Can machine learning use the style of New York Times articles to predict reader engagement?

My friend Abram Moats and I just completed a really cool project in which we use style of New York Times articles to predict reader engagement!

Check out the Medium post here: https://medium.com/@kyeleefitts/can-machine-learning-use-the-style-of-new-york-times-articles-to-predict-reader-engagement-5bc8a9ffacca?sk=75de766d9119316a2b132ccd3b54a54a

And our Github repository with our code: https://github.com/ruthlee/NYT_Style_Analysis

Red Hook: this story has a conflict, I promise

At first glance, one would be hard pressed to find a good reason to make the trek to Red Hook. On the far side of Brooklyn, it's nigh inaccessible by subway. In my three years in New York, I've been to the neighborhood just once, for the express purpose of getting key lime pie at Steve's, and as soon as that mission was accomplished we headed straight back (I guess because we're narrow minded people or something).

It was a Sunny Saturday Full of Prospects (and also an early-semester dearth of homework) that got me thinking that today would be a good day to go to Brooklyn-- and not just any part of Brooklyn, but a part of Brooklyn that I couldn't get to in a hurry. Initially, I thought to look for yellow areas on Google maps- places which have the distinction of being "areas of interest." But at the end of the day I decided to go for Red Hook, if only because the name sounded cool.

And what a good decision it was!

The distance from me to Red Hook. If you zoom in on the area- you'll see- no yellow.

There is, of course, a central conflict in this story. And that conflict begins and ends with my phone battery's inexplicable inability to retain any sort of charge above 5%. The past two weeks or so, I've had to recharge my phone up to three times in a single day. Sometimes I can see the battery life leaking from the upper right hand corner before my very eyes. Dealing with my feeble phone and its vital photo/Google map capabilities was going to be the biggest obstacle of the trip.

So armed, with my phone charger and a full tank (which promptly fell to 90%), I set out.

To maximize my time on the ferry, I decided to take the ferry starting from 90th street on the east side. You might be familiar with the fact that going crosstown in Manhattan is an utter nightmare. That part of the journey alone was forty minutes. With my phone's battery quickly depleting (I was stubbornly listening to music- who was I if I couldn't commute in the city with my earphones sullenly in?) I tried to memorize the route just in case.

The ferry was more timely than expected, and I found that the gods had a sense of humor when the only plugs in the ferry were downstairs in the indoor area. With a phone battery already at 30%, I stubbornly went upstairs- what, after all, is the point of taking a ferry if you can't feel the raging wind and blistering sun on your face?

Disembarking at Red Hook, I was greeted with what seemed to be a run-down, industrial neighborhood. All the buildings looked like converted factories and warehouses, red brick crumbling onto cracked sidewalk.

Ohh so aesthetic

I was just thinking to myself that this, perhaps, was the reason Red Hook wasn't marked in yellow on the map, when I started walking down Van Brunt Street. Underneath the run-down facade were cool-looking bars, restaurants, and cafes, unadorned and under the radar to all but those who knew where to go. By this time, it was 2 pm and I was starving.

Decided to stop for a quick lunch at Fort Defiance (a delicious BLT with heirloom tomatoes), and thankfully the bartender behind the counter (actually friendly) offered to charge my phone behind the counter- we were back up to 70%!

After lunch, I walked down the street towards the silvery shine that could only be the water. When I finally got to the edge (after stopping in the huge Fairway), I found a heartbreakingly lovely walkway by the water.

And the most impressive thing about this walkway was not necessarily the beautiful views of the water (I mean, it was a beautiful day after all) but the fact that there were no people there. Think of it: New York City on a beautiful sunny warm Saturday afternoon and there was nobody on a clear walkway by the water. It was almost eerie.

Almost eerier was the friendliness of the people I ran into the Waterfront Museum. As a friendly man inside informed me (and only me- there was only me and two other curious passers-by inside)-- the museum is an old 100-year-old wooden barge that is now a museum and a theater space.

Waterfront Museum

Continuing on, I walked around a warehouse and saw a mysterious open door. Inside, I found a queer-looking coffee warehouse sort of thing, where a friendly man named Steve showed me around. It turns out the room is a giant communal coffee roaster, and I got to see Steve roast his beans for his one-man coffee company.

Pipe and Tabor Roasting is Steve's company!

So charmed, I continued my way around the waterside park until I found myself heading back towards the same ferry terminus; it turned out my route had been a convenient little loop. I waited about five minutes for the next ferry, hopped on, and let my battery run dead while sitting on top as the sun went down over the buildings.

I said the central conflict of the story was going to be battery life, but I lied. It was all things considered a very conflict-free day, and it turns out that Google maps wasn't so important after all.

Another disclaimer: I realize that the things I did at Red Hook are ostensibly the more tourist-y things to do (even if there weren't any other tourists). Excited to go back and explore a little more thoroughly...

The moral of the story: if you live in this city, visit Red Hook!

When love gives you a concussion...

Note: As I was sifting through my old material, I realized that I hadn't published this piece on Little Stone. The below recounts events which happened this time last year. 

