ICTT BUDAPEST
July 24-30, 2005

Actually we were in Budapest from July 22-31. For those not in the know, "ICTT" stands for "International Conference on Transport Theory" which have been meeting biannually since 1969 (so this was the 19th conference in the series). I have been to all of them (I actually began the series on Blacksburg, and for many years the conferences were known as the "Blacksburg Conferences), That, alas, is a thing of the past as there's nobody in Blacksburg doing transport theory anymore now that I've retired.

The first event of the ICTT was a reception Sunday night before the meeting began on Monday, July 24.
Here are a few pictures:

First, Kathy socializing with Mihaly Makai the organizer and chariman of the meeting and our host in Vienna (I served as honorary chairman).

Here is Mihaly with Liliane Barichello, a distinguished Brazilian transport theorist:

The meeting had special sessions to honor the Polish mathematician Janus Mika and the English engineer Mike Williams on their 70th birthdays, Unfortunately, Mike didn't come but Janus and his wife were there in all their glory.

That's Janus to the left, with Barry Ganapol, the Arizona transport cowboy. That's not Janus' wife on the right, but rather one of the conference secretaries whose name, believe it or not, is "Kiss." In addition to gracing the conference with her extraordinary beauty, Miss Kiss also did an outstanding job of helping to keep things running smoothly.

There's Mrs. Mika now, to the right along with the Hugarian Swede, Imre Pasazit and his wife to the left.

Above, Cassiano de Oliviera, the Brazilian late of London now at Georgia Tech.

In all, there were participants from 15 countries, with the lion's share coming from Italy, who sent 13. Above is one of them, Ester Gabetta, with Kathy.

And here are some more:

Ester is on the left, while Gianni Frosali is in the back next to Lucio Demeio, my former Ph.D. student at Va. Tech, now Associate Professor at Ancona.

That's Jacek Banasiak above, a Pole turned South African who organized the Mika session. I knew Mika when he was as student of Ken Case's at the University of Michigan, and so I spoke about those days in the Mika session.

More Italians. That's Maria Lampis, from Milano, in the foreground.

And here's Lucio Demeio again, with his mathematician wife Ivelina, who also got her Ph.D. at Va. Tech. But she's a topologist (student of Frank Quinn's), not a transport theorist.

There I am, showing what I think of Barry Ganapol.

There were several Russians participating. Above is one of them with his wife, surrounding me.

Dimitris Valougeorgis, my "great-grand-student" (did his Ph.D. at Va. Tech with Jim Thomas, student of my student Chuck Siewert) was there from Greece with his wife (above). Dimitris was a post doc of mine for a couple of years also.

Some participants from Africa:

There were other occasions for socializing. Here are Cassiano and Barry, already seen above, at a garden party:

Mihaly with his wife:

Giampiero Spiga, anothe Italian (who actually spent some time at Va. Tech as a visiting professor) with Jack Dorning from U.Va. In the background you can just make out Mrs. Dorning between Cassiano and Barry:

The traditional Wednesday afternoon excursion began with a splendid sightseeing trip around Budapest. Here we are in Heroe's Square; that's Lars Soderheim of Sweden on the right (I think; the dark glasses effectively disguise him).

There are a couple of art museums flanking the square. Here is one of them:

After touring Pest, we crossed the Danube and went to Buda. One of the stellar attractions is the Matthias Church, which dates from the 13th Century and is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Here are a couple of views of this beautiful edifice:


The church abuts the Hilton Hotel, which is actually built into ruins which can be viewed in the lobby. Here is a view we got a few days later from a boat trip we took.

(The Hilton is the big white building with a darkish roof.) Nearby is Castle Hill, which was the original seat of government in Hugary, now a museum:

The seat of government today is the parliament building, back on the Pest side of the Danube:

Getting back to our ICTT-sponsered tour, Matthias Church is near the so-called Fishermen's Bastion, where a group of fishermen fought to repel invaders:

The Buda Hills, incidentally, rise to a height of 530 meters above Pest, so the view from them is spectacular. After our tour, we were bussed out into the countryside for about an hour, to a farm which specialized in horses and wagons performing all sorts of feats. There was also a small zoo of domestic animals, plus buggy rides, before we were served a wondful Hungarian meal (go for the goose!) and plenty of wine. Some of the animals:

Those are oxen, in case anybody was wondering. Here are some horny sheep:

There was alos a litter of puppies. It was rather sad, as the little white puppy seemed to be in bad shape, and his brother (or sister), the black one, was trying to pep him up by licking and nuzzling him:

Another sheep:

After the animal farm, and before dinner, we were treated to a riding show:

It's hard to tell it from these pictures, but the horses atached to these wagons were galloping and doing all sorts of impressive stunts. But there were also horses without wagons. On one of them, a fellow dressed in Magyar costume showed us what Hungary was like in the 10th century. He put on a spectacular display with his bow and arrows.

There was also jumping over and around fires:

And making horses do trcks, like "roll over and play dead" (with a whip-cracking exhibition).

There was also an oxcart:

The highlight of the show was, at least for me, the lady who dressed up as Sissi (Kaiserin Elizabeth, wife of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hugary). Sissi was beautiful, elegant, and an excellent horsewoman. She didn't like her husband very much; he lived in Vienna, in the Hofburg, but as she grew older Sissi spent most of her time in Budapest, where she was rumored to have a lover, but that's probably not true. At any rate, the Hungarians loved her, and she evidently reciprocated. Poor Sissi was assassinated on the docks of Geneva in 1898 by madman who stabbed her with a nail file. Not realizing she was wounded at all, let alone mortally wounded, she went ahead and boarded the boat she was taking to Mantreux with her lady-in-waiting (no bodyguards in those simpler times).Shortly after boarding the boat Sissi realized she was wounded, and then collapsed. She was taken back to the hotel where they had spent the previous night, and she died an hour later, at the age of 61.

Poor Sissi never recovered from the suicide (murder?) of her son, Archduke Rudolph, at Meyerling, nine years earlier; she always wore black after his death. When Rudolph died, Franz Joseph's nephew Ferdinand became Archduke. It was the assassination of Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo in 1914 that precipitated the outbreak of World War I.

Here is what Sissi must have looked like. (After she was about 40 years old she never again permitted her photograph to be taken):

Miss Kiss was invited to ride Sissi's horse, and she obliged:

After the show, and while we were waiting for dinner to be served, I got one more picture. Left to right, Baarry Ganapol, Jack Dorning, Maria Lampis, Mohammed Asadzadeh (from Sweden) and Helen Dorning: