Hump Day in Budapest!

Hey its Jenna and Becca here for Round 2 of the blog!

We hopped back into the swing of things on Wednesday after having a daycation to Pecs on Tuesday. It was definitely nice to relax after our long sessions of math on Monday, but we were ready to dive back into the number theory Wednesday morning.  With a slight drizzle we proceeded to learn about a new function Φ, which in the words of Professor Hanson, “Φ is very important to number theory, but not so much in real life.” We spent the majority of class proving the Φ is a multiplicative function before we were dismissed for lunch, in order to fuel up for our guest speaker of the day.

For our afternoon session, Andras Nagy, who lectured on Hungarian politics, joined us. Nagy excels in many different subjects. He is a theatre professor, studies Kierkegaard, and is very knowledgeable in Hungarian history. We spent the majority of his lecture talking about how who invaded and ruled Hungary through out the years. It started with the Mongols, moved on to the Turks, eventually the Austrians moved in, which lead us to the 1919 Communist revolt. Because of this revolt, Hungary lost two-thirds of its land. Before WWII Hitler gave back some of this land to Hungary, so Hungary was willing to be on Nazi’s Germany’s side. It was a tough decision for Hungary because they chose to fight communism, which they believed was bad, but this meant they were fighting with the Nazi’s , which was also a bad choice. So basically a lose/lose.  When WWII was dissolved Hungary had peace for about 3 years. In 1948 the Soviets took over Hungary and this lasted until Hungarian revolution in 1956. The revolution was crushed by the Soviets and the Hungarians lived under communism until 1989. Nagy was an excellent guest speaker, and after his talk most of us retired to the hotel and worked on homework.

Christian, Michael, John, Nick R, Natalie, Rachel, Jordan, Jess, Becca, and I, Jenna, ended the night at a really cool restaurant called Rokfort, where we had our share of some traditional Hungarian dishes. Nothing beyond exciting happened Wednesday, but we’ve had our fair share of interesting run-ins with locals since we’ve been here.

I, Becca, have personally had two interesting encounters.  Our first Saturday, we were on the tram headed to dinner and I decided to sit down next to a stranger.  He turned to me and began speaking to me in Hungarian.  Not knowing what he said, I replied with, “Nem beszelek magyarul,” which means I don’t speak Hungarian.  He then asked me if I spoke English so I said yes.  He struggled through his words so he asked another random man on the tram to translate for him.  He then proceeded to tell me I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and that he loved me for my red hair.  He then sang me a love song all while inebriated on the tram.  It was an enlightening experience. 

The same night, Michael had a run in with a local at a dance club we were at.  While a group of us Americans were dancing together, a local man approached Michael and told him we didn’t look like we were from around here.  Michael promptly and proudly told him we were from Canada.

Rachel’s encounter was probably the most hilarious.  We were waiting for a subway in Vienna when a man, clearly under the influence, approached our group and asked Rachel to come stand next to him.  Rachel’s mom taught her not to talk to strangers, so Rachel refused.  He then turned to another member of our group and asked him if his eyes looked like Rachel’s.  We all laughed and he got on the same subway as us.  He then showed Luke pictures of his kids and we went our separate ways at the next stop.

Our final strange run-in occurred today when I sat down next to another stranger on the subway.  He began speaking to me in Hungarian again and I told him I didn’t understand.  He asked me if I spoke English and I said yes to which he responded that he hated English and told me I need to learn Russian because it is the most beautiful language in the world.  “It’s like a melody.”  I smiled and laughed.  He then continued his rant on how English is the worst language, but he told me how much he loved Obama and asked me my feelings on him.  I was then beckoned to get off the subway and said goodbye to my new friend.

All in all our adventures have been full of wonderful, interesting experiences and people.   Needless to say, we’ve definitely been immersed in the culture.