My love affair with sailing began my sophomore year of college.

We sail small boats on the sailing team at school, two-person FJs where the skipper drives the boat and deals with the big sail (called the main sheet) and the rudder, while a crew uses their weight strategically to lean (heel) the boat correctly and handles the jib sheet (an auxiliary sheet).

My first day, with the intention of trying sailing once for the heck of it and never doing it again, I got in the water as a crew and expected nothing much. The wind picked up—it was a gloriously sunny day, the water at City Island sparkling blindingly. My very first skipper calmly informed me that we were on a close haul and that I needed to hike—what? Hike? Hike where? — I was frantic, fumbling with the line in my hands—what do you need?? — The boat was tipping, tipping!—I threw my weight to counterbalance—it wasn’t enough— The captain and coach boat trailed behind us on a motorboat, where the captain yelled “stick your butt out!”

So I did. With my feet secured under hiking straps, I threw my body out of the boat and kept myself upright with my quads, my butt and back just inches above the water we were racing over. The boat slowly righted. Everything fell into place. I felt the sun on my face, the spray of water on my shorts, the rough jib sheet in my hands as I pulled to keep the sail taut and the boat balanced.

Suddenly, inexplicably, I was in love.

A year of eager days on the water later, I was back on City Island that grey choppy day, the remnants of storms sending sporadic rain to hit our faces. A dearth of skippers led to the coach deciding that it was high time for me to learn how to skipper, despite my relative inexperience. I was excited—a whole two-to-three hours driving a boat! And for the first hour and a half or so practiced losing all my speed on tacks, hopelessly tripping in the boat, alternately losing hold of the rudder and the mainsheet, and generally bumbling around trying to get the boat to actually move in 10-15 knots of a healthy breeze. We didn’t capsize, which was my goal.

Downwind is tricky for the skipper: with wind constantly filling the sheets, deciding when to gybe (or to turn the boat by moving the stern through the eye of the wind) requires decisiveness and a clarity of intention. During a gybe, the boat needs to stay as still as possible while the boom (a long metal pole parallel to the boat which is attached to the bottom of the mainsheet) swings to the other side.

We were gybing on the coach’s whistle. It was wickedly punishing cycle. I’d gain a little speed as the wind filled my sheets—there was the whistle! —pull the rudder towards me (too much, as I was later informed), and keep myself flat on the boat to wait for the boom to swing over—aha!— and jump back up the steady the boat and try to gain back all the speed we’d lost (by that point—all of it).

In my overwhelming arrogance this inefficient method which had worked for the first few gybes, I was convinced, would continue to work. I could time the boom going downwind despite the fact that there was no clear way to tell when it would come over. How clever of me, to avoid manually pulling the boom myself by yanking on the lines connected to the mainsheet, like all the experienced skippers were doing.

Fourth gybe—I was flat on the boat, eying the boom and waiting for it to do its deadly swing over. The boom, like the head of a daffodil, was delicately bobbing back and forth—was it coming? Was it coming? —the cold rain hitting my face I was like a gopher peeking out of its hole when I cautiously lifted my head from my prone position, keeping my eyes on the boom.

It wasn’t coming over. I moved to sit myself back on the boat, taking the time to look over at the coach boat behind us and— WHAM.

The boom did not feel like a daffodil when it nailed the back of my head.

I was dazed. Miraculously, I continued steering the boat straight. My crew asked anxiously if I was okay. I felt okay—no bumps, no bleeding. It was all going to be just fine.

The next day I woke up with a headache. The fuzzy feeling in my head felt like a million cotton balls stuffed behind my eyes and got worse over the weekend. I couldn’t admit to myself that I had a concussion until I attended a midterm review session for one of my favorite classes, abstract algebra, only to find that the construction of concepts that had been solid and unshakable only a few days ago had crashed like a Jenga tower. I was Charlie Brown, except my parents were paying too much money for me to hear the professor go “wah wah wah.” I left the review session, cried my eyes out, and headed to the ER.

It’s a fascinating experience, having a concussion while attending college, where my only obligation—literally—is to use my brain. Medical professionals advise that concussed individuals should refrain from reading, using electronics, and studying. My three biggest pastimes, all at once forbidden!

Homework and exams had to be put on hold. For the first few days, all I was able to do after sleeping the requisite 11+ hours was lie in bed, trying to meditate through a head full of cotton. Sometimes I even managed to doodle.

I won’t go into the details of my recovery, but suffice to say that I missed the entirety of the rest of the fall sailing season.

As the days get shorter and winter begins, I’m left to reflect on the tumultuous season and sailing’s role in my life. Balancing love through trauma is the big lesson here. Plenty of football players can attest to how hard it is to stay out of the action when you’re injured. I’m in a more precarious position. The honeymoon period of sailing has come to an abrupt end, and reality has set in. I haven’t been on the water since the day I became concussed, and to some degree that scares me. Will I be able to go back? Will I get hurt again? Will my fear stop me from pursuing something that I’ve loved (and hope to still love?)

