Jetty Island
This was Jetty Island which I went to today: There was a half-hourly ferry from the 10th street dock directly across the river to Jetty Island. We walked a bit past a few families tanning on the beach toward what looked like giant tents but were just kites down on the ground. The wind was a bit stale in the beginning but by 4 or so, it started to kick. I tanned for a bit glancing through the Economist, then got persuaded to get up and try to kite. I made a fool of myself but began to get a feel for it a few tries later.

Dinner @ tosoni's. For me, sharing apps of crispy flash-fried mushrooms and calamari steaks, main course of porkchops with apricot demi-glaze and dessert of fruit-covered sponge cake. Very high quality food, though the service was not that great (poorly paced, inattentive service, poor info)...

This is the location of My house(on the corner, it blends in with everything else)
Check out this place on VirtualEarth:

I ate here for my MS interview. They had a killer spinach lasagna and solid oysters. The place was fun, but it was a bummer eating along. The live jazz was a bonus.

Food: 7

Decor: 7

Service: 6

My Virtual Earth Scratch Pad


The Pink Door
1919 Post Aly, Seattle, WA 98101

Now is my chance to update on my second expedition last weekend. I went to Paris on account of HMCE (Harvard Model Congress Europe--kind of like Model UN, but Congress). The conference was held in a hotel on the outskirts of Paris. There were 308 students from France (maybe half), Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Canada. I REALLY enjoyed the diversity there and it is interesting to see how people react, as this for many of the delegates will constitute their first impressions of people from these countries. I think I prefer it only with non-native english speakers (i.e. not the Canadian school) because as my friends in Budapest tell me, it is much more difficult to understand a native English speaker than someone who is learning/has learned English as an additional language.

Last year, I along with 6 others rented out this multimillion dollar villa in Sitges, a posh Barcelona suburb. It was really relaxing and I enjoyed Barcelona a lot. The villa was decked out and it was a nice relaxant before the conference which also proved to be fun. This year I only would go to the conference and hesitated whether I would enjoy it as much. I did enjoy it, if not more. Primarily, I really enjoyed seeing Harvard people. They have a demeanor and manner of acting (if I may stereotype) that I really enjoy. Although interactions can be fake, I believe it is more pleasant to live in the illusion that you are better friends with someone than you really are. However, I did form several friendships with staffers I had never met before, and also hung out with several of my old friends. I am very likely to do HMC/HMCE next year.

The conference went really well on substantive matters. Well organized and thought out, everything ran smoothly until completion. I cochaired World Trade Organization with Dele. Although I had been initially skeptical that there would be no focus to the debate, it went really well. All of our 19 delegates participated once, and at least 10 of them were active participants. Students worked together and their inability to resolve issues was very true to life (i.e. the failed ministerial conference in Cancun of 2003). People definitely formed friendships and we produced many agreements on the three topics (IPR, Ag Subsidies, and Accession of LDCs) which became integrated into one larger agreement. I enjoyed it so much, I might consider for applying for WTO next year.

As for Paris, it was a lot of fun. Thursday night we went out to a bar and I drank a little too much and ended up spending a while throwing it all up (although I blame Air France for not serving a meal when they said they would). Friday morning, while people were cleaning out the apartment (meant for 4, but had 13 people sleeping there that night) I ventured out to the Luxembourg Gardens, which were spectacular. The weather was perfect and the gardens were well kept. Also, I went to Musee D'Orsay which was an extremely comprehensive museum on impressionist art and is housed beautifully in a converted railroad station. I also took a riverboat cruise that day along the Seine. The most tourist thing to do, but it was fun and I saw a lot of sights. Friday night HMCE took us to a wine tasting, which was informative and had 3 good wines (1 was from Bordeaux, and I can't remember where the other two were). After that had good French food while sitting outside.

