It has been a long day (I use the term loosely), so I am going to keep this short, though I cannot bear the idea of not starting out right and writing something down.
I left Denver at 5:35 pm on February 2, arrived in Budapest at about 18:20 pm on the 3rd. The time hour difference is eight hours earlier in Denver. Feel free to calculate; I am not sufficiently awake.
The nine-something hour flight from Denver to Frankfurt was surprisingly pleasant. Thanks Lufthansa for the video screen in the chair in front of me which I could navigate between music videos in languages I didn’t understand, TV shows bad enough to show for free, and those movies you just couldn’t make yourself spend seven dollars (1540 forints, although who knows what it costs to see a movie here) to see. I am certainly not complaining. This kept me much more entertained than I would have otherwise been, and it helped to pass the time. You could also check the progress of the plane and time to landing on a map on the screen. Note for those who may be interested in international travel: the student (and university faculty) price was great, the movies were entertaining and, if you’re into this, they attempt to feed you alcoholic beverages every time the drink cart comes past. Not bad at all.
When I arrived in Frankfurt, I entered the EU, re-cleared security and then found my gate, which happened to be the penultimate one in terminal A. This was actually perfect because I fell asleep immediately on four chairs, and had immensely strange dreams. The flight from Frankfurt to Budapest was easy compared to the first, and I arrived to find not a representative from the school but my landlord waiting to pick me up.
Long story somewhat shorter, here I am in my apartment in a city I have never seen before. I am glad that I have some time to adjust, but I am eager for classes to begin and to meet the other people in the program. It will be an interesting bunch, and the enrollment in the program is 2/3 what it usually is at about forty, so I hope to get to know about everyone. Until then, it looks like I am exploring on my own.
My apartment is furnished pretty well. Further, there are many books (some of them about Hungarian language and culture) a bike, a pre-paid and refillable cell phone and about a hundred 1-2 forint coins left by the previous tenant, whose name my landlord tells me is Eric. After I got a few things in order, I went looking for a nearby restaurant. No such luck at ten at night. A more fruitful search was around my kitchen, where I found some powdered mashed potatoes (along with salt, pepper, tea, and a 1/3 full bottle of Unicum.) After I got the gas stove running (which is done with the use of a match), I realized that faced with the prospect of no dinner, powdered potatoes are not at all bad. Thanks, Eric.
Ok. Time to finally sleep in a bed.
Math Fact of the Day:
(I want to add this regularly once classes begin, perhaps even usefully. However, for now…)
I knit a scarf I have been working on for some time at length on the plane ride. (It is a parallelogram, as I add one stitch on one side and subtract stitch from the other at each row.)
When I was calculating how wide I wanted the scarf to be, I began with the label on my yarn, which gave me that 17 stitches would make 4 inches. I decided I wanted about 10 inches, so I doubled seventeen. Then I was faced with the decision of deciding if half of seventeen was going to be 8 or 9. In an even sort of mood, I decided on eight.
17x2+8=42.
What do you know?
(To make sure I am not adding or dropping stitches, I make sure the number I have is equivalent to 2 mod 10. That way I don’t have to count higher than ten. Who says math doesn’t have applications? OK, I’m done now, next time I will try to add some mathematics.)
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