The obvious answer should be no. But unlike a footballer -- I'm not that great at sailing, and probably don't need a lot of motivation to give up. For now, until next fall when I return to campus after a semester of studying abroad, I hope that distance will give me some perspective on my relationship with sailing. And that I won't give up. 

That's me skippering! 

The Great Yankees Game of Summer 2019

This is August, and reflecting back on a busy summer of interning in the city and canceling plans to go to the beach because of erratic thunderstorms, the one thing I definitely don't want to forget is a balmy Saturday night in June.

Specifically, my boyfriend's second cousin once removed, of all people, had invited us to, of all things, a baseball game.

I mean it IS allegedly a big deal to go to a Yankees game as they are allegedly a better team than the Mets, and I AM grateful that the experience was sponsored (can't imagine how I would have reacted if the bf had asked me to pay out of pocket). And it WAS an experience.

I don't know if I've made it obvious yet, but I don't know anything about baseball or the Yankees. I insisted that bf and I eat dinner beforehand, because if baseball stadiums are anything like movie theaters, then I knew it was going to be a racket.

As it turned out, it wasn't a racket - it was an absolutely horrific scam. I'm pretty sure a single beer was something like $17.

Anyway, we filed in (I had worn a navy shirt with stripes which happened to be the pattern of the Yankees, which I felt pretty proud about) and sat in our little seats high above the diamond or whatever. It was in this time, before the game started, that I learned that the guy who stands behind the batter is actually pretty important and not just the ball-catching gofer. Like I thought he played an equivalent role as the parent in a kids' soccer game who runs and gets the soccer ball when it goes out of bounds.

Oh, also: the people we were playing against were the Astros. From Texas. Houston? I don't really know.

So, armed with plenty of knowledge about innings and balls and whatnot, I was feeling pretty good about things when the newscaster started screaming "it's... TANAKA TIME." It was all very exciting. I think in that moment I decided that there would probably be very little better than being an announcer who got to scream fun slogans at an audience going crazy.

The craziness ended pretty abruptly when absolutely nothing happened in the first... I forget exactly how many but it was a lot... innings. You could feel the audience starting to get a little restless. Two hours in, with zero home runs and another sluggish outfield to infield change, the audience started murmuring and jostling about something.

It was a bird. I kid you not, a hawk on some pole on our side of the field was garnering more attention than the game was. People started taking out their phones and getting excited about this bird.

And then, as if it couldn't get worse, the entire big screen which had been previously focused on the players missing another ball or making some attempt at the bases started filming the bird. I couldn't believe it. As the audience ooh-ed and ah-ed I was trying to sort out how I felt about all this.

See, I had thought that these people had paid money to be entertained by baseball for hours on end, but as it turns out they can be entertained by anything for hours on end. They were entertained by random people kissing (quickly). They were entertained by random people dancing (badly). They were entertained by little kids (looking bored) on their parents' shoulders. And they were entertained by a BIRD. On a POLE. Shouldn't a sport be interesting enough to watch in its entirety if you're going to pay to see it live?? What I couldn't see was: why is baseball this boring??

Near the end of the game, when people started making home runs, it got a little more exciting. But by the time hour four was rolling around and we were approaching the last inning, the game was tied up.

Please. I thought. Please, someone do a home run so I can go home.

Behind me, The Worst Kid in The World was whining to his parents, who had just dropped the bomb on him that they were going to leave before the game ended to make the next train back and avoid the rush. I would have tried to convince bf to do the same, but it seemed like his second cousin once removed was interested to stay through the end. Bad form to up and leave.

"No!" TWKITW screamed. "I don't want to go home! I want to watch the rest of the game! You can't make me!"

I slumped in my seat and tried to cover my ears. Please. I thought. Someone hit the ball.

"I hope nobody hits the ball and it goes overtime! I hope we miss our train!"

Stupid kid. I thought. God, please listen to me instead. Please put me out of my misery.

Nobody was hitting the ball. TWKITW screamed in triumph when the inning ended and the game was still tied up. I would have cried, but I was as dehydrated as a camel's tongue. We had finished our water bottle long ago and I wasn't willing to spend $10 on more. The guy across the row had been methodically shelling peanuts and depositing them around his feet for all four hours, and the sound of the peanuts being cracked was now gunfire to my brain. He looked like he was sitting in kitty litter.

Please, please let anyone win. It can be the orange team. Let's go home. 

Finally, the Yankees (TANAKA TIME) hit a home run. The game was over.

The stadium was well-designed enough to handle the hoard of people going to the subways, and if you stuck out your elbows and kept your cool, then it was bearable to reach the subways, which had a couple of empty trains lined up back to back to take the hoard back to Manhattan.

Bf and I got to the train when it was still empty and watch it quickly fill up with navy and white stripes.

"WE WON!!! NEW YOOOORK! YAASS!" One guy who had clearly indulged in too many $17 beers was celebrating the Yankee victory. It was hard not to be enthusiastic, but I was bone tired. It was near midnight, and past my bedtime.

But we won!

We join the masses at the game.

