Geocaching

(Picture is Jack, Petr, Hosung, Nuno above, Catarina, Dinah and Elisa. Taken at the hazi buli, written below)

Ok, even though I'm super busy with things right now, I feel inspired to tell you about this hobby of mine I've picked up recently. It's called Geocaching. My friend Barbora (batocache on the website) from the Czech Republic introduced me to it earlier this semester, and in the past week I've really taken a liking to it.

Geocaching is sort of a worldwide treasure hunt. Geocachers hide small containers in places where other geocachers can find them. In these containers (varying from 35mm canisters to big buckets) can be anything. The bare essential is usually some kind of logbook, where people can record their visits. The ones in the film canisters are really creatively made! If the "cache" is larger, it can contain other stuff. Some popular items are the Geocoin and Travel Bug, which are custom-made, trackable items that travel wherever their finders take them. Someone who finds one of these in a cache doesn't keep it, but moves it to another cache in a different place. For example, when I visited Barbora in Prague, she passed onto me this travel bug, which I brought to Budapest with me, and hid yesterday. It started at an ice hockey arena in the CR, but who knows where it will end up!

The main online portal where all this seeking and hiking and tracking happens is at Geocaching.com. Through it I've found caches (but only virtually) back home in Maine. There are a good number in Lincoln, thanks in large part to Ryan Pickering, who designed and set a series of caches which has been a big hit in the local geocacher community.

Whatever a geocache contains, it is inevitably located in an interesting place. On many geocache listings is thought-provoking information about the place in which it is found. Eric Hendrickson is one geocacher who has contributed greatly to education about Maine's particular geological quirks through a large series of earthcaches. These are atypical caches in that there is no container to find - only a location listing found online with an earth science lesson attached. Mr. Hendrickson is a science teacher in Presque Isle, and has written over 75 earthcaches and hidden almost 100 physical geocaches. Here is his website, and a sample earthcache he wrote.

This picture is from my first solo find. It was hidden at the top of a parking garage near Nyugati Station, cleverly disguised as an electric maintenance box and hiding in plain sight. Inside was a logbook, a small toy, a 1992 Barcelona Olympics pin and a sample package of fabric softener. I took the fabric softener, because you can never have enough. I left my travel bug there. It was picked up this morning and moved somewhere else in Budapest. Hopefully it will leave the country soon and pick up more history.

In other news, we had our 2nd international potluck hazi buli last night, hosted by Irish Íde. I came about 4 hours late due to a hellish Saturday night rehearsal, but made time to prepare a good dish - I call it Magyar Gyümölcs Joghurt! Because, I'm sure you realize, the color scheme represents the Hungarian flag. There's nothing Hungarian about the ingredients. Raspberries fill the top, coconut flakes and sugar cover the middle stripe and sliced kiwis line the bottom. Under the yogurt is a layer of chocolate granola. It was almost overflowing the dish, so transporting it on the tram eight blocks north was tricky and took a lot of concentration. Got a lot of stares, and some quirky smiles. Unfortunately, everyone was full of great Italian pasta and salad and chocolate cake and palacsinta by the time I showed up, so nobody touched my dish. Íde will be eating well for breakfast the next couple nights, though.

Jack had his solo concert today! He played Liszt's Sposalizio, with a quiet accompaniment by myself, who hummed the whole thing because I've been hearing it every damn day since we moved to Budapest. But really, it was a fantastic performance. Jack has been working extremely hard for this, and it clearly paid off this afternoon. Before he came on, Íde, Mirva, Elisa and Dinah hurried in from the Hilary Hahn concert with the Budapesti Fesztivalzenekar, which gave Jack quite an audience. We went and enjoyed some gelato in Liszt Ferenc tér while contemplating the monstrous statue of Liszt there. He definitely deserved the two scoops I bought him. If you want his own biased analysis on his performance, read his blog entry here.

This is the last week of classes for us. My final (and only) exam is my trombone jury on May 22nd. Then, almost a full month of travel. I did more planning this morning, and it's looking like eastern Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, Italy. Hopefully I'll find some travel bugs to take with me before then! More updates as the story develops.