Week 15: December 13th - 19th

Monday 1999-12-13

I rented a car with Mikko for next week. It went surprisingly smoothly. Neither of the two clerks knew anything but Hungarian, but we got most of the details settled using our outstanding language skills. When we ran out of Hungarian, they phoned to a salesman who knew German. While waiting him they made coffee for us. I agreed about the remaining details with the guy with my highly forgotten German. We'll pick the car up on Saturday and return it on Monday after Christmas. We pay for eight days (105Kft) and got the extra 12 hours for free. Snow-chains, insurance and unlimited mileage included. The insurance will expire on Sunday, though.

Tuesday 1999-12-14

In the morning I had the OS exam. The Team Turkey came there before the teacher and moved the tables to better cheating position. The exam wasn't difficult, but it had 9 problems. It's a bit too much for one and a half hours. I managed to finish seven and half problems.

Annika can't come with us to Italy. [Instead she took bus to Stockholm. Something important. Pöh.] Everything'll be more expensive for the others. Nem jó.

I studied for the exam of control theory. Then I played cards a couple of rounds upstairs and got smoked. Smoking was prohibited in the Martos corridors this week. Actually in all public buildings in Budapest, but that doesn't show too clearly.

Wednesday 1999-12-15

The last OS lab wasn't any public success. Two pupils had bothered to come. And the other one had been there maybe twice out of 13 times before.

My credit limit will have tough time this month. The pledge for the car was 150Kft, and it's returned only after we bring the car back in one piece. Till then I should survive without using the card. Mikko has similar problems. He tried to sell his phone, but it doesn't have Hungarian menu texts => nobody wants it. In the evening we played seven of clubs again. Jarkko and J-P are home sick.

Thursday 1999-12-16

The last culture lecture. Janne was making an impression by asking Mrs. Gombos' horoscope sign and analysing it. And returned practically the same essay on two different courses.

The Hungarian exam was easy. It had seven questions that took a good hour: possessive suffixes, conjugation, cases of nouns, vocabulary, the weekdays, dialogs, and listening comprehension + writing.

I visited the big new Libri on Rákóczi. It's huge ok but I preferred Atlantisz. I bought Tolkien Reader, haven't seen it in Tampere. In the afternoon I slept several hours. In the evening I prepared for tomorrow's exam with Eric.

Friday 1999-12-17

The exam of control theory was completely out of control. The Turkish cheated even more than in the mid-term exam, if possible. They were talking openly always when the teacher was some distance away. I was forced to let some of them copy my answers to get rid of them (the nuisances, not the answers).

The exam itself was very good; many kinds of questions, computer problems and not too easy. And even better was that the results were ready already in three hours after the exam. Quite unbelievable, 30+ papers, one teacher and ca. 30 questions/paper. Well, she hadn't read them too closely. 97/100pt.

Corey told me about his exams. One teacher hardly knew any English. Corey selected oral exam, and talked much and fast. The teacher understood next to nothing and gave a good grade. Another teacher gave a good advice how to prepare for his exam: find those problems from the book that are so bloody difficult that they absolutely positively won't be asked in the exam. Study those problems well, since they'll be asked in the exam.

Saturday 1999-12-18

In the morning I read this and that and packed for the Italian trip. Antti kindly borrowed me his snowboard. Probably the Italian Alps is not the wisest place in the world to try snowboard for the first time. Jarkko was supposed to cut my hair, but he is lost somewhere.

After four we fetched the car. It couldn't be any better, a brand new Fiat Ducato minibus seating nine. We said goodbye to Sarah, Rebecca and Nakki at Martos. We picked Juho, Anssi and his sister Essi from Anssi's place. We're going to drive through Austria on motorway, and we should be in Bormio early tomorrow morning. We left Budapest at half past six.

In Győr we had dinner in the most tasteless restaurant I've ever seen. Featuring: Gypsy violin player, pink table clothes and kitch decoration, and the waitress wore basketball shoes with the normal black and white dress. The others were pretty nervous about the car and someone had to go out to check that it's there every once in a while.

When we tried to start, the car decided to demonstrate a blackout. The electricity completely disappeared. When we opened the hood, the power came back. And when starting the engine, it went out again. Fortunately it wasn't anything serious. The battery cable was loose and lost contact when the engine was turned on. We fastened it with my MacGyver knife and headed towards west.

Sunday 1999-12-19

On a gas station in Austria Mikko remembered he had forgotten his sleeping bag. Nobody had even told the others that we'll need them. (In Italy those without sleeping bags had to pay 20000 lire for the sheets.) I was the co-driver till about three. Mikko and Anssi had been driving this far and now it was Juho's turn. We were near Innsbruck by then. I slept till morning on the back seat. There's plenty of room: when three sit in front two can lie down and sleep.

In the morning we were a bit lost since our map didn't have all the roads. Mikko asked the way from some girl, and she directed us to a certain pass. In the summer that would have been the right way, but the pass is always closed in winter. We had to turn back and take another route, through the corner of Switzerland. The way lead back to Italy through a long and narrow tunnel and over a high dam.

We drove through Livigno to Valdidentro. We bought the ski passes in German, our only common language. Though the girl spoke even worse German than I.

<asking about prices and hearing there's no student discount>
for (i=1; i++; i < 3.5)
      "Ja, ...wir nehmen fünf Karten für sechs Tage."
      "Für fünf Tage?"
      "Nein nein. Für sechs Tage. Fünf stücken."
}
"Ab heute?"
"Igen! Helvetti. Ja!"

Juho rented skis. They took the student card as a pledge. The lower slopes were closed since there's not enough snow. We took only one run (1 hour) in Valdidentro, and returned to the village on the ski lift. We moved to Bormio.

The red lanes are not the best place to practise snowboarding. My wrists and ass are minced meat. I boarded down with Essi. The lower part of the slopes were closed here also, and we took the cabin down. My phone had low battery and I couldn't call Mikko. Fortunately they arrived in 15 minutes. They had been on the highest peak above the clouds, in 3012 meters.

We picked the key to our apartment in Valdidentro. The agency was in the same hut where we bought the ski passes earlier, but here they knew English and I didn't have to speak. Besides all that we had paid earlier (126Kft), they introduced all kinds of extra fees for 230000 lire. The "hotel" is near a small village called Torripiano Fior d'Alpe. Actually we never visited the village. The apartment has living-, bed- and bathroom, a kitchen corner, loft and balcony. I.e. it's ok. Anssi made food and we all went to bed before nine. My head hurts for too much banging to the ground.

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