esik a hó! (finally!!!)
5 nov 2002
sziasztok!
what's the subject mean this time? for those of you with no knowledge of Hungarian whatsoever: IT'S SNOWING!!!!!... sunday night, it was raining, but yesterday morning, when i woke up at 6:30, it was snowing, and hours later it was still coming down -- not sticking on the ground, but to trees, etc., all morning -- in the afternoon it finally stopped, but whatever, it snowed, and yay for that =)
at any rate, two weekends to catch up on now!..... in outline form, in case you want to skim here's the basic plan:
*two weekends ago in budapest (ministry essentials, budapest natural history museum)
*this weekend in prague (flooding aftermath, jewish quarter, astronomical clock, eiffel tower =P, strahov library, st. vitus's cathedral, etc.)
*last night (puppet opera)
so already a week ago friday, shalom, theresa, and i checked out a drama done by a group here called ministry essentials -- act one was about the life of john bunyan and act two about william crowell (british poet who was friends with john newton) -- it was pretty spiffy, and it was also pretty cool to be in a place that could have just as well been a miniature bellevue or something back home -- i find it exciting to find so many cool christian organizations no matter where i am -- and for that being something i was especially worried about being able to find before i left the states in august, it's been an incredible blessing to find soooo many opportunities here!... yay for that =)
a week ago saturday then, marianne and i checked out the natural history museum... random fact of the week: did you know that of the 395ish species of birds you can find in europe, some 360 of them can be found in hungary? how cool is that? although some of the displays were in english, a lot was left to us to figure out what exactly it was... many stuffed animals (not in the soft fuzzy sense! =) )as well as many fossils, stones, etc. (including a whole case of spiffy rocks that glowed under uv light and made my day =P pretty spiffy =) just an interesting 3 story collection of variations on those themes -- they also have a current exhibit on how the collection was put together and evolved over the years that was pretty spiffy as well =)... and that's that....
this weekend, then, was slightly more insane -- for several weeks catalina, marianne, and i had been planning to go to prague, however in the end emily came and catalina was unable to due to frustrating visa policies... as it turns out, about 3 other groups of bsmers made plans to go this weekend as well, and once we had 10 of us on the overnight train to prague thursday night, we more or less split up into 2 groups of 5 for the weekend... it was a quick trip -- we (emily, marianne, and i) arrived in prague at 6am on friday and headed out again by 11:30pm on saturday to make everyone's schedule happy =P -- but a fun one =)
after how many questions i got when i first arrived about flooding here, and not having much damage to report in budapest, prague was a totally different story -- most of their subway is still closed, except for about 2 stops total, so that makes for a lot of crowded buses and trams throughout the city -- road construction EVERYWHERE since many of their streets are cobblestone and are just being totally dug up to deal with the insane amount of mud underneath -- a few major tourist stops were still closed, and one or two just recently opened and were not quite back up as they normally look, but despite all that, there was a lot TO see....
for most of friday, we wandered around prague's jewish quarter -- this is a fairly sizeable part of town where there's a lot to see and do -- there's a set of about 7 historic sites you can visit in series on a tour on one ticket, and we hit most of them -- the two most notable probably being the jewish cemetary and the old-new synagogue... the cemetary was used from 1439 to 1787 and due to the nature of using such a small area of space in town, they just would haul in a new layer of earth from time to time on top of what was there, bring the old tombstones up to the next level and continue -- this makes for a very crowded and sobering place to walk through -- quite impressive. the old-new synagogue is the oldest medieval-style synagogue in the world, and dates back to the 1200s... it was badly damaged in the flooding, and much of what belongs in it is missing until they completely dry the inside of it out, but it was still pretty cool to be in a place with so much history! the most ornate stop on the tour was the spanish synagogue which was hugely impressively decorated -- it was originally built on the site of the oldest prague jewish house of prayer, and the composer of the czech national anthem used to be the organist there back in the day (how's that for a random fact?)
