It has been several months since the first international minesweeper tournament, in Budapest: It's about time
I wrote about it! (There are pics at the end). Still curious? Then visit Christoph Marx's site later.

THE JOURNEY (Feb 24)

    I boarded the 10:49am train from Stirling to Glasgow Central station, walked to Glasgow
Queen and took a train to Paisley Gilmour. After a bus, I arrived at Glasgow Airport a little
early...so, I checked in and waited four hours for the Easyjet flight to London Luton. In
London, I discovered they had rejected payment for the flight, so I spent the next hour
convincing them to let me go! The Wizzair flight left at 8pm and arrived late, just after midnight,
at Budapest Ferihegy. Nagy Gergely had waited for me, so we missed the last airport bus.
Since my hungarian needs some polishing, I followed Gergely as he took a taxi, then we ran to
catch the last bus into town. We talked about mouses and his difficulties arranging the tournament.
After a walk, we reached his place at 1:30am, and talked for another hour before bed.

THE DAY BEFORE

    We got up at 9, and Gergely refused to let me eat my food! Instead, he made jasmine tea and
we emptied his fridge. Then, I made him teach me how to say the names of the bridges in
Budapest for the next half hour! Since I had changed only half my money into forints, we visited
the bank. Unfortunately, we had to visit 13 of them...It took four hours to find a place that
accepted Scottish GBP. Luckily, Gergely is good company...
    
    After lunch near Parliament, we walked back to Szabadság bridge, took a tram down Bartok
Bela street and booked into the Griff Junior hostel. That done, he dropped me off at the Hungarian
National Museum and went home to arrange the tournament. Afterwards, I went back as well and
he taught me to play Nonosweeper...then we took the train at Kalvin square and the bus to meet
Roman Gammel at the airport at 9pm. We talked in a cafe before heading back...Gergely went
home and Roman and I went to the hostel. Talked until 2am...Roman had travelled since 4am
Budapest time, so was exhausted.

THE TOURNAMENT (Feb 26, 2005)

    Roman and I got up and took the tram to Moricz square for breakfast. Then we visited the cave
chapel and climbed Gellért hill, walked around the citadel and toured the WWII bunker. The bunker
museum was interesting...the Germans and Soviets fought over Budapest for 102 days, second only
to the fighting at Stalingrad. Then we visited the monument of St. Gellert, crossed the Szechenyi
bridge and found hundreds of farmers protesting against EU policy in front of the Parliament. An old
lady who didn't like Soviets or Americans (!) followed us around Szabadság (Freedom) square, and
we ate at the Burger King near Gergely's place.

    At 1pm we met Christoph Marx, and one of Gergely's friends took us to the tournament. That's
when we discovered Oli Scheer and Robert Benditz had missed their flight, and Martin Toft Madsen
not arrived. Kricsfalusy István arrived, so we all introduced ourselves. However, none of us foreigners
knew which Hungarian was Pap Gyula: we didn't find out then because the tournament started.

    The players were arranged at about 25 computers, and all the top players were seperated....Gergely
put me in the back corner! We were given time to set up our mouses, then the tournament started at
about 2:30. Rodrigo's clone was used to keep track of scoring. Two people walked around and wrote
down our history files as we played for the next 3 hours. Then we were all taken out of the room as the
judges reviewed scores.

    That is when Gyula introduced himself...I overheard several Hungarian players saying that Gyula had
made a lot of good scores, and they were quite excited. Roman had difficulty with his mouse setting and
wasn't too pleased with the results. Players were ranked for their best 5 expert and best 5 intermediate
games: Gyula came 2nd, Roman 3rd, Christoph 4th, Istvan 5th, Gergely 6th, followed by 18 more
Hungarian sweepers.

    After pictures, Gergely went home to write the results in the guestbook, while Roman, Gyula and wife
Olga, Christoph and I went for dinner. We talked for several hours....it turns out I was the dumbest
person! Roman and Gyula have math degrees, both Gyula and Christoph are studying combinatorics at
university, Olga has a degree and, like Roman, works in insurance! (Istvan is a computer programmer,
and Gergely studies Economics).
 

THE DAY AFTER

    Christoph left early, then Roman and I went out for breakfast. We caught a tram towards the castle,
climbed the hill and spent several hours in the National Gallery. Then we walked around the castle district
and visited the Fisherman's Bastion and Szent Matyas church. The inside was beautiful...there is nothing
like that in North America...to Roman, of course, it was just average. We climbed down Buda hill and
walked along the Danube until Margit bridge and ate at a pizzeria. It took a while to find Gül Baba's tomb
amongst some really winding streets, then went to the Aquincum (the remains of a Roman amphitheatre).
Later, we visited the Szent István Basilica…Roman finally admitted that this place was almost as nice as
the cathedral in Moscow…high compliments from him! We spent the rest of the evening running around
in the dark, trying to get photos of the Castle.

LAST DAY

    Roman left early, and I met Gyula downtown at 10. He spent the next few hours showing me Parliament,
Andrássy Avenue, Hosök (Heroes) square, the Széchenyi baths, City park, the State Opera House….all
with running commentary! Gyula is very enthusiastic about history….and math. He took me out for lunch
and showed me some of his maths papers, and we talked about the NP problem in minesweeper and
the history of Magyar mathematicians.

    Afterwards, I went back to Andrássy and tried to find the Liszt Ferenc Museum….it was a music
school, and I couldn’t find the museum section! Then, I crossed the Danube back into Buda to find the
Bartók Béla museum. I got off at the wrong stop and ended running up Buda hill for an hour, trying to get
into the castle district. (You can get through the walls in only some places). No one knew where it was and,
when I found the place, it was closed for repairs!

    I spent the rest of the night walking around Pest, trying to put everything into memory.