Saturday night: Ventured to find a Haitian restaurant that WEi-Chen raved about. Located near Montmartre, it was totally empty when we got there. We ordered impromptu prix fixe dinners for 10 euro. It consisted of 3 fried plaintains, 2 circular cuts of beef 2 inches in diameter and a lot of rice. The worst part was that they only had one maybe two stoves so that they had to cook the same meal 13 times and bring it out one by one. I finished eating 30 minutes before the last person got their food. It may have been the most disappointing restaurant experience ever. Everyone agreed. We found out that the Pope died during that meal.

Sunday: Met up with David, a guy from Paris who was also an intern at Infosys this past summer. He was one of 5-6 interns that I got along with and hung out with. Cool, intelligent guy. We went for sushi near the Edgar Quinet metro stop. While I was initially surprised by the lack of japanois food, this area reversed my opinion. There were tons of japanese and korean restaurants within a really small area. Regardless the place we went to was cool and cheap. 5 pcs of sushi nigiri, 5 brochettes (kebabs), soup, salad, and tea for 13,5 euro.

On Monday, I would have had like 5 hours of free time, but got a late start because I was quasi-waiting for other people. We went to Centre Pompidou, the giant contemporary arts complex. The architecture was extremely postmodern and modeled after a sewage processing plant (think giant tubes going along the exterior of the building where people walk through) [ Pic of Exterior ] There was an exhibit called Dionysiac which had giant room-sized exhibits emblematic of the dionysiac ethic (Affirm life with loud, colorful, unusual pieces.) Of the 12 pieces on display, 1 was had an enclosed subroom within the room. Turns out, the artist held a rock concert in this room with two bands and then after it was over and people had left, he froze the entire room with a powerful A/C. People's garbage and the musical equipment etc. would be frozen in place (maybe to represent that exhilirating moments in time ought to be preserved not forgotten). I must have misread the signs, but I thought we could go in. So I opened the hermetically sealed door and went inside to look around (it was cold, maybe -20F, brrr!). When I came out, the curator acted as if I was not meant to go inside and chided me shortly. I was mortified, haha good that I was alone.

After that, I went to the airport and caught my flight home, which thankfully did serve me a meal. All in all, I loved Paris this time around and had a great time at HMCE.

My flatmate has been acting really weird lately. All semester, I've been offering him opportunities to hang out with me, but he always wants to do math and stay in.

He asked me a month ago if his parents could stay in our flat when they visited him. A week later he told me they weren't coming. Two days ago, he mentions it and acts like I've known the whole time. I think it is weird that they are staying here, but I find it weirder he is so evasive about it.

3 days ago I came back and there was another kid from our program in the flat. As they walk out the kid says "I think I'm borrowing your shorts" even though he was not wearing my shorts. Before I had time to correct him, my flatmate signaled me to play along. Apparently, he wanted to get rid of him and said that he didn't have any shorts to lend. When the kid did find one of his, he said it was mine. Whatever, but it was lame to lie and worse to bring me in on it.

This morning I go into the kitchen to find a note reading: "The kitchen was bullshit. If I have to clean up after you, don't use the kitchen" This made me furious. Okay, so I am not anal-retentive as he about cleanliness, but I do clean my dishes, even before I eat my food! Yesterday, I was late to meet people so I did a rush job on two of my dishes and left them in the sink [I only made plain pasta!]. This infuriated me. He also left his half of the utilities on the counter, but he was short 250. I made a note on the paper that he was short that much, since it is easy to divide that into half and we use it equally. I come home to find 250 forints in 1, 2, 5 and 10 forint denominations. There were lik 20 1-forint coints (about half a cent!). This pissed me off even more. Just be normal and give it to me in respectable denominations!

I don't know whether I'm pissed at his actual actions or just this holier-than-thou attitude that he has had much of the time, but I've ignored it in the interest of preserving harmony in the flat. I am not going to make a big deal out of this, although I am going to ask for 250 in 50, 100, or 200 denominations. Whatever--at least now I know why people like to vent on their blogs.

