Today was our last in Budapest together as the Number Theory Class of 2018. Many of us fueled up with the usual breakfast from the hotel before starting on the final at 9:30 AM. After the rollercoaster ride the final took us on, we were free to go about the city. It was a beautiful, clear day to conclude our explorations of the city. Some people walked down the street for one last langos (Nutella and strawberry was a favorite) from the Central Market while also doing some last-minute souvenir shopping. Others took the opportunity to get one more of the beloved chimney cakes. They will be greatly missed when we come back to the United States.
Olivia, Julia, Victoria, and I took the trolley a few stops towards Parliament to visit a Holocaust memorial of bronze shoes next to the river. It is in remembrance of many people who were executed at the edge of the river, leaving their shoes behind.
"Shoes on the Danube Bank"
Chain Bridge
We chose to walk back to the hotel along the river, taking stops for pictures while soaking up of the beautiful Buda side of the city and the Danube River. You can never have too many pictures of the castle or the Chain Bridge, right?
At 5:10 PM, our whole group met in the lobby to have our final banquet. Prior to meeting, we only knew that the location we would be walking to was 1 km away. The suspense was released when Berliner told us that we would be going to an American-Buffet style restaurant (in other words, all-you-can-eat). We had a nice walk and finally arrived at Trófea Grill Restaurant. The staff kindly held the doors and greeted us. Once we had sat down, they gave us the rundown of how the buffet worked, and we were then set loose. There was a variety of food options ranging from Hungarian foods to salad to grilled meats and cheeses to desserts. A bonus to the restaurant was that water was factored into the flat price for the meal. We tried a variety of the foods with multiple trips up to the buffet while talking and enjoying our last official time together in Budapest.
Just a sampling of the food!
As a symbol of our gratitude for our wonderful professors, our class decided to get Berliner a dessert cookbook so that he can take the Hungarian cooking back home (and hopefully make us some chimney cakes back in the US…). For Bruce, we got him some fancy chocolate picked out at the Central Market.
This evening, a large portion of the class decided to adventure out on a night hike up to the Citadella over on the Buda side. It seemed appropriate to end how we started: with a nice hike up. The views in the night were beautiful, and our spirits were much higher than they were when we were jetlagged and exhausted from travel. The city is truly a gem all lit up and spurred reflection on our month living and studying here. It is sad we will be leaving the city and concluding our month abroad, but many of us are looking forward to seeing family, friends, and pets back home. We will be boarding a bus at 3:30 AM and heading off to the airport. Thank you for following our blog!
The title at least says in words what the looks on the students' faces seem to be telling me. The students spent a good part of today studying hard for tomorrow's final, which is why I did not force any of them to write a blog post today.
I know that study breaks were had, and were spent going to the market, finding one last chimney cake (or two, if your name rhymes with Schmandrew), and generally finding a little time to enjoy the SUN and the uncharacteristically warm 50+ degree temperature outside.
What do the professor and Uncle Bruce do with their time you don't ask? Bruce and I both pretended that today was a work day, and started by going in to school to do a few things. Bruce did some research, while I pretended to make slow progress on writing the final exam and also writing several letters of recommendation which are due in the near future. Being in Budapest doesn't quite absolve me of those "at home" duties. Then, I returned to my favorite Budapest cafe for an extra-strength cappuccino, where I continued to work (albeit quite slowly).
This afternoon, I surprised the languishing studiers by buying them an afternoon treat. Every day when we walk by the Lipoti bakery, I point out the HUGE loaves of peasant bread on the top of the shelf and tell the students "You should get one of those, it would be awesome." But no one ever does. So today was the day and that was their afternoon snack (complete with a tub of Nutella).
Here is a picture of Penelope with the bread, so you can see just how large it is (Penelope is a normal-sized person). The loaf weighs over 6 pounds and costs about $4.50 total. Not a bad way to please 21 hungry Oles.
Tomorrow we start with a test and finish with a feast...until then!
We had a very long breakfast this morning. After the satisfying meal, we started doing our homework in our room. The majority of the day was spent in our room doing homework and studying for lovely final exam, courtesy of Prof. Berliner. For dinner we went to Fruccola, a salad and juice café, full of nutritional value. We somewhat enjoyed our beef broths, a buddha bowl, and blueberry beef stew, realizing last minute that we'd neglected both the salad and juice aspects of this salad and juice café. That's an oops on our part. Nevertheless, we had a healthy meal with vegetables that is sure to power us through these final days of studying before the inevitable judgement day, the final.
Even though it seemed impossible to capture the beauty of the
basilica in a single photo, Karina worked her magic and voila!
Who knew that the Catholic church was a supporter
of our fellow mathematicians?
