so my advisor and i have arranged to meet on monday afternoons this semester... which means our first meeting is scheduled for monday, september 5 -- labor day... oops.
i wrote him this afternoon to ask if we'd still meet on Monday, and got the following response:
Dear Lara,
Oops, of course not, and thy shall not work in thy holidays!
Shame on you on violating the workers' day (we are all workers).
(and etc.)
i do have a great advisor.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
short comment
if you try to leave me a comment in the future, there's now an extra step
i just turned on word verification on my comments so that i don't get anymore like the ones on the previous post (which i went back and deleted).
comment spam for blogs... oi... the internet is getting ridiculous.
i just turned on word verification on my comments so that i don't get anymore like the ones on the previous post (which i went back and deleted).
comment spam for blogs... oi... the internet is getting ridiculous.
misc.
i finished Dear Professor Einstein last night... it's the book that roommate gave me for my birthday. it was cute... had a brief biography of albert einstein, and then lots of letters that children had written him, and some that he had written to children... i enjoyed it; my only complaint was that there wasn't more of einstein's own letters, but it was a fun read nonetheless. :)
saw this on several other blogs, and it looked like fun...
Go to your media player/mp3 player and put it all on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and after each one press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question.
What do you think of me, Windows Media Player?
unstoppable (the calling)
Will I have a happy life?
I could sing of Your love forever (sonicflood)
What do my friends really think of me?
i'm about to come alive (train)
How can I make myself happy?
le carnaval des animals (anda geza)
What should I do with my life?
crazy times (jars of clay)
Why must life be so full of pain?
my hope is You (third day)
Will I die happy?
can't help falling in love (elvis presley)
Can you give me some advice?
psalm 121 (lost and found)
(lyrics:
i lift my eyes to the one from whom salvation comes
i lift my eyes unto the one who saves
He who made both heaven and earth is the
Lord who does not sleep
He who does not slumber is the
One who safely will keep
The Lord will watch your going out and your
Coming in the door
He guards from evil, keeps your soul
Now and evermore)
What do you think happiness is?
the memory of trees (enya)
saw this on several other blogs, and it looked like fun...
Go to your media player/mp3 player and put it all on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and after each one press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question.
What do you think of me, Windows Media Player?
unstoppable (the calling)
Will I have a happy life?
I could sing of Your love forever (sonicflood)
What do my friends really think of me?
i'm about to come alive (train)
How can I make myself happy?
le carnaval des animals (anda geza)
What should I do with my life?
crazy times (jars of clay)
Why must life be so full of pain?
my hope is You (third day)
Will I die happy?
can't help falling in love (elvis presley)
Can you give me some advice?
psalm 121 (lost and found)
(lyrics:
i lift my eyes to the one from whom salvation comes
i lift my eyes unto the one who saves
He who made both heaven and earth is the
Lord who does not sleep
He who does not slumber is the
One who safely will keep
The Lord will watch your going out and your
Coming in the door
He guards from evil, keeps your soul
Now and evermore)
What do you think happiness is?
the memory of trees (enya)
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
ode to teaching?
so today was full of meetings... first i met the professor i'll be TAing for this fall, and we talked for almost an hour. then, there was a meeting for everyone teaching the course i'm teaching, whether as a lecturer or as a recitation instructor.
i'm a TA for "calc for non-math majors". there are 1800 students enrolled in this class for this fall and they're divided into over 60 different sections. 3 sections will meet at the same time for lecture with a ph.d.-ed professor, and then they'll meet one section at a time with me to do homework problems.
just by doing my job, i feel like i'm going to be part of this giant bureaucracy of a machine that's cheating the students out of the individual attention they should get in an introductory class. large state research universities are FANTASTIC for higher level degrees, but smaller schools where the teacher actually knows you and how you're doing seem so much more ideal for basic undergrad courses. it makes me sad that already before i've started there's not a chance that i'm going to get to know 105 students well even though that's how many will be in front of me each wednesday morning.
there's no time to grade regular homework from that many students, so instead they will have one quiz problem a week that i grade, and webwork. webwork is a computer system where the computer grades their work... basically they can type and retype their answers over and over until they get it right and the computer lets you know that they finally got it right. there's no real way to make sure that the students are learning the steps to solve a problem along the way, and no real incentive for them to learn things the way they should, just because there are soooo many students to teach at once.
the whole system just makes me kind of sad because i feel like from the start, unless the students make a special effort to stop in for office hours and such, then they're most likely not going to get all they should out of a class like this. oi...
on the other hand, the professor who i'm TAing for is extremely nice and reasonable. he'll be straightforward, and will not make my job more difficult than it should be. so even if i hate the system as a whole, at least the person i'm working directly under is a good guy.
we'll see how this goes.
i'm a TA for "calc for non-math majors". there are 1800 students enrolled in this class for this fall and they're divided into over 60 different sections. 3 sections will meet at the same time for lecture with a ph.d.-ed professor, and then they'll meet one section at a time with me to do homework problems.
just by doing my job, i feel like i'm going to be part of this giant bureaucracy of a machine that's cheating the students out of the individual attention they should get in an introductory class. large state research universities are FANTASTIC for higher level degrees, but smaller schools where the teacher actually knows you and how you're doing seem so much more ideal for basic undergrad courses. it makes me sad that already before i've started there's not a chance that i'm going to get to know 105 students well even though that's how many will be in front of me each wednesday morning.
there's no time to grade regular homework from that many students, so instead they will have one quiz problem a week that i grade, and webwork. webwork is a computer system where the computer grades their work... basically they can type and retype their answers over and over until they get it right and the computer lets you know that they finally got it right. there's no real way to make sure that the students are learning the steps to solve a problem along the way, and no real incentive for them to learn things the way they should, just because there are soooo many students to teach at once.
the whole system just makes me kind of sad because i feel like from the start, unless the students make a special effort to stop in for office hours and such, then they're most likely not going to get all they should out of a class like this. oi...
on the other hand, the professor who i'm TAing for is extremely nice and reasonable. he'll be straightforward, and will not make my job more difficult than it should be. so even if i hate the system as a whole, at least the person i'm working directly under is a good guy.
we'll see how this goes.
Monday, August 29, 2005
go figure
this may sound like a stretch to some of you, but here's the way i see my week: God will provide.
after returning from europe, paying bills, and balancing my checkbook, i realized yesterday that i had $38 to make it til september 9th with if i don't plan to use my credit card. this is all good until you realize that i drive minimum 100 miles a week (church is 25 miles each way, school is 6 miles each way and i have to be on campus most days) and usually more, that i haven't bought food since i returned from abroad, that i have 3 friends coming this weekend, and that our clothes dryer is broken (and even though i don't mind letting things air dry, my roommates will want it fixed sooner).
this was made slightly better when my mom forwarded me a few birthday cards that had been sitting at her house all summer, but $38 + $24 = $62 is still cutting it close for 2 weeks of time.
so basically, here i am wondering where in the world i'm going to find money for food, for gas, and for entertaining my friends who are coming when lo and behold, i realized something.
for my birthday, i asked mom to buy me a textbook i need this fall that costs nearly $200. it's out of print, and hard to find. i think i got the last one that the site i ordered it from had. ironically, my mom paid for one, we only got charged for one, but somehow the company sent me 2. (i think they couldn't find it at first, asked an affiliate to send me a copy, and then found their own copies and sent me one as well without communicating with the affiliate, because they came in two different boxes about a week apart).
don't get me wrong, i tried to be honest and wrote them about the problem, commenting that i don't have the cash flow to mail it back to them, nor do i know where to mail it back, but i just wanted to be honest so please advise. they wrote me back that they would send me a prepaid mailing envelope to return the extra book in, but alas, no such thing ever happened.
so, i tried to be honest, but still have this $200 book in perfect condition in shrink wrap that i'm not going to use since i already have one that's in equally good condition.
so what to do? i'm picking up eric from the airport in an hour or two when he returns from time in vegas... he's taking that same class as me, and hadn't thought about getting books yet... when i suggested he buy it from me at amazon.com price, he said he'd be glad to, especially as amazon says it's a 1 to 3 month wait for shipping now (the book is high in demand, very low in supply).
so to summarize, i got a free book i tried to get rid of honestly earlier this summer, but with no luck. now today, eric's gonna cut me a nearly $200 check to get this book, and i will suddenly have more than enough funding to make it through the next couple weeks.
this is good right? :)
and the only explanation *i* have for this goof several months ago with the book is: God foresaw the money issue i'd have this month and was planning ahead for me.
God is good. :)
after returning from europe, paying bills, and balancing my checkbook, i realized yesterday that i had $38 to make it til september 9th with if i don't plan to use my credit card. this is all good until you realize that i drive minimum 100 miles a week (church is 25 miles each way, school is 6 miles each way and i have to be on campus most days) and usually more, that i haven't bought food since i returned from abroad, that i have 3 friends coming this weekend, and that our clothes dryer is broken (and even though i don't mind letting things air dry, my roommates will want it fixed sooner).
this was made slightly better when my mom forwarded me a few birthday cards that had been sitting at her house all summer, but $38 + $24 = $62 is still cutting it close for 2 weeks of time.
so basically, here i am wondering where in the world i'm going to find money for food, for gas, and for entertaining my friends who are coming when lo and behold, i realized something.
for my birthday, i asked mom to buy me a textbook i need this fall that costs nearly $200. it's out of print, and hard to find. i think i got the last one that the site i ordered it from had. ironically, my mom paid for one, we only got charged for one, but somehow the company sent me 2. (i think they couldn't find it at first, asked an affiliate to send me a copy, and then found their own copies and sent me one as well without communicating with the affiliate, because they came in two different boxes about a week apart).
don't get me wrong, i tried to be honest and wrote them about the problem, commenting that i don't have the cash flow to mail it back to them, nor do i know where to mail it back, but i just wanted to be honest so please advise. they wrote me back that they would send me a prepaid mailing envelope to return the extra book in, but alas, no such thing ever happened.
so, i tried to be honest, but still have this $200 book in perfect condition in shrink wrap that i'm not going to use since i already have one that's in equally good condition.
so what to do? i'm picking up eric from the airport in an hour or two when he returns from time in vegas... he's taking that same class as me, and hadn't thought about getting books yet... when i suggested he buy it from me at amazon.com price, he said he'd be glad to, especially as amazon says it's a 1 to 3 month wait for shipping now (the book is high in demand, very low in supply).
so to summarize, i got a free book i tried to get rid of honestly earlier this summer, but with no luck. now today, eric's gonna cut me a nearly $200 check to get this book, and i will suddenly have more than enough funding to make it through the next couple weeks.
this is good right? :)
and the only explanation *i* have for this goof several months ago with the book is: God foresaw the money issue i'd have this month and was planning ahead for me.
God is good. :)
Sunday, August 28, 2005
ta da
here's the new outfit aunt pris bought me for heather's wedding next month:
is that not an awesome skirt? :P... plus now being 3 sizes smaller than i was at christmas (i.e. the size i was when i graduated high school and haven't been since then) is definitely not a bad thing either ;-)
is that not an awesome skirt? :P... plus now being 3 sizes smaller than i was at christmas (i.e. the size i was when i graduated high school and haven't been since then) is definitely not a bad thing either ;-)
eh
i am in a totally bizarre mood
while i have no problem typing up a storm, i've been kinda evasive about really wanting to talk to people most of this week... there's just been a lot of transitions to process.
i'm really glad i did the whole time with my aunt thing to think about grandma stuff a bit, but when i came back it put me in a bizarre mood -- here i am unpacking my stuff, but also a bunch of grandma's stuff.... i inherited a framed photo of her, age 10, and her baby sister that was on her table in her nursing home room for the past 5 years... also my aunt and uncle put together a picture for everyone in the family of grandma from sometime in the past couple years with a goofy grin on her face, and they put a poem on the back that my aunt had written after g-ma's second stroke... i had no shelf to put them on here, so i put them in the middle of my collection of angels on my bookcase... somehow that seems appropriate.
last night, scott threw a party at his house since his brother and cousin were visiting this weekend from wisconsin.... after much debating, ben and leigh convinced me i should come, especially as i've purposely avoiding parties for like the past year... i came, i chatted for a little, and then i went to eric's room to hide out and read for awhile... scott was *SO* excited to see me, and even came up to find me and read me a dr. seuss book before it was time for me to go.
eric doesn't get back into town til tomorrow, but he emailed me while i was in prague that he bought a piano off of ebay... i couldn't picture it fitting in his room, but sure enough there's a freakin piano in there!
i've been reading... ben had this book from an undergrad class and i'm borrowing it to consider if i should ask dr. z. if i can make it the minor topic for my oral quals... plus i wouldn't mind bruce on my committee, (he's visiting rutgers this year from michigan as a guest of dr. z.), and so this could work out well.
roommate gave me this book as a birthday present and i just got it when i got back into town... it's a very quick read but it's kinda fun... i've made it through the first 1/3 to 1/2 which is all einstein's life history and personal philosophy and am finally into reading the actual letters.