As expected, I lapesed on blog entries. Here is one of a series of updates
Moscow and St. Petersburg
I'm going to upload a photo album of a lot of the good photos I took. Getting there was uncomfortable but I got there. I had eaten some really spicy food two days before I left. As a result, my stomach was inflamed--I almost didn't go on the trip because I was in such pain and had such little control over my digestive system. But I got there somehow and crashed at the hostel. It was really cold (like 15F below) in Moscow so I just stayed in on the first night. IK, someone I was traveling with, lost his passport and he panicked the first night. Luckily, the airport police picked it up when he just left it in baggage claim (!). He was so happy that IK bought us all a dinner.
Kremlin was interesting although nothing amazing. Red Square was cool, but it was marred because I had read all sorts of scams of cops trying to get bribes out of tourists claiming they have a problem with their passports. I spent the time trying not to get noticed by the police. Red Square is bounded by a cool looking random building and St. Basil's Cathedral on its short ends. On its long sides, there is a luxury shopping mall which used to be a palace and a section of the Kremlin wall with Lenin's Tomb in front. Lenin's Tomb doesn't open until April. St. Basil's was lame on the inside--much cooler on the outside.
Getting into the Kremlin was difficult because they instituted a new 'rule' that foreigners must have an English language tourguide. I think this is BS and I don't see the reason when Russians can just go in. Ended up paying the $20 to get one and saw the inside which was moderately interesting. It highlights a big problem with Moscow: they hate tourists. Tourists routinely have to pay twice as much as Russians just for admission and then pay ridiculous amounts for audio guides to explain what is written only in Russian. I mean, this isn't India--Russians aren't that much worse off than an average foreigner. In the Armourt Museum in the Kremlin, I saw Faberge Eggs, which was really cool.
IK kept on insisting to meet up with 'Math in Moscow' people, another math study abroad program. I'm not interested in hanging out with math majors de facto ("Hey we're math majors--let's hang out") let alone those going to Russia. The only potential benefit of their knowledge of the good places in Moscow was mooted when many of them said they didn't have time to go out and evidently knew the city less well than I, having been there for two days. I could have done without that and done more exploring and miscellaneous chilling.
IK was thought to be handy seeing as he is fluent in Russian. However, he was extremely soft-spoken about it and I (not exagerrating) was better at reading Cyrillic than he, maybe because I had once tried to teach myself when I was young. He got us lost because he misread subway signs several times. I refused to follow him after a while, which worked out.

St. Petersburg This city was awesome! I really enjoyed it. Comparatively warm, beautiful. The hostel had great location (10 min from metro stop, right along the main street, 10 min from Hermitage) even though the rooms were a bit shitty. Nevsky Prospect, the main street, is extremely lively and runs in its most developed form for 2-3 km. Tons of shopping, cafes, restaurants here. The attractions in SP are phenomenal. Hermitage blew me away--it was huge and had really good art in a beautiful palace. I'd imagine it as a mix of Versailles (sans gardens) and the Louvre, though I haven't gone to either. The Russian State Museum was really comprehensive and traced the formation of Russian art. Lots of gardens, historical churches. I thought it was especially interesting as the city was founded on a swamp in 1703 and is younger than most cities in the Western world. It has 4.5 million people which is remarkable and the city planning is excellent. I think Moscow was founded in the 12th century and is therefore bound by tradition. It seems that St. Petersburg is more dynamic and has the capability to improve on itself while Moscow seems more bound. I would definitely come back here maybe during the white nights when there are 23 hours of sunlight.

Don't forget to check out the pictures.

Its been a while since I've posted. I've been decent. Most nights lately I've been going out to a bar and club and drinking a few beers. I think my tolerance for beer is rising although I am still not a big drinker. I have definitely been having a lot of fun here lately as I've been haningout with some really cool people and slowly meeting more Americans in the program.

On Monday I went to a town called Szentendre which is an artists colony 20km north of BP. It was nice and quaint, but somewhat touristy. We went to a really nice French restaurant and waited forever for really delicious food.

