Tales from Abroad is an ongoing section in which Gustavus students share the highlights of their study abroad experiences.

The choice to participate in the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program was all about the math. The ability to spend a semester completely submerged in the study of mathematics seemed right up my alley, and the fact that the program was located in Budapest was just an added bonus. Now that I’m here, however, I am very glad to be spending the semester in Hungary.

In addition to meeting friends who love math as much as I do, everyone is interested in exploring what the city of Budapest (and the country of Hungary) has to offer. We have discovered many interesting restaurants and had several unique experiences. My favorite experience was in the city of Eger. A group of students from my program had gone for a weekend trip and decided to check out the city’s basilica one evening. Outside the basilica was a man holding a bunch of balloons, who seemed very happy to see all of us. He spoke no English, but our tour guide was able to translate and inform us that this man was the best man at a wedding that was starting in half an hour.

Apparently, it is a Hungarian wedding tradition to hire a best man to manage entertainment. Before anyone really knew what was going on, we had been invited to the wedding and were walking into the basilica to sit down. Two Hungarians made a life-long commitment to each other in front of about thirty family members and close friends, and a dozen American tourists. After the ceremony, we followed the other guests outside to partake in another local tradition: we were handed balloons with sparklers attached, lit the sparklers, and released the balloons into the sky.

Stories such as this one do not exist because of planning. They exist because a group of students were curious about what was going on and were willing to just go along with something a little bit strange and uncomfortable. Stories like this are what make studying abroad such an amazing experience. Of course, throwing in several hours of mathematics per day doesn’t hurt either.

-Eric Hanson