apparently my altar guild team was in charge for august... last year we were march and september, and this year was supposed to be the same, but apparently our team traded with the september team for some reason.... this means that i missed every saturday in august for setting up since i was in europe for every week but this past one, and i was in pittsburgh yesterday... and i've missed cleanup every week except for today... oops. bonnie knew i was going to be gone, i just feel a little silly that i missed it all. so it goes.
i haven't been that hungry since i've been back from europe... the only thing that looks appealing is fruit and salads,... sugary stuff in general looks like overkill and i want nothing of it... i guess this isn't a bad phase to be going through... if that's all i feel like eating, it can only help with my weight loss goals, right?
i should get my morning exercising spurt done so i can get myself ready and out the door for church.
done babbling.
later dudes.
while i have no problem typing up a storm, i've been kinda evasive about really wanting to talk to people most of this week... there's just been a lot of transitions to process.
i'm really glad i did the whole time with my aunt thing to think about grandma stuff a bit, but when i came back it put me in a bizarre mood -- here i am unpacking my stuff, but also a bunch of grandma's stuff.... i inherited a framed photo of her, age 10, and her baby sister that was on her table in her nursing home room for the past 5 years... also my aunt and uncle put together a picture for everyone in the family of grandma from sometime in the past couple years with a goofy grin on her face, and they put a poem on the back that my aunt had written after g-ma's second stroke... i had no shelf to put them on here, so i put them in the middle of my collection of angels on my bookcase... somehow that seems appropriate.
last night, scott threw a party at his house since his brother and cousin were visiting this weekend from wisconsin.... after much debating, ben and leigh convinced me i should come, especially as i've purposely avoiding parties for like the past year... i came, i chatted for a little, and then i went to eric's room to hide out and read for awhile... scott was *SO* excited to see me, and even came up to find me and read me a dr. seuss book before it was time for me to go.
eric doesn't get back into town til tomorrow, but he emailed me while i was in prague that he bought a piano off of ebay... i couldn't picture it fitting in his room, but sure enough there's a freakin piano in there!
i've been reading... ben had this book from an undergrad class and i'm borrowing it to consider if i should ask dr. z. if i can make it the minor topic for my oral quals... plus i wouldn't mind bruce on my committee, (he's visiting rutgers this year from michigan as a guest of dr. z.), and so this could work out well.
roommate gave me this book as a birthday present and i just got it when i got back into town... it's a very quick read but it's kinda fun... i've made it through the first 1/3 to 1/2 which is all einstein's life history and personal philosophy and am finally into reading the actual letters.
apparently my altar guild team was in charge for august... last year we were march and september, and this year was supposed to be the same, but apparently our team traded with the september team for some reason.... this means that i missed every saturday in august for setting up since i was in europe for every week but this past one, and i was in pittsburgh yesterday... and i've missed cleanup every week except for today... oops. bonnie knew i was going to be gone, i just feel a little silly that i missed it all. so it goes.
i haven't been that hungry since i've been back from europe... the only thing that looks appealing is fruit and salads,... sugary stuff in general looks like overkill and i want nothing of it... i guess this isn't a bad phase to be going through... if that's all i feel like eating, it can only help with my weight loss goals, right?
i should get my morning exercising spurt done so i can get myself ready and out the door for church.
done babbling.
later dudes.
Friday, August 26, 2005
etc.
in the past 24 hours...
* my aunt priscilla and i went dress shopping for my cousin heather's wedding (which is here in pittsburgh next month... heather is priscilla's niece also)... while priscilla didn't find anything she wanted to buy, i got a really cool skirt and matching top, and a cool necklace earrings set to go with, and priscilla insisted on paying "as a late birthday present", which was nice too... perhaps i'll post a picture when i get back to jersey tomorrow... it was also exciting as i fit into another size smaller than last month. :)
* i finally watched the video of my grandma's funeral from last month... it actually wasn't quite as hard for me to do as i had been expecting... part of that may be that the casket wasn't physically in front of me, but just on the TV screen and i was curled up in my aunt's bed with her cat... after watching that (and they videotaped the graveside service and had taken some pictures at the wake that they put as stillshots on the videotape too), my aunt and i chatted up a storm about grandma until we both needed to crash... i think it was good for both of us.
* this morning, my aunt and i bought flowers and soil and went up to the cemetary to plant them on grandma's grave. there's not a headstone yet... just a little sign in the ground with her name and 1928-2005 on it... all in all i think we did a nice job.
across the street from grandma's grave is a cow pasture and the mooing cows made me laugh... grandma's favorite childhood vacation spot was her uncle's cow farm, so somehow that's appropriate for her... i think she would have gotten a good laugh out of watching me and priscilla try to figure out what to put where and to plant the ground without actually stepping over her body... and i think our efforts turned out good.
* since the cemetary is literally just down the street from the nursing home that my grandma had been in for the past 5 years, and since my step-grandpa roy lives there now since he's started having major heart problems and got a pacemaker this summer, priscilla and i stopped there on the way back from the grave.
it's weird to see someone else in grandma's old room, but priscilla's right... somehow the fact that it's an older man instead of another white-haired old lady makes it a little better... anyhow, roy wasn't in his room (down the hall from g-ma's old room), and the nurses told priscilla that he had been taken to the hospital yesterday... (his niece has power of attorney as of last week, (as it should be) so she was the one who got called not us... priscilla requested to be called in the future even though she doesn't have any decision-making authority, just so that we know what's going on)
so we headed down to the hospital to see what was up... roy's in a progressive care unit (a level between general care and critical care)... apparently the blood isn't getting to his brain right, and his blood pressure is really low... he was asleep when we stopped in, but they had him sleeping with his head way back and his legs elevated which looked strange. priscilla, uncle bob, and i will go back later tonight during visiting hours in hopes of catching him awake... we shall see...
i think that's about it... tomorrow i drive back to NJ... ai yai yai.... don't you wish you had had my week? :P
* my aunt priscilla and i went dress shopping for my cousin heather's wedding (which is here in pittsburgh next month... heather is priscilla's niece also)... while priscilla didn't find anything she wanted to buy, i got a really cool skirt and matching top, and a cool necklace earrings set to go with, and priscilla insisted on paying "as a late birthday present", which was nice too... perhaps i'll post a picture when i get back to jersey tomorrow... it was also exciting as i fit into another size smaller than last month. :)
* i finally watched the video of my grandma's funeral from last month... it actually wasn't quite as hard for me to do as i had been expecting... part of that may be that the casket wasn't physically in front of me, but just on the TV screen and i was curled up in my aunt's bed with her cat... after watching that (and they videotaped the graveside service and had taken some pictures at the wake that they put as stillshots on the videotape too), my aunt and i chatted up a storm about grandma until we both needed to crash... i think it was good for both of us.
* this morning, my aunt and i bought flowers and soil and went up to the cemetary to plant them on grandma's grave. there's not a headstone yet... just a little sign in the ground with her name and 1928-2005 on it... all in all i think we did a nice job.
across the street from grandma's grave is a cow pasture and the mooing cows made me laugh... grandma's favorite childhood vacation spot was her uncle's cow farm, so somehow that's appropriate for her... i think she would have gotten a good laugh out of watching me and priscilla try to figure out what to put where and to plant the ground without actually stepping over her body... and i think our efforts turned out good.
* since the cemetary is literally just down the street from the nursing home that my grandma had been in for the past 5 years, and since my step-grandpa roy lives there now since he's started having major heart problems and got a pacemaker this summer, priscilla and i stopped there on the way back from the grave.
it's weird to see someone else in grandma's old room, but priscilla's right... somehow the fact that it's an older man instead of another white-haired old lady makes it a little better... anyhow, roy wasn't in his room (down the hall from g-ma's old room), and the nurses told priscilla that he had been taken to the hospital yesterday... (his niece has power of attorney as of last week, (as it should be) so she was the one who got called not us... priscilla requested to be called in the future even though she doesn't have any decision-making authority, just so that we know what's going on)
so we headed down to the hospital to see what was up... roy's in a progressive care unit (a level between general care and critical care)... apparently the blood isn't getting to his brain right, and his blood pressure is really low... he was asleep when we stopped in, but they had him sleeping with his head way back and his legs elevated which looked strange. priscilla, uncle bob, and i will go back later tonight during visiting hours in hopes of catching him awake... we shall see...
i think that's about it... tomorrow i drive back to NJ... ai yai yai.... don't you wish you had had my week? :P
Thursday, August 25, 2005
p.s.
3 things i forgot
* ben and i saw "march of the penguins" on tuesday (what could be better than an hour and a half of penguins running around antarctice, right?)... it was quality. i closed my eyes when they showed predators, but the penguin babies were adorable, and the adults were fun to watch too. who knew a documentary would be such a big hit on the big screen?
* apparently while in europe i lost another 5-6 pounds... this puts me up to 39ish lost, 61ish to go. not bad, eh?
* i need to figure out what to wear to my cousin heather's wedding next month... this probably involves buying something new... anyone care to offer any tips, and/or visit and help me figure it out? :P in related news, my aunt hired me last night to convince my 13 year old cousin that going in a black dress and her goth makeup is not appropriate for an afternoon wedding, even if she likes how she looks that way. unlike my aunt and uncle, since i'm "cool cousin lara", i succeeded. :)... now to figure out *my* clothes.... oi...
* ben and i saw "march of the penguins" on tuesday (what could be better than an hour and a half of penguins running around antarctice, right?)... it was quality. i closed my eyes when they showed predators, but the penguin babies were adorable, and the adults were fun to watch too. who knew a documentary would be such a big hit on the big screen?
* apparently while in europe i lost another 5-6 pounds... this puts me up to 39ish lost, 61ish to go. not bad, eh?
* i need to figure out what to wear to my cousin heather's wedding next month... this probably involves buying something new... anyone care to offer any tips, and/or visit and help me figure it out? :P in related news, my aunt hired me last night to convince my 13 year old cousin that going in a black dress and her goth makeup is not appropriate for an afternoon wedding, even if she likes how she looks that way. unlike my aunt and uncle, since i'm "cool cousin lara", i succeeded. :)... now to figure out *my* clothes.... oi...
greetings from... pittsburgh
as if i ever stay put...
i averaged 30mph on the interstate for the first few hours of my trip b/c eastern PA has soooo much freakin construction right now... oops.
so here i am at my aunt's house... still not on the right time zone, but getting there.
i haven't watched the funeral yet... that will be either today or tomorrow, plus there's a box of stuff that was saved for me from cleaning out grandma's apartment that i need to look through while i'm here...
today is a lazy day; tomorrow though, my aunt and i are going to buy some flowers and go plant them at grandma's grave.
i like hanging out with my aunt.
i think that's about it. :P
later dudes.
i averaged 30mph on the interstate for the first few hours of my trip b/c eastern PA has soooo much freakin construction right now... oops.
so here i am at my aunt's house... still not on the right time zone, but getting there.
i haven't watched the funeral yet... that will be either today or tomorrow, plus there's a box of stuff that was saved for me from cleaning out grandma's apartment that i need to look through while i'm here...
today is a lazy day; tomorrow though, my aunt and i are going to buy some flowers and go plant them at grandma's grave.
i like hanging out with my aunt.
i think that's about it. :P
later dudes.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
euro photos
i spent way too much time putting this together last night and this morning when i should have been asleep and/or packing; nonetheless, it's done:
europe photos
enjoy.
as for me, i'm off to pittsburgh, hopefully within the half hour.
later dudes.
europe photos
enjoy.
as for me, i'm off to pittsburgh, hopefully within the half hour.
later dudes.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
greetings from.... the good old U S of A
i'm back
i've written waaaaay too much in the past month, so brownie points if you've read even a respectable portion of it.
it's strange to be around only english again.
i have no idea what time zone my head is in right now. despite the fact that i was up for 24 hours straight while travelling (4am budapest time monday = 10pm eastern sunday) through the same time on (tuesday/monday), i still woke up at 3am ready to go this morning (that's 9am in budapest, the time i've been waking up for the past month)... luckily it wasn't hard to crash again until 7.... but now i'm up early and ready to have a stab being awake again.
the near future includes:
* a crazy day of running errands/paying bills/catching up on mail today
* tomorrow, i'm driving to pittsburgh (dude, what has the world done with gas prices while i've been gone?!?!) to hang out with my aunt priscilla the rest of the week. since my grandma died the first week i was in prague and i couldn't make it back for the funeral, she recorded it for me (and for my aunt debbee who was sick and couldn't get out of the hospital to come up from texas for the funeral either).... i'll watch the funeral with her at some point and visit my grandma's grave at some point before driving back to jersey on saturday.