As exciting as today was, it paled in comparison to yesterday's marvelous adventures. Karina and Hannah begun their day by sneaking past sleeping roommates and wandering the city with Emily and Andrew in search of a giant cathedral. They definitely did not get lost. Nope, didn't happen. They stumbled upon St. Stephen's Basilica, a Neoclassical style Roman-Catholic gigantic religious dwelling basilica. After marveling at the impressive exterior of the building, they ventured inside on a mission to find the right hand of St. Stephen which is said to be in a reliquary at the church. When they walked in they were awestruck by the ornate, intricate, impressive, *insert big impressive adjective here* interior of the basilica. The inside was quite lavish and it looked beautiful bathed in morning light. The four adventurers quickly forgot about their quest to find the old hand and instead wandered around exploring the huge sanctuary. While she was looking at the intricately painted ceiling, a small red circle on the wall caught Hannah's eye. It said . . . "Math". Soon the others joined her and they gazed upon the sign, knowing that their fate as math majors had been decided. After a while, Hannah and Emily peered inside a lavish box and found a strange dark object inside. All of a sudden lights came on revealing the true identity of the mysterious object . . . a shriveled up old hand! After they finished staring at the relic with confused expressions, they headed for the door.
Yummmmm Lunch!
It's almost too pretty to eat.... Almost.
After the church adventure, the team took a break for a nutritious snack (ice cream) before they joined forces with Amanda, Penelope and Jordan on a new quest to conquer the central market! Before meeting up with the basilica explorers, team Amanda stopped at a souvenir shop called "The memories of Budapest". Things in that shop were just like every other souvenir shop but they were more expensive so most of the group left without buying anything. After the two groups joined forces they took the train to the market. Penelope bought a Hungarian shirt for her mom and Amanda bought a shirt for her little sister and some small glasses for her friends. Hannah, Karina and Emily wandered around the top floor of the market and bought many painted eggs to give to their friends and family (assuming they do not break during transit). After a long time at the market, the tired travelers wandered back to the hotel.
~Szia~
Hannah Penelope
Amanda Karina
And now,
After many days of not-so-subtle hints from our professor,
For our farewell treat,
We present...
CHIMNEY CAKE TASTE TEST!
Featuring our heroes with St. Olaf's very own chimney cake addict - Andrew!
Cake 1: Vanilla and Kakoa
Vanilla
Hannah- "It's sweet, like you're eating a very soft cloud full of love."
Andrew- "It's vanilla good."
Karina- "Tastes like confectioner's syrup."
Amanda- "It's just like sugar."
Penelope- "This one's boring. It's fine."
Kakoa
Hannah- *Happy dance* "It's really nice. Tastes like a small chocolate cookie."
Andrew- "I've been missing out."
Karina- "Dry and bitter but I like it. Less sweet than the others."
Amanda- "I like it. It's just like chocolate and sugar but I like it."
Penelope- "It's like cold crunchy coco with a strange crunchy after taste"
Cake 2: Chocolate and Coconut
Chocolate
Hannah- "Not as good as kakoa but still good."
Andrew- "Yep this is good."
Karina- "It's good but its too sweet for me."
Amanda- "Tastes like milk chocolate but I like it."
Penelope- "It's messy but good n choco-y."
Coconut
Hannah- "The inside's fine. I wish I liked it."
Andrew- "Yeah no thanks."
Karina-"I like it. It reminds me of almond joys."
Amanda- "Coconut's really dry, not that sweet."
Penelope- "Coconut tastes bad and has a bad texture. It reminds me of past failures."
Cake 3: Poppyseed and Walnut
Poppyseed
Hannah- "Tastes like earth."
Andrew- "I'm a little less than neutral about it."
Karina- "I think the poppy seeds are burnt."
Amanda- "I hate this. Tastes like dirt. It's dirty."
Penelope- "I dont mind it, but like it could be sweeter. I like it though."
Walnut
Hannah- "Not bad. Tastes like nuts."
Andrew- "I like this more than I expect to."
Karina- "Smoky and woody taste, not what I would expect but its good.""
Amanda- "It tastes like caramel popcorn a lil bit."
Penelope- "Nuts are gross. I don't get it. Ughk."
"Slightly" Stale Cinnamon
Hannah- "Stale."
Andrew- "Stale."
Karina- "Stale."
Amanda- "Stale."
Penelope- "Stale."
As a departing gift, we present to you a lovely compilation of people reacting to one of the chocolates we tried in our last post. Our loyal readers may remember our dismayed reactions to Mon Cheri chocolates, Well we decided the only thing to do was to inflict them on others. Reactions were mixed (and, much to our surprise, not all negative!) Enjoy :)
In case the video doesn't upload, here's a link to the video of our final taste test.
(The song is Csipp Csepp, our favorite song from Hungarian class.)
