Proof of Theorem

To remind you of what we were trying to show:
Hypothesis: Let R ∈ Wellesley 2011 ∩ Budapest Semesters in Mathematics. Suppose R is dance-, math-, computer-, and, often, just-plain-crazy.
Claim: Anything can happen

Proof: I pet baby pigs at a sausage festival, discovered my talent for pasta salad and rice pudding, went to my first bar, wandered the city at 2 a.m., learned the difference between good and bad memorials, went crazy for Kinder Pingui, heard the Megillah in Hungarian, nearly cut myself on someone’s giant cigarette box costume, learned how teleportation works, danced at a club surrounded by Jewish pirates, vampires, devils, etc., rode the night bus in full ghost costume/makeup, traveled 45 minutes both ways to take pictures of myself abusing Soviet statues, learned how to be a good Soviet spy, went to a teahouse in a treehouse, introduced my roommate to hamentashen, window-shopped in Vienna at 9 pm, attempted to see an entire city in twelve hours, had my first hostel experience, learned and forgot the Hungarian version of eeny-meeny-miney-mo, watched folk dancers in the Budapest metro, burned all ten fingers in an attempt to make lasagna (which turned out fabulous!), discovered a few drinks I like (and many more that I don’t), terrorized several thrift stores, had to relearn middle-school geometry, tried and failed to find a bookstore 3 TIMES before finally making it, walked the entire length of Lido, was stunned by the beauty of the Adriatic, spent hours in an old/rare bookstore in Venice, watched Chabad men dancing in the middle of the old Venetian ghetto, lived for a week on gelato and licorice, held a seder while reading prayers off my laptop, made matzah ball soup completely from scratch, played football and climbed a tree on Margit island, had to admit defeat in a math class, derived the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (sort of), was baffled by Hungarian tango, dodged baby Germans at the Szechenyi baths, learned basic lindy hop in exchange for teaching basic rumba, risked getting drunk off Hungarian chocolate, visited a museum devoted almost entirely to salami, had a fabulous dinner in Szeged, gaped at Hungarian folk dancers in the square, visited a museum with multiple personality disorder, covered my kitchen in flour while attempting to make challah, watched Mongols dismember cabbage at a cheese festival, watched amateur belly dancers at the same festival, decorated a cookie and made friends with an older Hungarian woman who spoke no English at the same festival as the previous 2, rocked Hungarian DDR, spent one of the most amazing weekends of my life dancing in Romania, argued abortion with a Hungarian computer nerd, danced in the middle of the Brasov main square, broke my record for staying out late by dancing for 7 hours straight, learned the rules of water polo, climbed a tree in my socks (how a tree got in my socks I'll never know), passed all my finals, dominated a karaoke bar and several dance floors across the city, was sexually harassed by a water slide, made so many new friends, both American and Hungarian, learned dozens of new dances, and fell so much love with a city and a group of people that I had to book a flight back for the end of summer.

Q.E.D. bitches, Q.E.D.

A Night at the Opera

My grandmother was in town this past weekend, which meant two things:
1. I would gain at least 7 lbs. Possibly per meal.
2. People would be singing in foreign languages.

The first time I went to visit my grandmother on my own, people AND a statue sang in a foreign language, while a guy with funny hair got dragged to hell. The second trip, a blond with an ill-fitting costumes sang passionately (in a foreign language) to a severed head. This past semester, a brunette (formerly the blond) with a much better costume sang passionately to a dead guy with head still attached, but covered in blood. In Italian.

Last night's production of Il barbiere di Siviglia once again featured people singing in Italian, but with heads mercifully still attached and relatively bloodless. For the record, this makes the show much easier to distinguish from the other one about a singing barber, for which the manufacturer of fake blood usually gets top billing (Sweeney Todd: Starring Heinz Ketchup!).

Now usually when I go on these cross-linguistic adventures, there are subtitles to aid me. Barber of Seville was no exception, except (the exception to the non-exception?) for the minor detail that the subtitles were in Hungarian. At first, I was not too concerned, figuring that I would be able to get enough of the Italian to get a general idea of what was going on. Italian, at least, falls into the category of Romance Languages I Vaguely Recognize, along with French and Spanish. If I see a language that looks romantic (i.e. can be spoken with a sexy accent) but leaves me baffled, I assume it's Portuguese. For my own sanity, I have to pretend Romanian doesn't exist. However, after the first scene, I realized the folly of my ways. I did figure out that somebody was serenading someone else, and it was not working so hot. I assumed it was because of the French horn. Never serenade someone with a French horn, unless you know them to be sexually attracted to geese. I also figured out that somebody wanted someone else to speak quietly lest he be heard, but I guess the other person didn't hear because they were next to the blaring French horn. Really, the entire song was like an Italian version of Cat-Like Tread, which, for those of you who have not seen Pirates of Penzance, goes something like this:
With cat-like tread *STOMP*
Upon our prey we steal *CRASH*
In silence dread *THUMP*
A cautious way we feel *DRUMLINE SOLO*

After the opening scene was over and the serenader had ridden away on his noble...fountain (I'm all for creative set changes, but I really wanted someone to follow him with coconuts), though, I fell behind the plot. When a man in bright red pants came in and began playing with razors, I assumed him to be the titular Hispanic hairdresser. It should be noted, however, that it took me until the third or fourth scene to be sure. I wished again that I had bought a program so I could find out who played Figaro’s right and left eyebrows. If they did not have their own bio, they should have. I suspect they went to the Royal Shakespeare Academy before studying under Martha Graham. Even with such two fabulous characters, however, I still had no idea what was going on when the serenader-in-stripes (my first guess was clown…apparently he was dressed as a student...same thing) rejoined the scene. I knew enough Hungarian (!!) to figure out from the subtitles that someone wanted to speak to someone else, or at least that speaking was going on/expected to happen in some capacity. I knew enough Italian (only one ‘!’, it’s not nearly as impressive) to figure out that this would for some reason involve soldiers. Actually, because of this, I was able to figure out that the Hungarian word for ‘soldier’ is ‘katona,’ so I was able to figure out when OTHER scenes involved soldiers too! Granted, this became much easier when they came in with funny hats (more later) and guns. Other than soldiers and verbal communication however, I had no idea what the scene was about. For all I knew, they could have been talking about the weather I wasn’t sure where the soldiers would come in though, perhaps they were going to speak to the captain but couldn’t because of the weather? Whatever it was, it took them about 45 minutes to decide whether they would be speaking to the man who speaks like a soldier when he’s under the weather.

Even after all that, I still felt I had a moderate handle on the plot until then end of Act I, when suddenly THE ENTIRE WORLD came on stage, Almaviva/Lindoro the serenader/student/soldier/secretly rich dude pulled out his credit card, and the set exploded. Now, I could sort of get on board with the fountain-as-public-transport idea, but once the head of Seville’s finest, menacing in his orange-fur-trimmed hat, started playing with a guitar that was HANGING IN MIDAIR and the gate outside Rosina’s balcony had a seizure, I gave up. I actually thought that maybe a poltergeist was part of the plot. In my defense, it wouldn’t be the weirdest plot device in opera. See “Don Giovanni pisses off a statue, eternal damnation ensues.” I did feel major respect for the stage crew, though; their storm-signifying curtain-waving looked much better than what we did for Pericles in 9th grade, though I suspect their budget was not much higher. A side note to the stage crew of the opera house: even (especially?) if you have to sell an actor, BUY CLAMPS (and maybe some caulk). Those stairs gave me a heart attack every time someone stepped on them, or stepped near them, or exhaled within 7 meters of them. Also, the curtain lights were definitely better than ours (which looked like bizarrely like we were shining a map of the US), but look into diffusers.

After Act I, I caved and bought a program. It’s probably a good thing I did so, as the bulk of my interpretations had been 150% wrong (yes, I’m a math major…your point?). Also, there was, surprisingly, no actual poltergeist involved. The only line in the synopsis to explain the LSD trip onstage at the end of Act I was something like “Confusion ensues.” I think they need to reprint the program: “Confusion ensues (in the audience).” I had been right about someone wanting to speak to someone else though, so I gave me 5 bonus points. Once I had my trusty program, the opera became much clearer. I was able to understand when Rosina became tragically and irreparably broken-hearted for all of about five minutes before Almaviva/Lindoro reminded her that he was a tenor in a romantic comedy so they pretty much had to end up together. Convincing her did take some effort; she didn’t believe him until he took off his coat to reveal that he was at least rich enough to dress like Liberace in a Swarovski promotion. She just happened to be wearing a matching dress under her robe, which was such a coincidence that it must have been love. Not gonna lie, I’m a sucker for a sparkly ending.

Procrastination in Motion: MPS

I swear after this I'll hit the books again.

Damn test
Such stress!
The best? 
Just guess.
Just guess?
Just guess.
Bad guess,
Big mess.
No rest
Just stress
Damn test
Damn test

Procrastination in Motion

With apologies to Shel Silverstein:

"I cannot take my final tests,"
Said youngest Graber, Becca S.
This harmonic homology
Is not in my biology
My φ looks like x, my x like y
And don't get me started on drawing π
My practice tests by Death were kissed
I've counted sixteen answers missed,
And there's one more--that's seventeen
Now don't you think my odds are lean?
The book on groups Noetharian 
Might well be in Hungarian
I measure vectors (measure twice!)
The numbers never turn out nice
My brain hurts when I try to find
x² + y² + z mod 9
My back is hunched (which is the norm)
Like a Fourier transform
It's freezing out from all the rain
Did I mention cos is a projective pain?
The cold makes this girl's nose all runny
(Actually, it's woman, and that's not funny)
TOP has thrown me for a loop
Even when I commute (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?) to my study group
My lines are bent, my curves are straight
If the answer's 6, I get minus 8
My brain is empty, like the void
'twixt sheets of a hyperboloid
My functions don't, and my paths are--what?
What's that? I need to glance
at my notes to stand a chance?
Whatevs, I'm going out to dance."

Hajra Magyarok!

