Today was the first day of classes, a very exciting one for us all.
While many of my classmates were up early, especially those who lived on the opposite side of town, I got to sleep in today. This was due to me living so close to the school and also not having any class until 2.
So I used my morning by sleeping in and then heading out to do some shopping. I needed to find some notebooks, as I did not bring any with me. I searched up some places in the area and also planned on checking the giant mall that is across the train tracks from my apartment. I found one of the two stores in the area, but they didn't have quite what I was looking for, so I decided to keep looking around. The store was a papirbolt or paper store. I guess it's the equivalent of a stationary store? I don't know, it was kind of strange. Because they had printer paper, some notebooks, some portfolios, some calendars, sleeves, envelopes...it was like the paper section of an office store.
Anyways, I then checked out the mall. I had no luck finding supplies, but I managed to recharge my phone and find another ethernet cable. Now everyone in my apartment can have internet! Because we have no idea how to get the wireless working. Our landlord insists that it should be working, but we checked every network and tried resetting the router, to no avail. Ah well, the wired stuff is good enough. I also found a bookstore. Among many titles I didn't recognize, I found a bunch of Terry Pratchett books. They were all various Discworld books, some I recognized, some I didn't, with the British (versus American) covers, and were, as should be expected, completely in Hungarian. I will most likely buy one before I leave, because they're awesome.
The class I had was classical algebra, a three-week-long no credit course designed to make sure everyone's up to speed on the basics of algebra necessary for some of the higher classes, as the Hungarian professors have discovered, in years past, that the American students don't have the algebra background that they expect. The class meets twice a week, for an hour and a half split into two 45-minute blocks. The first week will be on complex numbers and the last two on polynomials. What we covered today was part refresher and part new stuff for me, having learned about complex numbers my senior year of high school in International Baccalaureat Higher Level Math, and not having seen them since.
The professor was really good, both amusing and informative. Unfortunately, his hand-writing was terrible and you could easily fall behind, through a combination of him moving fast and having a somewhat-thick Hungarian accent. This is the first time I've had a college professor with an accent (excepting Chinese, of course), and it's rather strange. I need to focus much more intently. This professor also teaches number theory, which is a course (one of many) I would like to take, but don't really have the time for.
After class, I went out and, after trying several more stores, finally found some notebooks. They're not exceptional, and the folder situation is less than ideal, but they'll do.
I returned to my apartment, where I met up with some people. We hung out for awhile and then several of us went to go get dinner. We returned to a restaurant I had been to before, and I got some always-fantastic garlic cream soup to accompany my pork páprikas with those wonderful noodle things. It was a good meal, though the service was slow.
And now, a cultural note! PDAs, or public displays of affection, are much bigger here than in the States. At restaurants, bars, on the street, in the metro, and certainly in the baths...people are all over their significant others. It's...uncomfortable. I bring it up here because a couple sitting behind me at the restaurant were a rather stunning display of this. They were there for the entire time we were, had gotten there before, were staying after, and I don't think they were eating much, just shifting around in the four or five seats at their table and ...enjoying each others' company.