& etc.

just to have not left things on as weird a note as last post, here's some more fun.

so there are me and 5 american undergrads here for the REU... craig has decided to study on his own most of the time and avoid being a tourist. arjun and sam are roommates for the duration of our stay and do most everything together, but the two of them walk quite a bit faster than me and the other two students so the two of them do their own thing too... that leaves me, sarah, and melissa to hang out as a group too.

on monday, after the conference, all of us except craig walked up to prasky hrad (prague's castle) and explored the amazing cathedral there... i'd been there 3 years ago, but it was still absolutely amazing... by then, the guys had separated to do their own thing, so it was just me, sarah, and melissa... we managed to find the royal gardens (which i had NOT) seen before, and wandered awhile after that too. since our means of getting food while here is to "spend the money we were given on monday at restaurants" (we don't have access to a kitchen, just a fridge per apartment), sarah, melissa, and i decided that our strategy on picking restaurants is:
(1) when we get hungry, find a tram stop
(2) get on the first tram that stops and take it to (nearly) the end of the line
(3) find the first restaurant available after we get off the train

yesterday, this strategy got us dinner in a sports bar in a bus depot... our waiter was very excited to serve americans as he's been learning english for 9 months from a man living in prague from CA... last night this got us dinner at a random restaurant with only a menu in czech, but the waiter offered to "translate" for us... he listed kinds of meat, we picked, he listed ways of cooking it, we picked, etc., etc... it was an adventure to be sure.

like i referenced before, i spent yesterday in bed all day... today's a little more active... after 4 hours of math talks, we just had lunch with all the conference people. sarah, melissa, and i ended up by two exceedingly friendly hungarian mathematicians who were excited to hear i had been in BSM for a semester... the great thing about being from memphis is that most europeans may not have heard of it, and non-mathematician hungarians may not have heard of it, but hungarian mathematicians definitely have as many FAMOUS hungarian math people use university of memphis as their american home university. this makes me smile.

this afternoon, we get a tour of charles university (where we're at), and the conference dinner is tonight at some fancy restaurant too. should be entertaining.

anyhow, should be off... by the way, this just in from my mom:

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Just got a call from Priscilla this morning (Wed/6:38 a.m.) that grandma is back in the hospital running 104 fever and trying to throw up. She is totally unaware that she is at the hospital and that Cil is there. Cil said it's the worst she's seen her...though she also said grandma would probably be fine once they treated her. Wanted you to know...to pray for grandma.
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so keep my g-ma in your prayers.

now, really, later...
later dudes.