Day 1: Residence

The first half of my day largely consisted of waiting around while attempting to get my visa. We went as a group and on our way found that the Budapest Semesters in Math students (basically our arch-rivals) were getting their visas at the same time. But we joined different queues so I guess it turned out all right. I'm not sure what most countries need to grant a visa, but I ended up giving Hungary a stack of documents proving that I had insurance and a place to live and enough money to survive, and so on. The sheer number of documents would have been overwhelming without the help of Dorka who compiled folders of documents for everybody.

Most of us went for lunch together at a place recommended by Dorka. I can't remember the name. Apparently lunch is a big deal here and requires several courses.The food was set at a fixed price and one chose a dish from each section- an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. I had a pistachio hash brown thing which was rather like falafel, the pasta of the day which was mostly normal pasta with garlicky stuff and other seasoning type things, and a banana crepe with chocolate sorbet. It was all quite good and a good price. I would have taken a picture or something, but I'm not that guy. Not yet, at least.

Afterwards, a smaller group of us went to City Park and saw Hősök tere (Heroes' Square) and some buildings and things--see images at the end.

For dinner, I went to a Chinese Buffet. Because my companions at the time were Chinese, I was once again left not understanding what was being said but in Chinese instead of Hungarian. Anyway, the buffet was pretty different from the standard Chinese buffet you would see in the States. For one thing, you can load up your plate as much as you want, but you don't get to go back for more. Drinks cost extra and you pay before eating. Additionally, the food isn't kept hot while it waits. You pile the food on your plate and then microwave it to warm it up again. The food itself was pretty similar to American Chinese food but there might have been more corn and fried potatoes. The sushi was minimalist. The rolls were mostly rice wrapped in seaweed with a single chunk of cucumber or whatever filling in the center.

Here are some pictures:

Heroes' Square

A building

Another building

An ice skating rink. It's kind of massive. And a little melty.

Trees. A lot of the trees had a bunch of clumps in them which I was told is mistletoe, but it's hard to see them here.

This is apparently a famous bathhouse

This is a dried-up fountain. It kind of makes me uncomfortable.