(if this seems weird to you (watching a funeral on TV from a month ago), the way my family sees it is that funerals are for the living, not the dead. grandma is in heaven, and the purpose of a funeral is to help her family and friends deal with missing having her around in person and to celebrate the person that she was. this is a way for me to see the funeral for myself along with someone i love who also loved grandma a lot... i've managed to kind of just turn the emotions off for the past month, so this should be a good few days for helping me process the fact that grandma's gone, rather than ignore it.)
* school starts again next thursday. i have one class that's tuesday/friday, and a reading class with dr. z. (time TBA, but just once a week), and i teach on wednesdays. this means that as soon as i get back from pitt i have to change gears and get ready to start up with all that fun
* apparently nina and jessica (valpo friends) are coming up to visit me from SC and DE respectively next weekend... this should be fun. :)
* hopefully between all the "have to do" errands today, i'll manage to post the highlights of the 327 pictures i took in prague, and the 311 i took in budapest ;-)
time to get a move on...
later dudes :P
i've written waaaaay too much in the past month, so brownie points if you've read even a respectable portion of it.
it's strange to be around only english again.
i have no idea what time zone my head is in right now. despite the fact that i was up for 24 hours straight while travelling (4am budapest time monday = 10pm eastern sunday) through the same time on (tuesday/monday), i still woke up at 3am ready to go this morning (that's 9am in budapest, the time i've been waking up for the past month)... luckily it wasn't hard to crash again until 7.... but now i'm up early and ready to have a stab being awake again.
the near future includes:
* a crazy day of running errands/paying bills/catching up on mail today
* tomorrow, i'm driving to pittsburgh (dude, what has the world done with gas prices while i've been gone?!?!) to hang out with my aunt priscilla the rest of the week. since my grandma died the first week i was in prague and i couldn't make it back for the funeral, she recorded it for me (and for my aunt debbee who was sick and couldn't get out of the hospital to come up from texas for the funeral either).... i'll watch the funeral with her at some point and visit my grandma's grave at some point before driving back to jersey on saturday.
(if this seems weird to you (watching a funeral on TV from a month ago), the way my family sees it is that funerals are for the living, not the dead. grandma is in heaven, and the purpose of a funeral is to help her family and friends deal with missing having her around in person and to celebrate the person that she was. this is a way for me to see the funeral for myself along with someone i love who also loved grandma a lot... i've managed to kind of just turn the emotions off for the past month, so this should be a good few days for helping me process the fact that grandma's gone, rather than ignore it.)
* school starts again next thursday. i have one class that's tuesday/friday, and a reading class with dr. z. (time TBA, but just once a week), and i teach on wednesdays. this means that as soon as i get back from pitt i have to change gears and get ready to start up with all that fun
* apparently nina and jessica (valpo friends) are coming up to visit me from SC and DE respectively next weekend... this should be fun. :)
* hopefully between all the "have to do" errands today, i'll manage to post the highlights of the 327 pictures i took in prague, and the 311 i took in budapest ;-)
time to get a move on...
later dudes :P
Monday, August 22, 2005
greetings from .... germany :-P
good morning blog fans and greetings from the frankfort, germany airport... as i have a 4.5 hour layover, i figured i´d cough up the 4 euros to use the internet terminal for 40 minutes... then i´ll just be down to 3 hours to kill ;-).... as with burger king in budapest, the keyboard sucks, but there´s actually a smiley and a frowny key to type :-) and :-( which makes my day
since last post, ...
friday: 2 hour lunch with my friend bernadett... we had a great chat... after that i visited the hungarian folk arts festival at the castle downtown... i had been to the festival 3 years ago, and it wasn´t much different from that but it was still fun.... after that, dinner with shalom at kek rozsa, a restaurant i like downtown, and then to the same coffee house as last friday to drag people with us to heroes square to play glow in the dark frisbee :-)... after that we headed back to the river since every august 19th the government sponsors an annual "concert of joy" to celebrate hungarian music the night before the national holidaý... this year was hungarian jayy and the stage was floating in the middle of the river, so the riverbanks were the seating area... it was prtty fun... then chatting til late night in a turkish 24 hour buffet... mstly i chatted with henk and ate baklava.... it was fun :-)
saturday was szent istvan day, istvan = stephen being the first king and the patron saint of hungary.... all day there were airplane races and shows over the river, so after watching the military ceremonies at the parliament on TV while i got ready, i got a good spot on the riverbank to watch the "air parade"... fairly cool... after that lunch and then to heroes square again to meet up with friends for the afternoon... however i got there early and ended up witnessing a political rally for 20 minutes first... then to the holiday "why i like hungary" poster exhibition, and then to the river again to watch the airplane races.... those were crazy... they had a series of obstacles made of floats on the river for the planes to go through...
after that, i headed for the basilica for the mass for the holy right hand... that´s right, hungary´s most sacred relic is syent istvan´s mummified right hand (he died in 1038, so it´s rather shrillved and blue).... they have a mass for it and then a very impressive parade with the hand at the end for all the catholic groups reprsented in hungary... i ended up in the 3rd row from the front so my pictures from the holy right hand procession are pretty freakin awesome :-)
finally, we headed down to the river again for fireworks... 3 years ago i sat ON the chain bridge which had to be the best seats in the house... now, however, they shoot fireworks from the chain bridge and elizabeth bridge as well as gellert hill so next to the bridge was the best they could do.... i swear it´s highly unlikely that you´ve seen the likes of what budapest puts on for istvan day... imagine grand finale of anerican fireworks, but from minimum 3 places simultaneously very close together and simultaneously for 30 minutes straight.... it´s FANTASTIC :-)
the only part that was slightly annoying was that to get home i had to walk 5 miles since public transportation in downtown gets blocked off for all the mass festivies... but 5 miles isn´t really that bad so whatever
yesterday, was church and then henk, shalom, and i went to zsofi and peter´s house to watch kontroll, a really popular recent hungarian movie that´s an allegory about the transportation police... it was really good
finally, i had to say farewells to all my friends and head home to pack... i hate goodbyes,... what made me cry even more on my way home was that henk didn´t say "bye" or "it´s been fun", but rather "we love you, and always remember you ae a gift from God" :-).... i LOVE my budapest friends
this morning, i was up at 4am (europe time, that´s 10pm eastern) and out the door to the airport by 5am... now i take off from germany at 1pm (7am stateside) and get to jersey a little after 3pm eastern (9pm europe)... i can´t sleep on planes, so no matter how you slice it, it´s a long day.... i wish i had to listen to announcements in hungarian for 4 hours instead of german, but oh well... off to find some breakfast... later dudes :-P
since last post, ...
friday: 2 hour lunch with my friend bernadett... we had a great chat... after that i visited the hungarian folk arts festival at the castle downtown... i had been to the festival 3 years ago, and it wasn´t much different from that but it was still fun.... after that, dinner with shalom at kek rozsa, a restaurant i like downtown, and then to the same coffee house as last friday to drag people with us to heroes square to play glow in the dark frisbee :-)... after that we headed back to the river since every august 19th the government sponsors an annual "concert of joy" to celebrate hungarian music the night before the national holidaý... this year was hungarian jayy and the stage was floating in the middle of the river, so the riverbanks were the seating area... it was prtty fun... then chatting til late night in a turkish 24 hour buffet... mstly i chatted with henk and ate baklava.... it was fun :-)
saturday was szent istvan day, istvan = stephen being the first king and the patron saint of hungary.... all day there were airplane races and shows over the river, so after watching the military ceremonies at the parliament on TV while i got ready, i got a good spot on the riverbank to watch the "air parade"... fairly cool... after that lunch and then to heroes square again to meet up with friends for the afternoon... however i got there early and ended up witnessing a political rally for 20 minutes first... then to the holiday "why i like hungary" poster exhibition, and then to the river again to watch the airplane races.... those were crazy... they had a series of obstacles made of floats on the river for the planes to go through...
after that, i headed for the basilica for the mass for the holy right hand... that´s right, hungary´s most sacred relic is syent istvan´s mummified right hand (he died in 1038, so it´s rather shrillved and blue).... they have a mass for it and then a very impressive parade with the hand at the end for all the catholic groups reprsented in hungary... i ended up in the 3rd row from the front so my pictures from the holy right hand procession are pretty freakin awesome :-)
finally, we headed down to the river again for fireworks... 3 years ago i sat ON the chain bridge which had to be the best seats in the house... now, however, they shoot fireworks from the chain bridge and elizabeth bridge as well as gellert hill so next to the bridge was the best they could do.... i swear it´s highly unlikely that you´ve seen the likes of what budapest puts on for istvan day... imagine grand finale of anerican fireworks, but from minimum 3 places simultaneously very close together and simultaneously for 30 minutes straight.... it´s FANTASTIC :-)
the only part that was slightly annoying was that to get home i had to walk 5 miles since public transportation in downtown gets blocked off for all the mass festivies... but 5 miles isn´t really that bad so whatever
yesterday, was church and then henk, shalom, and i went to zsofi and peter´s house to watch kontroll, a really popular recent hungarian movie that´s an allegory about the transportation police... it was really good
finally, i had to say farewells to all my friends and head home to pack... i hate goodbyes,... what made me cry even more on my way home was that henk didn´t say "bye" or "it´s been fun", but rather "we love you, and always remember you ae a gift from God" :-).... i LOVE my budapest friends
this morning, i was up at 4am (europe time, that´s 10pm eastern) and out the door to the airport by 5am... now i take off from germany at 1pm (7am stateside) and get to jersey a little after 3pm eastern (9pm europe)... i can´t sleep on planes, so no matter how you slice it, it´s a long day.... i wish i had to listen to announcements in hungarian for 4 hours instead of german, but oh well... off to find some breakfast... later dudes :-P
Thursday, August 18, 2005
more from budapest
greetings blog fans... apparently my old non school internet hangouts in budapest have moved and/or closed so alas im writing on the burger king computer... 20 minutes for 50ish cents with purchase of food.... keyboards stink, but i have a cupholder for my milkshake :P
12 minutes to go...
monday: dinner and a movie at shaloms house w her and her parents... her dad is my pastor here, so that was nice
it rained all day so i hung out at one of the big malls... for those of you who were horrified 3 years ago by the hungarian electronic violin trio i brought back on cd who technoify popular classicalmusic, they put out 2 new discs since ive been gone and i got them both :)
tuesday: wandering in the day... bible study at night w friends at the new budapest christian library (how i wish it had been here 3 years ago)
wednesday: japanese drum concert w shalom, zsofi, and zsofis boyfriend peter
tonight: toronto mass gospel choir concert (completely awesome) w mike....dude from new zealand who goes to my budapest church now.... i met him last weekend...
rained alll week, but beautiful now after the concert... almost out of time, so headed down to the duna (danube) to watch stars from the chain bridge before a busy weekend :P
yay for fast food internet?
probably next update monday from the states.... happy weekend yall ... think of hungary partying it up for szent istvan day :)
12 minutes to go...
monday: dinner and a movie at shaloms house w her and her parents... her dad is my pastor here, so that was nice
it rained all day so i hung out at one of the big malls... for those of you who were horrified 3 years ago by the hungarian electronic violin trio i brought back on cd who technoify popular classicalmusic, they put out 2 new discs since ive been gone and i got them both :)
tuesday: wandering in the day... bible study at night w friends at the new budapest christian library (how i wish it had been here 3 years ago)
wednesday: japanese drum concert w shalom, zsofi, and zsofis boyfriend peter
tonight: toronto mass gospel choir concert (completely awesome) w mike....dude from new zealand who goes to my budapest church now.... i met him last weekend...
rained alll week, but beautiful now after the concert... almost out of time, so headed down to the duna (danube) to watch stars from the chain bridge before a busy weekend :P
yay for fast food internet?
probably next update monday from the states.... happy weekend yall ... think of hungary partying it up for szent istvan day :)
Sunday, August 14, 2005
greetings from budapest!!!
a huge hello from hungary.