Long-term Budapest Bucket List

For those who don't know, I'm officially back in the States after a wonderful semester abroad in Budapest. Throughout the semester, I collected some experiences that I didn't get to write full posts about and decided to make them into a Long-Term Budapest Bucket List.

Lots of people travel to Budapest for a couple of days on the way to some more glitzy locations (BIG mistake, but whatever) and if that's your situation then by all means do the big stuff, (Buda Castle, Fisherman's Bastion, Buda Caves, bowl of goulash, ruin bars, etc., etc.) But if you find yourself with a week or more in this beautiful city, then you have the opportunity to do some of these more off-the-beaten-tracks activities. Here we go!

1) Dance to traditional folk music at Szimpla Kert.
That's right, this foreigner hotspot actually hosts folk music nights every Monday night with live music. Dance with a bunch of drunk foreigners and a few Hungarians who have been folk dancing since they were five. If you're lucky, one of them (maybe a sprightly old gentlemen in bell-bottoms) will take pity on all of you and start teaching everyone to dance! Spinning in circles, holding hands, doing mini can-cans-- this is not to be missed! Even if it's not at Szimpla, it's definitely worth trying to learn some Hungarian traditional dancing. Ladies, being spun around at high-speed velocities is an incredible experience!

2) If you're in Buda, go to Pest. If you're in Pest, go to Buda.
I was based in Pest during my five months in Budapest, but there are pros and cons to both sides of the city. In general, my friends and I agreed that Pest is where the fun stuff is, but Buda is where the nice stuff is. If you're a young twenty-something-year-old, Pest is probably a slightly better fit (with the Jewish quarter, all the bars/clubs/parties, lots of restaurants/cafés, more shopping, etc.) But when I took the effort to go to Buda, I was rewarded with lush green parks (ahem, Buda hills), beautifully paved paths by the Danube (the Danube walk is much better on the Buda side than the Pest side), and just a quieter, more pleasant experience. The upshot is this: no matter where you're based in the city, try to see as much of it as possible.

3) Visit (lots of) cucraszdas. 
I love these little sweetshops dotted all over the city. In particular, though, I'd recommend a tiny, independent bakery called Hatcuki tucked into a corner of Buda. Not only do they make the Best Cheesecake I Have Ever Tasted (and deliver it to my favorite café, Magvető) it's rare that you find a place where everything tastes as divine as it does there (the chocolate cake is also good). It may be a trek if you live in Pest, but see Point #2.

4) Visit places in Hungary outside of Budapest.
I've been pretty good about documenting the places I've been in Hungary: check out my posts about Eger, Szentendre, and Mohács (scary sheepmen!), among others. Places like the Danube Bend are so accessible from Budapest by train or by ferry that it would be crazy not to go. If you need inspiration, try taking the train to Visegrád and getting off at the wrong stop! I also wrote about a failed bike trip around Balaton. But, not to worry, a successful bike trip does exist within my semester! A few weeks ago some friends and I biked to Szentendre, proving that it is possible for me not to mess up a bike trip :)

Back at Szentendre: it's warm this time! 

5) Go to Király Thermal Baths
Forget Szechenyi or Rudas. The award for best baths in the city in my opinion belongs to Király, tucked away next to Margaret Island on the Buda side. It's the least touristy, most local bathhouse that I've been to. Don't be fooled by its relatively worn-down appearance: it has all the same functionality and features as the bigger baths, just with fewer actual tubs (and people). It's still got the chamomile steam room though, which is honestly the best part of the any bathhouse.

6) Café hop A LOT
If you haven't already, check out the big list of cafés I published earlier this year. One café that I only found out about after publishing the list: Dorado, an amazing café for doing work in. I tried my first cappuccino there, which was a magical experience in itself, and having had a few more at other places since then can affirm that it compares very, very favorably to other cafés. Another good cafe to check out is Rengeteg Romkafe, where you can try the best hot chocolate you've ever had. A word of warning though: go to Romkafe for the vibe, not so much to do work.

Me with my first cappuccino, which means my first basic Insta-esque coffee photo. Also, throwback to the Original Lonely Nut Club. You are missed. 

A sour-cherry/caramel/rum hot chocolate at Romkafe.

7) Go to Lehel Market
My FAVORITE market in the city. Cheap, fresh, local produce. Also it's enormous. You can pretty much find anything you're looking for here in the way of food. Walnuts are pretty expensive everywhere, but here I can get a half-kilo bag of huge, delicious walnuts fresh off the tree for about $5.

8) Explore the parks in Budapest.
Budapest is a remarkably, wonderfully green city. I've posted about nice spring things to do in the city before, which include the ELTE Botanical Gardens, City Park (obviously), the banks of Danube (Pest statues), and Normafa. I have one more addition to that list: the Garden of Philosophy in Buda is absolutely breathtaking on a sunny day and features some of the best statues I've seen in the city.

This uber-cool statue was a model of Budapest with King István, the first king of Hungary, standing over Buda and his wife standing over Pest.

Why can't Manhattan have greenery like this?? 

