From Bratislava with Love
February 4, 2007
Jó estét kívánok! (I wish you a good evening)
I went to Bratislava for two nights with nine other BSMers. My round-trip train ticket was $18 and I think the hostel was about $15 for each night. So I think my entire trip cost around $85. It was a great train ride, because we followed the Danube up to Bratislava, and also Slovakia has more mountains than Hungary. We saw parts of the Danube bend (a really scenic part of the Danube) from the train. I definitely want to go back there. When I first arrived in Bratislava, I was wondering what I got myself into. The train station was pretty sketchy; it seemed like a stereotypical Eastern European city—run down and dirty. It turns out that I was greatly mistaken; Bratislava is a really interesting city. The old part of the city is entirely a pedestrian area, so we walked around the old town a lot while we were there.
We had a traditional Slovakian meal at a pub where I tried some Slovakian dumplings. I was hoping they would be like Chinese dumplings, but no, they were much different. I think they were made of raw dough with a traditional goat cheese topping. When we weren’t trying new foods, bread was our main staple, for bread is really good in Central Europe.
That night we went out to a bar to hang out and two people were discussing problems from the last Putnam math exam while the rest of us listened and tried to follow along. I realized that while there are very smart people on this trip, we all have had different experiences—different classes. So, hopefully, we can build off each other. After that we walked around the old town at night and up to Bratislava Castle. We had great views of a UFO-looking bridge that the communists built in the 70s.
Unfortunately, I do not know the names of anything we went to in Bratislava, because I didn’t have a guide book or a map. Because of that, I tried navigating around the city for the whole trip with only visual markers. It worked out very well; it’s much easier than trying to memorize street names.
The next day we went about 10 km north of Bratislava to a castle on a cliff along the Danube. It was just outside a small, very picturesque Slovakian village (Devin). We hung out there for the afternoon taking pictures and just enjoying the day.
The last day we walked through the residential section of Bratislava and climbed a hill to find the World War II memorial. It is one of the highest landmarks in the city, so it had great views of Bratislava. We saw lots of modern houses on this walk including my new dream home (see flickr). Then we caught our train home.
On Friday we had our orientation session for the BSM program. The director of the program and two people from the US Embassy spoke to us as a group and then we met our professors. This would have been nice to have three weeks ago, but the students who didn’t sign up for the language class arrived just a few days ago. The US Embassy person spoke about avoiding attractive women on Váci utca, and she described what happens if you don’t avoid the women as if it were a play-by-play account of what happened to me. It must be a common thing (hopefully). Fortunately, she said in her account that drinks cost $4300. So by that measure, I got a good deal!
Classes start tomorrow! We have a three week course-shopping period. So I am going to attend many courses this week to try them out. These are the courses I’m thinking about: Elementary Problem Solving, Mathematics of Fractals, Number Theory, Combinatorics, Graph Theory, Stochastic Models in Bioinformatics and Hungarian Culture. I think I’ll end up taking 4-5 courses. I am taking Number Theory and Combinatorics for sure, because apparently they are Hungarian specialties.
That night I met up with a cool person from my Hungarian class and we went to a bar that many Hungarian and American students like. There was a really good Alt Rock band playing. Eventually nine other students from the program came also, so it was good to meet some new people. And then last night a big group of BSMers went to Morrison’s which is another trendy bar that feels like you’re in a military bunker. We were going to go to a disco, but the bouncer didn’t speak English, so we weren’t sure what to do. That disco was right next to the nicest McDonald’s in the world (I finally saw it, Pastor Johnson!). It’s classy. But anyway, I’m getting to know people on the program slowly, which is good.
The food has been great in Budapest. While I have tried authentic food, I do have my favorite places that I go back to frequently. A few blocks down on my street is the Pink Cadillac, which serves great pizza. Then there’s also some really good Gyro stands on the street and Chinese fast-food places. And, of course, the non-stop pancake shop.
The Superbowl is in a few hours, and many Americans in Budapest—my roommate included—are going to the Superbowl watching party at TGI Friday’s (yes…they exist here too). I think it will be done around 4am, so my roommate will have a fun first day of classes!
Anyway, I should get ready for class. Check out my new pictures of Slovakia and my apartment!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/webmoof
Also, I put up two panoramas from the castle outside of Bratislava.
http://www.webmoof.com/budapest/final-slovakia1.jpg
http://www.webmoof.com/budapest/final-slovakia2.jpg
They’re shots of the village, and some of the houses have really interesting fields like they have small vineyards in front of their house.
Szia!
Daniel