Here in Budapest, it has not stopped raining for approximately six megakilogillion years (give or take a few gillion-cents) (quick, what is this in Romanian lei?). Thus, a few of us thought the absolute best way to spend the Saturday before all finals break loose (which is like all hell breaking loose, but without the friendly staff) would be to stow away our books (if I can’t see topology, it can’t hurt me!) and hit the arena for to spectate a local water polo match. Outdoors. Setting aside the fact that apparently “spectate” is not a word (why the hell not? What do spectators do, refrigerate?), let us take stock of the merits of this decision:
1. It was wet
2. None of us had ever watched/played/expended a brain cell thinking about water polo
3. We did not know either of the teams
4. Did I mention it was really wet?
If you just looked at that list and thought, “Yes! Best idea ever!” then you are absolutely correct (and should probably seek medical attention). It’s been a while since I’ve had that much fun without butchering my calves. For the record, for some reason, the damn things still hurt from MR (she thought as she danced her third Viennese Waltz). We got to the match a little late since we had been caught up in pancake-making at Smokin(g) Sarah’s apartment. Lesson: Don’t make peanut butter, raisin, and cinnamon sugar pancakes unless you have time and belt-holes to spare, or unless you absolutely have to see Melanie-not-Mel enthusiastically demonstrate the difference between belligerent (OM NOM NOM) and passive (om nom nom) consumption, which is certainly a valid reason.

Now, the problem with arriving to a water polo match “a little late” is that a quarter in water polo lasts approximately one nano-eyeblink (convert to forint!). Fortunately, this match ran on Hungarian time, so the quarters were about 12 minutes each, and we arrived in the middle of the second one. Mel-not-Melanie had arrived earlier with her friend (I never got his name, so he is just Mel’s Engineer Friend) and had decided that in the white-on-blue game, we were rooting for the blue team. Melanie-not-Mel coldly informed her reverse counterpart that we were in fact rooting for the Hungarians, and was able to keep a straight face for a record .5 seconds before informing Mel that actually, both teams were in fact Hungarian. We think Melanie (insert epithets here, my fingers are getting tired) may soon be ready for her job as international spy.

It’s a good thing we decided to root for the Hungarians because a. it meant we would certainly be on the winning side and b. the only cheer we knew was ‘Hajra Magyarok!’ This cheer was not fully appropriate, however. For starters, I suspect that when pronounced properly, it sounds a little less like an angry Japanese grizzly bear yelling at squirrels (or maybe a little more; Hungarian is a strange language). Also, it translates roughly (nothing in Hungarian translates smoothly) to ‘Go Hungarians!’ This does not seem like a problem, until you consider that in BSM, there are no such things as just ‘Hungarians.’ The official BSM term is ‘Actual Hungarians,’ as in, “The nice thing about the bar is that there are Actual Hungarians there,” or, “It’s really cool that you made friends with Actual Hungarians,” or, “I think this semester I’m going to take Actual Hungarian 101.” I promise you this is not just me. Thus, a proper BSM cheer would be “Hajra Actual Magyarok!” but then one team may have thought we were suggesting they were not Actually Hungarians and then started and international incident and you know how I feel about international incidents before finals week. That, and ‘actual’ is not an Actual Hungarian word. It’s not even a fake Hungarian word, really.

In truth, our “Hajra Magyarok” was not really aimed at encouraging the teams to play better. Among other things, none of us knew anything about water polo, so we’d be hard-pressed to say what exactly “playing better” entails. So really, “Hajra Magyarok” was aimed at getting the players to continue doing what they were doing, which included:
1. Lounging around in ill-fitting Speedos (whitey-tighties, as Melanie accidentally called them. We suspect she puts her underwear on backwards)
2. Taking off said ill-fitting Speedos while still in the pool, throwing them to the side, and putting on another pair, all in barely-obscured view (thank GOD the rain clouded the pool water; there are things (@@) I really don’t need to see)
3. Attempting to swim straight through each other, puzzled by their lack of forward movement. Apparently they don’t teach the rule of solid objects in Physics for Jocks.
4. When the above failed, swimming OVER each other. Physics win!
5. Wearing funny caps. Ear cages are the new black!
We were able to kind of figure out what was going on since, before leaving Sarah’s apartment, we had looked up the rules of Hungarian water polo. The page had also included the referee’s signals so we knew that doing the Monkey (WHICH NEEDS TO COME BACK, BTW) meant a major foul, the One-Handed Monkey was a minor foul, Conga Arms/Rolling Stone meant time (maybe?), etc. I realized I could never be a water polo referee because I would just be too tempted to rock out the entire time (“Will someone please remind the ref the Running Man is not a valid signal?”).

After the game, Mel and Melanie asked the coach of the winning team (Hajra Magyarok!) if we could get a picture with them. They seemed pretty bemused, but it turns out it doesn’t take too much convincing to get a bunch of young guys to snap a photo with a bunch of smiling American college girls (and Lucas, who for some reason did not share our enthusiasm to be photographed with a bunch of be-Speedoed men, even after we assured him we could find a Speedo for him too). This despite the fact that it was STILL raining and bloody cold outside (did I mention that we had some really attractive girls on this outing? I wonder if that played a role). The photo turned out, well, see for yourself:

 Clockwise from lower right: Leah, Me, Melanie, Mel, Sarah, Bridgit, Lots of nearly-naked guys

Not pictured is Lucas, but you can just pretend he’s one of the guys behind us. I’m sure he’d appreciate that.

Also, I climbed a tree in socks.* I thought you’d like to know.

*best ambiguous modifier ever

Oops

I was informed tonight that, despite my best intentions, I insulted the fine folks of Bulgaria unjustly. I should have insulted the fine folks of Romania, as they were apparently the enthusiastic "song"-leaders whose mouths I longed to seal with duct tape. I would hand-deliver an apology note to the Bulgarians, but I actually have no idea where Bulgaria is and given my inability to find anything ever, I would probably end up in Romania and begin the whole mess again.

Machol Romania Day Fuck I Don't Even Know Anymore

The title pretty much sums it up. Sweet God I was tired. Fortunately, I had cookies. Lots of cookies. It made the train ride home much more bearable, even after the damn thing was delayed for 2 hours. That, and I discovered that I kind of like Vermouth. Yikes, my blog is becoming more alcoholic by the post...but it still hasn't reached Hungarian levels. They were the ones who finished off the Vermouth...at 10 am. I was really impressed.
Anyhow, I made it back to Pest safe, sound, and completely exhausted, just in time to go to MPS. Not an easy day for me, but it was all better because I had dance that evening. What?

Machol Romania Day 3: Orange You Vlad I Didn't Say Banana?

Since we were observing a traditional Shabbat (see yesterday's post on vodka, videotaping, and Visigoths*), there were no dance workshops on Saturday. Instead, we left the hotel (!!) and took to Brasov (population: pigeons). We were given about 45 minutes to walk around and explore the main square, so naturally we took straight to a café to sit down and get some coffee (or an epically sweet...something fruity, in my case).

I was a bit on edge at the café, and not just because of the pigeons (oh my god so many pigeons). The organizers had said they had a surprise for us and, last time they had made such a promise, we were treated to a full view of an octogenarian in a fake diaper. So I was mildly concerned. Luckily, no such spectacle awaited us. Instead, we got to make a spectacle of ourselves by holding an impromptu dance session in the middle of the town square, much to the amusement and confusion of the local Romanians (the foreign Romanians were not affected). Despite my hypersensitive awkward dial, I could not feel too embarrassed because a. there were a zillion of us and b. our dancing was interrupted by the changing of the guard (which always follows the naptime of the guard). The changing of the guard had the unique ability to make us seem almost normal, as the uniform of the guards comprised a floppy velvet hat, an itchy-looking vest, RED AND WHITE STRIPED BLOOMERS, and tights. Even Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada would have to smile and such a fashion-forward display. I couldn’t be embarrassed after that, even if I was giving complete strangers a complete demonstration of my inability to tell right from left and having my arm nearly dislocated by Eran, who was determined to keep the circle holding hands at all costs.

After making joyous fools of ourselves in the town square and visiting the local synagogue (of course!), we went…okay, I have no idea where we went, but we went there to have lunch, so it didn’t matter. We ate outside, which was lovely except for the part where I STILL failed to get a tan because apparently, if I am more than two shades beyond eggshell-white, the apocalypse happens. I suppose it’s good that I avoided the End of Days, because then I would not have gotten to try the most excellent climbing tree I’ve encountered in Europe. Now, notice that I called this an excellent climbing tree and not an excellent descending tree. Only after I ascended to my desired branch did I realize I had NO CLUE how I was going to get down. Were it not for some truly skilled shimmying and a willingness to be in all sorts of compromising positions with the trunk, I would probably still be up there being laughed at by the Turkish girls. While I survived the encounter mostly unscathed, my shoes were not so lucky and are now in critical condition, possibly awaiting a duct-tape-orectomy.

After my brush with dumb, we hopped back on the bus for a trip to the town of Bran, home of delicious and healthy breakfast cereals. Okay, not actually, but it is home to Vlad the Impaler’s castle, which is much cooler (though not as high in fiber). As expected, the place was pretty tourist-y but then again, I was a tourist, so I didn’t mind too much. I spent much of my time marveling at low ceilings (apparently designed for midgets), random sitting nooks (apparently designed for squirrels), and narrow winding staircases (apparently designed for people with no hips, 360-degree rotating ankles, and not much to live for). That time not spent marveling was spent laughing at the information posters on the wall. I realized I’m incredibly privileged to expect to receive information in my own language halfway across the world, I’m an entitled American, etc. but dear God those translations were bad. I’m pretty sure the translator had learned English grammar from elementary school book reports. Either that, or s/he didn’t speak Romanian and was making it up as s/he went along.

Once outside the castle, I went on a hunt for blood, er…Diet Coke, which turned out to be much more difficult than expected. All I had was my credit card, universally not accepted. I found success (sort of) at a nearby convenience store, though I had to use my debit card because the cashier kept asking for a pin and no amount of handwaving was enough to explain that I wanted to use my credit card. Apparently I can only handwave in Hungarian. For the record, I have absolutely no idea how much that Diet Coke cost in real money. I’ve gotten pretty good at converting dollars to forint, but to convert dollars to forint to euros to lei you have to multiply by the speed of light, subtract the price of cheese in China, and divide by who let that cow in here? Converting back, you just do the whole thing backwards on one foot. Happily caffeinated, I rejoined the group and discovered that everyone who had not matured past the age of 5 (read: all the guys plus one of the Bulgarian girls) had bought a joke lighter that shocked whoever used it and were merrily abusing the others. I myself got shocked after Eran handed his to me. It kind of hurt, but I felt much better once I kicked him.