9) Admire a spice wall and find Asian cooking ingredients
My first few weeks in the city I thought I would be okay without my usual Asian cuisine. I was wrong. With my pantry bare of even soy sauce, after a few weeks I was craving something with tofu, bean sprouts, and spicy sauce. After an extensive search of some of the "Asian markets," I'm convinced I have found the best Asian grocery store in the city which will fulfill all your Asian cooking needs (also, everything from canned goods to tofu is cheaper here, trust me). Go to Asia Bt.!! In addition to every kind of ingredient your heart desires, they also have the biggest most extensive variety of spices I have ever seen, all stacked neatly on their spice wall. It's truly an experience for anyone who likes to cook (or eat).

10) Be spontaneous
The city is beautiful, and public transportation is imminently accessible. You'll never get lost enough to be seriously in trouble. If there's anything I've learned from my time abroad, it's that it's worth taking chances even if you're not guaranteed a perfect or even predictable experience. So say yes to an impulse and get lost!

Balaton Part II: Return of the Balaton

A mere two weeks after a rough weekend at Balaton, the largest lake in Hungary, I experienced a profound sense of deja-vu as I embarked on yet another train to the lake. This time, it would be different. I didn't have a bike, and I was heading down (with friend Eric) to meet some (other) friends at a lakeside town called Révfülöp.

Nothing was going to go wrong!

Well, when the conductor came down the aisle and checked our ticket, his face scrunched up in the way I was so familiar. We were supposed to have transferred at Székesfehérvár, and now we were stuck on a train bound for the south of the lake instead of the north.

Well, no matter. Eric and I reasoned it would be easy enough to take the ferry across the lake to Tihany, and from there find another train heading to Révfülöp.

I won't bore you with the details, but we ended up taking a ferry, hitchhiking on a hillside trolley, taking a bus to Balatonfüred, then finally the train to Révfülöp. But but BUT the weather was absolutely beautiful, and, honestly, I was happy to get to see Tihany and ferry across the lake (I really really like ferries).

Me before the ferry.

Honestly it's fine to get lost when your surroundings look like this.

Anyway, the weekend only got better after that slight mishap. On Saturday (after a brief icy dip in Balaton), we took a trip to an underwater cave river where we got to paddle a metal boat through the narrow rocky tunnels. It was sufficiently sunny and warm that I assume not a lot of people were interested in cave paddling, so we had the teal-clear waters and echoey rock faces all to ourselves.

Teal-clear water and echoey rocks

When we felt that we were nearing the end of the tunnel-loop, too exhilarated by our nautical independence, we tried to navigate backwards by pushing off on the rock walls. It was going well until the loudspeaker crackled to life-- "no going backwards please."

One friend, in utter disbelief, said "they can hear us?" only to receive a tinny reply: "yes, we can."

So we paddled forward.

Rocky caves

 That evening was a lovely one back at the country house. The seven of us answered the age-old question, 'how many mathematicians does it take to keep a fire burning?' Answer: seven and a lot of hard work. We roasted mushrooms, potatoes, and bacon-wrapped sausages well into the night and feasted while passing around a bottle of pálinka.

Embers of the seven mathematicians' triumph

The next morning, while everything was soft and green, we walked to the bus stop to travel to Héviz, a town by Balaton (but not on Balaton) famous for its thermal lake.

A beautiful morning, passing fields and vineyards

The town profits on the masses of old people who flock to the thermal lake for its supposed healing powers and year-round tepidly warm water. The lake was murky and green and smelled of sulphur, and had a temperature like cooling bathwater. We swam around among lilypads and flitting black birds and rested on old, slimy wooden "benches" built just under the water. I wasn't able to take any photos (my iPhone is sadly as non-waterproof as you can get), but here's one aerial view of the lake courtesy of Wikipedia.

Héviz from the sky. You have free range to swim anywhere in the lake if you pay the 2000 Forint fee. (Source)  

It's kind of incredible the kind of freedom you can buy in Hungary for just a few dollars. Some overprotective mother would have sued an American landmark years ago for allowing people to canoe in a cramped underground tunnel, or swim in a huge sulfurous lake. It's one of the many things that I will miss about living here.

Speaking of which, my time in Budapest draws to a close, and my last day is this Friday. I have a few more posts lined up about my time here, but they will probably be published after I leave the country. I'm sad, and I'll have to think more about exactly what I'll want to say.

Anyway, to sum all this up: I have officially redeemed myself of the bad luck of Balaton. It was a lovely weekend.

Thank you to everyone who didn't let me die at Lake Balaton

At some point last weekend, in a moment of clarity in between the tears and snot and so on, I realized two very important things:
(i) My day could have been a lot worse and in a lot of ways I was incredibly lucky it wasn’t and
(ii) My day was so crappy that, all things considered, it was kind of hilarious.

