The Old Countries
When I was a child in Hungary, this was a special treat, only available around Christmas.
Bananas
B (elementary school)
Penmanship
Missed the train from Munich to Budapest, so I did this
Visited Dachau
He worked on the Manhattan project, and would be my namesake, had my Dad not changed his name after the Holocaust
John von Neumann
The one that is not one of the sights in the "Liget", i.e. city park, in BP: Zoo, Circus, Agricultural Museum, Hot Baths, Opera, Military parades
Opera
My parents needed to move apartments just before I was born, for one of these reasons: a. Building condemned for toxic mold. b. Bldg being converted to library to commemorate Marx and Lenin. c. Bldg got damaged by tank shelling during the 1956 revolution. d. The national theater was expanding and needed the space.
Shelling from tank
D (Junior High)
Gym
Missed the train from Hangzhou to Xian because of this, and so I did this other thing
I couldn't find the ticket office and no-one spoke English. So I flew instead.
When working in Israel, I had to run to the bank to deposit my paycheck as soon as I got it, for this reason
Inflation was 1% per day!
The train from Budapest to Paris leaves from this train station among the options: Keleti (Eastern), Nyugati (Western), Deli (Southern)
Keleti (Eastern)
One month after arriving to Ghana we awoke to cars honking and people dancing in the street, celebrating this
A coup.
F (College, midterm)
Botany Lab
We almost had our flight to Portugal cancelled this fall, because of this
Airport ground workers' strike
While in Israel, I was entertained on Tuesday nights by watching this on TV
Monday Night Football
The correct north-to-south order of places I have been, among these: Quebec city, Anchorage, Lakes District (England), Copenhagen,
Bonus: This is the southernmost place
Anchorage 61, Copenhagen 55, Lakes 54, Quebec 46
Bali 8 S
This was my family's first car (and also the second). It could hold about 11 or 12 people
VW Beetle
The year I last got a traffic ticket
1995
We missed our Caribbean cruise because of this
Baby Sam was sick and crying and they did not let us on the plane to the starting point
You should make sure not to be stepped on by this largest mammal living in the Amazon jungle
Tapir
My one public performance on stage
Israel Folkdance Festival at MIT, 2010
We enjoyed playing on the roof of our house in Ghana (note that previously we lived in an apartment in a crowded big city), and this was one of 2 ways to get up there
(1) Climb the mango tree, or
(2) climb a wall made of a "checkerboard" of large bricks/blocks
On a spelling bee in Jr High, I lost because I didn't recognize this word, that sounded like 'gashes' to me
Gaseous
On our honeymoon in Turkey, the cruise sailboat left without us. These technologies were used to catch it.
Cell phone, taxi, and row-boat
People sitting on my legs
I worked on the JPEG image compression standard. Using a DSP chip, the time needed to decompress and display images was drastically reduced, by this amount: a. 10 min to 1 min. b. 1 min to 10 sec. c. 10 sec to 1 sec. d. 1 sec to 1/10 of a sec
10 min to 1 min