We got back to the hotel just in time for Havdalah, which was held outside around a roaring bonfire (did I mention the hotel is almost entirely made of wood?). Then it was time for the Yom Hatzma’ut party, where we got to teach and learn dances from our respective countries (actually, Dana had been telling us we would be doing so for the previous 3 nights, so it was about time). If I recall correctly, which I probably don’t, the Hungarians went first and led a dance specifically designed to confuse the hell out of the rest of us. The Bulgarians also went, teaching a dance that consisted of doing the same pattern approximately 800 billion times. Apparently it was a New Year’s dance, so it’s probably much more exciting when one is drunk. The Turks led some belly dancing, which was beautiful to watch on the girls, and absolutely hilarious on the guy (I think there was only one Turkish guy there, and he was not a small man). Robin was from England, so he led the Hokey Pokey, which made me happier than I can possibly explain. Then it was my turn. I had desperately wanted to teach Soulja Boy (100ish Eastern European Jews dancing Crank That Soulja Boy…can you imagine?!), but didn’t know what I would do for the verses since the only interesting part is the chorus. I settled instead for a country western dance that I may or may not have found on YouTube the night before. When I took the microphone, it became apparent that among Jews, I was very much the fast-talking American, which is ironic because among Americans, I’m always the fast-talking Jew. I defended myself, as always, by pointing out that my father is from New York. People seemed to enjoy the dance, and I even got a ‘Brava’ from an older Romanian woman, so I deemed myself a success.

Once the international dancing had subsided (the Romanian one was kind of bizarre, but I got to Polka during it so I’m not complaining), we returned to Israeli dancing, that being ostensibly the reason we were all there. At this point, it was probably around 10 or 11 pm, but we still had plenty of time because the dancing continued until 6:30 am. Staying awake was not too hard; the screaming from every part of my body prevented me from falling asleep. See, I am pathologically incapable of sitting down when I hear a song I like, or hear a song I don’t really like but to which I know the dance, or hear someone tapping a beat that sort of reminds me of a song I used to know, etc.. At one point, we took another break from Israeli for them to play what they called ‘Paso Doble,’ even though it was more a collection of random songs and dances approximating…swing, maybe? One of the random songs was the Paso Doble song though, so that made me happy. Also, after that, they played a little bit of swing and salsa AND THEN AN ABBA MIX. Oh yes. Not only did they play an ABBA mix, they did the electric slide to said ABBA mix. It was like heaven with a strong hint of spandex. ABBA can only take you so far (so very far) though, so we returned to Israeli and continued for the rest of the night/morning. At one point I had a sip of Bulgarian…something, which was pretty good except it made me feel like I was on fire since I was already overheated. Fact: alcohol plus dancing sounds really fun, but bring a fan. And a glacier. Heatstroke aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the marathon and am happy to have broken my previous record for staying out (5 am, prom night). There is a picture of all of us at 6:30 in the morning somewhere out there in space, a picture I hope never sees the light of Facebook because I’m sure I looked like Death’s less robust little sister. WHICH MAY BE WHY I USE SO MANY CAPS.



*made you look!

Machol Romania Day 2: Shabbat Sha-*hic*

The first part of Friday passed in a manner remarkably similar to Thursday. I learned several new dances whose names I can’t pronounce (and whose steps I can’t remember), overheated at least five times, and confused my right and left legs at least three (they look the same, okay?!). On Friday, however, the latter nearly proved fatal. We were learning a dance that translates to something like ‘Balkan Bells,’ which might explain the subsequent ringing in my ears. That, or the 3 days without sleep. Anyhowl’smovingcastle, I’m pretty sure we were learning this dance illegally because there’s no way one can be allowed to dance it without training and a license. For starters, it involves jumping. And turning. AT THE SAME TIME. For those of you who are not yet dancers, let me elaborate: Dancers are nuts. Give us a floor or, hell, reasonably solid dirt and we will turn it into a dance hall. Size is no constraint. I have danced in spaces a sardine would describe as “rather cramped” (building 34 anyone?). Ergo, teaching a bunch of compulsive dancers something involving a jump turn with the full knowledge that they will try it regardless of the amount of available space is tantamount to inciting involuntary manslaughter. The first time we tried the dance with music, I jump-turned smack into a Turk, nearly setting off an international incident. Fortunately, we could not come up with a suitably impressive name for said incident (The Near-Defenestration of Graber? Operation Giggle-Like-Idiots?), so we let it all diffuse.

I was sort of expecting a quiet Friday night, as it was Shabbat. As it turns out, I was sort of an idiot. For one thing, Jews really like to sing. And if they can’t sing, they really like to shout in some semblance of rhythm, occasionally with a hint of tune. This is not just during Kabbalat. In fact, fewer people sang during Kabbalat than during dinner, possibly because those of us with limited Hebrew were relying on the transliterations in the siddur. Which were in Romanian. Did I mention that Romanian has words like “fiii?” We’re not talking about a language phonetically friendly to idiotas like myself. It reminded me of nothing so much as the time I was watching a Japanese cartoon with friends and, despite the subtitles, could not figure out what was going on. Many years later, I realized it was because the subtitles were in Chinese. Thus, those who felt they were denied full use of their vocal (in)capabilities during Kabbalat made up for it by being at least 6 times as loud during dinner. Actually, “those who felt they were denied…” is really just a PC term for “Bulgarians.” Oh my God, Bulgarians. I came to MR fully expecting to be the obnoxious American, but I did not have a prayer. Even at my most loud and annoying, I did not stand a chance against the forces of Bulgaria. While we were waiting for dinner (and we waited a loooong time, Oren suggested they hadn’t caught the chicken yet), they went through every song they had ever known, or sort of known, or once heard someone humming at an airport, or made up on the spot. Lovely Temporary Roommate Anna and I were praying dinner would shut them up, but Bulgarians are either anorexic or have another mouth hidden somewhere, because they kept going straight through, with nary a stop to swallow.

As a side note, most of the songs they sang were apparently from a camp called Szarvas in Hungary that it seems Jewish Eastern-Europeans are required by law to attend. Certainly everyone at MR had been. One or two tunes were eerily close to old Girl Scout songs, so for a moment I definitely thought I was back at Camp Potomac Woods except I looked around and there were a lot of guys there so I was creeped out until I remembered that I was not in fact at Girl Scout camp so it was okay and I didn’t need to run screaming to Piglet (GS camp counselors all have nicknames. I did not actually go to camp with the real Piglet, probably because he’s male).

I was lucky to be buffered from the Bulgarians, sitting as I was with the Hungarian delegation. Thus, when the singing got old (which it did. Fast.), I could turn instead to my local Hungarians for amusement. Calling forth the old convention of ‘It’s Not Racist If They Agree,’ I hereby state that Hungarians drink. A lot. Whatever they can find. At any time. These were the people who pregamed lunch the previous day. Mama-duck Mazsi said that if everyone was there to share their culture, Hungary could certainly share the alcoholism. And lord did they do an instructive cultural demonstration. We toasted in Hebrew, Hungarian, English, etc. until Nori was completely toasted, with Anna not far behind. I did my best to hide the fact that I toasted with pretty much the same glass of wine every time, but Nori is one sharp drunk and sternly made sure that I finished at least two. I did! I was impressed with me too. Especially because the red wine was pretty awful. I also tried a bit of brandy, which was not my brightest idea because even Anna agreed it tasted like aftershave (so she only drank 2.5 glasses). As a side note, I now know that the Hungarian word for “aftershave” is, in fact, “aftershave” (though I suppose it could be a false cognate). Though the bottle of brandy was ostensibly for everyone, Erwin cleverly left it at the Hungarian table, figuring (correctly) that we (I was an honorary Hungarian for the weekend :)) would save him the trouble of leftovers. A water bottle of chocolate liquor also mysteriously appeared, and less mysteriously shrank in volume quite quickly. After I went upstairs, I learned later, the party continued with the sacred Shabbat traditions of vodka and tequila. That explained why at 1 or 2 am, I overheard the Turkish girls outside my apartment arguing over whether one of them could actually walk. They eventually agreed on ‘no,’ but it took them a while.

As a final note to the holiness and traditional nature of this Shabbat, the annoying camera man WHO NEVER EVER WENT AWAY filmed the whole thing. How do you say ‘blackmail’ in Hebrew?

Machol Romania Day 1: The Language of Pain is Universal (But I'm Still Pretty Lost)

I’m fully aware this post is almost a week late. I’m also fully aware that during MR, at any given point I had a choice between dancing, sleeping, and blogging. I’ll let you guess which one won. Hint: By the end, my English was worse than that of my Hungarian friends.

Thursday morning I awoke to the sounds of my legs screaming, having cleverly forgotten to stretch after dancing the night before. I proceeded down to breakfast WHERE THERE WAS STILL NO WATER and saw almost no one. I felt rather proud of myself, congratulating my genetics and youthful blood for allowing me to greet the morning when my compatriots were undoubtedly incapable of leaving bed. Naturally, it turned out that I had gone to the wrong room, and almost everyone else had been in the real breakfast room long before. To rephrase: I had gotten lost WITHOUT LEAVING THE HOTEL. Let it never be said that I am without talent. Also, I found out later (true story) that while I had been smugly consuming my toast and nursing my legs, some of the Turks had actually been salsa dancing. Yep.