I've slowly been losing command of the English language. Between math classes and talking to people who learned English as a second (sometimes third or fourth!) language, I am never really pressed to speak eloquently or think of more complicated Latin-derived words. I've forgotten so much in Hebrew that it is embarassing. Whenever I try to think of a Hebrew word I think of a Hungarian word. My Hungarian is improving but I still can not speak that well. I can be somewhat decent at reading (easy) sentences. We just learned relative clauses in Hungarian class, which is somewhat counter intuitive.

I had a Galois theory midterm this morning. I didn't get motivated for it and left early even though I knew I had wrong answers. Getting 5/7 questions is an A - I answered 6 with errors on at least two. I am not really concerned about grades that much. I think as long as I get B-range grades or higher, I will pass. I'm also taking 5 classes when I will only get credit for four. I can drop at any time and will drop my worst class before finals. Because of spring break rescheduling I have a Hungarian history midterm Saturday morning at 8:30AM. I leave for Russia the following morning. Later today I will get my passport.

I am spending three nights in Moscow and three nights in St. Petersburg. There seems to be plenty to do there. I am quite excited.

I found something amusing about the photo. The caption uses "Friends in high places" to mean Michael Jackson, currently on trial for molesting a teenager, and David Blaine, the extreme magician. If these are the kinds of people this politician chills with, he must have some other interesting friends.

Quote

Telegraph | News | Boateng will step down to take on South Africa role

As I was bored in class, I started writing down all the classes I'd taken in the margin and figuring how many requirements I have yet to complete. Today for the first time, I discovered that I am all done. I have finished my 12 math courses (after this semester) and have done my necessary 4 cores (7 - 1 study abroad - 2 AB/AM = 4 cores). On top of all that, I have done 2 of my required 8 classes for Stats. So 6 more to go and then I'm done. I'm glad I don't have to worry about a core in the fall.

Math Parties or How I Learned to Stop Going to Them and Love Other Activities
On Friday, I went to a birthday party of a friend Ivan that I am going to Russia with. This was my first party with a lot of kids from my program. Needless to say, it got weird. There was a dance room, which nobody was in most of the time. A lot of people were milling about awkwardly and conversation was hard to find. Ivan's roommate wore a granny-gown and a ridiculous hat and just acted weird all night; he came into the dance room with a mattress balanced on his head and just danced around with it on his head. A few of the Erasmus kids were there and they probably were expecting something else; one of the girls got so smashed because they were there early before many people came and just drunk a lot of vodka to entertain herself. After a while, we felt obliged to get her out of there because she was passed out on the bed and making a fool of herself. So after an eternity of unsuccessfully trying to sober her up in the apartment, we dragged her outside to go home. We were walking toward the night bus stop and had 100m to go when the bus pulled up. With Audrey in tow (one guy on each shoulder) we started running and carrying her to the bus before it left. Somehow we made it. Two people took her hom while Sid (an Indian I'm also going to Russia with) a Hungarian and I went for a quick beer at a chill bar. We went to a really bad bar/dance club and met up with the Dutch kids (Tim and Sasha) until we couldn't bear it anymore. I went home (3:30 AM now) while they went to Piaf, a club infamous for being bad and only frequented because it is the only (I think so) place open until 6AM. All in all an interesting night, but getting home at 4:30 caused me to sleep in on Saturday and do nothing, so I just chilled in my flat all day.

Pecs
I finally made it out to Pecs (the 'e' is long--it is pronounced 'paych'), a town in southern Hungary. This trip marked my first European train adventure. I left an hour and a half before my train left because I was up and traveled all the way across town to Deli Trainstation, only to find out that my train left from Keleti Train station, which is really close to my flat! I made it though--the train was cool because there were carriages for 6 people each. I definitely liked the setup of that train; on the way back, it was just a normal car where people sat in rows of four which was fine too. The trip was nice (a little less than 3 hours) and provided an opportunity to window-gaze across the landscape.

