Last circular letter (extended)
Timetable of talks:
Venue
The lectures will take place on
- Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the main lecture hall of the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics (close to Astoria metro station on the Pest side, address: Reáltanoda utca 13-15)
- and on Tuesday in room 3-218 (valid door numbers also: 3-216, 3-218/a) in the Southern Building of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) Campus in Lágymányos (area between Petőfi bridge and Rákóczi Bridge on the Buda side of the Danube (address: Pázmány Péter sétány 1/c).
Registration will start on Monday at 8.30 in the area next to the lecture room at the Rényi Institute. To help find your way to the locations of the summerschool, we posted a few pictures in the following album. The local starting points on the map for Rényi Institute are metro stations Astoria (line 2), Ferenciek tere (line 3) and Kálvin tér (line 3 and 4) while for ELTE the starting point is the stop of tram 4 and 6 close to Petőfi bridge on the Buda side. (Pictures from the school will be uploaded to the same site during the event.)
Let us also mention that a Google drive – available only to participants of the school – will be set posting various documents and informations related to the school. The web-address of the drive will be sent in an E-mail message.
Our first lecture starts on Monday at 9 AM and the last lecture ends on Friday at 3:30 PM.
Every day during the break between the two morning talks, coffee, cookies and refreshment will be served. After the second talk, around 12:30 PM there will be a one and a half hour long lunch break. No organized lunch is planned, however we suggest that you try one of the numerous small restaurants in the vicinity of Rényi Institute (a list with possible price range will be made available on the spot). You may expect a lunch starting from approx. 2000 HUF (6 Euros), but depending on the restaurant the price tag may be much higher. – On Tuesday we recommend the restaurant of the Research Centre for Natural Sciences, three minutes walk from the faculty building. Many other smaller restaurants can be found in the vicinity, too. A "Daily choice" menu costs approx. 7-8 Euros.
Excursion
We plan to keep Wednesday afternoon free.
For those interested we plan to organize a visit to Pálvölgyi Cave. You will need either a bus pass or 4 bus tickets to get there and back in the vicinity of the lecture hall.
Local transport
Budapest has a large network of public transport service with buses, trams, troleybuses, metrolines, local train etc. serving the public. The main source of information could be the website of the local transport company. A single ticket costs 500 HUF (approx. 1.50 Euros), a monthly pass (valid for unlimited travel within Budapest) is 8950 HUF (approx. 25 Euros). In case you use more than 3-4 tickets per day, we recommend that you choose the second option. Note that the monthly pass can be used also on the bus 200E connecting the airport to the end stop of Metro 3. (But for the airport bus 100E, connecting the airport directly to downtown, you need a separate ticket for 2500 HUF). Please, note that you can buy your tickets in advance (online) or upon arrival from one of the machines. Banking cards are accepted.
Local transport serving the sites of the school:
- Rényi Institute: Metro 2 (stop: Astoria), Metro 3 (stops: Kálvin tér, Ferenciek tere), Metro 4 (stop: Kálvin tér), buses 5, 7, 8E, 9, 15, 107, 108E, 110, 112, 133E, and trams 2, 47 and 49.
- ELTE: buses 107, 153, 154 and 212, tram lines 1, 4 and 6.
Words of caution
Budapest is a relatively safe city however as in most larger cities thefts are possible, especially on buses or other means of transportation. Please, keep your valuables at a safe place. Don’t leave your bag, camera, laptop or phone unattended in public places. Also be aware of pickpockets usually operating in larger crowds on buses or trams. Thus it is a wise precaution to take off your backpack once you board a bus.
Be also careful with restaurants: overcharging is possible in some downtown places. It is possible to have a decent lunch for 2-3000 forints (approx. 8 Euros) but of course in some places you could pay more. However, to pay over 30 Euros may already mean that you eat at an expensive place. Before you enter a restaurant, check the menu and also check your bill before you pay.
Weather
The weather is usually quite hot at this time of the year. Check the forecast here or the long range forecast here. It seems now that we shall have temperatures with daily highs in the range of over 30 degrees. On very hot days sudden showers are also possible, so bring an umbrella with you.
Currency, payment
The local currency is Hungarian forint. The exchange rate is volatile in these turbulant days, but it is a good estimate that 1 Euro will be worth approx 360 Forints during the period of the summer school. Please, do not change money if someone approaches you with such an offer: it is not only illegal but also dangerous. You may easily be robbed or tricked by these “street exchanges”. There are many official exchange offices where you can change your currency to forints. Some caution is recommended here: the exchange rates are usually worse at airports, train stations or at some specific chains of money exchange services. We recommend that you check the gap between buying and selling rates. With major currencies this gap should not be more than 3-4% (e.g. 355 buying and 365 selling rate for 1 Euro). Some places may have better exchange rates but then they charge a 1% commission.
On the other hand we should mention that payment with credit cards or debit cards is widespread and relatively safe. Plus, usually the applied exchange rate offers you a better deal than direct exchange. (Of course this may depend on the type of card you have and your local bank. Unlike direct payment, cash withdrawal from a credit card is quite expensive.) You should keep this in mind when you exchange money: you can get along quite well with a smaller amount of cash.