Having acted the idiot (*of course* I was acting. I’m just really good) that morning, I tried to maintain some level of dignity for the morning sessions. Unfortunately, this was a dance camp, so dignity was not really an option. In fact, while I’m here, let me issue a belated blanket apology to everyone I smacked/stepped on/crashed into/turned into a newt/etc, because I’m sure the various Turks, Serbs, Bulgarians, etc. at the camp are totally reading this blog right now. I blame the Diet Coke or, rather, the lack thereof.The first session was with Oren Ashkenazay (sp?), where he taught Dance I Can’t Pronounce Because I Don’t Really Speak Hebrew I, DICPBIDRSH II, and Atah Ahi (I looked up that last one). I actually already knew Atah Ahi, but didn’t realize I knew it until the music came on. Apparently my muscle memory does not activate until I hear music, which might explain my decided lack of prowess in soccer, swimming, basketball, etc. I would have been an Olympian if I learned to swim in time to Mamma Mia (more on ABBA in the next entry. Oh yes. There was ABBA). After Oren’s session we had one with Eran, who taught three more versions of DICPBIDRSH (wow, typing that is actually harder than typing the full name. I need to come up with more acronym-friendly sarcasm). Interestingly enough, while Oren taught all his own dances, Eran taught only one of his, while the other two were from two other choreographers. The meaner part of me (yes, there is a nicer one, she just doesn’t get out much) suspected that Eran was hoping people would confuse him with Gadi Bitton, which, in the Israeli dance world, is similar to being confused with Elvis. [Obligatory sideburns joke here]

To be honest, I have no recollection of which dances we learned in the third session (I bet I can guess their names, though) because at that point, most of my mental energy went towards remaining reasonably vertical. It may have been taught by Erwin and Dana but, then again, it may well have been taught by two flying fish named Steve and HappyDance. I do remember lunch, however, if only for the moment when I ended up sitting smack in the middle of three different conversations, in Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Turkish (Turkarian, if we’re going for continuity). It’s a good thing my mind was incapable of even trying to focus, otherwise it probably would have exploded and that would have been REALLY awkward. Also, at one point, I was talking to one of the Turkish guys about Miracle Whip. He thought it was good, which led me to suspect he had never actually tasted Turkish food. No one who has eaten gyros, or really anything else, could place Miracle Whip in the same sentence as ‘good.’

The last session was for debkas, which are a special form of Israeli dance that require even more stomping than usual. I would like to take a moment to point out that I have been doing all of my dancing in jazz flats, which provide about as much support as the bras I wore in 7th grade. I got to feel smug again during the session, because I already knew one of the debkas being taught and actually recognized it BEFORE the music came on. Naturally, the version she taught was different, so I ended up doing it wrong. I’m noticing a pattern here…

Day 1 ended with what the organizers called a ‘Baby Party,’ the idea being that since this was the first Machol Romania, we were all its godparents (can you imagine how complicated that would be? Though the kid would get an epifuck of presents). They asked everyone to dress up like babies, which led to some things that WERE NOT OKAY. Do not click this link if you are pregnant, may become pregnant, or are not legally blind. I politely declined the invitation to make a complete imbecile out of myself (some parts are still missing, thank you); I had my dignity. Or rather, I thought I had my dignity until Balázs helpfully pointed out that the lollipop I had been oh-so-maturely licking had turned not just my tongue, but my entire mouth blue. I had been dancing around looking like one of the Blue Meanies in Yellow Submarine. Despite multiple intense scrubbing sessions in the bathroom, my teeth remained so azurely-inclined for pretty much the rest of the night. I had already decided to be a little more responsible for my health, so instead of dancing until 1:30 am without stretching, I only danced until 3:00 am without stretching. Wait…

Machol Romania Day 0: Back That Train Up!

First of all, let me just say (write?) that I am highly amused: Here in Predeal, where the nearest big city is Brasov (Romanian for "Middle of Nowhere", population: sheep), I have a flawless internet connection whereas in Pest, I have to take MJ (my faithful laptop) out to the balcony, tilt her in the proper direction, chant praises to the Sun God, etc. to access the universe. Irony, you are a crafty bitch.

As soon as I finished that last sentence, the internet crashed. Irony, you are just a bitch.

The train to Predeal was an excellent warm-up for the camp, in that it appears that I will be getting no sleep the rest of the time as well. I attempted more positions than a nymphomaniac yoga master and still failed to grab more than 3 (non-consecutive) hours of shut-eye. Which makes me think the railway needs a new slogan: "You can't spell 'Train to Predeal'" without 'Pain'" (or without "ntopre," but that's neither here nor there (so yes, it's in Predeal)). As seems to be tradition, my non-sleeping hours were at least partially filled (don't make me calculate the volume) with math. Yes, despite running away from BSM like the rabbit I decided I was, I managed to land in the same train compartment as Andras, who is essentially fluent in English and who scored something like 6 zillion (quick: what is this in dollars?) on the Hungarian version of the SAT. Thus, I began my vacation by discussing the Euler's bridges of Königsberg while the third member of our compartment, Balázs Who Knows Every Dance Ever OMG, looked on, probably horrified that he'd be spending the next few hours with 2 of the 3 biggest nerds in history (Euler couldn't make the dance camp. Something about being dead.).

Fortunately for Balázs WKEDEO, we were soon shuffled out of our compartment by Burly Romanian Guard #3, as apparently we were running the risk of becoming comfortable, in defiance of company policy. So we joined other members of Hora Budapest in a much more appropriately squished (behold, a sardine/rabbit hybrid!) area of the train. It was from this new location that we were able to notice that, after we stopped in Small Romanian Town #4, the scenery began moving in the wrong direction. Yes, Romania had apparently taken a lesson in public transport from the DC metro system and cleverly put two trains on the same track, forcing us to moonwalk (moonride?) back from whence we came and make an impressive (read: long) U-turn, much to the amusement of the local sheep.

Our ovine-pleasing venture finally came to an end and we landed in Predeal at half past Bitch AM, just in time to meet up with the most hyperactive friendly redhead EVER, who happened to be the organizer. As a side note, he was the first person to do the cheek-kissing greeting with me, leaving me thankful that I could at least tell my right from my left and avoid having the awkwardest moment EVER with said most hyperactive friendly redhead EVER. One can only have so many superlatives in a moment. Practically as soon as we hit the hotel, Andras, Balázs and I went for a walk around Predeal, figuring that maybe sitting down for twelve hours was not the *real* best warm-up for 5 days of dancing, despite the lack of sleep (the others opted for a nap. Wusses.). OH I almost forgot that we had breakfast, which would be unremarkable were it not for the fact that THEY DID NOT HAVE WATER. Not having the fresh-squeezed juice from the Aiiouuiaiiieee fruit that only grows in Hawaii I can understand. Not having Diet Coke PISSES ME OFF, but is still understandable. But really Romanian hotel? No water? I'll be the first to say that coffee is like water to me, but I won't actually be speaking literally. Anyhowieday, the walk (do you remember the walk?) was pretty and pretty uneventful, save a memorable experience at the lunch restaurant, where Andras tried to order grape juice first by playing charades, then Pictionary, with our baffled waitress. I guess game night wasn't until Saturday. I meanwhile, feasted on that traditional Romanian dish of Tasty Stuff In Butter and, at long last, Diet Pepsi. Soulmates always find a way.

After an exquisite nap, the program for Machol Romania (do you remember Machol Romania?) actually began with a mini-dance session. There, I learned that the first Israeli dance ever was choreographed by a Romanian-born Jew (what an unbelievable coincidence!). I also got kissed on the cheek *again* by Eran Bitton (!) (can you tell the cheek-kissing thing still weirds me out a little?), which gave me a closer view than I really needed of his kind of scary hair. I feel no compunction in calling it scary, since it's the exact same look I sported in 8th grade, though I'll admit he pulls of a headband better than I ever could. Then it was dinner time (more Stuff In Butter! Am I cultured or what?), change time (did I mention that throughout the course of the day, I wore 4 different outfits, at least one of which twice and non-consecutively? It was weird), and then time to listen to the Hyperactive Friendly Redhead prattle for a while about how Hyperactively Happy he was that everyone was there and how he couldn't even express his Hyperactive Joy that his Hyperactive Dreams had come true. The prattling was not without rewards, for it was followed by a chance to see the Israeli ambassador looking horribly confused during Od Lo Ahavti Dai, as he had apparently never done Israeli dancing before. Go figure. That would have been sufficient evening entertainment, but instead it was followed by several hours of hora-ing (new verbs FTW), leaving me high as a kite but with substantially more pain in my feet (and, you know, substantially more feet to begin with). I'm actually writing this at the end of my high, since it's 3 am and the sessions begin at..er..10 am maybe? I should probably look that up.

In conclusion, I'm pretty sure I will never want to leave Machol Romania. Math program? What math program?

Hungarian Fashion is not an Oxymoron

I see myself as a bit of a fashion prophet (ill-fitting jeans and guy's tshirts are TOTALLY GOING TO HAPPEN), so I consider myself fully justified in criticizing the fashion decisions of my local Hungarians.

Let's start at the top, shall we? Once upon a time (da dun..dun..dun), in a far off kingdom...

Oops. Wrong top. Friggin' homonyms. Anyhowdydo, I meant at starting at the physical top, as in, hair. For young Hungarian men, there is only one style, one religion, and that is the faux-hawk. Yes, the same frightening hairstyle so proudly sported by the preteen dreamboys in American middle schools (that, and the half-pipe. I'm not sure I will ever understand that). For those of you unacquainted with the glorious faux-hawk, it is similar to mohawk, except done with gel instead of scissors. Yes, people take absolutely normal, possibly attractive hair and FORCE it into an imitation of bored-middle-class-Hot-Topic-chic. When I saw this on an 8-year-old boy, I very nearly made a citizen's arrest of his mother for child abuse, my enthusiasm contained only by the fact that I was not, in fact, a citizen, and an exchange student's arrest has all the power of the 'Quiet Please' sign outside Szimpla. For the record, if you go to Szimpla on weeknights, that's your deal but please SHUT THE HELL UP YOU ARE RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW AND I NEED TO SLEEP, DAMN IT.

For the women, the coif of choice is that fashionable import from gay Paris: Freakin BRIGHT Red. Every lass (AIWATNF) from 9 to 90 has her hair dyed, in varying degrees, to match a tomato, a burning carrot, or that spot on my leg that I get when I try to go to the bathroom without turning on the light and oh my god who put that chair there?! Somewhere around 50 or 60, Hungarian women wise up to the fact that they are not getting any younger and that maybe their appearance should reflect a more mature outlook and go get their hair dyed an EVEN BRIGHTER red, because blinded passerbys can't see wrinkles.

Moving on down, I have nothing particularly enlightening (YES EVERYTHING ELSE WAS OKAY) to say about Hungarian shirts, except that I have to stifle a giggle every time I see this one guy at dance wearing a shirt with "American Joint Distribution Committee" on the back because, as we have covered before, I am actually 5 years old. That, and I whole-heartedly approve of the sparkles. Continue sparkling, Hungarian shirts!