After a short study session in the morning, a large part of our group ended up at the Central Market for lunch and got langos from a place that we went over to on our first weekend. While we were there, almost everyone started the process of buying things to take home to the states. Brian would like to assure his mom that she will like what she will be getting. After a relatively uneventful day, a group of us went to Vapiano for dinner. This quick and relatively cheap Italian chain has become one of our go-to spots for a tasty munch (along with Pad-Thai Wok Bar). I got a margherita pizza, and although it was on the crispy side, it was quite flavorful. My favorite quirk of Vapiano is the small potted herbs growing on the tables, which one is intended to pick and eat. It is a great idea to ensure that the herbs are always fresh. After the meal several of us went to a sock and sunglasses emporium along Váci utca. They had a very eclectic collection. A lot of the socks were Beatles themed, oddly enough. Unfortunately, the store was closing just as we entered, so the sock shenanigans were cut short. Perhaps I will return and purchase some souvenir stockings. Who doesn’t like socks? After dinner we went out for chimney cakes, which has become a recurring theme over the past week or so. To end our evening we chose to watch a movie titled The Immitation Game. It is about the mathematician named Alan Turing, who helped crack the German code during World War II. It was an interesting movie in that some of the math was what we did in our cryptology lesson on Thursday.
Today, I led an attack upon a small enemy fort. The battle started unfavorably. Our troops marched uphill through thick snow and against enemy gunfire, but soon, our bows were in range, and we flew our arrows over their fortifications. Attempting to seize the high ground, I ordered my spear levy and katana kachi to climb the walls. A bloody battle ensured. Our swords and spears met their spears and flesh. We were slowly winning, but at a great cost.
Then, I sprang my trap. Kisho ninjas leaped over the wall and threw grenades to break one of their spear levies and take down a watch tower, and, from the arrow of one of my treasured bowmen, their general fell. "A glorious victory will soon be ours," I could hear my men cheering, but their remaining spear levy whipped into a fury over the death of their general. Somehow, a stampering group of peasants with forks must have all been hardcore Naruto fans as they pulled some Tae kwon do that not even a samurai with all of his life's training could keep up with, and this spear levy routed both of my melee troops. Then, moving at the speed of weeb, the headband wearing levies charged my ninjas. My ninjas attempted their invisibility move to escape, but the enemy's ninjistu was too high and took them down. During this brawl, my general partner dismounted his horse and mounted the wall to 1v1 those scrubs.
I tried to stop him. I leaped off my horse to assist in the battle, but it was too late. He fell before he could even use his secret move. That moment, I knew I had to escape. I turned toward the open gate, but the enemy's matchlock levy was standing in my path. Forgotten, these troops stood dumbfounded as the spear men tore through my men, and now, they weren't about to let me escape. I charged them down, attempting one last break though before the spear levy comes, but it was for not. The matchlocks held and the spear men were already in a charge.
PWFFFT! Arrows flew and struck down the matchlock levy. My bowmen pulled though and enabled my escape. We ran together, fleeing from the enemy's stronghold to hide in the forest, where we sat in defeat, waiting for our lone shinobi to return from scouting.
Last day of class? How can that be?
It's day 1(mod 21) and time has been flying by! Today we were met with many emotions as we boarded the bus on the way to school. Most of those feelings were those of excitement about last night's homework, but that's beside the point.
Morning coffee!
Once arriving at school, we had our final lecture of interim on Pythagorean Triples. Have you ever wanted to construct a Pythagorean Triple? Well look no further! It's as easy as (2st, s^2-t^2, s^2+t^2)! (that's not a factorial, I'm just excited). Katelyn was mentioned in our worksheet in which she had an exclamation made due an epiphany she had about math (we are still waiting on the dramatization of such event). Also Adam made up a word but forget what it was. But anyway, Pythagorean Triples have some connections to geometry and perfect right triangles, which is pretty neat. We ended our class by touching briefly on Fermat's Last Theorem, which is an appropriate way to end class since it's the last thing we did.
last day mood
mood part 2
taking over class
After class, we had some time for lunch so we stopped at our favorite gyro stand one last time. We took the bus to the hotel but noticed that we have been living next to a shopping center the entire time and have yet to give it a go. Let's just say it's no Mall of America....
wow crowded (Anika had a disappointing coffee and Katelyn paid 100 forints to use the water closet)
Our final all-class activity was a tour of the National Gallery on the Buda side of the Danube. To get to the gallery, we took a funicular railway up the hill to Budapest Castle in which the gallery is held. We took a guided tour of some of the more prominent works by Hungarian artists, and afterward we were left to our own devices, and were able to view more of the works.
