Grandma Zsuzsa's Old-Fashioned Chicken Soup (Now in Purple!)

I made soup this week. It was the most beautiful purple I have ever seen in a soup. Most people at this point in my story go "uck" inside when I say purple. But I'm serious folks! Purple soup is AWESOME. Just think of all the flavinoids! The...what's the word...riboflavins! I'm a biologist, I should know what I'm talking about! (But I don't...) Anyway, red cabbage is the trick. But seriously, I made chicken soup, and it wasn't gross! It was delicious! And PURPLE!

Alright, so here's a post about food. I opened with the purple soup, and I will follow that with csokis svajci kifli - that is to say, Swiss croissant with chocolate. I didn't know the Swiss had their own special croissants. Maybe they don't. But the cute little bakery between my street and the metro stop says otherwise. This little pastry has become a favorite for me - just picture it: a run-of-the-mill croissant transformed into a light, flaky vessel filled with pudding-y chocolate, each sublime end dipped in a milkier, silkier chocolate and left to cool. Ahhh. I will pay the 200 forints just for the chocolate-dipped ends alone. Not that 200 forints is a bad deal. It's a great deal. Even better: around 5 o'clock each day the bakery has everything on sale, trying to move the last of the day's inventory - so you can get 2 svajci kifli for the price of one. WOW. So I may be pre-diabetic...and this isn't making things better for me. But I accept the challenge. Fortunately, I brought Coach Kosmoski's Apartment Workout with me to Budapest. (It's hanging neatly on my bulletin board, waiting to be implemented).

Let's see, what other foods to tell you about...of course, the city is littered with torok etteremek - "Turkish restaurants" - i.e. places selling delicious falafel, gyros, baklava, et cetera. There are at least two delicious hummus bars that I know of. Once I didn't know what I was ordering, and basically I received an enormous plate of hummus, and 2 pitas. It was delicious. And then it was really gross. I mean, there's only so much hummus I can eat in one sitting. There's a wonderful falafel bar (like a salad bar, but with falafel!) somewhere near the Opera. I did have one of those signature Hungarian dishes, gulyasleves (incidently pronounced "Goo-yash" rather than goulash) the first weekend I arrived here. I haven't eaten it since, but we found a cookbook with Hungarian recipes in our neighbor's apartment, so I am going to try making it myself. If my purple soup experience is any indication, it will be FABULOUS. Hahaha. I am being a little ironical here - my roommate from BBSI, summer 2007 knows better than to trust me with the cooking. I do all right - good enough to eat at least - but if I get creative...Let's just say it's a slippery slope...(Yes, katie, I am thinking of the mystery stir-fry pasta sauce extravaganza).

Um...so guess what. I've made myself hungry. Time to eat again! Maybe some bread and jam. Good ol' carbs, always helpin' me out.
Take care friends! Sometime soon I will try to tell you about a few Hungarian drinks, or italok. When alcohol is cheaper than water, you know you're in Europe!

Anglicans in the Basement, and Why My Roommate is Awesome, part II

Because she wore a tablerunner as a scarf.

I finally found the little Anglican church this morning. St. Margaret's is on Alma'ssy utca. I looked for it earlier this week in anticipation, but I was looking for a church-shaped building, i.e. steeple of some type, and there were none to be seen! Well, this morning I was late for church, as per usual, and walking along I heard singing...you know, the kind of just slightly off-kilter hymns that emanate from an Episcopal service. Aha! It still took me the better part of 5 minutes to figure out how to get in - many buildings are undergoing renovations, so I had to wend my way under some scaffolding and clamber down a partially obstructed stairway before ducking into the narthex. What a treat! I think there were a total of 3 rooms there - the narthex, the kitchen adjoining the narthex, and the chapel. Awesome.
I don't remember much of the service actually, because I think I was paying more attention to the new people, new surroundings, and also to my insides - I missed Calvary and Holy Cross something fierce! Calvary is certainly atypical when it comes to Episcopal churches - it's a wonderful, vibrant community, but doesn't have the same quirky charm of a tiny, graying congregation (i.e. Holy Cross). Anywho...it felt wonderful to be in church again. The service is familiar of course, and we sang Be Thou My Vision, and there was bad instant coffee and homemade brownies, and a flute solo during Communion. Doesn't get much better.
Oh! AND, I met my ambassador. That's right folks, the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary - a lovely lady, wearing a beautiful multicolored stole. I might add that after Fai's "scarf" escapades a couple days ago, I could not help but wonder if the ambassador's stole served as a tablerunner in a previous life. Haha. ;)

I've been homesick this weekend. Not so much for home but for home people. As Captain Hammer put it (in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog), "If home is where the heart is, then your real home's in your chest." While he was just a jerk with bad rhymes, the line always makes me laugh. It is freeing to think that home can be anywhere you are. After much hemming and hawing over the last few years, it is my joy to report that Olaf is indeed one of my homes. But my homes are really in people - I am at home in my friends at Olaf, at home in the hearts of Holy Cross folk and Calvary people. Budapest may indeed be a home by the time I leave. Or perhaps my home will be in the hearts of my friends who are students in this program too. Time will tell.