Now we come to the pièce de résistance, or rather, pants de résistance, or rather, lack-of-pants de résistance. My fellow citizens of the Earth, be you American, Hungarian, or Inuit (love the fur, btw!), I stand before you a desperate woman, a single plea on my cracked lips: LEGGINGS ARE NOT PANTS. Until we as a people acknowledge this simple fact, there will never be peace on this planet. I beg you. In particular, I beg the girl I saw at Morrisson's on Friday night wearing LEOPARD PRINT LEGGINGS as the sole boundary between her thighs and the afflicted eyes of the world. What? You want me to snark on this? How can I go any further except to say that these were LEGGINGS with LEOPARD PRINT on them? How have we as a species let this happen? Is it ignorance? I pray so, because if it is, I may have the solution. If you feel at all uneasy with the differences between mere leg coverings and pants, you have come to the right place. A Broad, Abroad (AIWATNF) proudly, if somehwat desperately , presents How To Tell If You Are Wearing Pants:
I hope this clears things up. Some folks might say I have overlooked these mythical creatures called "skirts," to which I say, "Sorry, no fantasy."

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I should let you know that I wrote the first part of this entry while wearing a black men's t-shirt, tan capris, and bright striped knee-high socks, and the second part in black men's jeans and a t-shirt worn over a 7- or 8-year old bra that has been held together with duct tape for the past 4 or 5. Look for these in Milan next Fall.

And more!

More new quotables. Thank god for Matolcsi. Possibly more later today if I can find my MPS notes...

One of Those Annoying Lists

Wow...I seem to blog continuously when I have tests for which I really should be studying. Wait...'continuously!' This IS related to math! Continuity of functions! And this blog is clearly functional...except for the fact that my screen keeps blinking and the internet freezes about every 20 minutes and I still can't get the html code clean and...

Whatever. Now that I've established this as a useful studying procedure, I'll continue my good-student streak with one of those memes that goes around the internet every so often and is probably already part of a Facebook group somewhere.

BSMers...
...both love and hate the number 0
...can turn any adjective into a noun by adding "-ness" ("Hausdorffness" is my particular favorite)
...cannot add, subtract, divide, or multiply
...crack geometry sex jokes
...may go 24 hours without seeing a(nother) female
...have eaten their weight in somlói galuska at least once
...from any point in the city, know at least 5 gyros places and 6 bars within a 3-block radius
...pronounce 'Tesco' with the Hungarian 's,' even though it's an English corporation (looking at you, Andrew)
...know the difference between x, |x}, {x}, (x), etc.
...insert 'nem,' 'igen,' and 'tudom' into otherwise strictly-English conversations
...have stopped flinching at faux-hawks and mullets
...know that MAP makes you feel even more lost, NUT can crack you, and FUN isn't
...know the alcohol-sale laws of every zone in the city
...have attempted to pick someone up or have had someone try to pick them up without any language in common
...know at least 3 different ways to prove there are infinitely many primes.
...know something like ten completely different definitions of 'normal.'
...will walk/bus halfway across the city to hit a new club, but often don't have the energy for the 10/20 minute trip to school
...think 1000 ft (~$5) for a bottle of wine is exorbitant
...know that math is not funny
...can pronounce 'RFM'
...are fans of Túró Rudi, on Facebook and in life
...always know where Pam and Brittany are going on Friday/Saturday
...have forgotten the taste of American ketchup
...celebrate finishing a test by doing shots. Possibly in the Student Coordinator's office.

...need to stop blogging and go study for this damn MPS test and figure out how the hell we know when to take mod 6, or find the center of dilation, or if Sandor would cease to be without his mustache.

Feel free to add!

[SZ Pun Here]

First things first, you can save yourself a few hours and get the general idea of this entry here. Photos and snarkasm abound!:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rs.wtfvq/Szeged02?feat=directlink.

Spring has most definitely sprung; BSMers have come out of hi-bar-nation and can be spotted scampering about Hungary and the surrounding countries like so many somewhat intoxicated bunnies, except bunnies presumably don't take so many photos. This past weekend, several of my leporine compatriots and I took to Szeged (pronounced 'seh-,' as in "How about those Canadians,eh?" -ged, as in "Damb, dis is de worst tibe to ged a cold").

Ostensibly, we were in Szeged for a lecture, much the same way I am ostensibly in Budapest to learn math and not to go dancing two/three times a week and perform cooking experiments (did I mention that chicken is a bitch?). The lecture was on szphere-packing, for example, the optimal way to stack oranges in a crate. I cannot help but feel the lecture was incomplete, as it lacked a discussion of the mathematics of that one customer who INSISTS on searching through the entire crate to take a szpecial orange from the bottom, thus knocking over the entire arrangement plus a few apples on the side before deciding that s/he really doesn't want oranges this time and proceeding to terrorize the pasta. Further reszearch is required.

After the lecture, we hit the town for dinner at Chez OMIGODSOGOOD. Now, for all I know, Chez OMGSG may have been a fast food place, but the velocity of the game seemed to have little effect on that of the waiters. We waited (isn't that the waiter's job? discuss) for over an hour before food appeared, leading some of us to wonder if the food had indeed been fast and the chef had spent the first half hour or so trying to catch it (this is why I never order rabbit). Such a lengthy period of caloric barrenness would have been inexcusable were it not for the fact that, a. there were two huge groups of American tourists there that night and b. did I mention the food was REALLY GOOD? I never thought of paprikas as maritime creatures, but three roasted paprikas swimming in oil and vinegar were possibly the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. Granted, I didn't observe their swimming prowess for too long.

The meal to end all meals was also pretty much the end of my first day in Szeged. Others hit the bars afterward, but once again genetics intervened in my social life and I found myself reading in bed at 10, and asleep by 11. For the record, I just checked my driver's license, and it *says* I'm 20 and not 60, but I'm beginning to doubt it myself. Day Two began for me at 7:30 am, which apparently is considered early for some people? No one else was up, so I took a quick walk around our hostel to snap some photos. Well, "around." It was more of a line segment then a circle. In my defense, when you've spent the past 20 (60?) years incapable of finding your way out of a paper bag (no idea how I ended up in all those bags to begin with), you become wary of possible confusion-inducing actions, like left turns. Much as I like to travel, I didn't really want my morning stroll to end up in Serbia.

After my initial walk, mercifully lacking in accidental encounters with foreign nations, I went out again with Texas Sam, Fellow Tapper Brittany, and Lucas I Want His Hair (But Would Look Really Silly With It). Our first-ish stop was the flea market (we had wanted to go to services, but the synagogue was closed. For the record, that was, surprisingly, NOT my idea). Lucas very nearly succumbed to the siren call of a sword, just so he could walk around Pest with it. Admittedly, that would have been awesome, but we persuaded him that dealing with customs might be more trouble that it's worth. I myself nearly succumbed to the siren call of, well, nearly everything, but was saved by the knowledge that if I tried to buy something, I would have to ask what it cost and we all know my feelings about communication with actual Hungarians. I didn't want to end up paying 50,000 ft. for a gently-used water buffalo. When I need buffalo, I go retail. We next went to the Móra Museum. The Museum is named for Ferenc "Too Much Free Time" Móra, and would have been called "The Szeged Museum of Kind of Random But Still Pretty Interesting Stuff," but it didn't fit on the brochures. Seriously, the museum comprises* a painting exhibit, natural history exhibit (learned to appreciate endangered animals by looking at their stuffed bodies!), photography, pharmaceutical history, history of platypi (just kidding. I wish), etc. Putting aside the snark for a minute, I will say that if you ever have a chance to check out Robert Capa's photos, you should do so. He managed to capture some really powerful and emblematic moments of the 20th century.

Our next stop was supposed to be the Pick Salami and Paprika Museum (did I mention that Hungarians are awesome?). We met up with AndyAndMike (it's really more convenient to list them as one person and you lose no generality), consulted Sam's guidebook, and determined that the museum opened at one. Unfortunately, the museum itself had not consulted Sam's guidebook, and thought that it did not need to open until three. Since we could not convince the building of its error (bricks NEVER listen), we opted for an extended walk across the Tisza instead. We walked down Liszt Ferenc sétány... perhaps my sister can help me out with a clever remark here, as I know absolutely nothing about Liszt (because I ONLY crack jokes about things I understand. Definitely). The walk was not particularly remarkable, but I am remarking on it anyway because I don't want to do my MPS homework. It was very lovely outside, and, after 4 straight days of rain in Pest, it was a relief to be able to go out without fear of drowning and/or melting ("I haven't been the same since that house fell on my sister"). The grounds were covered in flowers, another stark contrast to Pest, which seems to only grow cigarette butts and dog residue.

At 3 pm sharp (why do we say 3 pm sharp, but 3 dollars flat?), we returned to the Pick Museum and, get this, were allowed in (what about natural? or minor? "Meet me at 3 pm harmonic" has a nice ring to it...). At this point, Brittany and Lucas split, apparently having more important things to do than look at salami (I know, right?! I can't imagine it either). Their loss, because the Pick Museum was about as close to heaven as one can get for 400 ft. For starters, with admission, we got a packet of paprika powder, half a salami sandwich, and a postcard with paid postage (no, the paprika was not for the postcard. I made the same mistake). Moreover, it was a museum. About salami and paprika**. Szeged, I love you.

At this point, Sam, AndyAndMike and I were suffering from tourist feet (walkingious ashittonium), so we started back for the hostel (most of the other BSMers had returned to Budapest). However, our lengthy journey (1.5ish miles? whatever, it felt long) was interrupted by a folk dance performance in the square. Me being me **, I somehow forgot the fact that my feet were borderline homicidal and sprinted across the street (I'm from DC! I haven't waited at a crosswalk since I was 10) to get a better view. I am most happy I did so, because catching the last 20 minutes of the performance pretty much made my weekend. It was like step-team crossed with tap crossed contra crossed with funny hats ... essentially, a tensor product (oy) of all of my favorite things. I'm pretty sure I was grinning like an idiot for the next hour. Which was fine, since I've appeared an idiot for far lesser things, though it meant my jaw joined my feet in their murderous conspiracy.