:)
as noted in advance, i don't have free internet here, and i'm usually out with people all afternoon/evening until after the internet cafes i'd actually pay for are closed.
at any rate, here's my life in the past half week.
last tuesday night was my last night in prague... jan, josef, and marek took me, sarah, and sam out to a czech jazz club for the night... it was a lot of fun... it also meant i didn't get home until 12:30am when i had to be awake at 5am on wednesday... so wednesday i was pretty out of it.
but that's ok... wednesday i was up at 5, out the door by 6, and at the train station by 7 to catch my 7:30am train to budapest. i shared the cabin with 3 students from amsterdam who talked in dutch the whole ride, and two older czech men... not much leg room, but i had a window seat, so whatever :P sooooo many fields of sunflowers in czech republic and in slovakia like you've never see... amazing....
the geography changes completely when you get to the slovakian/hungarian border, even though it's just a really short ride from there to budapest.
wednesday, shalom and william met me at the train station when i got into town around 3pm. shalom is a good friend from 3 years ago... william is a friend of hers who i'm renting an apartment from. when i lived in budapest before, i lived in the buda (western side) about even with the center of town... the apartment i'm renting is awesome, but a little south of the parts of town i know best... what is nice is that it's on the 2nd floor of a building where the 1st floor is a convenience store... so unlike when i lived here before, there are no grumpy neighbors if i drop something late at night! :) for $23 a night, i have a bathroom, full kitchen, and then a large room with everything else i need... including tv, which i haven't watched at all in 3 weeks... at night cnbc europe plays leno, so i generally have been falling asleep to that :P, otherwise it's good to catch up on news while i make my breakfast... it's slightly more than i'd pay for a hostel, but worth it for the personal space since i'm here for so long... moving on... :P
wednesday night, though exhausted, shalom and i went to the nearest mall to get dinner from a food court, then met her parents at a local hungarian church where an american choir called the "continental choir" was doing a concert... that was fun.
thursday, i wandered a LOT to places i'd been to before and have missed... then i met up with shalom and her japanese friend chickako for dinner and for a concert... the concert turned out costing more than we expected though, so we went to sit by a nearby lake, where we discovered we could still hear the concert (orchestra) for free, AND talk and watch the stars too. :) that too, was quality.
friday, i met up with shalom and with our friend zsofi (one of my hungarian friends) at a really cool teahouse to chat away the afternoon... it was not your typical teahouse though... it had lots of nooks and crannies and rope bridges and lofts to hide in, and we ended up at a table made of pillows hiding in a corner in the floor... it was a fun time to catch up... zsofi commented that she loves hanging out with me because "not only can i practice my english, it's like you've never left, i feel just as close to you as before" :)
after i parted ways with both of them, i met up with henk to go to a coffee house i used to hang out at most fridays when i lived here before... henk is in his early 40s and is from holland, and is tons of fun for chatting with... besides him, i spent quite a bit of time chatting with arpad, one of henk's hungarian english students, and with laszlo, an extremely friendly hungarian guy who happened to be there too.
saturday, i met up again with shalom and with her friend bethany. we spent the afternoon playing cards on margaret island (the beautiful island in the middle of the danube here), and then after dinner (at one of my favorite hungarian restaurants near where i used to live here: st. jupat's), we went to visit the chain bridge. apparently every weekend this summer they've been doing live music and selling crafts and making it open to pedestrian traffic only, which is lots of fun... we heard a hungarian gypsy jazz band for awhile before going home.
this morning i was back at my old church here in budapest, where i got to see my supergood friend bernadett finally again... she's like 10 years older than me to the day, but was my prayer partner most of the semester i was here, so we chatted a LOT about many things and have been well in touch since. her daughter was 4 when i left and is now 7!... my how she's grown! bernadett is expecting baby #2 in september, and since she's usually extremely skinny it's so funny to see her 8 months pregnant! (not haha funny, different funny)... after church, 9 of us had a barbeque at bethany's apartment, which is where i am now... there was mike from new zealand... joseph and jean from australia, but korean by birth... jean's husband eduardo from spain, anna from france, chickako from japan, and then me, shalom, and bethany (americans although i'm the only one who actually lives in the states), which made for quite the entertaining dinner... the guys took care of the grill on the balcony, and all us girls took care of everything else in the kitchen... this is one thing i've missed hugely from here, is the guy-girl dynamic in the 20-30 something group at my budapest church. it's hard to explain why, but it's different in a very good way... there are things / divisions that definitely single me out at a girl or that i would consider too girly to do with certain groups in the states, but here somehow it's ok, because of the atmosphere... i'm not phrasing this well at all... but there's a difference... moving on..
things i've missed, and am glad to have back for a bit...
* the hungarian language... i've forgotten waaaay more of it than i wish i had just due to lack of practice in the past 2.5 years, but it's still beautiful to hear. :)
* gum that tastes strongly of menthol
* the 24 hour crepes restaurant at batthyany ter
* my budapest church... even though there are many new people as well as many the same, it's a beautiful community of people from so many places, but all who are so friendly and all about God... it's a wonderful place to return to... it's a gift to be back with a community that was such a powerful place for me to be in the past
* the danube... kinda gross by day, but at sunset, it's one of the most beautiful things ever
* the selection of fruit juices in the grocery stores here. :) that's the one thing america will never compare on
* the budapest yellow line metro (3rd oldest subway in the world, it's very quaint :) )
* the flowers on margaret island
* my friends in hungary (although as you may have gathered from the rest of the post, half are hungarian, half are expats from other countries)
at any rate, one week to go, and i count on it being a fabulous one. :)
szent istvan day (THE national holiday around here) is on saturday, so that will come complete with a fabulous fireworks display... the annual folk arts festival is coming up this next weekend at the castle downtown... more quality time with everyone listed above plus some others...
it's a beautiful week in hungary (weather wise), and people wise it should be more of the same. :)
:)
as noted in advance, i don't have free internet here, and i'm usually out with people all afternoon/evening until after the internet cafes i'd actually pay for are closed.
at any rate, here's my life in the past half week.
last tuesday night was my last night in prague... jan, josef, and marek took me, sarah, and sam out to a czech jazz club for the night... it was a lot of fun... it also meant i didn't get home until 12:30am when i had to be awake at 5am on wednesday... so wednesday i was pretty out of it.
but that's ok... wednesday i was up at 5, out the door by 6, and at the train station by 7 to catch my 7:30am train to budapest. i shared the cabin with 3 students from amsterdam who talked in dutch the whole ride, and two older czech men... not much leg room, but i had a window seat, so whatever :P sooooo many fields of sunflowers in czech republic and in slovakia like you've never see... amazing....
the geography changes completely when you get to the slovakian/hungarian border, even though it's just a really short ride from there to budapest.
wednesday, shalom and william met me at the train station when i got into town around 3pm. shalom is a good friend from 3 years ago... william is a friend of hers who i'm renting an apartment from. when i lived in budapest before, i lived in the buda (western side) about even with the center of town... the apartment i'm renting is awesome, but a little south of the parts of town i know best... what is nice is that it's on the 2nd floor of a building where the 1st floor is a convenience store... so unlike when i lived here before, there are no grumpy neighbors if i drop something late at night! :) for $23 a night, i have a bathroom, full kitchen, and then a large room with everything else i need... including tv, which i haven't watched at all in 3 weeks... at night cnbc europe plays leno, so i generally have been falling asleep to that :P, otherwise it's good to catch up on news while i make my breakfast... it's slightly more than i'd pay for a hostel, but worth it for the personal space since i'm here for so long... moving on... :P
wednesday night, though exhausted, shalom and i went to the nearest mall to get dinner from a food court, then met her parents at a local hungarian church where an american choir called the "continental choir" was doing a concert... that was fun.
thursday, i wandered a LOT to places i'd been to before and have missed... then i met up with shalom and her japanese friend chickako for dinner and for a concert... the concert turned out costing more than we expected though, so we went to sit by a nearby lake, where we discovered we could still hear the concert (orchestra) for free, AND talk and watch the stars too. :) that too, was quality.
friday, i met up with shalom and with our friend zsofi (one of my hungarian friends) at a really cool teahouse to chat away the afternoon... it was not your typical teahouse though... it had lots of nooks and crannies and rope bridges and lofts to hide in, and we ended up at a table made of pillows hiding in a corner in the floor... it was a fun time to catch up... zsofi commented that she loves hanging out with me because "not only can i practice my english, it's like you've never left, i feel just as close to you as before" :)
after i parted ways with both of them, i met up with henk to go to a coffee house i used to hang out at most fridays when i lived here before... henk is in his early 40s and is from holland, and is tons of fun for chatting with... besides him, i spent quite a bit of time chatting with arpad, one of henk's hungarian english students, and with laszlo, an extremely friendly hungarian guy who happened to be there too.
saturday, i met up again with shalom and with her friend bethany. we spent the afternoon playing cards on margaret island (the beautiful island in the middle of the danube here), and then after dinner (at one of my favorite hungarian restaurants near where i used to live here: st. jupat's), we went to visit the chain bridge. apparently every weekend this summer they've been doing live music and selling crafts and making it open to pedestrian traffic only, which is lots of fun... we heard a hungarian gypsy jazz band for awhile before going home.
this morning i was back at my old church here in budapest, where i got to see my supergood friend bernadett finally again... she's like 10 years older than me to the day, but was my prayer partner most of the semester i was here, so we chatted a LOT about many things and have been well in touch since. her daughter was 4 when i left and is now 7!... my how she's grown! bernadett is expecting baby #2 in september, and since she's usually extremely skinny it's so funny to see her 8 months pregnant! (not haha funny, different funny)... after church, 9 of us had a barbeque at bethany's apartment, which is where i am now... there was mike from new zealand... joseph and jean from australia, but korean by birth... jean's husband eduardo from spain, anna from france, chickako from japan, and then me, shalom, and bethany (americans although i'm the only one who actually lives in the states), which made for quite the entertaining dinner... the guys took care of the grill on the balcony, and all us girls took care of everything else in the kitchen... this is one thing i've missed hugely from here, is the guy-girl dynamic in the 20-30 something group at my budapest church. it's hard to explain why, but it's different in a very good way... there are things / divisions that definitely single me out at a girl or that i would consider too girly to do with certain groups in the states, but here somehow it's ok, because of the atmosphere... i'm not phrasing this well at all... but there's a difference... moving on..
things i've missed, and am glad to have back for a bit...
* the hungarian language... i've forgotten waaaay more of it than i wish i had just due to lack of practice in the past 2.5 years, but it's still beautiful to hear. :)
* gum that tastes strongly of menthol
* the 24 hour crepes restaurant at batthyany ter
* my budapest church... even though there are many new people as well as many the same, it's a beautiful community of people from so many places, but all who are so friendly and all about God... it's a wonderful place to return to... it's a gift to be back with a community that was such a powerful place for me to be in the past
* the danube... kinda gross by day, but at sunset, it's one of the most beautiful things ever
* the selection of fruit juices in the grocery stores here. :) that's the one thing america will never compare on
* the budapest yellow line metro (3rd oldest subway in the world, it's very quaint :) )
* the flowers on margaret island
* my friends in hungary (although as you may have gathered from the rest of the post, half are hungarian, half are expats from other countries)
at any rate, one week to go, and i count on it being a fabulous one. :)
szent istvan day (THE national holiday around here) is on saturday, so that will come complete with a fabulous fireworks display... the annual folk arts festival is coming up this next weekend at the castle downtown... more quality time with everyone listed above plus some others...
it's a beautiful week in hungary (weather wise), and people wise it should be more of the same. :)
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
this is fairly fantastic... :)
eric found this thread at the mersenne forum yesterday... even if you're not a math person, you should click it!
for the record, czech light beer is at least the equal of the dark beer... and when it only comes in 0.5 liter glasses, all the better... i think we each had minimum 1 liter of beer last night.
hard to believe that after 7 weeks of working with these students in the states, and 2.5 really intense weeks working with them all here (and having tons of fun as well), when i go to sleep tonight, i won't see any of them again until life chances to make us cross paths again... kinda strange to think about.
it's nastily pouring down rain all day today, with no chance of it clearing up til overnihgt... so chance are the afternoon will be spent in the dorm packing, making a few phone calls about money, and taking a nap so that i'm capable of having fun tonight, but waking up at 5am tomorrow.
prague has been fun... i'm incredibly excited for budapest though. ;) my train tomorrow will come into the station that's 3 blocks from where i went to school for my semester there... even more than just visiting the city i love, it'll even start off with me being on home turf. ;) i can't wait. :)
here concludes (probably) my lengthy commentary on prague... hungary, here i come. ;)
for the record, czech light beer is at least the equal of the dark beer... and when it only comes in 0.5 liter glasses, all the better... i think we each had minimum 1 liter of beer last night.
hard to believe that after 7 weeks of working with these students in the states, and 2.5 really intense weeks working with them all here (and having tons of fun as well), when i go to sleep tonight, i won't see any of them again until life chances to make us cross paths again... kinda strange to think about.
it's nastily pouring down rain all day today, with no chance of it clearing up til overnihgt... so chance are the afternoon will be spent in the dorm packing, making a few phone calls about money, and taking a nap so that i'm capable of having fun tonight, but waking up at 5am tomorrow.
prague has been fun... i'm incredibly excited for budapest though. ;) my train tomorrow will come into the station that's 3 blocks from where i went to school for my semester there... even more than just visiting the city i love, it'll even start off with me being on home turf. ;) i can't wait. :)
here concludes (probably) my lengthy commentary on prague... hungary, here i come. ;)
Monday, August 08, 2005
p.s. (disclaimer)
about my euro-posts...
i am fully aware that i've typed waaaaaay more than any sane person has time or desire to read in the past two weeks. there is a reason for this.
when in europe, or anywhere that's new/different to you, there's so many new things to see and think about that it's a very good thing to document them and your reactions to them i think. the last time i was in europe, i had a laptop with me that worked and so i could keep notes for myself. this time around, i've got just me, and my internet access. instead of having to write tons of emails to individuals about what i'm up to, i can just write in one place and then respond to the individual emails i actually receive.... but moreover, whether anyone reads it or not, all these posts are here for *me* to remember my initial reaction to this, that, and the next thing.
if you're actually reading all these posts, i hope you enjoy them.
if you're overwhelmed with how much i've written lately, then, all this is just to say, no i'm not sorry for writing so much... i'm not bothered by who reads how much, it's more for me, than for you... but i hope you enjoy what you do read. :P
i won't have free internet in budapest, so while there will probably be an occasional post or two or more, i won't have the leisure to write such novels... so rest assured, either way, you get a break soon. ;)
the end.
i am fully aware that i've typed waaaaaay more than any sane person has time or desire to read in the past two weeks. there is a reason for this.
when in europe, or anywhere that's new/different to you, there's so many new things to see and think about that it's a very good thing to document them and your reactions to them i think. the last time i was in europe, i had a laptop with me that worked and so i could keep notes for myself. this time around, i've got just me, and my internet access. instead of having to write tons of emails to individuals about what i'm up to, i can just write in one place and then respond to the individual emails i actually receive.... but moreover, whether anyone reads it or not, all these posts are here for *me* to remember my initial reaction to this, that, and the next thing.
if you're actually reading all these posts, i hope you enjoy them.
if you're overwhelmed with how much i've written lately, then, all this is just to say, no i'm not sorry for writing so much... i'm not bothered by who reads how much, it's more for me, than for you... but i hope you enjoy what you do read. :P
i won't have free internet in budapest, so while there will probably be an occasional post or two or more, i won't have the leisure to write such novels... so rest assured, either way, you get a break soon. ;)
the end.
oi...
today has been a bit of a "nothing happened the way it should day"...
