My sandal got caught in the escalator.

To all of those dear fans out there who have desperately waited for a spirited return to the blogging world, you have probably found another source of entertainment. Alas, this will be my first blog post in about a month and my last as a resident of Budapest. In the last two weeks classes have finished, lifetime friends have moved away, and Budapest has changed from a place of comraderie to a place once again foreign to me. In the last few days here the boys at the flat made a spirited expedition to Lake Balaton to enjoy the sights and sounds with fellow erasmus students we did not know so well. What happens when Norway wins Eurovision in a bar in Siofok where the wine is flowing and the group of twenty stumbles towards the bass beating across the bridge is something of a surprise. The bartender seemed to be taking the night off to dance on the bar while her barmate lit booze on fire and twirled flaming bottles around while yet another barmate stood on the bar at the other end liberally pouring liquor into the mouths of exuberant dancers. The next morning (or afternoon) we went swimming and went home. I made some new Greek friends who, if I'm lucky I'll get to meet in their homeland in a few weeks. The next day Tristan and I ran 10km around Margaret Island. I died, due to overheating in the 30C weather, but Tristan marched on eventually taking a dip in the Danube; something he later regretted. Tuesday brought together an international consortium of avid floorball enthusiasts who took to the court inside Corvinus' gym for 2 hours to duke it out in the extreme spring humidity. The final match saw the North Americans take on the World. The North Americans won on a Golden Goal by Massachusetts' own Bill Nussdorfer. Afterwards, the men made it to the baths on Margaret Island for a much needed cool down. Despite continuous harrassment, the young lady selling the entrance tickets wouldn't let us take advantage of the afternoon pricing 40 minutes ahead of time. A day later found us on the long journey to Budapest's Aquaworld, a waterpark with a diving board, wave pool, saunas, hot tubs, a bar and over a kilometre of waterslides. It was a pretty awesome afternoon, especially the river tube slide and the dude who seemed to enjoy spending time with his girlfriend in the hot tub. Fortunately for us, we were in the other pool.

I love Budapest. And it will never be the same as I remember.

Everything. Everything. Everything. I want it back, but its gone.

My sandal got caught in the escalator. Budapest wants me to stay, but I know.... I'm done. It's time for a change. I'll always love Budapest, let's see if there's more to love.

Mikke

A brief commentary on the academics of exchange

5 Classes out of the way - five marks above 80. I almost feel bad about how little work was required to achieve this. Good thing I left my easy-button at home.


Here's a brief rundown:
Presentation skills - Gave a 10 minute presentation on Somolian pirates, which essentially paraphrased a wikipedia article. Half of the rest of the class gave a tourism slideshow of their home country in broken english.
Social Choice/Fair Division - Wrote two 45 minute midterms - the second of which was open book and consisted of mostly DEFINITION type questions.
Environmental Technology - got a 94.6% overall, despite being intentionally vague on half of the questions on the final (discussing made up examples of technologies I understood but didn't know the details about). I left that exam worried I wouldn't get the 70 required to skip the oral exam.
International Finance - Left the 20 question multiple choice exam on second year (1st semester) definitions after 15 of the alloted 90 minutes. That and we got 96% on a paper that was written shoddily in 3 seperate parts (to this date I have not read Tristan or Rock's contribution to this A+ paper).
Human and Political Geography - 5 minute oral exam discussing "why people write graffiti on walls"

Great news for me, huh?

Well now karma is kicking me in the ass. On Thursday I'm preparing to write a masters level game theory exam which I actually SHOULD struggle to pass ... I mean, can YOU make any sense out of this equation?

mρσ(vρ)ρσ(i) = vρ({ρσ(1), . . . , ρσ(i)} − vρ({ρσ(1), . . . , ρσ(i − 1)})
= v({σ(1), . . . , σ(i)}) − v({σ(1), . . . , σ(i − 1)})
= (mσ(v))σ(i) = (ρ∗(mσ(v)))ρσ(i) .


... and that's one without the ridiculous sum functions in it.

What we've really been doing this year

Friends and family, moms and dads, anonymous readers, I'd like to present you with what we've been listening to all semester long. This is one of his tamer songs - feel free to check out the rest.

In and out

Over the past (almost) 4 months, we've had quite a few people come in and out of our place. Some we'd never met before, some were good friends, and some were even closer than that. The current tally is at 12, but with Troy (friend from Queen's) arriving tomorrow for a couple of days, and then Khaled (friend since 8th grade) coming in on the 18th, it seems we'll be ending it 14.

Ads no more

Because we have made millions of dollars off of the advertisements on this blog, we feel that they are no longer necessary. They will return upon depletion of money supplies.

Swine flu

A constantly updated map showing confirmed cases and deaths resulting from swine flu: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8021547.stm - thankfully, nothing in Hungary yet.

Saw a bunch of people today at the airport in Amsterdam wearing face masks - it was strange and funny in a way.. won't hurt to be extra cautious, I suppose, although from what I've read they're not very effective.

This is post #100 btw. Sorry it couldn't be about something good!