Last night in Pecs

Today was our last day in Pecs.  Dave gave his presentation about tilings to a packed house, which is good for the last day of a conference.  There are so many things going on connected with the conference, that there is no reason for anyone to leave before it is completely over, anyway.

This afternoon I tried to go around and see all the things I didn't see over the last five days.  I went inside the Mosque of Gazi Quashim pasha - now a Roman Catholic church.  I forgot to take a photo of the outside, but it's likeness is shown in the post about marzipan.. Really.  It looks like that. It was really dark inside and there was an organ concert going on, so you couldn't use flash, so my photos are craptastic. But here they are:

Ok - then it was on to the Cella Septiphora - a UNESCO world heritage site.  This is an area that has been excavated for ruins that date to the 3rd century as well as a medieval building on top that dates to the 13th century.  Very cool.  Except I forgot to take photos!!  Kudos to Emily for having photos of EVERYTHING she does!! Dave was glad he did not go to this with me.  There are a series of interconnecting walkways and stairways that are made of grating that you can see straight through. In some places you can see down about a story or two.  It was really great though.

Then I went to the square and people-watched and finished sock #1.  There are a lot of peoplewatchers around, so I didn't stand out. After Dave was done with this meeting stuff we went to dinner.  We went back to a place we liked earlier in the week for lunch.  We went back because they were fairly quick and we only had 1.5 hours for dinner.  That's fast food, here.  And the menu was really good. They had some things on the menu that were "Michigan-style"  We weren't sure what that meant, but have started to wonder if maybe the chef studied with Mario Batali in Traverse City? I had the turkey with apples, pineapple and potato croquets. it was amazingly delicious.  One of the best meals we have had. Afterwards, we went to the Music Night to hear some mathematically-based compositions, most composed especially for the conference.  There was a piece performed by the local hand-bell choir that was really interesting. My favorite was a three-part piano piece performed by its composer, who is a professor of Math at Harvard, Noem Elskies.  He was actually the youngest tenured professor ever at Harvard  He was really funny as he was setting up his music and getting ready - he talked for about 10 minutes and ended with -"I may have made this part at the end too hard - wish me luck." 

Tomorrow we board the train for Budapest.  We are travelling in the 1st class car, for we have none of the following, that would force us to travel 2nd class:

1. A 2 meter (that's about 6 feet)  sapling, fir or ornamental shrubbery

2. A collapsible canvas or rubber boat up to 2 meters long, and it's components

3. An animal up to 20 kg, ie dog, pig, or favorite goat. Over 20 kg, passengers must have agreement of all others travelling in the car to take aboard.

We almost want to go in the 2nd class car to see whatever else people are taking on the train with them.  But the 1st class car is air conditioned, has it's own W.C. that isn't even a shelf model, and we can walk to the dining car to get fried onions and Coke Light. 

We are in Budapest 2 days, back to Paris and it's environs for 2 days, and then back to Albion!