* we all showed up for the math lecture of the day by 10... the lecturer showed up at 10:30 (he had called first at least; we just didn't find out until we got to the math building)
* the lectures so far have been about 1.5 hours, which is about the limit of a normal person's attention span... today's lecture was over 2.5 hours... NO ONE was paying clear attention after about 1.5 hours... clear lecturer, good topic, just waaaaaay too long
* i decided to check out the prague university botanic garden this afternoon... in and of itself, a free and good idea... although there were occasionally grey clouds, by and large they were white puffy ones... i got halfway through when it started pouring... so i headed for the nearest tree, and got wet, but not nearly as wet as i'd have been if not hanging out with the tree... a i'd guess 40ish year old czech lady made a running dive for an even shorter tree near me, and we both ended up laughing and just enjoying the rain... not as planned for the afternoon (spending a chunk of it under a tree in the rain with someone i didn't share a language with), but laughing at the rain together was at least a good result :P
* as mentioned earlier, it dawned on me yesterday that my 6 digit atm pin might be a problem in budapest... bank of america's email customer service was prompt with responding, but unfortauntely the international debit card services can't change your pin over the phone for security reasons (so although they were as helpful as they could be, i'm still kinda stuck)... i've hatched a plot to (a) call up my one paid off credit card and tell them i'm in europe so don't flag my card for unusal activity if it starts getting used as an atm card in budapest... and (b) get my mom to put some cash in my memphis account i share with her... since i know that atm card works in europe just fine. we'll see how it all works out. just frustrating that it didn't cross my mind earlier.
at least we have electricity in our room again... that much is good although it shouldn't have been out in the first place!
what to do with my last night and day in prague?
* tonight, all the REU folks are supposed to go out to a pub to hang out... should be fun, as long as we all find each other to meet up... especially fun now that i've decided i like beer here. ;)
* tomorrow, final lecture... hopefully not more than an hour and a half long... then i'm just relaxing and making sure my stuff fits in my suitcase again..
* wednesday i have a 7:30am train... what's going to be fun is getting my 60 pound suitcase down the front steps outside the dorm, maybe 500 feet down the street to the bus stop, on and off the bus, down a mega flight of stairs into the metro station, switching metros with it, and then getting it not only onto the train, but onto the rack above my head in the cabin... it would be slightly easier if i didn't have a heavy carryon and a purse to keep track of simultaneously as well.... the waking up at 5am will be entertaining too... many of you will still be up at 11pm or midnight tuesday night your time while i'm up and trying to lug luggage across prague at the start of morning rush hour.... aren't you jealous?
i think i'm done rambling for the day... annoyed with finances, but the laughing at the rain in the garden makes up for it a little :P
later dudes
* we all showed up for the math lecture of the day by 10... the lecturer showed up at 10:30 (he had called first at least; we just didn't find out until we got to the math building)
* the lectures so far have been about 1.5 hours, which is about the limit of a normal person's attention span... today's lecture was over 2.5 hours... NO ONE was paying clear attention after about 1.5 hours... clear lecturer, good topic, just waaaaaay too long
* i decided to check out the prague university botanic garden this afternoon... in and of itself, a free and good idea... although there were occasionally grey clouds, by and large they were white puffy ones... i got halfway through when it started pouring... so i headed for the nearest tree, and got wet, but not nearly as wet as i'd have been if not hanging out with the tree... a i'd guess 40ish year old czech lady made a running dive for an even shorter tree near me, and we both ended up laughing and just enjoying the rain... not as planned for the afternoon (spending a chunk of it under a tree in the rain with someone i didn't share a language with), but laughing at the rain together was at least a good result :P
* as mentioned earlier, it dawned on me yesterday that my 6 digit atm pin might be a problem in budapest... bank of america's email customer service was prompt with responding, but unfortauntely the international debit card services can't change your pin over the phone for security reasons (so although they were as helpful as they could be, i'm still kinda stuck)... i've hatched a plot to (a) call up my one paid off credit card and tell them i'm in europe so don't flag my card for unusal activity if it starts getting used as an atm card in budapest... and (b) get my mom to put some cash in my memphis account i share with her... since i know that atm card works in europe just fine. we'll see how it all works out. just frustrating that it didn't cross my mind earlier.
at least we have electricity in our room again... that much is good although it shouldn't have been out in the first place!
what to do with my last night and day in prague?
* tonight, all the REU folks are supposed to go out to a pub to hang out... should be fun, as long as we all find each other to meet up... especially fun now that i've decided i like beer here. ;)
* tomorrow, final lecture... hopefully not more than an hour and a half long... then i'm just relaxing and making sure my stuff fits in my suitcase again..
* wednesday i have a 7:30am train... what's going to be fun is getting my 60 pound suitcase down the front steps outside the dorm, maybe 500 feet down the street to the bus stop, on and off the bus, down a mega flight of stairs into the metro station, switching metros with it, and then getting it not only onto the train, but onto the rack above my head in the cabin... it would be slightly easier if i didn't have a heavy carryon and a purse to keep track of simultaneously as well.... the waking up at 5am will be entertaining too... many of you will still be up at 11pm or midnight tuesday night your time while i'm up and trying to lug luggage across prague at the start of morning rush hour.... aren't you jealous?
i think i'm done rambling for the day... annoyed with finances, but the laughing at the rain in the garden makes up for it a little :P
later dudes
ode to czech beer, the prague planetarium, and electricity
czech beer:
if american beer tasted even half as good as czech dark beer, i would definitely be a beer drinker... unfortunately (?) it's not nearly as quality and i live in the country with the lesser beer, so oh well. to summarize -- czech dark beer is the best ever. :)
the prague planetarium:
so when i went to see a program called "night sky" last night, i expected about what you'd see under that title in an american planetarium... 20-25 minutes of constellations that you can currently see... instead, for $4 ($2 for the show, $2 for the headphones taht gave us english translation), we got an hour long program that pointed out major constellations of all four seasons, with other information between each season (galaxies, planets, comets, etc., etc.), and THEN (one of the coolest things ever since i've never been to a planetarium show in the states that did this) -- they showed us the stars and major circumpolar constellations of the southern hemisphere...
we were all pretty impressed (sam, arjun, katja, and jitka all came with)... the exhibition hall of space displays before you get to see the show was pretty impressive too, although i'm sure even more impressive if i knew czech... to summarize... the prague planetarium rocks.
electricity:
you don't think much about it when you have it... you don't even think much about it when you're travelling b/c everything you bring with you is battery powered, but as of yesterday afternoon, the power in our room is halfway out... none of the light switches work, but all the power outlets do... this means it's pitch black in the bathroom, and instead of overhead lights, we need to use the plug in ones that came with the room... but the cord on mine is threadbare and it sparks when you plug it in, so that's no good either. while technically one can get ready in a pitch black bathroom, it's a little weird since i've been totally freaked out about looking at mirrors in the dark ever since i was told some really scary stories last halloween... i'm a wimp, yes. anyhow, hopefully by the time we return this afternoon, we'll have full power again... because light is nice. :P
other issues to resolve?
i didn't think about it since they just gave us $$ here, but my ATM pin is 6 digits and most european ATMs only take 4 digit pins... in hungary, to pay for my apartment i'm renting, this could be a problem... oi... so luckily my bank is prompt at having responsive customer service... i think if i call the number they gave me, i can make it a 4 digit pin and be all good again... we shall see. it would be hard to not have access to my $$ for the rest of the trip...
math talk in 5 minutes, pub tonight, math talk tomorrow AM, and then the REU is done... what a 2 weeks....
later dudes
if american beer tasted even half as good as czech dark beer, i would definitely be a beer drinker... unfortunately (?) it's not nearly as quality and i live in the country with the lesser beer, so oh well. to summarize -- czech dark beer is the best ever. :)
the prague planetarium:
so when i went to see a program called "night sky" last night, i expected about what you'd see under that title in an american planetarium... 20-25 minutes of constellations that you can currently see... instead, for $4 ($2 for the show, $2 for the headphones taht gave us english translation), we got an hour long program that pointed out major constellations of all four seasons, with other information between each season (galaxies, planets, comets, etc., etc.), and THEN (one of the coolest things ever since i've never been to a planetarium show in the states that did this) -- they showed us the stars and major circumpolar constellations of the southern hemisphere...
we were all pretty impressed (sam, arjun, katja, and jitka all came with)... the exhibition hall of space displays before you get to see the show was pretty impressive too, although i'm sure even more impressive if i knew czech... to summarize... the prague planetarium rocks.
electricity:
you don't think much about it when you have it... you don't even think much about it when you're travelling b/c everything you bring with you is battery powered, but as of yesterday afternoon, the power in our room is halfway out... none of the light switches work, but all the power outlets do... this means it's pitch black in the bathroom, and instead of overhead lights, we need to use the plug in ones that came with the room... but the cord on mine is threadbare and it sparks when you plug it in, so that's no good either. while technically one can get ready in a pitch black bathroom, it's a little weird since i've been totally freaked out about looking at mirrors in the dark ever since i was told some really scary stories last halloween... i'm a wimp, yes. anyhow, hopefully by the time we return this afternoon, we'll have full power again... because light is nice. :P
other issues to resolve?
i didn't think about it since they just gave us $$ here, but my ATM pin is 6 digits and most european ATMs only take 4 digit pins... in hungary, to pay for my apartment i'm renting, this could be a problem... oi... so luckily my bank is prompt at having responsive customer service... i think if i call the number they gave me, i can make it a 4 digit pin and be all good again... we shall see. it would be hard to not have access to my $$ for the rest of the trip...
math talk in 5 minutes, pub tonight, math talk tomorrow AM, and then the REU is done... what a 2 weeks....
later dudes
Sunday, August 07, 2005
...
happy sunday :P
the fountain last night was AMAZING. the show we saw had the theme of "love songs from famous ballets"... it ended up being me, sarah, melissa, and matt who went to see it... melissa and sarah are two of my students, matt is a random guy who's working here in prague for the rest of the month before he goes to vancouver to teach starting in the fall... he's like 7 years older than me, but you wouldn't place him as in his 30s at all... he just doesn't want to grow up yet... and has a lot of fun hanging out with all us REU people. :P
at dinner (the four of us) ahead of time, we saw sam, arjun, jitka, and katja (sam and arjun are 2 more of my students, jitka (might not be spelled right) and katja are two slovenian students who were here for the same lectures as us this week) were walking by, and matt ran out to stop them and make them join us... it was an entertaining dinner crew
anonymous dinner quotes from last night:
"ohhh! i went there 3 times today... well, not exactly... i didn't find it the first two times, but i got there eventually"
"so did you all already eat?"
(one of the slovenians): "well, we had breakfast, and lunch, and another lunch, and... i think maybe another lunch after that... all the american boys do is eat"
"so what... we all want wives with one eye and clubbed feet?"
"oh my gosh! i love the rock! the rock is my friend. it's so great... the rock, the rock, the rock, i LOVE the rock!"