Anyway, Pecs was really beautiful. However, on Sunday nearly everything was closed! I walked up and down the famed shopping street there only to find the occasional pub open. All the museums were closed too! except the Marzipan museum which had some pretty cool things made from marzipan, including the smurf set up and the cactus garden (see attached pictures). After that, I walked some more on some sidestreets and settled into a coffeehouse which had a ton of quality coffees and teas for sale. I just chilled there and read (Vanity Fair by Thackeray--my current project). The place was very small but it had an awesome atmosphere enhanced by Cuban rap playing in the background. For some reason, they laughed when I asked for the name of the artist.

After that I found the city mall, which I spent about two hours in before my train left at 6:30. All in all it was a nice day. The city had some really unique architecture and had many quaint churches. The architecture was really interesting; there were Turkish elements in some of the structures; many buildings had bright pastel facades (pink, yellow); and some of the buildings had Zsolnay tilings on their roof, which is one of the crafts Hungary is known for. Check out the pictures in the Pecs album on the blog.

Spring Break
After a few intensive days, I think my visa application is finally complete for Russia. This was extremely intensive and not a pleasant experience. The form was pretty detailed and seemed more like a job application (ex: List every country you have visited in past 10 years; list last two jobs and references). Besides the visa picture, I also had to scramble for medical insurance that would definitely cover me. I ended up buying a $70 insurance policy from STA for that week, just so I would be sure. Their proof of insurance email was barely accepted by the guy at the travel agency. This trip is expensive ($250 airplane + $70 insurance +$125 visa processing fees + $120 lodging=$565 already) plus I hear Moscow is crazy expensive for food! The sucky thing is that since I don't have my passport I can't travel outside of Hungary on my four day weekend next week. Oh well, I'll get to know Hungary very well.

Nordic Conference
For the Budapest Times, I went to a really interesting conference today. I was a bit late because I was handing in my visa papers (see above) but it was on Nordic cooperation. It featured the former Danish PM, a former swedish minister of education, Director of the Nordic Research Board, director of the Nordic innovation center, and more. The series of 15-minute speeches were informative and touched a number of different subjects, most notably: economic cooperation in the Nordic league and whether the positive results can carry over to a group known as the Visigrad Four (Hungary, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Poland) can achieve the same progress. Nordic cooperation dates from 1952, which predates the foundation of the European Labor Market. They also talked about how to foster research and development in these economies and turn that research into products with a commercial purpose (innovation), especially in the ever-more-competitive global economy. There was a pretty sweet luncheon afterward which I attended which was a buffet where they served dishes on breat (ex: smoked salmon with cream cheese on bread or smoked ham with honey mustard and leek--there is a name for this style of food which escapes me, so email me if you know it). They had an exhibit on Scandinavian design ("Beyond the Myth" in the Museum of Applied Arts where the seminar was held) which displayed various Scandinavian designed items. I love design exhibits, especially for modern design. I was particularly impressed they tried to define the principles underlying Scand. design and used the subjects of Italo Calvino's "Six Memos for the Next Millennium" as the basis. I'm taken by anything involving Calvino (or Kundera or Joyce or some others that I can't recall)

going to head to Tesco, the Wal-Mart equivalent here for some cheap shopping.

My First All Nighter
Last night was pretty fun. At 10, I met up with some European friends at a pool hall where we chilled for a while. It was pretty fun, and I watched a few good games and drank a bit. Then we went to this awesome lounge bar called Szimpla--the walls were really bare and it looks like it is in mid-construction, but they have plush tables and furniture and chill music low in the background, and a bar. Chilled there until the place closed and afterwards most people went home but I went with Nico, Sasha, and Tim to the Old Man's music pub. This is one of the few places that is open that late (like 3:00 by this time). The music was AWFUL--I wanted to just leave. Besides, it was 90% guys and a lot of the girls there were really ugly, so I didn't spend much time there. I decided not to find the next bar but went to Sasha's and Tim's flat where we just chilled. I showed Tim how to play hold'em (but it seemed incredibly lame as we didn't have chips)  and we just listened to music and talked for a while. I decided I was exhausted at 7:30 so left them to go home during the morning rush hour. While it was my first allnighter, apparently most nights are allnighters for the Erasmus (European study abroad for Europeans). When I got back at 8, I put the finishing touches on my article which I sent in. It is pretty boring and actually kind of shitty and is just a recap of the speech.

