04-02-09 Currency, Sustenance, and Trees

[This was written yesterday, but posted a day late when the internet decided to die right as I finished it.]

Forewarning: This is mostly about my apartment, because I spent most of the day straightening it (and catching up on sleep, as it were.) Although there are pictures at the end!

I found coins from eight different countries as I organized the apartment today. (I am counting Euro as one.)

Fortints (Magyar [Hungary])
Cents (EU)
Cents (US)
Cents (Canada [I think I brought them on accident])
Pence (UK)
Groszy (Rzeczpospolita Polska [Poland])
Lipa (Republika Hrvatska [Croatia])
Kurus (Turkiye [Turkey])

Certainly setting a bar for travel outside of Hungary while I am here. (Canada I think I will skip, at least for now.)

Today I had adventures in eating in public (apparently you tip at the beginning of the meal) and grocery shopping. I tried to listen to the language of the waiter while I was eating, but he was clearly originally Chinese and his accent just confused a few circuits.

The grocery store was an adventure. There were not many vegetables, but I can not tell if this is overall availability or just the small store I was patronizing. Either way, I am not anxious to buy vegetables again because you are supposed to weigh and put the label on yourself. This much I figured out before I go to the check out, but I could not locate the ‘Onion’ label on the scale, as I do not know how to say ‘onion’ in Hungarian. At least I had a bag with me. Many things, then, were prepackaged, which added to my inability to select things, being unable to understand the words. I was only sure of a few things. Coffee (kavet) I had seen before, and the pasta sauce I ended up with was in Italian, so I could read it. Oy.

There is no way to be a vegan here. Vegetarian I am hoping is possible, although I could not find any tofu. (Spelled To-fu in the Chinese restaurant, so this at least I can identify if I see it.) I was lucky enough to find soy milk.

As for the apartment, it has three rooms and an entryway. The entrance has a coat rack, an item for which I have searched fruitlessly in Tacoma. The bathroom is pretty basic; water heating comes on twice a day at random times determined by the electric company’s estimate of when the most electricity is being used, so hot water is limited but available. There is a large rack on the ceiling for drying clothes, as it is nonstandard to have dryers here. The kitchen is pretty basic: half-size fridge, microwave, coffee maker, toaster…However, you have to light the gas water heater over the sink. The stove is gas as well, and the burners are lit with matches. This makes sense to me, and reveals how [unnecessarily?] complicated things can be in the US. Took me a bit to learn how to light it, so I must get more matches soon.

My bedroom is the opposite of the one I had in Tacoma, with a ceiling about twice as high. (It is about 12 feet, if I had to guess.) I like how open it is. This building used to be a hospital, which is only a little freaky. I heat just the bedroom, and keep the door closed. Keeping one room warm is difficult enough.

Just unpacking and rearranging things here has made it feel much more like home. Knowing how my shower is going to work ahead of time is always a plus. Now that I know what is in the desk drawers, they feel much more like mine. I discovered that I inherited a student’s copy of a professor’s compiled notes (and a few exercises) of Functional analysis, which is exciting although I do not intend to take the class. It will give me something to do next time I am…in the mood to do functional analysis.

Class schedule came out today and none of the classes in which I am really interested conflict. This is good, but tempts me to take more than three, which I realize I probably shouldn’t. Two (Advanced Abstract Algebra and Combinatorics 2) were also on the list of ‘more advanced’ math courses, of which I should no doubt be wary. Number theory I think I must take. There is a graph theory course, but I think I would be bored by the first half at very least. It would probably get difficult right as my other classes did. I should probably go for Hungarian Art and Culture. Last semester was the best I have ever had, and I recognize this was mostly due to my schedule. I seek difficulty, but only when it is paired with interest. Suddenly, which classes I select seems doubly important. I think living situation is a large factor as well. I think I will get much more done with my current living arrangements, even if they may not be my social ideal. It also really helped living with committed students last semester [haha, Kyle, this is you]. (Randomly: I made the dean’s list.)

Well, now that I am a bit more moved in, I hope to explore the city more tomorrow, assuming that I am more adjusted to the time difference. An insomniac by nature, I am especially skewed when midnight comes eight hours early.


Math Fact of the Day:

The Arboricity of a graph is the minimum number of forests into which its edges can be partitioned.
My first round of groceries. I was trying to illustrate the foreign-ness of the labels, but all you can really see is FITNESS, which you can probably read.






My room from various angles. I want to show how tall the ceiling is, but there isn't really enough floor space to do so.