moving right along... prague is also famous for their astronomical clock -- it's a pretty huge funny looking thing -- and crowds and crowds of people gather around it to watch it strike the hour -- a skeleton rings the bell and several figures revolve out of it -- i happened to see it on the hour just by chance, and it was pretty spiffy indeed as well =) read more actually about it and see its picture here:
http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/CZ/PragueAstroClock.html
on saturday, we enjoyed breakfast at a most excellent second trip to bohemia bagels (an absolute must stop for anyone in prague for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner =) ), and noticed a really peculiar sculpture across the street -- upon closer inspection it was a czech communist memorial -- a steep set of giant stairs going partway up a big hill, and on each step was a life size man -- the lowest one was all the way there, and each successive one going up had more and more shreds ripped from it until the top one was just legs from the knees down -- i guess although it's been kinda in my face for a bit now, the fresh aftermath of communism in this part of the world still catches me off guard and makes me think hard every time i come across something like this.... end of thought...
noticing paths going uphill behind the momument, we decided to climb and see what kind of a view we could get -- we ziggzagged between some kind of old ruins for quite a bit, caked our shoes in mud, and at the end discovered that we had climbed a back way up the hill where the czech version of the eiffel tower is! -- didn't know prague had an eiffel tower? neither did i until recently -- it's actually called the petøínská rozhledna and is about a third the size of the original one, but the view from the top is still pretty spiffy, so anywho, yay for that =)
after the tower, we checked out the strahov library... this place is mostly famous for its age -- books, etc. date as far back as 1140ad!... the building itself was pretty awesome too though -- besides two very heavily decorated rooms full of ancient books, there were cases and cases of animals, strange or ornate books, and random gadgets to browse through as well -- pretty spiffy indeed =)
finally, we visited the cathedral of st. vitus inside the czech castle... this place is hugely impressive and dates back to 1344 (very gothic looking) -- we only looked around the main chapel which has some of the most awesome stained glass i've ever seen, but it's also home to the czech crown jewels etc. outside the castle was pretty spiffy as well -- i think the guards outside have a LOT of patience for as many people kept harrassing them for pictures =) (it was funny to watch!)... the castle is high up over the river, so it makes for an awesome view of the city as well. =)
finally, both nights we spent significant time wandering on and around charles bridge, listening to the musicians playing on it and just enjoying the atmosphere -- yay for laid-back times as well! =)... a couple times while down there, we saw a good dozen swans on the river together, which was pretty spiffy as well.... =) and that's the end of my prague saga -- hopefully all my pictures will turn out as well as i hope =)...
in other news, last night was a totally new experience as well -- for my hungarian culture class, we went to see a puppet opera -- and frankly i've never seen anything like it -- ever... the show we saw was very modern, abstract, and completely in hungarian with a much more extensive vocabulary than i have!... first off, puppet opera, not quite in the sense of what you'd think of for puppets -- there were actual human actors, and a lots of self-propelled moving props that they interacted with. the main character was a very grumpy guy who always complained he was hungry -- most of the other characters were outfitted in these huge foam letter T shaped boxes and they kept trying to convince the main character to do that too, but bizarre things happened instead. the last scene just made me wonder more -- as the main guy was singing, a row of people dressed in black lined up behind him and then put hoods over their heads and the lights went out -- and curtain!... definitely an *experience*, and our teacher's gonna have a fun time explaining this to us in class on wednesday =P
and so *that's* what i've been up to lately -- this weekend, big scary test of the GRE type persuasion -- not quite as much fun as puppet operas, museums, and prague, but we'll see...=P moving right along....
things lara has learned this week
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*there's now a new hungarian fairy tale of "lara and the duck" courtesy of my friend zsofi =P (my umbrella with the duck head handle is getting quite famous here =P)
*i think i'm losing my mind -- i can't say the word 'cat' anymore without laughing hysterically =P
* we actually found an "elf crossing" street sign -- proof forthcoming when i develop my prague pictures =)
*statues in prague were made to look like they're about to jump off of the walls of very high buildings and attack you =)
* czech republic has jablko (apple) flavored mentos candy, which is officially the best mentos flavor ever!