Lesson: Don't take food suggestions from obese Hungarians who don't speak a word of English in random restaurants. Two nights ago I went to a local restaurant to try it because it seemed decent. However, a few tables were primarily Anglophone and they only had one English-speaking waiter. Another came over to me. I asked him what something was (it was called 'Gundel' style) and he pointed to the other waiter. As I was a bit hungry, I asked in Hungarian whether it was good. He nodded, made an emphatic hand gesture where his thumb touched his index finger with the other fingers extended, and said something like very tasty. At that point, his trifecta of gestures in support of the dish coaxed me to ordering it. It actually was a massively fried chicken breast with a mountain cauliflower and cheese and egg on top. It did not go down well, and there were like 4 inches of cauliflower on top of a quarter inch thick chicken breast.

Conversation between me and two (presumably) street hustlers
Two Hungarian women on Vaci utca--the main shopping street // tourist haven
I was walking through
Hungarian woman 1: (indiscriminate but fluent Hungarian)
Me: Angolul?
HW1: Do you know where regiposta street is?
Me: No.
HW1: You don't know where Regiposta street is?
Me: No, sorry.
HW1: You don't live in Hungary then?
Me: No. I'm just here for a few days.
HW1: Oh, you must be on holiday then! (in an unnaturally friendly voice)
Me: Yes, thank you. (I walk away)
I think they were about to pull a somewhat common scam where 2 Hungarian women will find a lone tourist and then flirt with them and casually suggest getting a drink, saying "I know a place!" that they actually work for. Just by going into the restaurant, the bar will begin a $50 check for such things as a 'table charge' and 'an entrance fee' and a 'coat charge.' Unfortunately, there's no way to defend against the charges and they threaten to beat you//call the cops if you don't pay. It happened to my roommate early on, and he told me about it, when I remembered reading about the practice in the consular information sheet. At least I got the better of those two possible scam artists.

Legalized Domestic Abuse in Hungary
My Hungarian teacher was telling us that in Hungary feudal notions of male ownership of the family still remains to a slight extent causing domestic violence to remain a nonpenalized offense. She said that while family violence is prohibited in public space, in the household the police cannot arrest the man for beating on his children or spouse, because it happens within the private sphere. Police can enter the house if they have a warrant, but I don't think they are allowed to respond to neighbor's complaints. I'm not sure what happens if the victim reports the abuse. However I don't think such is a crime as long as no one is killed, my teacher indicated, I think.

I'm deciding between two things to do for my Spring Break:

1:Budapest>Ljublana(1)>Venice(2)>Florence(2)>Rome(3)>Milan(1)>Vienna(1)>Budapest
OR
2:Budapest>Prague(3)>Moscow(6)>Budapest
[maybe St. Petersburg for 2 of the Moscow days]

I'm 75% leaning towards the Russian adventure. It requires getting a tourist visa which is more annoying than hard. I'll decide by tomorrow but on the Russian trip I will be with people [1 of whom is fluent] while on the Italian trip I would probably end up going alone. I'll also be less rushed and more relaxed if I focus on like 2-3 cities versus 5-6. I only like had time to tour Paris for like 8 hours total last spring and came away with a negative impressions, presumably because I didn't get to do anything, while I loved Barcelona where I spent 5 or so days.

The week after I come back I head to Paris for HMCE. I forgot my suit in the US and need to find a cheap suit I can wear just for the conference.