The talks yesterday morning were all from Hungarian speakers. One notable speaker was István Orosz, who creates artwork with impossible objects and other visually interesting themes. Another interesting talk was from a local speaker about the artist Victor Vasarely, who was born here in Pecs. Vasarely is known as the father of op-art. This morning we went to a local museum where he donated many works. One of his famous works is shown below.
The highlightg of yesterday was the talk by Enro Rubik. He talked about a little puzzle he created in the 1970's. Here is my picture with Rubik.
In the afternoon there was a family day where people from Pecs were invited to participate in hands-on mathematical activities. Amy learned how to make the paper "flowers" seen in the previous post.
We shared a pizza at a local place. We then went to see the music/light show. We were either at the wrong location or it was changed. We ended up listening to an interesting band from Russia called something like Russkaja. It was a cross between heavy metal and traditional folk music: electric guitars, violin, horns, drums, keyboards, and vocals. It was quite theatrical, including an appearance by a caped person looking a bit like Dracula. The concert was located in from of a very large local cathedral. There were probably 1000 people at the concert and many in the nearby park. Most were drinking beer or wine. This is not what we would likely see back home on a Monday evening.
This morning we started our excursion day by visiting the Zsolnay porcelain museum. It was interesting and they had many objects from the company's 150 year history in the Pecs area. The company produced many architectural details for buildings. The historian indicated that the company always made 2 copies, just in case the first had a problem. Since most firsts were usually good, the company amassed a large collection of pieces for a museum.
We then went to the Vasarely museum and saw more than 50 of his works. Many were quite interesting. A version of the zebras shown above was in the museum as a tapestry that was about six feet across.
After we left the museum we took a bus to a large local school. There was another large zometool sculpture build again this year. It was donated to the school. It shows the interaction between a regular 3D lattice of points (shown in black) and planes with 5-fold symmetry (colored). Each colored section was designed to look like an Islamic tiling design.
Then we went to wine country! Hungary has several large wine regions, one near Pecs. Our tour bus tooks us to a small winery where we had a traditional Hungarian cold plate meal. It contained several meat choices: spicy salami (very delicious), regular salami, cheese, ham, bacon (uncooked), prosciutto, and a salami/head-cheese combination. There were also hungarian peppers, tomoatoes, onions, and bread. And also bottomless pitchers of wine, a red and a a white. The red was too dry for me, but the white was very good. I drank a glass or two. Maybe more. We had some local music with one person on keyboards and the winery owner playing percussion. His instrument was comprised of two tambourines on a pole with some other cymbals and a voodoo-like head on it. I think Amy wants one for Christmas, so let me know if you see one while you are shopping. We then went down a long flight of stairs to the cellar for wine tasting. We sampled three wines in one chamber and three in another. They were more of a vaulted hallway than a room. The walls had a heavy moldy-sticky patina several mm thick. There were many coins stuck all over the walls. The owner said it was good luck, so I placed a 10 forint piece. There were many casks and many bottles of wine.
We then went to an outdoor sculpture park that is located in an old quarry on the side of a hill. There were many interesting works. Several artists were there carving new works.
We then traveled back and went to the basement of the large cathedral near the concert venue. There was a performance art piece where someone spent several days putting naturally colored sand from all over the world on the floor in polygonal shapes. We arrived as the piece was being completed. A dancer then went through the piece, mixing/sweeping all the sand together towards the center. We were then invited to take an envelope of sand home with us.
We then went out and had some kind of street bread we saw people eating the other night. It is made by rolling dough into a long roll, like spaghetti except not as thin. It was then placed on a conical form and cooked over a charcoal fire as it rotated in a rotisserie style. Once cooked, it was covered with a cinnamon-nut mixture. The dough contained lemon zest. It was yummy.
On the way back to our hotel we passed a large water bottle sculpture. The sign said it was illuminated at night. We just snacked for dinner and are hanging out at the hotel tonight.
Unfortunately, I am unable to upload pictures. We will try to get pictures up tomorrow.
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