(none of them were me)
the caves today were fun... it ended up just being josef (one of the czech students who was in the states all summer), sam, melissa, me, and katja... with sarah being sick today, jitka being off doing whatever, and arjun and craig too lazy to leave the dorm today... (then again craig has spent the whole two weeks attentively attending the math lectures, but otherwise in the dorm, not joining anyone for any social/tourist/cultural activities whatsoever).
they're the biggest cave system in bohemia, but since they're in the middle of lots of countryside, and not near any large towns whatsoever, you really need to know czech to even find them on your own, so all the tours are in czech only. on the plus side, they did have handouts summarizing what the guide said in english for those of us who don't so much speak czech. i've been through several caves before, this one was not on the larger side, but it was nice... some pretty formations... some really cool fossils have been found there before... and the highest cavern used to be used as a mint for fake coins in the 15th century....at one point the guide turned out all the lights and (according to josef, who is shy and will translate when asked but is not one for telling things with dramatic flair) pointed out how dark it is, commenting that even if you lived in the cave for half a year, you still wouldn't see any better than we did right then (i couldn't even see my hand in front of my face)... then she (the guide) said we could sing a song if we wanted, and everyone, except for the 4 of us non-czechs started singing some children's song in the dark, while we just listened and were amused. :P go figured...
chilling for the afternoon, then sam's actually interested in going to the Prague Planetarium with me tonight, so i'm looking forward to it... they actually have a show with english translation at 7:30 tonight... if i spoke czech is would be $2, but to get the translation headphones, it costs $4 in all... still not bad at all compared to american prices... the show tonight is just "the night sky", so probably mostly things i've heard before, but still it will be cool to see a planetarium in another country and see how it compares. :)
2 more days in prague... time goes sooo quickly!
later dudes
the fountain last night was AMAZING. the show we saw had the theme of "love songs from famous ballets"... it ended up being me, sarah, melissa, and matt who went to see it... melissa and sarah are two of my students, matt is a random guy who's working here in prague for the rest of the month before he goes to vancouver to teach starting in the fall... he's like 7 years older than me, but you wouldn't place him as in his 30s at all... he just doesn't want to grow up yet... and has a lot of fun hanging out with all us REU people. :P
at dinner (the four of us) ahead of time, we saw sam, arjun, jitka, and katja (sam and arjun are 2 more of my students, jitka (might not be spelled right) and katja are two slovenian students who were here for the same lectures as us this week) were walking by, and matt ran out to stop them and make them join us... it was an entertaining dinner crew
anonymous dinner quotes from last night:
"ohhh! i went there 3 times today... well, not exactly... i didn't find it the first two times, but i got there eventually"
"so did you all already eat?"
(one of the slovenians): "well, we had breakfast, and lunch, and another lunch, and... i think maybe another lunch after that... all the american boys do is eat"
"so what... we all want wives with one eye and clubbed feet?"
"oh my gosh! i love the rock! the rock is my friend. it's so great... the rock, the rock, the rock, i LOVE the rock!"
(none of them were me)
the caves today were fun... it ended up just being josef (one of the czech students who was in the states all summer), sam, melissa, me, and katja... with sarah being sick today, jitka being off doing whatever, and arjun and craig too lazy to leave the dorm today... (then again craig has spent the whole two weeks attentively attending the math lectures, but otherwise in the dorm, not joining anyone for any social/tourist/cultural activities whatsoever).
they're the biggest cave system in bohemia, but since they're in the middle of lots of countryside, and not near any large towns whatsoever, you really need to know czech to even find them on your own, so all the tours are in czech only. on the plus side, they did have handouts summarizing what the guide said in english for those of us who don't so much speak czech. i've been through several caves before, this one was not on the larger side, but it was nice... some pretty formations... some really cool fossils have been found there before... and the highest cavern used to be used as a mint for fake coins in the 15th century....at one point the guide turned out all the lights and (according to josef, who is shy and will translate when asked but is not one for telling things with dramatic flair) pointed out how dark it is, commenting that even if you lived in the cave for half a year, you still wouldn't see any better than we did right then (i couldn't even see my hand in front of my face)... then she (the guide) said we could sing a song if we wanted, and everyone, except for the 4 of us non-czechs started singing some children's song in the dark, while we just listened and were amused. :P go figured...
chilling for the afternoon, then sam's actually interested in going to the Prague Planetarium with me tonight, so i'm looking forward to it... they actually have a show with english translation at 7:30 tonight... if i spoke czech is would be $2, but to get the translation headphones, it costs $4 in all... still not bad at all compared to american prices... the show tonight is just "the night sky", so probably mostly things i've heard before, but still it will be cool to see a planetarium in another country and see how it compares. :)
2 more days in prague... time goes sooo quickly!
later dudes
Saturday, August 06, 2005
... and then he took my shoe!
here's a story that's never happened to me before.
Wallenstein Gardens are remarkably close to the university, so melissa and i were camped out there for the past couple hours just reading and having a wonderfully nice afternoon.
they have these fantastic like 8 foot long benches all over the place that people lay out on and nap on and whatever. so melissa and i were sharing a bench. i had my back to the arm rest and my legs spread out on the bench. when a security guard came up to me and said something in czech, i correctly deduced that he was telling me to keep my shoes off the bench, so i replied "ok" and turned and sat with my feet on the ground again.
thing is, he kept elaborating at me in czech, with me and melissa just very confused. i thought he was about to fine me or something, more or less just paying attention, watching body language and trying to figure out what on earth was going on.
when i still looked very confused and didn't act as he thought i should, he grabbed my foot, took of my shoe, tossed it on the ground, and then put my foot back on the bench.
turns out, he was just telling me bare feet on the benches, but no shoes. were i talking to a foreigner who didn't understand me, i probably would have stopped with the "keep your feet of the bench" once that was understood, so yay for him being nice enough to point out that i could still sit comfortably and not get in trouble
but dude... i never expected a 75 year old czech security guard to take my shoe!
for 5 straight minutes afterwards, a nearby bench of older czech women laughed at me. i have to say, melissa and i got a decent laugh out of the aftermath as well....
language barriers are ever so much fun. ;P
later dudes.
Wallenstein Gardens are remarkably close to the university, so melissa and i were camped out there for the past couple hours just reading and having a wonderfully nice afternoon.
they have these fantastic like 8 foot long benches all over the place that people lay out on and nap on and whatever. so melissa and i were sharing a bench. i had my back to the arm rest and my legs spread out on the bench. when a security guard came up to me and said something in czech, i correctly deduced that he was telling me to keep my shoes off the bench, so i replied "ok" and turned and sat with my feet on the ground again.
thing is, he kept elaborating at me in czech, with me and melissa just very confused. i thought he was about to fine me or something, more or less just paying attention, watching body language and trying to figure out what on earth was going on.
when i still looked very confused and didn't act as he thought i should, he grabbed my foot, took of my shoe, tossed it on the ground, and then put my foot back on the bench.
turns out, he was just telling me bare feet on the benches, but no shoes. were i talking to a foreigner who didn't understand me, i probably would have stopped with the "keep your feet of the bench" once that was understood, so yay for him being nice enough to point out that i could still sit comfortably and not get in trouble
but dude... i never expected a 75 year old czech security guard to take my shoe!
for 5 straight minutes afterwards, a nearby bench of older czech women laughed at me. i have to say, melissa and i got a decent laugh out of the aftermath as well....
language barriers are ever so much fun. ;P
later dudes.
another day, another thing to see
yesterday was quality.
after our usual morning math lecture and lunch, prof. nesetril, one of the czech professors here and the main sponsor for the REU time in prague, took us to the Czech National Gallery. Besides being a mathematician, he's very much into art and creates his own, so he enjoys an annual trip of playing tour guide to the REU students at the gallery. We saw the "french collection" of monets, picassos, and the like, but also the major Czech art from 1890 on to the present. it was a very quality 2 hours.
after that, melissa wanted me to take her back to the bookstore i found the other day, so that's where we went... after that i grabbed dinner to take back to the dorm with me and fell asleep reading a good book... no complaints there!
tomorrow we will visit Koneprusy Caves for the day (which unfortunately means no church for me, but the next TWO weeks i'll be back at international church of buadpest which i absolutely CAN'T WAIT for!)... the caves should be cool. :)
this afternoon, i'm hanging out with melissa and later meeting up with sarah... we're going to the prague exhibition grounds... all the original statues from charles bridge, wenceslas square, etc. go here to retire when they're replaced with new ones... there's a carnival ground... a planetarium... and best of all, a fountain with several shows set to music at night... should be lots of fun.
4 days to go in prague, and then on to budapest... yay for eastern europe? :)
after our usual morning math lecture and lunch, prof. nesetril, one of the czech professors here and the main sponsor for the REU time in prague, took us to the Czech National Gallery. Besides being a mathematician, he's very much into art and creates his own, so he enjoys an annual trip of playing tour guide to the REU students at the gallery. We saw the "french collection" of monets, picassos, and the like, but also the major Czech art from 1890 on to the present. it was a very quality 2 hours.
after that, melissa wanted me to take her back to the bookstore i found the other day, so that's where we went... after that i grabbed dinner to take back to the dorm with me and fell asleep reading a good book... no complaints there!
tomorrow we will visit Koneprusy Caves for the day (which unfortunately means no church for me, but the next TWO weeks i'll be back at international church of buadpest which i absolutely CAN'T WAIT for!)... the caves should be cool. :)
this afternoon, i'm hanging out with melissa and later meeting up with sarah... we're going to the prague exhibition grounds... all the original statues from charles bridge, wenceslas square, etc. go here to retire when they're replaced with new ones... there's a carnival ground... a planetarium... and best of all, a fountain with several shows set to music at night... should be lots of fun.
4 days to go in prague, and then on to budapest... yay for eastern europe? :)
Friday, August 05, 2005
a funny
i seriously saw a pizza delivery car yesterday, painted in large letters with the words "pizza go home".
the end. :)
the end. :)
Thursday, August 04, 2005
an ideal day in prague...
for me, today has been just about PERFECT.
after this morning's math lecture, which was more on topics related to my research with dr. z. so i was exceedingly interested, i've spent the day wandering on my own. since i stayed away from touristy places, i've managed to get a break from obnoxious travelling groups and from english language in general.
after this morning's lecture, i first took the metro to Vysehrad, a castle a little southeast of the main part of the city... it's up high and gives a great view, plus the church there has a cemetary which is full of countless famous czechs... the one i best recognized was dvorak's grave. even if you don't recognize all the names, the stonework in the cemetary was extremely unique and beautiful... i wandered there for a bit and through some of the park-ish areas up there, and then just found a bench with a good view and read for a few hours.
here's another trick to europe -- the 80 cent lunch. if you go to a restaurant, here in prague, avoiding the touristy areas, you can easily eat a huge meal for like $4-6... but sometimes you don't even want a cheap huge meal... if you go to a bread store though, for example today, i got a ham and cheese sandwich on a croissant and two sesame seed cookies for 19 crowns... 20 crowns is 80 cents, so i didn't even pay that much!... then took it to a garden to eat, and was completely set for the afternoon! :)
finally, the math building here is attached to the church of st. nicholas... originally the church formed a square, but they sold 3 of the 4 sides of it to the university and it's now math and computer science offices and classrooms and you can't get to the church from the university on the inside... nontheless, since it's a really famous old church i figured being on the other side of the wall from it all the time, i should check it out... it costs admission to go inside anyhow, and when i saw that there was an organ recital tonight, i just got a ticket for that... went to the dorm to change and grab cold water, and came back... now in 20 minutes, i get an organ recital and to finally see the church. :) the organist tonight is the head organist of a nearby monaastary... the program is mostly mozart, a little haydn, and a few czech composers i don't recognize. i'm looking forward to it. :) maybe afterwards i'll do the sandwich from a breadstore and go eat in a garden routine again... i rather like that. :)
happy thursday to all y'all. :)
after this morning's math lecture, which was more on topics related to my research with dr. z. so i was exceedingly interested, i've spent the day wandering on my own. since i stayed away from touristy places, i've managed to get a break from obnoxious travelling groups and from english language in general.
after this morning's lecture, i first took the metro to Vysehrad, a castle a little southeast of the main part of the city... it's up high and gives a great view, plus the church there has a cemetary which is full of countless famous czechs... the one i best recognized was dvorak's grave. even if you don't recognize all the names, the stonework in the cemetary was extremely unique and beautiful... i wandered there for a bit and through some of the park-ish areas up there, and then just found a bench with a good view and read for a few hours.
here's another trick to europe -- the 80 cent lunch. if you go to a restaurant, here in prague, avoiding the touristy areas, you can easily eat a huge meal for like $4-6... but sometimes you don't even want a cheap huge meal... if you go to a bread store though, for example today, i got a ham and cheese sandwich on a croissant and two sesame seed cookies for 19 crowns... 20 crowns is 80 cents, so i didn't even pay that much!... then took it to a garden to eat, and was completely set for the afternoon! :)
finally, the math building here is attached to the church of st. nicholas... originally the church formed a square, but they sold 3 of the 4 sides of it to the university and it's now math and computer science offices and classrooms and you can't get to the church from the university on the inside... nontheless, since it's a really famous old church i figured being on the other side of the wall from it all the time, i should check it out... it costs admission to go inside anyhow, and when i saw that there was an organ recital tonight, i just got a ticket for that... went to the dorm to change and grab cold water, and came back... now in 20 minutes, i get an organ recital and to finally see the church. :) the organist tonight is the head organist of a nearby monaastary... the program is mostly mozart, a little haydn, and a few czech composers i don't recognize. i'm looking forward to it. :) maybe afterwards i'll do the sandwich from a breadstore and go eat in a garden routine again... i rather like that. :)
happy thursday to all y'all. :)
don giovanni
so opera last night... AMAZING!
