banging my head into my Spectral Theory homework. I have been hanging on in this class, but certainly for the last two weeks, my head wasn't in it completely, since I was studying for my exam. And while I have been shifting my focus to other things, the material has been getting more and more complex, and my overview of the material was fading. I felt like the pieces were slipping apart and it culminated in the assignment today, - I really felt like I didn't know the big picture anymore. I wrote several emails to Miklos asking small questions about the assignment, and finally, a few minutes ago, I wrote to him and mentioned what I just said above - that I've lost the big picture and just feel adrift in general.

And he wrote back, - classic Miklos: "Hi Emily. Of course you lost it somewhat! The main thing is to have some kind of balance and to enjoy it. :) " Word for word, that is his email to me. I think I'm going to go to bed and try it again with a fresh brain and that perspective in the morning.