Back at the hostel, I was forced off my Cloud 9 and into the Fog of Confusion as I attempted to, against my better judgment, communicate with an actual Hungarian. Mike and I had originally only signed in for one night, so we had to somehow express our desire to stay for a second, ideally with Sam and Andy. If you recall, my Hungarian is pretty much limited to counting to 8, apologizing, and handwaving. "I would like to stay an extra night in room 106" was not really part of my linguistic arsenal, as I have never encountered a dance step of that name (someone needs to get on that, by the way). The four of us spent about 20 minutes creating essentially random combinations of words like szoba (room), éjszaka (night), száz hat (106), etc. in the hopes that one of those combinations would somehow communicate our desire. In the end, Sam pretty much came to the rescue, being the only one of us able to actually construct a complete sentence (verbs? what are these things?). On the plus side, I can now count up to 8 and say 106! Who could ask for anything more?

Okay, I swear I am sort of almost done (hey, at least it's a promise I can keep). I need one paragraph on drinking, one on an incident Sunday morning, and one reasonably clever conclusion and I can let you go. I wish I could say the following paragraph may not be appropriate for people who happen to be my parents or relatives, but the only reason I would say so would be a desire to prevent my family from knowing how lame I actually am. I cannot drink. I am not prudish, I am not Muslim, I am not (intentionally) a goody-goody, I just can't drink. Believe me, I've tried. After dinner (another wonderful restaurant, what is it about the Szegedian ones?), we defaulted to the common BSM/Shaun of the Dead strategy: "Let's go to the pub!" Actually, we went to a few. At the first, I was content to watch the others drink and see how long I could hold my breath (did I mention smoking indoors is legal? And that everyone and their mother does so?). At the second, however, I was determined to prove that, obnoxious circadian rhythm aside, I am in fact a college student and therefore able to abuse my liver like everyone else. Alas, it was not to be. I ordered the girliest drink ever (AIWATNF), a banana daquiri...and couldn't take more than 2 sips. Seriously. AndyAndMike had to finish it for me. They said it tasted like candy, and they could barely tell it was alcoholic. I was pretty sure I was drinking nail polish remover mixed with vodka. I think I will have to be content with making my stupid decisions sober.

Okay folks, just one more. The next day was for the most part uneventful. We did have one wonderful moment however, when a man came up to us at breakfast asking for 90 ft. He mentioned something about a hospital and Andy, being a decent human being, gave him the 90 ft. Which he then took into the gambling house right across the street. Right in front of us. Andy was displeased, the rest of us were glad of the morning's entertainment. Lesson: Never do nice things. Naturally, having sworn off all future good deeds, we were in the perfect mood to check out the city's main synagogue and church. We kept our mouths shut (okay, not really, but stay with me here), as it didn't seem right to inform the church- and synagogue-goers that the entirety of religion was based off false assumptions about this whole doing good thing. "Torah, work, and acts of random stuff" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Congratulations to those of you who made it so far. As a reward, I will let you make up the last line of this entry. Go forth and sznark!



*I am trying to become grammatically less fascist, but I still insist that the parts compose the whole, the whole comprises the parts. Is that so hard?

**"The first rule of the Tautology Club is the first rule of the Tautology Club."

BHED: Becca's English-Hungarian Dictionary

The title of this could also refer to 'Ben's Energetic Halfling Daffodil,' but that would be weird.
Having been in Hungary for 2.5 months (!!), I feel completely qualified to give the folks at home a crash course in handy Hungarian words and phrases. That, and I like blog posts in list form because I don't have to bother with transitions. See if you can figure out what I've been doing:

Hello: Szia
Goodbye: Szia
Sorry: Bocsánat
"Whoa, sorry!!!": "Sorry!...er, I mean, bocsi! *panicked/remorseful handwaving*"
"May I have a Diet Coke?": "Coke Light? *point*"
"You're out of Diet Coke?!": "Nem Coke Light?! *angry handwaving*"
Dance: Tánc
Cha cha: Cha cha
Tango: Tango
"Would you like to dance?": "Cha-cha/Tango/etc.? *outstretched hand*"
One-two-three-four: Egy-kettö-három-négy
Five-six-seven-eight: Öt-hat-hét-nyolc
Nine: No idea
Ten: *jazz hands*
Yemenite: Yemeni
Hop: Hop
Right: Jobb
Left: Balra
"Your other right!": *crash*
Sway: Hinta
Step: Lép
Walk: Séta
Behind-side-forward: Hatul-mellett-elöre
Stop: Stop
"STOP!": "Stop!!! *frantic handwaving*"
Yes: Igen
No: Nem
"No, I don't want to hook up with you, please leave me alone": This apparently has no translation
Half: Fél
Cheese: Sajt
Please: Kérem
"I would like half a kilo of cheese, please": *point*
"I don't speak Hungarian" (first try): "Nem beszélek Magyarul"
"I don't speak Hungarian" (second try): "Um...English? *shrug*"

And the most useful of all:
*handwaving*: *hándwaving*

Who needs language class?

Catch 22

This is going to be another unfunny post, so please check back later for your regularly scheduled sarcasm.

Today is Yom Ha'Shoah, the day of Holocaust remembrance. However, this post is not about the Holocaust. At the moment, I have nothing new to say on the subject. This post is about clothing.

In a few hours, I'm going to the Holocaust Memorial Ceremony here in Pest. In the event description, the organizers asked attendees to wear white for remembrance. Currently, I am in borrowed pants and my one nice white blouse. While getting dressed, I debated with myself whether or not I wanted to wear my body shaper underneath my clothes. On the one hand, it's exactly comfortable. On the other hand, for some reason, I have been really hungry all day and have thus been eating a lot, and I didn't want to look/feel bloated. Let me repeat that: I was worried about looking fat at a Holocaust memorial service. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed almost obscene to don the shaper; how can I try to look slimmer when I am remembering millions who starved to death?

At the moment, I'm leaning towards not wearing it, but more because the ribbing sticks out a little funny and my blouse is a little tight rather than for any deep symbolic reasons. But my decisions are far from over. For example, I still don't know if I'm going to put on make up. I have no desire to draw any attention to myself, but I want to show respect. For women especially, showing respect means putting effort into one's appearance. Then again, today is the absolute wrong day to be thinking about how I look and which shade of lip gloss looks better with today's ensemble.

I feel like this is all part of the bigger dilemma, namely, how does a woman dress for a serious occasion? Any occasion, really: memorial, funeral, business meeting, etc. On the one hand, if we look too nice, we're being shallow or trying to flaunt our looks. But if we don't try to look nice, we're not respecting the occasion. When your attitude is judged almost entirely on your appearance, you can't win.


Yit-ga-dal v'yit-ka-dash sh'mei ra-ba,
b'al-ma di-v'ra chi-ru-tei, v'yam-lich mal-chu-tei
b'chai-yei-chon uv'yo-mei-chon
uv'chai-yei d'chol-beit Yis-ra-eil,
ba-a-ga-la u-viz-man ka-riv,
v'im'ru: A-mein.

Y'hei sh'mei ra-ba m'va-rach
l'a-lam ul'al-mei al-ma-ya.

Yit-ba-rach v'yish-ta-bach,
v'yit-pa-ar v'yit-ro-mam v'yit-na-sei,
v'yit-ha-dar v'yit-a-leh v'yit-ha-lal, sh'mei d'ku-d'sha, b'rich hu,
l'ei-la min kol bir-cha-ta v'shi-ra-ta,
tush-b'cha-ta v'ne-che-ma-ta, da-a-mi-ran b'al-ma,
v'im'ru: A-mein.

Y'hei sh'la-ma ra-ba min sh'ma-ya,
v'cha-yim, a-lei-nu v'al kol-Yis-ra-eil,
v'im'ru: A-mein.

O-seh sha-lom bim-ro-mav,
hu ya-a-seh sha-lom a-lei-nu v'al kol-Yis-ra-eil,
v'im'ru: A-mein.

Sigh

New Quotables are up, since I am going to fail my quantum mechanics test anyway. Do *you* know how to convert between mutually unbiased orthonormal bases?

Venice Days 4 and 5: Here There Be Jews

I found them! Granted, once you're in the right area, the Jews of Venice are sort of hard to miss. Tall men in black suits with fringes and big hats kind of stand out in a city of a thousand tourists in Universita di Venezia sweatshirts. The Jewish ghetto in Venice is old as dirt (turns out, dirt is only 800 years old! Makes you wonder what was under people's fingernails before then). I'd say old as Moses, but then we'd get into some unfortunate historical dilemmas that might make the universe unravel and no one wants that, especially because I haven't had dinner yet. Actually, the ghetto has three sections: Old Ghetto, Real Old Ghetto, and Dead Ghetto. Okay, not actually, but I felt the time had come for a Muppets reference. Parenthetically, (how fabulous would it be to have the Jewish quarter named according to old Muppet sketches? It'd be like a live version of that wonderfully ridiculous Passover Sesame Street episode we watched every year in Sunday School. Note to self: write Italian government. Further note to self: learn Italian).

Wow...where was I? Ah yes, where I usually am: Jews. The Jewish ghetto does indeed have three sections, but the names are much less interesting: Gheto Nuovo (New Ghetto), Gheto Vecchio (Old Ghetto), and a third section whose name escapes me, but was referred to as the 'Newest Ghetto' by a guy in my tour group, so we'll go with that. Gheto Nuovo is, naturally enough, older than Gheto Vecchio. On a completely, wholly unrelated note, why are there no great Italian mathematicians? Actually, the names sort of make sense since the foundry at which they established Gheto Vecchio was older than the one at Gheto Nuovo. Nevertheless, I can imagine that the names led to all sorts of hilarious mix-ups back in the day ("Wait, was tonight's sacrifice of Christian babies in the new old ghetto or the old new ghetto?").

Really, it's a good thing that it's impossible to get drunk on Manishewitz (the sugar coma comes first), because otherwise, no Jew would ever be able to find their way home in the ghetto. Backwards naming choices aside, there's also the fact that the synagogues look like run-down apartments from the outside, and Catholic shrines on the inside. 'Fraid I have no photos to share of the latter (not even the toilets, sorry Anthony) since we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the synagogues. But really, would I lie (cue Dick Van Patten in Spaceballs)? Since Jews weren't allowed to be architects back then (or now, but that's only because their parents make them go to law/med school), all of the buildings were designed by local goyim. The architects really did their best, adding in such traditional Jewish features as the Crushed Red Velvet Drapes of Aaron and the symbolic Garish Gold Accents of Abraham. Really, the only symbols they left out were the minor, unimportant like the Magen David (seriously, there was not a single one in any of the synagogues I visited). Even better, each place was decorated with actual Hebrew words! Since presumably the architects didn't speak Hebrew (and, if you recall, neither do I (unless you count the words to random dance songs)), I can't help but wonder if the words were actually just taken randomly from signs the artist saw on his way to work. Nothing like the sacred text "And God Said Cheap Circumcisions Sale on Bagels!" to get you in the mood for prayer.

