Szia from Budapest!

It’s day 4 for us in Hungary, and life here is starting to (somewhat) settle into a comfortable routine.  We all eat together in our “penthouse” hotel from a selection of foods including toast and breakfast salami before taking to the streets, utilizing the tram or the Metro (or both) to get from our rooms in Buda to the classroom in Pest.

RENDŐRSÉGI FIGYELMEZTETÉS: három külföldi is észrevették a Metro station.

We started our second Hungarian lesson at 10 AM, with Prof. Erika teaching us about question words (who, what, where, etc.), verb conjugations, and some romantic phrases - the essentials, basically.  As always, Professor Erika is very enthusiastic and earnest in helping us to learn, making class an enjoyable experience on the whole.

Professor Erika, a roomful of students, and a chalkboard of Hungarian.

After about two hours of class, we took a break for lunch.  It’s unclear what the decision process was for choosing the location of our classroom, but in any case, Professor Hanson is to be congratulated - the building is situated just a short distance away from several cafes and restaurants all offering quality food at a reasonable price.

The McDaniel's College building, where we have class.

The afternoon continued with our third Number Theory lesson, in which we reviewed elements of good proof-writing before diving into the Euclidean Algorithm (a method for determining the greatest common divisor of two large numbers) and its various uses.  As always, the first half of the class was devoted to lecture and new material, while the second half consisted of small-group worksheets.

Pictured: corollaries and proofs.  Not pictured: mixing up our chalk colors for each type of statement.

Following class, we are free to enjoy the rest of the afternoon and evening without any scheduled plans. Some decided to head to local cafes and tea houses to get a head start on homework, while others went to explore the local markets and stores.

One thing everyone looks forward to is dinner. Budapest offers a variety of cultural cuisine, from Italian restaurants to rustic Hungarian dishes. While we can’t speak for everyone, of course, so far the two of us have not eaten at the same place twice. The efficient public transportation places the entire city’s dining scene at our fingertips. One thing has been consistent across all the restaurants: large portions that are just too good to not finish or box up for leftovers.

An afternoon view of the city from the top of Gellért Hill.

The difficulty in the classroom is beginning to pick up bit by bit, but so far we are all managing to keep up and still find time to enjoy this incredible experience.  At half a week in, we have only just scratched the surface.

Egészségedre!  (Cheers!)

-Colin and Ian