Welcome to Budapest

Jó estét kívánok from Hungary!

After a much too exciting meeting at JFK (a thunderstorm, a late arrival, and a non-arrival), 3 of the 4 team members as well as Dr. Lynch, Ms. Pezzi, JL Kiappes, and Chemical and Engineering News reporter, Linda Wang, boarded a bus and were driven to our plane out in the middle of the tarmac at the airport. Due to heavy airplane traffic, we got the grand tour of JFK from the ground as we took the long way to our runway.

The flight was uneventful as we headed up the northeast coast of the US and into Canada. We were pretty much following a similar flight path that took the US team to Moscow last year. The GPS lost satellite reception around the Labrador Sea in Canada, but was restored during our breakfast over the Czech Republic.

Customs was a breeze and we were met by our guide and boarded the bus with ¾ of the New Zealand team with their mentor, Sheila. It turns out Sheila was responsible for getting Dr. Kotz involved with the Olympiad and she’ll be visiting Waupaca, WI (just 20 miles north of us) in a couple of weeks.

After settling in at the Danubius Grand Hotel, we made our way to bus route 26 for our first journey into Buda and Pest. We walked Szent Istvan körút in Pest and ate a late lunch at a restaurant that had Hungarian and English on the same menu. The students wanted to stick with something familiar for their first Hungarian meal. The meal was leisurely and good company and conversation was enjoyed by all.

After lunch we walked the rest of the street to the train station then turned back and took side streets to the Parliament building located on the Danube. Jenny told us what she remembered about Kossuth Lajos as we walked around the tér named in his honor. After a stop at the local McDonalds for some needed refreshments (it was really hot in the sun!), we completed our walk over Margit hid to Margitsziget, the island where our hotel is located. The interesting aspect of this island is that it is free of car traffic and is an urban park in the middle of the Danube between Buda on the west and Pest on the East. We casually walked all the way back to our hotel and saw some pretty interesting sites that warrant further investigation.

We just returned from a very late dinner. We ventured into Pest via Arpád hid in search of a restaurant. We saw many interesting sites including some Roman ruins. Dinner was hamburgers at a hole-in-the-wall take out place – no restaurants were found. It was a fun experience though.

Tomorrow we officially register for the 40th IChO. Let the fun begin!