The weekend started out promising. The plan was I'd take the train down to Lake Balaton, around which two friends of mine had been spending the last few days biking. I'd meet them Saturday morning at some point halfway around the lake and finish the tour with them on Sunday. It was a foolproof plan. One might even say unsinkable. My friends had even found me a bike to use, a professor's bike from the program. On Saturday morning, my saddle bag packed with food, my helmet strapped, and my spirits high, I set off for Déli Palyaudvar to begin the journey.

Déli is a simple subway ride away from Keleti (no transfers needed). The station is across the river and some very busy streets. I left the house an hour ahead of the 8 am train, which was fortunate because (foreshadowing!!) as it turned out bikes are not allowed on the Budapest metro system. 

After I was kicked out of two different subway stops on the M2 line, I realized that there was no help for it; I would need to ride my bike to Déli. The prospect was unexciting. In addition to my complete lack of knowledge about where the bike paths were in the city, the roads to Déli both in Pest and in Buda (in an area of Buda I am very unfamiliar with) are quite big and busy. And it was raining.

But, despite all odds (and a very nerve-wracking bike through a tunnel), I made it onto the 8 am train with two minutes to spare.

I arrived at Balatonfüred right on schedule at 10 am and begin the bike ride around the lake. 

On Saturday morning, I started where the red star is, my friends at the two blue stars.

My route was a simple out-and-back. My two friends started at Keszthely at 8 or 9 in the morning and were biking towards where I got off, Balatonfüred. I'd bike backwards and meet them, then we'd bike together to our accommodations in Örvenyes. 

It was raining at Balaton, too, but the lake was beautiful; the water looked pearly under the grey clouds, and I was biking too much to be chilly.

A view of lovely Tihany

The trail, too, was a pleasure to ride on. Well-maintained and completely independent of the road, it was marked clearly by signs that told you which towns you were headed towards so there was no chance of getting lost. For the first three or four hours of the ride, I was having a lovely time along the lake.

Signs like the one on the right littered the trail.

I was just passing a tiny town called Zánka when I saw that I would be riding through some kind of bike tour finish: participants in casual athletic gear were pedaling into the town where I could see some sort of finish line + loud music + announcer. Seemed interesting enough. 

Pedaling over an increasingly narrow road, I rounded a corner heading downhill when I saw four people pedaling up the hill in front of me; two tour administrations in bright red jackets, a young man, and an older woman. I slowed down at the downhill and moved to the far right to let them pass. 

Then, without warning, somehow, just as I was passing him, the young man swerved into me and, in slow motion, we both toppled over in an epic fall, him and his bike on top of me and mine. 

I was dazed, but other than a sharp but fading pain in my jaw and what turned out to be several large bruises on my legs, I was unhurt. The young man seemed fine as well. He got up, inquired to see if I had died (I had not), then promptly biked away. The two tour administrators, who had seen everything, stopped to help me prop my bike back up. 

I insisted I was fine, wanting to bike away from this incident ASAP, but something was wrong-- my bike wasn't moving. I checked again, and my heart dropped. The front wheel had somehow gotten bent into the fork and was no longer turning. 

A photo I took later of the damage. 

Thankfully, the race administrators helped me carry the bike to the finish line of their tour, where I was informed that the bike was probably too damaged for their mechanic or for any bike repair shop on the lake to fix (the entire fork needed to be replaced), which effectively meant that I'd have to return back to Budapest having spent only four hours on the lake. 

I was not a happy camper. But I cannot emphasize how lucky I was that the accident happened in the middle of this organized bike tour. The hero of this story, a wiry tour administrator named Tamás, drove me and The Bike in the van to a bike repair shop at Balotonfüred to confirm what we already knew-- that it was unrepairable. Back at the tour finish, Tamás and the other administrators tracked down the guy from the tour who had hit me in order to ask about reimbursements for repairs. Thankfully, the young man seemed willing to give his contact information to help pay for the repairs of the bike. I even got fed goulash and Hungarian pancakes at the finish line, courtesy of their catering services for the participants of the tour!

If the accident had happened somewhere random on the lake, with someone who was not affiliated with some larger event, I have absolutely no idea what I would've done. 

Anyway, as Tamás and another administrator were driving me and the broken bike back to Balotonfüred (me wistfully watching the bike path I had labored down that morning unfold in reverse), I asked about the subway situation back in Budapest. I couldn't bike back home now from the train station. 

One of the administrators helpfully told me that the M4 line allows bikes on the weekdays, and if I got off the train at Kelenföld, a more remote station far from downtown, instead of at Déli, I could just take the subway directly into Keleti. Ah, I thought, how easy! It was 1 pm now, the train ride back was just shy of 2 hours-- I could be back in my warm house by 3 pm! (Having not biked for over an hour, I was nicely chilled now) 

I got off at Kelenföld, exactly as planned, and when I dragged the bike to the subway, the guards reacted as if I had tried to take a bomb into the metro, angrily gesticulating that I was not to bring my horrid bike on the underground. A passer-by informed me that I had to buy a bike pass for my bike. But it made no difference. The subway guards were not impressed with the bike pass, told me it was for the bus, and kicked me out of the subway.