* in some restaurants, it's not required that an "ice cream sundae" actually have ice cream in it =P
* funny link of the week:
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=342639
quotes of the week
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
what is this? class on a snow day??? look out there -- total whiteout conditions-- we should be running to the grocery stores and buying them out of water right now... why *are* we here? ~mason (as aforementioned, the snow wasn't sticking, but whatever, yay for a truly southern reaction to cold weather =P)
there's nothing like a sweatshirt and a hooded jacket to make you feel like a bum ~jonah
stupid frogs, i hate the frogs ~eric
ok, we're going to make a deal today.. you can say jó reggelt a maximum of 3 times, and they all must be before noon, jó estet only 5 times, and they have to all be after 4:30... agreed? ~marianne
i've got a song in my twang! ~eric
csaba (number theory prof): ok, i need numbers, lara, give me your favorite number
me: 42
csaba: kevin, give me your favorite number
kevin: 14
csaba: oh this is no good, 42 and 14 are not coprime which means.... one of your favorite numbers is WRONG!... we'll keep the 42...
(logan introduces his girlfriend to a whole slew of us just before combinatorics midterm)
oded: oh! does this mean you get to take the midterm with her? if so, i think evan's my girlfriend now!
jonah: you know, i realy respect chumbawumba
(long pause of silence)
tom: sure, and i repect you for respecting chumbawumba
(going on and on to arlene for 5 minutes about how to decide who to introduce first in hungarian....) "so if you wanted to introduce lara to your hungarian host mom, you'd introduce lara to eva first because eva's older, but if you wanted to introduce lara to your host father, you'd introduce pali to lara because lara's the male... um, i mean, ok, we've been doing this way too long, lets move on" ~erika, hungarian language prof
(about 3am on our train back to budapest from prague, marianne puts on her shoes)
me (still half asleep): are you escaping?
marianne: yeah.... (then equally tired, just stares, out the window)
me: how, out the window?
marianne: i was thinkin about it, but see this sign, i think it says no jumping out the window
me: actually, no, there's no x through the picture, just a red circle around it
marianne: ah ha! i get it -- everybody's *supposed* to get drunk and jump out the windows on this train, but it seems we forgot to get czech liquor-- what are we to do?... =P
bing bing ~eric
me: he was bleating????
neil: no, bleeding, not bleating, no one here's a goat! (true,... i'm just going hard of hearing! =P)
...no, i think what it is is that you're just the mom of the apartment... maybe when we come over here we should call you 'ma' instead of 'la'.. ~eric (ahhhh! -- i sure hope not!)
"example: oddtown is a little town somewhere (probably near to chicago)...."~my combinatorics book, written by my prof =)
michelle: how do you say 'it's snowing' again and why do you remember it?
me: esik a hó, and it was one of the first three phrases i learned before i came here!
jonah: what were the other two?
me: hello and 42: the three most essential phrases in any language =)
rahul: 42 is NOT a phrase
jonah: then how do you define phrase?
rahul: as long as she's here, phrase is defined as 'NOT 42', 'one' is a phrase, 'forty-three' is a phrase, 'forty-two', definitely NOT a phrase
(ha! -- whatever =P)
i think the only thing your email lacks is a new weekly section of a paragraph full of eric quotes -- you can call it an eric-graph -- i think that would be an excellent selling point! ~eric
Who would win in an all-out, no-holds-barred, down-and-dirty match of the best game ever played using dried beans, mancala? A) David Hume B) Machiavelli Personally, I'm rooting for the Scotsman. Of course this is assuming he doesn't convince himself that those beans Machiavelli is sneaking into his pile from under the table aren't mere lapses in his discontinuous perception of the identity of the game board. ;) ~memphis jenny
sheer brilliance, i'd say -- still, if you've read this far you deserve a gold star (rhyme not intended) -- a party in a box kind of week to you all =)
la(ra)