on flying pizza and burning pencils...... =P
13 nov 2002
sziasztok!
happy week to all y'all!... although not so touristy, this week has been pretty spiffy and filled with plenty of fun new stuff =)
event #1: friends who send you a party in a box just for the fun of it are the uber coolest =) last tuesday, i got a "party in a box", labeled as such on the outside, much to the confusion of customs, front desk people at school, etc... kazoo, bacon bits, scooby doo chapstick, snowflake stickers, silly string, and much more included -- yay for fun surprises and uber spiffy friends =)
event #2: last thursday was an ideally fun day -- after 6 hours straight of class, and then going over our last gre practice test with eric,..... nathanael, shalom, eric, amanda, and i went ice skating -- for me this is major because i've never *really* ice skated before -- i think once, maybe twice max, i went to the mall of memphis when i was small, but never did anything near skating at all because there was always a railing to hang on to for dear life! -- here, we were in a very popular outdoor ring just outside vadjahund castle, no railings, etc to hang on to!... luckily, everyone else could at least skate well enough to keep their balance (or significantly better than that!) and took turns skating with me =) i have absolutely *no* confidence in my coordination, but we'll see how i feel about it next time i try -- even going incredibly slow (and/or just having people drag me!) it was quite the fun experience =)... after skating, we got ice cream, and then amanda, eric, shalom, and i went to see 'lilo and stitch', (a csillagkutya!) which just came out here in the last couple weeks -- this means we're only about 4.5 months behind on american movies =) it was as excellent as i remember from seeing it on my birthday this summer, and it was just a party in a box kind of evening =) thursday was also the 4th consecutive day i saw snow flurries at some point -- still nothing sticking, but if you can see it, it totally counts =) and thus i've been singing lots of snow songs lately (some of you can imagine quite well i'm sure =) )
saturday: gre-day -- it's done at last! now just to fill out grad school applications (if only that were as simple as it sounds!..) after gre and lunch, eric and i checked out the metro museum -- as budapest has the 3rd oldest subway in the world (right after london and new york i believe), they have lots to explain about it =) -- small museum, but fun to go through =)... even later on, marianne, eric, and i went to a children's concert at the liszt music academy -- children's concert in the sense that the conductor explained what was going on in great detail before each piece,... all pretty spectacular -- before intermission we ended up in the balcony, but after intermission we had seats in the middle of the second row! (not assigned seating =) ) -- fun times indeed =) after that, marianne, rudel, and i made taco dinner with fixins we found the weekend before in a big store in prague -- this was fun as the closest to salsa i'd found here so far is basically tomato paste with an occasional tomato =)... at any rate, yay for fun days indeed!
as far as the pictures attached, they go something like this:
a: heroes' square on the oktober 23rd holiday i wrote about a time or two back
b: okt. 23 display at liszt square (random factoid: building in the background is the ever famed liszt music academy) =)
c: amanda and me, with me trying to learn to skate!
d: me at the metro museum
this saturday, amanda and i are making a day trip to pecs (sort of pronounced 'pay-ch'), a city in southern hungary -- more on that next go around =)... 9 days til brother comes! party indeed! but for now, on with the usual.....
things lara has learned this week
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*spring semester in valpo will be my first semester ever not to have a credit overload and not to have a single class before lunch! -- how exciting is that?
*roommates who get up early and make omelettes with you on gre day are the coolest =)
*pepsi blue isn't quite as scary as it looks =) -- (is this a new american product too, or just here?) pepsi now has pepsi blue out, and yes indeed, the soda is bright bright blue -- marianne and i decided it has a semi-minty taste to it, which was completely unexpected, but not half bad once you get over the surprise! =) go figure!
*round trip flight to budapest, several hundred $$$, ticket to a concert at the liszt music academy, $2, getting yelled at in hungarian for following a friend on stage during intermission, priceless! =) (there were actually seats along the back of the stage for the first half, so we weren't just being brats =), we were just where the choir was about to be for the rest of the time! )
*it's not wise to roast pieces of gum over the candle at your table at a restaurant (i didn't do it!)
*further, it's not wise to accidentally light the eraser of your pencil on fire when doing homework at the same restaurant with different people the day after the aforementioned gum experience (unfortunately, this time *was* me =P)
*today makes 3 months to the day that i've been here -- time goes waaaaaaaaay too fast!
quotes of the week
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mason: yeah, on the gre, i'm pretty sure i got a d or an f
me: you can't get a d or an f -- it's the gre!
mason: no, trust me, i'm pretty sure i got a d or an f!
hungarian has to be the dirtiest language there is: for example, hungarians like to say we have 6 heads, fej, head, k�zfej, heads of your hands, like opposite the palms, l�bfej, the tops of your feet, and seggfej, which means (i refuse to translate this -- this is why it's a "dirty" example -- think and you can figure it out)" ~erika, hungarian language prof... gotta love learning new languages =)
"h�zhoz dobjuk a pizz�t!" ~motto of dob pizza delivery, best pizza in budapest =)... translation? "we throw pizza at your house" =)
me: *what* did you have for breakfast? sugar coated something, for sure!
nathanael: nope, a banana... haha!
shalom: ah! monkey food!
"fejem v�llam t�rdem l�bam t�rdem l�bam..." ~lyrics to 'head and shoulders knees and toes' in hungarian (this one's for you amanda!)
how can you have lived for 21.5 years and *never* found the big dipper? that's just impossible! ~neil (....or not -- welcome to my life =) there's all of *one* constellation i've ever been able to find and that's not it!)
wait a minute! not only have you *never* seen the big dipper, you've *never* watched star wars? i don't know that i can even walk on the same side of the street as you! ~eric (...yes, i've never sat still and watched any of the star wars movies in their entirety.... what can i say? =P)
"a sequence is convergent if when the little green men tell you, 'ha ha you better find a number.........(blah blah blah).' then you say 'i found that super number, little green men..... (etc.), now let's go eat dinner to discuss world peace', and they say 'sounds good to me, let's go to k�k rozsa!' "~definition courtesy of marianne (that is, *if* k�k r�zsa lets you in again after lighting things on fire there for two consecutive days!)
party in a box weekend to you all!
la(ra)
=)