So I went to the bus. Luckily, there was one that would take me back into downtown. When the bus finally pulled up, as I was hobbling through the double doors with my Great Burden, the bus driver angrily started using the word that was becoming the theme of the day "nem, nem, nem, nem, NEM!" pointing to my pride and joy, this lovely, broken bike. 

In defeat, utterly out of ideas about how to get back into the city, I went to the public transportation information desk, where I was informed by a very frustrated lady that I had to buy two new bike passes, take another train to another station outside of the city, then take yet another train back into the city to Keleti. Exasperated, she asked why I "didn't just ride my bike into the city." 

On the final train, when the conductor came to check my ticket, I was sweating in fear, sure that he was going to tell me that I wasn't allowed to ride this train, either. The conductor gave me and my bike and cursory glance, and like my own personal holy savior signed off on my ticket. 

The relief was so palpable that I wanted to fall upon my bruised knees in joy.

So, back at Keleti five hours later, the last leg of my journey awaited: the twenty minute walk home. Arms heaving, feeling like a Spartan warrior trudging through the rain with my poor broken steed, I finally made it home. 

So not a great day. But a week later, thinking back on it, I was incredibly fortunate that so many people were so willing to help me. Even though they'll probably never read this, thank you to Tamás and the other tour administrators for not letting me, well, die on Lake Baloton (and for feeding me!). You guys really went out of your way to help me out. Thank you to the three ladies at Kelenföld who independently patted my back in sympathy when I was trying to stop crying next to the escalators. Thank you to the information desk lady, who, while a little crabby, got me back to Keleti. Thank you to that last train conductor for giving me what was undoubtedly the happiest experience I've ever had on a train.

And thank you even to the other guy in the accident. Because without you, what would have been a routine biking excursion turned out to be one of my most important and memorable weekends in Budapest!

Bringing in Spring: Some outdoorsy places to go

I definitely had this conception that spring in Budapest would be a dull affair. Partly because in New York, the idea of a slow and steady rise in temperature to summer is nonexistent. It will be eighty on a day in February before snowing in April. And just when the weather seems like it's getting nice... BAM it's summer and every day is an exercise in avoiding heat strokes in muggy ninety degree weather.

So it's been nice to experience something like what I imagine spring SHOULD be: warm, sunny, maybe a little rainy, with steady temperatures ranging from 50-70 degrees. Spring in Budapest is BEAUTIFUL.

Ah, who am I kidding? Budapest is always beautiful :)

It's hard to stay inside when the weather is so nice. Studying outside may be a little counterproductive, but you gotta maximize your time in the sun somehow.

So I've been walking more instead of taking public transport, going to parks, etc.

City park: it was okay in the winter but now it is GREEN. A good place to study if you don’t need a table.

Also, the statues scattered throughout the city look more regal cloaked in green (or whatever...)

On the Pest side of the Danube, there are tons of statues scattered in interesting places/poses. My FAVORITE kind of park is a statue park.

Queen Erzsébet looking regal (in the Buda side, by the citadel)

In terms of some concrete recs, I have three, ranging from easiest to hardest to get to. First: go to the ELTE botanical gardens! The gardens are in Pest, an easy tram ride away, and the student price is only 600 forints. If you go on a weekday morning the gardens will be relatively empty and you can study/read/chill/admire the greenery to your heart's content. One caveat though: weekdays are also the days school kids take field trips to the gardens, so be cognizant of that!

Fragrant wisteria grows everywhere in the spring and might be one of my favorite things about spring at this point...

And here we have the requisite Asian garden.

Second: head to the Buda Hills! Some friends and I went to Normafa for Labor Day and picnicked there before hiking around the hills. It was honestly kind of shocking how beautiful it was given how easily accessible the hills are from downtown. Also, picnic food is the best food (proof: all things are better outside in 60-70 degree and sunny weather, therefore, food is better in nice weather outside).

It’s really too bad I couldn’t get a picture of the food. We ate on a grassy hill that made me feel like I was in a Monet painting

Walk around enough in the hills and you will stumble across this cool tower with sick views.

Sick views! Also the Hungarian flag.

Finally, I can see why everyone raves about Pécs. With wide plazas, a Mediterranean feel (must've been those occasional palm trees), and tons of art and history scattered through the city (also Roman ruins) it's just a cool place to walk around. We took a day trip to the city and had a lovely (albeit also sweaty- should not have worn jeans) time taking in the sites, views, sun.

I don’t think photos do this building justice. It was VERY impressive in real life.

It's weird to know that the semester is wrapping up, and weird to think about the fact that I'll soon be leaving Budapest with no idea if/when I'll be back.

We won't think about that for now!!

Happy Spring!

Istanbul Part 3: A Love Letter to Istanbul (+ Cats)

This is the third part of a three-part post about spring break in Istanbul. Check out Part I (where to go, what to see) and Part II (food) as well!

Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish best-selling writer and Nobel laureate, wrote the book that sat in my backpack on the flight to Istanbul. It was my so-called "spring break reading," and despite the fact that I had tried to start reading it a number of times before the break, all the italicized words and places meant so little to me that it was hard to stay invested. I was dreading opening it again.