The bizarre hybrid of Venetian and Jewish culture did yield some good results. Specifically, I am thinking of the gift shops (of course), where one could find such Jewish necessities as Murano glass chess sets, one done as Sephardi vs. Ashkenazi Jews and the other as Jews vs. Catholics. I was really tempted to get one for my father, but he is somewhat ridiculous when it comes to accepting gifts (as in, he won't do it unless all four female members of the nuclear family are glaring at him. No I don't get it either.). There is also a cute old/rare bookshop (between the ONE kosher restaurant and the ONE kosher grocery store in the entire damn city). It should come as a surprise to no one (unless you're new to this blog/me in which case, Hiya! sorry about all the puns) that, after four days of going into countless souvenir shops without getting so much as a postcard, on Friday I came out of the bookshop with 3 used paperbacks. It's a very good thing I did so, because I had checked out of the hostel that morning and was thus lugging my suitcase all over creation (Bereshit bara elohim...), so getting the books gave me an excuse to sit down in the ghetto courtyard and waste some time until my train at 9 pm. Hanging out in the courtyard turned out to be something like the best thing ever, since I got to observe the guys of the Chabad darting across the stone (Jews are very active at this time of year) and, once or twice, leading the tourists groups in spontaneous singing and dancing. Yes, it was fabulous.

My evening was unfortunately not so fabulous as, while on the train, I kept being woken up by masters students at the Academy of Surly Slavic-looking He-men. Really, border control was a model of post-Soviet efficiency; at every border, I was asked for my passport three different times by three different guards for a glance and a grunt, just in case I had sneaked on or changed identities in the five minutes since the previous guard grunted at me. Nevertheless, I once again made it back to Budapest safe, sound, sleepy, and completely unprepared to begin classes again. Sigh. Nothing so hard as saying "ciao" to Spring Break, except perhaps saying "szia" to 2 tests and 4 p-sets.

Venice Day 3: Well, That Didn't Work

The title of this post was originally supposed to be 'Non-native Vegetation,' and the post itself about how Blond Bombshell Meghan and I spent the day lying in the sand with nary a care in the world (excepting, perhaps, skin cancer). Unfortunately, it was not to be. First, there was the boat ride to Lido, which gave the Paris Metro a run (surf?) for its euros. I would call it "standing room only," but that would not do justice to the contorted, bent-legged stand/lean required to fit and remain standing during the ride. I'm all about bus surfing, but somehow doing so in the presence of actual waves and the absence of any handles makes the task a little too close to the "OMG I'm going to die" line. For the record, I would probably not die from drowning, but from physical contact with Venetian waters, which could probably eat through my skin and deposit soda bottles in my veins.

Murderous beverage containers aside, the journey did not end with our safe shoring at Lido. Now, our map/guide called the desired area Alberoni Beach and mentioned that it was near the Alberoni Golf Club, reachable by the number 11 bus. So, upon seeing the number 11 bus with 'Alberoni' across the front, we decided to take a wild risk and hop on. Call me crazy (actually, that would be awesome, because then my initials would be CG and I could go around making things explode really prettily using Python). And because we're just rebels like that, we got off at the stop marked 'Via Alberoni' (kapow! fwoosh! oooohh....). On the one hand, there was definitely water. However, water does not in fact a beach make, otherwise I'd get a tan every time I took a shower. Which would also be awesome, because then I wouldn't look like I did my makeup according to 'Dracula Today!' at competitions.

Anyhowardzinn, we ended up walking around the island for an unspecified but seemingly very long time before we finally encountered something vaguely resembling sand. Naturally, at our first glimpse of sand, there was no water in sight. You'd think a country known for its fashion would have a better idea of which pieces go together and which should be used as separates. Then again, Anthony the BHKOF (best acronym ever (BAE)) refuses to acknowledge Italian fashion, so maybe I shouldn't either. In any case, the ensemble did eventually pull together to feature sand AND a coastline. I was going to describe it as a lovely coastline, but then I remembered the abundance of cigarette butts lying around, and the picture was kind of ruined. In one section of the beach (mercifully cordoned off), the area actually appeared to be a dump with some sand sprinkled in for continuity of scenery. While Meghan and I were fully prepared to risk skin cancer (unless my mom is reading, in which case, we packed 3 gallons of sunscreen), lung cancer was not really on our list of desirable souvenirs. We decided that our actual plan all along had been to walk around a very quaint, cute island with a nice view and get to know its public transportation system (fun fact: just because a bus shelter lists the number 11 bus on the side does not, in fact, mean the number 11 bus actually stops there. Educated, I am). And then we got back to the main island and had gelato, so life was good. Really, can any day ending in gelato be all that bad?

Venice (Random Observation): That's What She Said

Venetians are obsessed with penises. Now, I am usually not one to accuse anyone of single-mindedness since, for some reason, I spend a lot of time defending myself against the claim that I have a one-track ballroom. I am also not particularly prudish, four years on high school stage crew having effectively eliminated that adjectival avenue (nice, eh?).
However, Venetians are obsessed with penises. Think Texts From Last Night meets Robin Williams’ apartment in The Birdcage. Consider, for example, the following ode to tasteful restraint at the bus stop outside our hotel:


Do I know what this ad is saying? No. Do I want to know? Okay…kind of, but only because I really want to know why Yoda is on this poster. I mean, does he even have…do I want to know…ok no. Nevermind, strange Italian poster, you carry on with your bad self while I scrub my brain with steel wool. These are not the droids you are looking for.
Where was I again? Ah yes: penises, Venetians’ obsession with. Consider now the tourist shops that dot the city (rather like herpes, since we’re on the subject). Looking for a little something (oy) for the art aficionado in your life? Surprise him with a pair of shorts, featuring the penis of Michelangelo’s David. Great for in depth studying of Michelangelo’s masterpiece without the pesky pedophilia rumors!
If David’s thing is not really yours, you can always pick up an adorable little glass figurine of a man playing golf with OH MY GOD WHAT IS HE USING FOR A TEE THAT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE (nor is it biologically possible). Er, or maybe this WHAT THE HELL THAT IS NOT A BASEBALL BAT. Yes, even the fine art of glass-blowing (don’t make me make that joke again) is not safe. In addition to a certificate of authenticity, I feel like these ornaments should come with medical records (guaranteed Chlamydia-free!).
I’m once again running low on snark, so let me just finish by saying that, in addition to everything else, some stores also sell penis-shaped pasta. In two different sizes.

Venice Days 1 and 2: Wander and be Wet

*Also a belated post. I haven't written today's snark yet*
So…I might be able to let y’all go home early today, since the title of the post pretty much says it all. But then I’d have no excuse for avoiding my MPS homework, so to the useless jabbering!

Apparently genetics don’t work in foreign countries because I woke up hella late on Monday (11:30 am! That may actually be a new record for me. Don’t judge). Blonde Bombshell Meghan and I didn’t make it to the city until one-ish, whereupon I consulted my Italian-English dictionary and discovered that the Italian word for “brunch” is “gelato.” Far be it from me to contradict a dictionary. Satisfactorily sugared, we spent the next few hours wandering the sidewalks of Murano, the glass-blowing center of Venice. Once again, I seem to have backed myself into a procrastination-blocking corner, since there’s really not much to say about Murano except that it is, in fact, the glass-blowing center of Venice. There is lots of glass. And lots of…Andrew, grow up and stop laughing. We managed to spend quite some time going in and out of shops and staring at pretty things, which, if you recall from my ramblings about Vienna, is one of my favorite hobbies. I must say, glass is lovely, but it’s not Swarovski. Ballroom has turned me into a shiny things snob.

The only other notable thing about Monday was that I finished my chametz-eating on a pistachio-almond-raisin cookie, which was as wonderful as it sounds. I then decided to confuse the hell (@@) out of my soul by having matzah and salami for dinner. Ah, reform Judaism.

Tuesday found us exploring (read: wandering around) the southern part of Venice. Southern Venice is prime shutterbugging area, having apparently been designed by postcards. Picturesque churches and museums line the waterfront, making one feel a bit like one has been hit over the head with an inspirational calendar. Murphey’s Laws were not satisfied with my spending Pesach in the pasta/pizza capital of the world, though, so our shutterbugging was cut short by rain (very picturesque rain, I might add). For the record, Venice in the rain is actually kind of unnerving. As beautiful as the water is, seeing it rise to within a few inches of the sidewalk is pretty disconcerting. Like small children, I prefer my seawater pretty and not underfoot.

I’m out of snark and it’s dinner time: matzah and shrimp salad. Pesach sameach to me!

Venice Day 0: Dr. Becca’s Sing-a-Long Blog

Internet is elusive, ergo entries have been delayed. With apologies to Miley Cyrus:

Hopped off the plane train at LAX VSF
With a dream and my cardigan bulky polar fleece
Welcome to the land of fame, boats excess more boats
Am I gonna fit in? [No]
Hopped in a cab bus
Here I am for the first time
Looked to my right and I see the Hollywood “Tourism Info” sign
This is all so crazy
Everybody seems so famous tan.

My tummy’s turning ‘cuz that train was really bumpy
Too much pressure and I’m nervous
But then the bus driver came on the radio
But I couldn’t tell what he said!
But I couldn’t tell what he said.
I couldn’t tell what he said…

So I throw my hands up,
Did we just miss our stop?
The street signs fly away
Shaking my head like: “Damn.”
Cursing the world like: “Damn.”
Throw my hands up
We got off too soon
The signs led us astray
Hey-ey-ey-ey
Will we ever find our place to stay?

Up to the city in another bus
Everybody’s looking at us now
Like, “Who are those chicks* that look so lost?
They must be from out of town.”**
Feels so different with Hungarians not around me,
It’s definitely not a Budapest party.
‘Cuz all I see is gelato
I like that kind of memo

My tummy’s turning ‘cuz I’m eating like a fiend here,
Scarfing chametz before pesach
Then the gondolier offered a ride around
But it’d cost more than my house,
It’d cost more than my house,
It’d cost more than my house!