It is especially weird to not be at Olaf right now. I am a senior. A senior! That has a strange yet fitting ring to it, but I forget that fact here because class year distinctions are not important among my group of friends. If I was on the Hill, though, I just know I'd be feeling "old." I'm no longer a JC, but the Koala Kuties of Kildahl will always feel like "my girls" haha. How did I get to the top of the heap? It feels like I wasn't climbing there, but just the influx of new fodder for the education machine has pushed and pushed until I ended up on top. Like a pasta making machine. But different. I need to work on my metaphors. I distinctly remember talking with Callie sophomore year about how I really didn't like life at Olaf, and we discussed and determined that while we didn't like it know, by the time we'd have to leave, we'd love it. Haha, oh fer true!
I feel ready to move on to the next thing - whatever that is - by the way, I have no idea, fyi - but I am a very sentimental person so it will hurt like hell to leave. Ah, life. Love it.

Okay, ramble over. For now. I am trying to get my class schedule officially figured out. And of course it takes me forever because I run from decisions as though they were chasing me with butcher knives. Adios mis amigitos!
or rather...Viszlat barátaim!

OH, P.S. dancing parabolas

Why My Roommate is Awesome...

She said this:
"Genes, environment, physical factors, space, and time are all variables of the self. If you change any one of those elements, the self changes... Self is flowing, connected, changing - a continuous function; coherent, but not constant."

Hanging with math folk is always awesome if for this reason alone: mathematical language can be made to apply to anything. While using mathematical terms for normal life-y things is not necessarily formally correct - it still works. And it's heaven for a punster like myself... Ha! "Punster" - and you thought it was a kind of cheese!

Anyway, just a few tidbits. This weekend promises to be fun as I'm enjoying a jazz festival in Budapest Friday night, then we're going to an international film festival a couple hours outside the city and some baths in a CAVE! Woohoo.
Today the sun almost came out! The light this afternoon was absolutely gorgeous - sort of a diffuse glow as the sun set behind a veil of fluffy clouds. A nice backdrop to my afternoon's other activities: I watched N is a Number, a documentary about Paul Erdős (or if you're Hungarian, Erdős Pál). If you haven't heard of Erdős, you're probably not a mathematician. Click here for a quick bio! I really recommend this documentary, as it is about one of the incredible minds of our time, and there are some really cute old British ladies in it too.

Okay, well, here we go! Another day! Woot.

The Weariness of Education

Specifically, that feeling of exhaustion which became so familiar to me last year...poo on that I say, poo on that.

Well, last week was a little crazy. Math class, then math class, and then math class after that. Followed by a nap which turned into a slumber, then bled into the next day...too much math man. I love math, but I must be very deliberate this semester to ensure I avoid burn-out.

Here are a few tidbits from my day-to-day...

A great dance number I encountered last Saturday at Zoldpardon, an outdoor dance club near Petofi hid on the Buda side of the river -it's called Rise Up by Yves Larock. Heck yes.

Another great tune - this one from Csinibaba, a Hungarian movie musical poking fun at socialist films of the ___ era (I'll edit this once I figure that out). It's called "Imádok élni" which means "I love to live." Possibly the happiest Hungarian song in existence - though I haven't quite listened to all of them yet to be sure.

And on a different note, I just ran across this blog by the excellent David Walker, who also blogs at cartoonchurch.com.
I find it funny. You may find it delightfully diverting for a short time as well.

Take care friends!

The Thrill of Education

Hello dear blog readers, (if you exist...)

Today was our first day of class - real, rational, natural, "official" math class. I shopped Advanced Algebra (aka Intermediate Group Theory) and Representation Theory of Finite Groups today - and gosh, a year and a half is plenty of time to forget most of Abstract Algebra, as it turns out. I felt a bit lost, though shreds of mathematical memory are starting to float into place in the watery confines of my brain. But I have to say, today was really fun. Sitting in class feeling a couple steps behind was actually exhilarating. I still really love math. YESSSSS.