Anyway, fast-forward ten days. For the most part, I explored Istanbul alone. I was lucky enough to be staying with some incredible hosts (who took me to their country home for the first few days of my stay and who I could speak to about my adventures in the evening) but for the majority of the time I was by myself.

What surprised me most about traveling alone was the fact that it was hard to get lonely. Part of the reason for this is the sheer wonderful frenzy of the city. Often in between trudging up the winding, cobbled roads inclining what felt like perpendicularly (Istanbul is a hilly city), or figuring out where lunch was going to be, or desperately hoping that the dolmuş, or mini-bus, was going in the direction I needed it to (a mini-bus is a strange cross between a bus and a taxi which picks up around ten people going in the same general direction and drops them off... whenever they feel like getting off), I didn't have the time or energy to feel lonely.

The first day in the city, amid figuring out how mosque etiquette worked, I found this lovely scarf for only about $2 at a local market. Ladies, either bring a good scarf with you or buy one there (there are innumerable places to get a scarf in Istanbul) for mosque entry.

I interacted with people more than I thought as well, in small moments scattered throughout the week. At the Basilica Cisterns, I met an old Korean couple who proclaimed Istanbul the "best city in the world" and told me where the best place to get kimchi would be. In transit on a ferry back to the European side, a couple with a young nine-month old son asked me to hold their baby, who apparently would not stop fussing until I did.

Taken by the lovey Korean couple at the Basilica Cisterns.

Hectic as the city was, I also came across a few invaluable quiet moments. Istanbul is not in general a quiet city. Easy counterexample: there are lots of cars and the drivers tend to be very free with the horn. But taking the ferry to the Kadiköy neighborhood on my last day in Istanbul was one such moment to myself. Away from the Historic Peninsula, the tourists are few and far between, and that cloudy morning I was alone on top of the ferry, sipping çay (Turkish black tea) and listening to the call to prayer echo over the indigo Bosphorus.

A quiet tea on the water.

I loved Kadiköy. One of the few places I went on the Asian side, the neighborhood felt deeply authentic with both an honest-to-goodness market (with actually cheap and good produce/dried goods/sweets unlike the more touristy markets) and cafes that were unabashedly cool. When the morning showers came, I hunkered in one of these cafes and finished the Mediations while sipping another cup of çay-- one of my fondest memories in the city.

The market early in the morning, before it got busier.

Beautiful produce later in the morning.

Undoubtedly just walking around the neighborhoods of Istanbul and taking in the atmosphere was a highlight of the trip. I averaged about 10 miles a day of walking, and finished the week with just over sixty miles under my belt. Besides Kadiköy, my favorite walks included the route from Galata Tower across Galata Bridge (and through Karaköy, another cool neighborhood) to get to Eminönü; the park and glitzy neighborhoods of Nişantaşı; and the beautiful neighborhood of Bebek. Bebek was one of the few places I went to in the city where I could walk by the Bosphorus (along a beautiful boardwalk) without feeling like I was in the way of cars on a major thoroughfare or trespassing in cafes hogging up all the waterfront.

Taken in Karaköy near Galata Tower.

A view from Galata Bridge.

The beautiful view by Bebek.

More Bebek! I honestly was very lucky the day was so beautiful.

Walking around, it's impossible not to notice all the cats. I was confused at first about how such masses of stray cats could be so well-fed and groomed before my hosts informed me that the municipality vaccinates them and the locals in Istanbul all do their parts to take care of the cats, leaving cat food, opened cans of tuna, and little cardboard shelters on the side of the road for any passing cat to use. If you've ever seen the documentary Kedi... well, it's exactly like that.

Without further ado, a slideshow of all my best kedi shots (there are plenty more than this on my phone; pruning through them is my gift to you).




If I had to sum up the trip, the glorious, long, lovely, hectic, amazing trip in one word, it would be this: lucky. I was lucky to have had the opportunity and resources to go, lucky that the weather was so good for most of the trip, lucky to have stumbled across the people, restaurants, cats, streets, etc. that I did. But most of all, lucky to have had the opportunity to stay with my fantastic hosts, to get a good sense of Istanbul as a city and not as a tourist destination. I really can't thank them enough for their hospitality.

My last day in Istanbul was Easter Monday, and after shopping for traditional Greek Easter bread, bittersweet and aromatic from the mastic and mahleb herbs, we died eggs in vinegar and had a last dinner of meze.

An Easter shot. The eggs and tsoureki are in the background.

On the plane ride back, I took out the Orhan Pamuk book again. I had been too busy (um... exploring) to give it much thought over break, but the seat in front of me had no monitor, and my backpack with laptop was stowed away in the overhead bin, so I had no choice but to try to start the book again. In the first two pages, I read: "... the rumble of a passing car, the clatter of an old bus, the rattle of the copper kettles that the salep maker shared with the pastry cook, the whistle of the parking attendant at the dolmuş stop..." Suddenly, it felt somewhat familiar.

I smiled, and kept reading.