So I throw my hands up
We’ll go it on foot
My energy dies away
Stomach hurting like: “Ow.”
Feet are aching like: “Ow.”
Throw my hands up
Pass another mask shop
That’s the 60th one today
Hey-ey-ey-ey
Guess that’s how they make the tourists pay
Hey-ey-ey-ey
Guess that’s how they make the tourists pay

Feel like hopping on a flight
Back to Budapest tonight
But something stops me every time
I couldn’t find the airport if I tried!

So I throw my hands up
Hit the sandwich shop
Foccacia and cheese? Okay!
Stuffing my face like: “Mmmm”
Feeling the sun like: “Mmmm”
Throw my hands up
Why am I bitching so much?
I’m on spring break, hooray!
Hey-ey-ey-ey
Rockin’ V-E-N-E-Z-I-A
Hey-ey-ey-ey
I’m in V-E-N-E-Z-I-A!

*Women, and that’s not funny
**Like everyone else. Venice has more tourists than residents.

OMD: The Oxford Math Dictionary

I just realized the title of this post could also refer to "Oh my! Dinosaurs!," which would make a really nifty entry. However, that is not important. Procrastinating on quantum mechanics is.

Math is sometimes confusing, in the same way that nuclear explosions are sometimes a little too warm. Ergo, I present this handy Math-to-English phrasebook for your reference. Feel free to sprinkle the terms contain therein into your everyday conversation to make yourself appear more intellectual. Nothing says 'sexy' like speaking a foreign language (okay, maybe speaking English with a cute foreign accent. But I'm not sure what a math accent is. Though maybe it's because I have one.).

So:
"The proof is trivial": The proof is boring.
"Clearly..." (professor): I have a PhD in math.
"Clearly..." (student): I have no idea how to prove this.
"Clearly..." (post-doc): I have a PhD in math, and no idea how to prove this.
"We will need the following lemmas...": We're not proving anything until next week.
"The proof is one line": Get out your microscope.
"The proof is one sentence": We learned about commas today!
"It's a routine check": I have a PhD in math.
"It's easiest to prove this geometrically": I'm a geometer.
"It's easiest to prove this algebraically": I'm an algebraist.
"It's easiest to prove this using calculus": I'm on crack.
"The proof is kind of cute": I'm a lonely person.
"The proof is straightforward": I have a PhD in math.
"This proof is more enlightening" (i): I don't understand the other one. OR (ii): This is the proof I came up with.
"Claim": A statement proved by somebody else (also, "proposition").
"Theorem": A statement proved by the author.
"Important theorem": A statement proved by the person writing the author's tenure letter.
"It is obvious...": ...to me because I have a PhD in math.

And, of course, "The proof is left as an exercise" (courtesy of Taole):
http://abstrusegoose.com/12

Have fun impressing your friends! Unless they have PhDs in math.

Manifest Destiny

From humble beginnings, this great blog (fine. "great.") has expanded to two whole pages!

Those of you who knew me in middle and high school, well, first of all, deserve an apology and several glasses of wine. Also, you know that I collected quotes somewhat obsessively. Those of you who did not know me in middle and high school now know that in middle and high school, I collected quotes somewhat obsessively. Educational equality for all!

Anyhowdle, I have decided to restart said collection for the duration of the semester, in the form of the aforementioned new page, "Quotables." Fear not (and come out from under that rock!), this is the only obsession from middle/high school that I intend to revisit, I swear on my props table and Fred the Mouse.

From sea to shining CSS!

The Hills are Alive, the Tourists, Less So

Monday was a national holiday in Hungary, a commemoration of That Other Revolution, You Know, The One That Didn't Involve Russians*. As I had a test Tuesday, the three day weekend gave me an opportunity to really sit down with my books and learn my history so I could impress my professor. But I went to Vienna instead.

My travel companion for this exotic (omg! Germans!) adventure was Anthony, the Blond(ish?)-Haired King of Fashion. If you're confused by the epithet, see Odyssey, The. Between the two of us, we had quite a bit of Austrian cultural knowledge: Anthony knew about the Hapsburgs and was very into artists of the Viennese Secession movement, while I knew how to say 'Danke.' Armed with this only-slightly-exhaustible well of information, we set out to conquer the City With No Nickname.

After a lovely (read: cheap) bus ride from Budapest, we checked into our hostel and went into the 1st district just in time for the traditional Closing of the Stores. Really, Vienna puts Boston to shame in the area of Inconveniently Early Closing Times, which is not easy. Not ones to be deterred from wasting time, Anthony and I defaulted to a few hours of serious window shopping. Or rather, Anthony was serious about it, calculating and recalculating his purchasing power, while my thoughts were generally restricted to variations on "ooh, that's really cute/shiny/expensive." For the record, "expensive" does not just mean "expensive because I have never spent more than $10 on a shirt." I'm pretty sure that every time I looked at a store window, an angel maxed out its credit card. "Shiny," meanwhile, means this:

Authentic Viennese Disco Skull

Awesome.

Having arrived after the Closing of Everything Ever on Saturday, we were left with one day to Experience Vienna. Altogether, I think we did pretty well. In compliance with the Vienna Tourist Laws, we spent the morning at the Schonbrünn. The Schonbrünn has historical significance as the palace of the Maries Theresa and Antoinette, and social significance as a really big, pretty building with lots of expensive furniture. It's a little bit more subtle than Versailles, but, then again, so is Lady Gaga. Unfortunately, you'll have to content yourself with the disco skull picture, because cameras were verboten (culture! I have it!) inside. Anthony, however, did manage to surreptitiously take one photo...of the king's toilet. Yes. The King's toilet. Moving on.

We did indeed move on, or rather, up. The grounds surrounding the Schonbrünn are as beautiful as the inside, though they smell slightly more of elephant, courtesy of the zoo next door. We realized that we had not yet begun destroying our legs, so we decided to make up for lost time by climbing the hill up to...okay, I have absolutely no idea what is was, but it was in keeping with the theme of OMG Austria is Pretty, and a very nice-looking set of fake ruins. Why you would purposely create ruins is a bit baffling to me; I cannot help but think the Austrians have legitimately ruined *something* in their long history. If not, I'd be glad to help out, although I can't guarantee I'll ruin something in quite so picturesque a manner. Nevertheless, it will be authentic, and heavens knows that's what tourism in Austria is all about. That, and dolls shaped like Elisabeth, the Low-Carb Queen and star of one of the Royal Diaries books I was obsessed with when I was twelve. Yes, even then I showed a passion for history, especially the history of women with cool hair.

Speaking of low-carb, lunch was definitely not (YOU come up with a better transition). As the hill had rendered our legs more useless than rhinestone underwear on a standard dancer, we took the opportunity to take in culture via metro and calories. Hey, in DC, that IS the culture (and, you know, those quaint little museums scattered around and people in traditional black suits). My calories came in the form of a gyro bigger than my head, which I swore not to finish after every bite, right down to the last corner of the pita. At that point, I just swore, since I hate resewing buttons on pants. After lunch, we waddled, er..wandered, around Neubaugasse, for reasons having nothing to do with the fact that 'Neubaugasse' is extremely fun to say. Neubaugasse is also a shopping Mecca...every day except Sunday. Having left our lock-picks back at the hostel, we once again contented ourselves with staring in windows and daydreaming about being able to afford a shirt without having to sell a sibling.

Since we both apparently hate our legs, we walked from Neubaugasse (say it with me: Neubaugasse. Neubaugasse! Neubaugasse?!) to the museum district. We spent the next few hours doing what people typically do in places called "The Museum District" (hint: not rollerblading). In addition to the Leopold Musuem, where Anthony contemplated Klimpt while I contemplated Diet Coke and a hot bath, we looked at a few free exhibits that must have been artistic because I was confused. There was one with a series of screens saying something about Facebook (which is definitely art, specifically, the art of procrastination) and, outside, there were several giant models of human organs with furniture inside. One of them actually had a bar inside, but I really didn't feel comfortable buying a Diet Coke from a guy standing inside a gargantuan colon. I imagine that these are the sorts of things created by people who jump out of meaningful bathtubs holding significant spatulas (spatulae?) while tap-dancing ironically on symbolic starfish. Okay, I think I was just looking for an excuse to write that sentence. But the point holds.

Although at this point my legs were on the verge of secession, our Vienna In A Day tour was not finished. There was still the matter of Jews. Upon arriving in Vienna, both Anthony and I realized we could not leave without seeing the Jewseum (his term, though I definitely wish it was mine), he because he liked saying 'Jewseum,' me because I am my grandfather's granddaughter (and an adept tautologist) and am drawn Spaceballs-laser-style to anything with Hebrew on it. For the record, I was insanely proud of myself for being able to recognize and/or read something like every 20th Hebrew word in the artifacts exhibit (even without vowels! What now!). So Mom and Dad, you can see the four years I spent in Hebrew School were totally not wasted. After the museum, we decided that we weren't quite Jewed enough (really, can one ever be Jewed enough?), so we went looking for the Vienna Synagogue. In keeping with the age-old tradition of 'Why Does This Shit Always Happen to Us?,' the synagogue was almost impossible to find. Indeed, our map placed it squarely inside a stone wall, which would have been hell on the rabbi. Fortunately, we found a subtle hint to the temple's location in the form of a street called Judenplatz. Yes. Jew Place. Awesome. We arrived about 10 minutes before the place closed, but it was enough to get a look at the inside (gorgeous!) and for me to once again deploy my four years of Hebrew School by spending a good five minutes trying to remember if something was a mem or a samech (I don't think I ever resolved that).

After a most healthy dinner of sauteed/fried things (Anthony had been eying a chicken basket since Saturday) and creme caramel, we finally hauled our rebelling calves back to the hostel for some R & R & F (rest, relaxation, and Facebook). Our bus back to Budapest was at 11:20 the next morning, but, out of consideration for Hungarian Standard Time, it arrived about half an hour late, something like 30 seconds before we bought a ticket for another line. Nevertheless, we arrived in Hungary safe and sound, if sleepy, whereupon I started and restarted this entry about five times before deciding to re-energize my creative juices with a nap. Which turned into about five hours. At which point I realized I had not started my topology homework. Oops. At least that didn't require legs.



*Actually, Wikipedia informs me that it did in fact involve Russians, but only peripherally. Peripheral Russians don't count.