Once our appetites had been artistically satisfied, they were ready to be culinarily satisfied. For dinner, we made a trek back to the area around Parliament in order to find some grub. After being rejected from two places due to us not making a reservation (it is Friday after all), we finally stumbled upon a restaurant, where we ordered some ravioli and pizza.
Here is a pic of the innards of the restaurant because we forgot to take a picture of our food.
Once dinner concluded, we took the metro back to our humble abode. Us from room 565 really have enjoyed our month of studying math, exploring the city, and learning more about Hungarian culture, and are sad to see it come to an end. Thanks for joining us on this journey!
Any guesses as to what that means? We’ll give you cryptoquip fans a hint: X = S. Still no guesses?
Today we learned about cryptography and the different types of ciphers. The encrypted message above is a monoalphabetic cipher, the least mathematically intense of the ciphers we discussed today! (You’re welcome.)
We also discussed Caesar ciphers, linear coding functions, and RSA encryption. Messages can be expressed as plaintext, numeric (Like our post title! Can you crack that one?), and ciphertext. Most of our time was spent decoding ciphertext using RSA encryption, which was definitely a lot more time consuming than any of us were anticipating. But hey, we are well on our way to being cryptographers for the NSA!
Cryptography!
Code cracking anyone?
A number of us went to one of three favorite lunch spots: The Goat Herder, Eat?, and Lipóti Pékség. The hot chocolate at Eat? is a fan favorite!
Hard to pass up hot chocolate!
This afternoon we had a guest lecturer named Laszlo Arato who talked with us about Hungarian literature. We learned how the isolation of Hungarian, a Finno-Ugric language, has had a big impact on the spread of great poems and literature. The unique rhythm that comes with Hungarian is lost in translation. He read to us different poems and short stories, and we discussed what they can tell us about Hungary’s history and culture. It is common for Hungarians to focus on the struggles and failures since much of their history has been spent under another country’s control. We are thankful that Laszlo could come and speak with us!
Laszlo read us some poetry in Hungarian so we could hear the rhythmic difference between Hungarian and English.
Skylar and Jordan's post school adventure
Jordan and Skylar walked back to the hotel from school after the lecture and got to explore a new part of the city. We spotted a good number of dogs and many cute cafés. It is a nice, refreshing walk, especially after a day in the classroom.
Skylar found her car's long lost sibling!
A number of us took the bus back, but stopped for chimney cakes on the way back to the hotel. Among the flavors purchased were cinnamon, vanilla, and cocoa. Chimney cakes fresh out of the oven are hard to beat!
Post class snack
Too many toppings to choose from!
For dinner, Jordan and friends went to get waffles for dinner. Jordan is partial to the Nutella topping, but fresh fruit is also a popular option. Julia and Skylar went with a group to For Sale pub, a small restaurant with a huge menu and even bigger portions. The walls are covered in notes that people from all over the world leave behind. Part of the evening may or may not have been spent throwing peanut shells at each other!
For Sale pub!
Notes on the ceiling of For Sale
Only Brian, Luke, and Derek were members of the clean plate club this evening!
Köszönöm for following along with our adventures! We have had a blast and a half exploring Budapest and can’t believe our time is coming to an end. Even though we have to start studying for our final (finals already? 😰), we will definitely still be finding time to explore parts of the city we have yet to see!
Today marks the beginning of our final seven days in Budapest. We started the day with a math class based on more quadratic residues and the quadratic reciprocity law. Needless to say, a majority of it was right over our heads. During our extended lunch break, some people chose to begin working on the homework, while others were too hungry to wait any longer and started on the homework after eating. We had a colloquium after lunch, which was number theory centered. Mik Laczkovich was the speaker, and he discussed how recent years (i.e. 2016, 2017, 2018) have special properties in number theory such as being square numbers or the sum of 2, 3, or 4 square numbers.
Mik's got his own Wiki page, google him
After the colloquium, we had about an hour of free time before reconvening for a movie. The movie was called "Son of Saul" and it was a historical fiction based on life in Auschwitz concentration camp. After the movie, our tour guide from earlier in the trip, András, kindly answered questions we had relating to the movie and to Hungarian history during this time period.
After the movie, we all went our separate ways for a late dinner. Some went to get kebabs, while others went to a Pad Thai restaurant that many people seem to enjoy. After getting back to the hotel from dinner, we resumed our homework struggle, which has continued late into the night.
Death by homework
From extreme cribbage competitions to sauna sessions with Bruce to chimney cakes (and cones) to the rest of the wonders Budapest has to offer, we the 853 are humbled and honored to have been given the chance to keep you updated on our trip.
Happy last blog from us.
Love,
your boys from the 853.
LATE ADDITION/EDIT BY PROFESSOR: Let me assure you - the students understand the material much better than they are letting on here. Keep up the hard work, boys of 853 (and other men and women of Math 239)