through 2002, prague had staged don giovanni in a traditional manner... we saw the new 3 year old staging, which is much less like your typical opera set. all the singers have elaborate costumes but the stage is blank otherwise, other than 3 soap boxes...... at the start of the play they say "vendetta", "love", and "death" on them in italian... and there are 3 elaborately dressed characters, one on each box, personifying each one. as the opera goes on, these three characters are on stage as appropriate, moving between characters that they tie together. (e.g. at a wedding, "amore" ties the couple together with white ribbons... when a character dies, "morte" dances all around him until he collapses,... when characters get upset, "vendetta" provides them with the weapons they need to move the plot along)... also, during the overture, a man dressed up as mozart showed up over the orchestra pit throwing papers at them... apparently during the 1787 premiere of don giovanni, in the very theater we saw it in last night, mozart provided the orchestra with a new overture, with the ink not yet dried, just as they were beginning... throughout the performance, the mozart wandered across the stage on occasion, slightly adjusting characters' costumes etc., and then running off again... at the start of act two, if you looked to the very edge of the stage, he was posing on "morte"'s soapbox, only the label had temporarily changed to "stupidita"... it was all highly amusing and full of music jokes.
as referenced, we saw the opera in the estates theater, which used to go by a different name, but is the theater where mozart himself conducted the premier of "don giovanni" in 1787... so that piece of history was highly interesting... although mozart lived in vienna mostly, the people of prague had a much greater affinity for his music... they loved him, and he loved prague; so he spent a bit of time here too, and his music has greater connection to prague and the czech people more or less take ownership of it now, even though mozart was austrian.
anyhow, an *amazing* evening. and the students who came with and had never been to opera before, were pleasantly surprised at how much they enjoyed it. :) i sat by katya, the slovenian girl here this week, who had seen opera before just like me, so we had a little more in common than "hmmm, so that's opera". :)
now, it looks like rain today which kinda puts a damper on my plan to go to one of the islands in the river and read... we'll see... we have an hour and a half math lecture first, so maybe the rain will go through during the talk?... i *don't* want to be back at the dorm this week... the norwegian delegation for the european youth congress has seriously taken over... they've flooded the place and already broken 1 of the 2 elevators (i live on the 11th floor... i will be *very* frustrated if they break both) that were fine before they arrived... on the whole they're fairly pleasant, there's just so many of them and they're incredibly loud... oi...
i finally fingured out how to qualify what it is i like about budapest even though parts of prague are incredibly beautiful beyond comparison... budapest has a way of absorbing its tourists... so even going to visit incredibly famous things, you're not stuck in this bubble of english speakers taking photos and being loud... you can see cool things, besides residential neighborhoods, and totally get absorbed in hungarian language and culture at the same time... prague doesn't absorb tourists and guests in the same way, so unless you go to the fringes of the city to residential districts, you're in the middle of tourist land a very large percent of the time... this annoys me... i want to get away from english speaking tourists and i can't do that as well here...
oh well...
time for math lecture of the day. :P
later dudes
through 2002, prague had staged don giovanni in a traditional manner... we saw the new 3 year old staging, which is much less like your typical opera set. all the singers have elaborate costumes but the stage is blank otherwise, other than 3 soap boxes...... at the start of the play they say "vendetta", "love", and "death" on them in italian... and there are 3 elaborately dressed characters, one on each box, personifying each one. as the opera goes on, these three characters are on stage as appropriate, moving between characters that they tie together. (e.g. at a wedding, "amore" ties the couple together with white ribbons... when a character dies, "morte" dances all around him until he collapses,... when characters get upset, "vendetta" provides them with the weapons they need to move the plot along)... also, during the overture, a man dressed up as mozart showed up over the orchestra pit throwing papers at them... apparently during the 1787 premiere of don giovanni, in the very theater we saw it in last night, mozart provided the orchestra with a new overture, with the ink not yet dried, just as they were beginning... throughout the performance, the mozart wandered across the stage on occasion, slightly adjusting characters' costumes etc., and then running off again... at the start of act two, if you looked to the very edge of the stage, he was posing on "morte"'s soapbox, only the label had temporarily changed to "stupidita"... it was all highly amusing and full of music jokes.
as referenced, we saw the opera in the estates theater, which used to go by a different name, but is the theater where mozart himself conducted the premier of "don giovanni" in 1787... so that piece of history was highly interesting... although mozart lived in vienna mostly, the people of prague had a much greater affinity for his music... they loved him, and he loved prague; so he spent a bit of time here too, and his music has greater connection to prague and the czech people more or less take ownership of it now, even though mozart was austrian.
anyhow, an *amazing* evening. and the students who came with and had never been to opera before, were pleasantly surprised at how much they enjoyed it. :) i sat by katya, the slovenian girl here this week, who had seen opera before just like me, so we had a little more in common than "hmmm, so that's opera". :)
now, it looks like rain today which kinda puts a damper on my plan to go to one of the islands in the river and read... we'll see... we have an hour and a half math lecture first, so maybe the rain will go through during the talk?... i *don't* want to be back at the dorm this week... the norwegian delegation for the european youth congress has seriously taken over... they've flooded the place and already broken 1 of the 2 elevators (i live on the 11th floor... i will be *very* frustrated if they break both) that were fine before they arrived... on the whole they're fairly pleasant, there's just so many of them and they're incredibly loud... oi...
i finally fingured out how to qualify what it is i like about budapest even though parts of prague are incredibly beautiful beyond comparison... budapest has a way of absorbing its tourists... so even going to visit incredibly famous things, you're not stuck in this bubble of english speakers taking photos and being loud... you can see cool things, besides residential neighborhoods, and totally get absorbed in hungarian language and culture at the same time... prague doesn't absorb tourists and guests in the same way, so unless you go to the fringes of the city to residential districts, you're in the middle of tourist land a very large percent of the time... this annoys me... i want to get away from english speaking tourists and i can't do that as well here...
oh well...
time for math lecture of the day. :P
later dudes
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
ode to czech... construction, bookstores, news, and the like...
on czech construction...
when we arrived in prague a week and a half ago, we had to climb up a small hill to catch a tram (in the us, you would call it a trolley) into town, and it would drop us off right in front of the mathematics building for the university. this week, we have to get off the tram a stop early and walk the last quarter mile as the tram tracks are under construction.
this is all well and good, but if you've never been to prague before... all of the streets and sidewalks in town are cobblestone! not just streets made of stone, but stones of similar proportions made into fancy designs... so instead of our paste of a pavement that we hammer apart and lay down like paste to steamroll to dry, each day as we go to and from the math building, we watch them dig out more stones, without breaking them, use firetorches to cut apart tram tracks to take them up, weld new tracks together, and starting today, we saw the workers laying out the cobblestones again... quite the impressive process. i guess it doesn't make sense just how much work it is to work with the stones until you see it.
on czech bookstores...
on my walks around today i see bookstores aplenty... the czech word for bookstore is apparently antikvariat with some accents on it though, so at first, seeing that word, one might just think (wrongly) that there are a lot of antique stores around here ;)... anyhow, there's one giant english bookstore that's listed in every guidebook you pick up about the city: the Globe... after our lecture today (by Fiala... another famous combinatorialist... it was about games on graphs, so we got to play games today during the talk :) ), and grabbing lunch at Bohemia Bagel with Melissa (a restaurant my friends and i discovered 3 years ago and that i've been to 3 times this trip), i wandered down to the globe by myself.
here is why english language bookstores in non-english countries rock! for years, The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams has been out of print in the states. ... now, The Deeper Meaning of Liff is starting to show up in more American bookstores again, but it too had been hard to find for a bit. Anyhow, today at the globe, I found a *brand new - untouched except for the price of 260 czech crowns (about $10.25) written in the front page* copy of it. now amazon has copies starting at $9.59 for used copies, but last time i had looked (within the year), the $99 copies were all there was. All in all, I consider this an *amazing* deal to have found a *brand new* copy of the ONLY adams book i didn't own.
I also bought copies of two books by a local publisher: the best of Czech fairy tales and great stories in Czech history... they cost about $7 each and I figured they'd be easy and educational/cultural reads.
on czech news...
yesterday, on the way back to the dorm, i bought a copy of this weeks Prague Post. it reminded me a bit of The Budapest Sun, which i read regularly while i was in Hungary. Since both are english language papers in non-english speaking countries, their style is a bit different than american papers, but i find it an enjoyable way to get at least some sense of the local issues and interest.
did you know...
* in the bombings in Egypt a week or two ago, a Czech man was killed -- this was the first Czech killed in a terrorist attack ever
* prague is working on a bill to legalize prostitution (so naturally there's a *LOT* of debate going on about that)
* the czech minister of culture died last week after a very public battle with cancer. he was the last major personality of the velvet revolution of 1989 (when the czechs peacefully overthrew the communist powers and began their own government) who was still working in politics
* the Czech abortion rate is now at the lowest ever since abortions were first allowed in the country... it skyrocketed and peaked at about the end of the communist era
* i can ramble a bit, but finally i thought that this was an itneresting editorial... the EU is currently comprised largely of well established western european nations, but had an entering "class" of 10 new countries last year including czech republic and hungary. these 10 new more eastern countries have a totally different set of concerns than the western european countries, as well as different histories and goals... this article made some comment about different models for how the EU could function to resolve the west/east gap between its member nations.
anyhow, it's just interesting to tune into non-american news and see a little of what interests and concerns a country that's more the size of an american state.
other misc...
yesterday, i saw this building from a distance. while out by the bookstore, i noted that i was even closer to it, so i walked that way to get closer and get a good picture (almost the same angle as this one and with a tram out front too, actually ;) )... after searching and having no luck yesterday to learn more about it, today i finally found an essay on it ... go figure... there's plenty to learn by accident around here as well as on purpose. :)
looks like rain, should run to the dorm... opera tonight... i can't wait :)
later dudes. :P
when we arrived in prague a week and a half ago, we had to climb up a small hill to catch a tram (in the us, you would call it a trolley) into town, and it would drop us off right in front of the mathematics building for the university. this week, we have to get off the tram a stop early and walk the last quarter mile as the tram tracks are under construction.
this is all well and good, but if you've never been to prague before... all of the streets and sidewalks in town are cobblestone! not just streets made of stone, but stones of similar proportions made into fancy designs... so instead of our paste of a pavement that we hammer apart and lay down like paste to steamroll to dry, each day as we go to and from the math building, we watch them dig out more stones, without breaking them, use firetorches to cut apart tram tracks to take them up, weld new tracks together, and starting today, we saw the workers laying out the cobblestones again... quite the impressive process. i guess it doesn't make sense just how much work it is to work with the stones until you see it.
on czech bookstores...
on my walks around today i see bookstores aplenty... the czech word for bookstore is apparently antikvariat with some accents on it though, so at first, seeing that word, one might just think (wrongly) that there are a lot of antique stores around here ;)... anyhow, there's one giant english bookstore that's listed in every guidebook you pick up about the city: the Globe... after our lecture today (by Fiala... another famous combinatorialist... it was about games on graphs, so we got to play games today during the talk :) ), and grabbing lunch at Bohemia Bagel with Melissa (a restaurant my friends and i discovered 3 years ago and that i've been to 3 times this trip), i wandered down to the globe by myself.
here is why english language bookstores in non-english countries rock! for years, The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams has been out of print in the states. ... now, The Deeper Meaning of Liff is starting to show up in more American bookstores again, but it too had been hard to find for a bit. Anyhow, today at the globe, I found a *brand new - untouched except for the price of 260 czech crowns (about $10.25) written in the front page* copy of it. now amazon has copies starting at $9.59 for used copies, but last time i had looked (within the year), the $99 copies were all there was. All in all, I consider this an *amazing* deal to have found a *brand new* copy of the ONLY adams book i didn't own.
I also bought copies of two books by a local publisher: the best of Czech fairy tales and great stories in Czech history... they cost about $7 each and I figured they'd be easy and educational/cultural reads.
on czech news...
yesterday, on the way back to the dorm, i bought a copy of this weeks Prague Post. it reminded me a bit of The Budapest Sun, which i read regularly while i was in Hungary. Since both are english language papers in non-english speaking countries, their style is a bit different than american papers, but i find it an enjoyable way to get at least some sense of the local issues and interest.
did you know...