More info later dudes...now to bed!

Two dippers

...the Big one, and me. That's right ladies and gentlemens, this weekend I went skinny dipping in Lake Balaton. The Big Dipper was watching over me. I confess, I did this as much for bragging rights as for the fun of skinny dipping. I've now been naked in the largest lake in Central Europe! It was great.

Lake Balaton is "shaped like a 50-mile-long paprika, of the pointed piquant variety,"(according to a New York Times travel article), and is a very lovely vacation spot. The lake itself is very shallow so the water is usually pretty warm. Since we went at the end of the season, the water wasn't quite as comfortable as I imagine it can be, but we had a great time any way. Fai, Elara, Arolyn, and I took the train from Budapest to Balatonfüred on Saturday morning, enjoyed a lovely second breakfast of palacsinta (Hungarian crepes) and espresso, then took the ferry to Tìhany, on an island in the middle of the lake. In Tìhany we strolled about looking at ceramics and beautiful tablecloths, and toured around the Bence's apa'tsa'g (Benedictine abbey) on the island. The abbey was pretty cool - it was established in 1055 by King Andrew I (Andra's kiraly I.), and his remains are buried in the crypt there. I found myself moved by the sheer history of the place.
And as an added bonus, I got a picture of a contemporary statue of Andras and his wife Anastasia of Kiev that's a tad reminiscent of American Gothic. Heehee.


After wearing out our footsies in Tihany, we took a swim in the (now freezing) waters of Balaton, then caught the ferry to the southern shore and the town of Siofok. Siofok is widely recognized as a good place for "party time" in the summer, but it was pretty low key this weekend because school is starting for Hungarian students everywhere and they can't have any more fun.


Living in Budapest is great so far, and I am enjoying being in an apartment again with my own kitchen, however small and oddly equipped. I cooked eggplant/mushroom/tomato sauce bake stuff! Be proud of me Mom, I don't hate eggplant anymore! On another note: I have just been informed by my roommate that I will soon be eating the best soup ever made by an Asian person who is 21 years old. Yesss!

The Awkward Begins... or, The Porn Phone

Don't worry, this post is not explicit.

Today was an hilarious day. I stuck my foot in my mouth a lot (blech), and said weird things in Hungarian, and there was much cause for laughter. Wish you could have been there.

On our way to the Castle District for some sightseeing this afternoon, Elara and I serendipitously met fellow BSMers Edward and Joe on the same metro car. So, we changed our plans a bit – to go to IKEA! While technically IKEA is entirely less exciting than a castle, I needed to get a few things and we thought IKEA was just at the end of the red metro line on the Buda side of the Danube, so not too far from the Castle District. After wandering around looking like lost foreigners and consulting our telltale tourist maps, we screwed up the courage to ask for help. First, there's the obstacle of pronouncing IKEA in Hungarian. Spelling helps. The second obstacle was the blank looks we received - a sign that IKEA was nowhere nearby. Eventually we discovered IKEA is actually outside of Pest, so we made our way back to the metro. After all the built-up anticipation, shopping was rather anti-climactic. While at the plaza, we also took advantage of a T-Mobile store to purchase SIM cards for our Hungarian cell phones. Here is where my awkward day really began...

My apartment came equipped with one cell phone and SIM card left over from the previous semester's residents. When Fai and I originally tried using this phone, it didn't seem to work. So we transplanted the SIM card to her cell phone. However, I need a phone here as well, and I decided I could figure out how the cell phone worked well enough so I wouldn't have to buy a new one. The thing is, this phone is a little “sketch.” It's very beat-up, and whoever used it previously set the start-up screen as a set of pornographic photos of some lady stripping - completely. Seriously? Who puts porn on a phone??? No one I want to know very well. At any rate, I couldn't figure out how to fix this issue.

So I'm in the T-mobile store, having purchased a new SIM card, and the saleslady is helping me check to make sure it works with the phone. The phone starts up...

And the lady says... “Oh.”

I didn't say anything. I'd forgotten until that very moment about the porn.

And all of this was AFTER she had asked us if we were Italian and I replied, in Hungarian, “I don't know.” Oh, I represented my country well today.

When I returned home, I figured out how to change the start-up screen. Now my phone is happily adorned with butterflies and ladybugs. Edward and Elara have promised me that every time they see me using my phone, they will think I'm looking at porn. Thanks, guys. Really.