* in the bombings in Egypt a week or two ago, a Czech man was killed -- this was the first Czech killed in a terrorist attack ever
* prague is working on a bill to legalize prostitution (so naturally there's a *LOT* of debate going on about that)
* the czech minister of culture died last week after a very public battle with cancer. he was the last major personality of the velvet revolution of 1989 (when the czechs peacefully overthrew the communist powers and began their own government) who was still working in politics
* the Czech abortion rate is now at the lowest ever since abortions were first allowed in the country... it skyrocketed and peaked at about the end of the communist era
* i can ramble a bit, but finally i thought that this was an itneresting editorial... the EU is currently comprised largely of well established western european nations, but had an entering "class" of 10 new countries last year including czech republic and hungary. these 10 new more eastern countries have a totally different set of concerns than the western european countries, as well as different histories and goals... this article made some comment about different models for how the EU could function to resolve the west/east gap between its member nations.
anyhow, it's just interesting to tune into non-american news and see a little of what interests and concerns a country that's more the size of an american state.
other misc...
yesterday, i saw this building from a distance. while out by the bookstore, i noted that i was even closer to it, so i walked that way to get closer and get a good picture (almost the same angle as this one and with a tram out front too, actually ;) )... after searching and having no luck yesterday to learn more about it, today i finally found an essay on it ... go figure... there's plenty to learn by accident around here as well as on purpose. :)
looks like rain, should run to the dorm... opera tonight... i can't wait :)
later dudes. :P
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
fun with the animals :)
today was quality.
after our morning math lecture, we split up into different groups... there was talk of going to visit some caves, but martin suggested that was a better weekend activity when there's not a talk going on in the morning. instead, since both melissa and i wanted to check out the zoo, that's what we did. bill came along, as did matt, a guy who got his ph.d. from princeton several years ago and now spends his time travelling europe to math conferences on richer mathematicians' money...
the prague zoo is *absolutely fantastic*!... my dad would have been in 7th heaven. it's a little ways NW of the city, and on a huge hill. at the top of the hill is a huge "africa panarama" with giraffes, zebras, meercats, etc. all together on a large spacious range... other animals have really nice wooded lots, until you get to the hillside... it's really steep and parts of it are solid rock -- which make for amazing enclosures for mountain goats and the like... there's even a cable car system for people to get up and down without crawling down paths, which was fun both ways too... it took us 3.5 hours to go through and i don't think we saw quite everything either... anyhow, it was a highly quality stop for an afternoon.
tonight, one of the czech students has organized a pub crawl... however as it starts in 5 minutes a bit away from here, pretty sure i'm not going. melissa is tired and not really into drinking, and i enjoy having a few drinks but don't like more than that and i'm pretty sure that's not the spirit of the evening. after all, last night was exhausting too -- i got the laundry room reserved at the dorm to wash my clothes, but the washer took from 10-11:30pm and the dryer, after running for 2 hours, hadn't dried any of my clothes, so then i had to sort out the load and figure out how to hang it up all around my room to dry. that and getting up at 7 made for not much sleep... so i think dinner with melissa and then going back for an early night might just fit the bill.
tomorrow night should be awesome. martin got us NINTH row tickets to see don giovanni then. for all the american REU students except me, this will be their first opera (although i think it's in one of the local theaters instead of the state opera house, whatever). of all the places to see don giovanni, prague is the place to do it, as it premiered here in 1787... so how cool is that? :).. even cooler is that the math department will pay for any group events that are providing us with "czech culture", so these $50 tickets are on the department. :)
on friday, prof. nesetril, the prof. here in charge of the prague end of the REU, and both a mathematician and a very knowledgable artist is doing his annual tradition of giving a personal tour of the national gallery to the REUers... that should be quite quality too.
anyhow, done rambling. it's been another good day... tonight, though, i plan to actually get a decent amount of sleep, unlike the past week (avg. 5-6 hours a night)... this will be aided by the fact that all the payphones in the dorm are now broken, so if i want to spend time chatting with friends, i have to walk down the street (not too far to the first phone booth, but it's usually full, .... a mile to the next one) to make calls... when it looks like rain soon, i doubt that will sound like a good idea by the time i get to the dorm.
at any rate, dinner with melissa, then sleep... yay :)
later dudes
after our morning math lecture, we split up into different groups... there was talk of going to visit some caves, but martin suggested that was a better weekend activity when there's not a talk going on in the morning. instead, since both melissa and i wanted to check out the zoo, that's what we did. bill came along, as did matt, a guy who got his ph.d. from princeton several years ago and now spends his time travelling europe to math conferences on richer mathematicians' money...
the prague zoo is *absolutely fantastic*!... my dad would have been in 7th heaven. it's a little ways NW of the city, and on a huge hill. at the top of the hill is a huge "africa panarama" with giraffes, zebras, meercats, etc. all together on a large spacious range... other animals have really nice wooded lots, until you get to the hillside... it's really steep and parts of it are solid rock -- which make for amazing enclosures for mountain goats and the like... there's even a cable car system for people to get up and down without crawling down paths, which was fun both ways too... it took us 3.5 hours to go through and i don't think we saw quite everything either... anyhow, it was a highly quality stop for an afternoon.
tonight, one of the czech students has organized a pub crawl... however as it starts in 5 minutes a bit away from here, pretty sure i'm not going. melissa is tired and not really into drinking, and i enjoy having a few drinks but don't like more than that and i'm pretty sure that's not the spirit of the evening. after all, last night was exhausting too -- i got the laundry room reserved at the dorm to wash my clothes, but the washer took from 10-11:30pm and the dryer, after running for 2 hours, hadn't dried any of my clothes, so then i had to sort out the load and figure out how to hang it up all around my room to dry. that and getting up at 7 made for not much sleep... so i think dinner with melissa and then going back for an early night might just fit the bill.
tomorrow night should be awesome. martin got us NINTH row tickets to see don giovanni then. for all the american REU students except me, this will be their first opera (although i think it's in one of the local theaters instead of the state opera house, whatever). of all the places to see don giovanni, prague is the place to do it, as it premiered here in 1787... so how cool is that? :).. even cooler is that the math department will pay for any group events that are providing us with "czech culture", so these $50 tickets are on the department. :)
on friday, prof. nesetril, the prof. here in charge of the prague end of the REU, and both a mathematician and a very knowledgable artist is doing his annual tradition of giving a personal tour of the national gallery to the REUers... that should be quite quality too.
anyhow, done rambling. it's been another good day... tonight, though, i plan to actually get a decent amount of sleep, unlike the past week (avg. 5-6 hours a night)... this will be aided by the fact that all the payphones in the dorm are now broken, so if i want to spend time chatting with friends, i have to walk down the street (not too far to the first phone booth, but it's usually full, .... a mile to the next one) to make calls... when it looks like rain soon, i doubt that will sound like a good idea by the time i get to the dorm.
at any rate, dinner with melissa, then sleep... yay :)
later dudes
Monday, August 01, 2005
my day
happy monday?
this morning was good... instead of 4 hours of research math talks, the rest of our stay in prague, we have *a* math lecture aimed specifically at the undergraduates at 10am for about an hour from one of the czech university faculty. today's talk was about geometric graphs... instead of lecturing though, he asked three extremal graph questions and had the students work them out together and prove the correct answers as a group, then he gave a related proof that he called "biological" because he made it really cute with hens and eggs sitting on the graph... anyhow, it was quality.
for the rest of our stay, there are two students from slovenia who will come on our talks, etc. too so we met them today.
after lunch, the slovenian students, martin, jan, bill, and me went to the royal terrace gardens on the slopes below the castle. they were awesome and i had no clue they existed before... steep stairs overflowing with fountains and fruits and grapevines and roses and cool statues all down the side of the hill that the castle is on... i took a LOT of pictures. after the gardens, jan and martin were taking the slovenian students elsewhere so bill and i wandered together.
i spent yesterday with bill and mike too -- they're two other rutgers math grad students who were just here for the weekend for the saturday/sunday conference here... mike flew out this morning.
this afternoon, after the gardens, bill and i hiked across town and visited the museum of communism. it was interesting to read it all over again from the czech perspective after originally learning about eastern europe's communist era from hungarians. there's enough in parallel that it's different strands of the same story, but enough different to be fascinating to go through again.... the most interesting part of this museum that brough all the displays home was the tv room with a documentary playing about the final years of communism in the czech lands and about the velvet revolution. it was quality.
after museum of communism, bill and i ended up with ice cream snacks sitting in a garden in the middle of a block near wenceslas square (there are lots of little gardens hiding inside city blocks around here) and chatting for a bit. somehow or another it came up that bill isn't really religious and he's always hesitant to discuss religion with other people because he doesn't want to sound rude or critical of them when he doesn't agree... to me that's an invitation to discussion.
so over ice cream we dicussed why bill isn't religious. his claim is that he finds it plausible to believe God exists, even though he doesn't believe in God. however, if one does believe in God, he finds it impossible to decide which is the "right" religion because they're all enacted by people who can't possibly capture God accurately, so who's to say that any of them have things down pat anyhow. i told him what i believe makes Christianity stand out in response to the questions he brought up. not that i've changed anything he ever though before, but from his reactions, i'm pretty sure i made comments that had never crossed his mind before, so at least it's hopefully fuel for thought in his head that'll last longer than the half hour we discussed it.
i don't know how i get myself into these chats, but i seem to do so naturally with anyone i spend a concentrated amount of time with... i find it interesting.
while we were at the communist museum, my grandma's funeral was going on in pittsburgh. my mom was incredibly surprised to see roommate last night at the wake. she told me (via email) that only two things made her cry yesterday (1) the fact that our memphis church sent flowers when they had claimed they were giving her money for her trip to pitt "instead of flowers", and (2) seeing roommate come in to visit and pay respects. roommate got to go to the funeral today too. i'll call mom for sure, and possibly roommate too (depending on how many minutes are left on my phone card) later tonight... in the meantime, dinner with bill and laundry time... woohoo.
later dudes.
this morning was good... instead of 4 hours of research math talks, the rest of our stay in prague, we have *a* math lecture aimed specifically at the undergraduates at 10am for about an hour from one of the czech university faculty. today's talk was about geometric graphs... instead of lecturing though, he asked three extremal graph questions and had the students work them out together and prove the correct answers as a group, then he gave a related proof that he called "biological" because he made it really cute with hens and eggs sitting on the graph... anyhow, it was quality.
for the rest of our stay, there are two students from slovenia who will come on our talks, etc. too so we met them today.
after lunch, the slovenian students, martin, jan, bill, and me went to the royal terrace gardens on the slopes below the castle. they were awesome and i had no clue they existed before... steep stairs overflowing with fountains and fruits and grapevines and roses and cool statues all down the side of the hill that the castle is on... i took a LOT of pictures. after the gardens, jan and martin were taking the slovenian students elsewhere so bill and i wandered together.
i spent yesterday with bill and mike too -- they're two other rutgers math grad students who were just here for the weekend for the saturday/sunday conference here... mike flew out this morning.
this afternoon, after the gardens, bill and i hiked across town and visited the museum of communism. it was interesting to read it all over again from the czech perspective after originally learning about eastern europe's communist era from hungarians. there's enough in parallel that it's different strands of the same story, but enough different to be fascinating to go through again.... the most interesting part of this museum that brough all the displays home was the tv room with a documentary playing about the final years of communism in the czech lands and about the velvet revolution. it was quality.
after museum of communism, bill and i ended up with ice cream snacks sitting in a garden in the middle of a block near wenceslas square (there are lots of little gardens hiding inside city blocks around here) and chatting for a bit. somehow or another it came up that bill isn't really religious and he's always hesitant to discuss religion with other people because he doesn't want to sound rude or critical of them when he doesn't agree... to me that's an invitation to discussion.
so over ice cream we dicussed why bill isn't religious. his claim is that he finds it plausible to believe God exists, even though he doesn't believe in God. however, if one does believe in God, he finds it impossible to decide which is the "right" religion because they're all enacted by people who can't possibly capture God accurately, so who's to say that any of them have things down pat anyhow. i told him what i believe makes Christianity stand out in response to the questions he brought up. not that i've changed anything he ever though before, but from his reactions, i'm pretty sure i made comments that had never crossed his mind before, so at least it's hopefully fuel for thought in his head that'll last longer than the half hour we discussed it.
i don't know how i get myself into these chats, but i seem to do so naturally with anyone i spend a concentrated amount of time with... i find it interesting.
while we were at the communist museum, my grandma's funeral was going on in pittsburgh. my mom was incredibly surprised to see roommate last night at the wake. she told me (via email) that only two things made her cry yesterday (1) the fact that our memphis church sent flowers when they had claimed they were giving her money for her trip to pitt "instead of flowers", and (2) seeing roommate come in to visit and pay respects. roommate got to go to the funeral today too. i'll call mom for sure, and possibly roommate too (depending on how many minutes are left on my phone card) later tonight... in the meantime, dinner with bill and laundry time... woohoo.
later dudes.
