Zsuzsi Dancso
I enjoy:
Dancing
If you're looking for great places in Toronto to dance salsa socially,
check out
Balazs's page,
our favorite is the
Sunday Salsa
Social.
If you are looking for a great place to dance ballroom socially, you're
not alone... If you know one, please share the wisdom!
Our school, Love to Dance Studios (252 Eglinton Ave, 2nd floor), has short
parties on Friday nights for students. Call them if you're
interested, 416 507 7743.
There are also nice practices at
Elite Dance Studio
, but they're a bit far north and I wouldn't exactly call these events
"parties". If you have a fix partner though and want to practice, it's a
good place.
Here are some dance pictures of Balazs and I (click on them to see enlarged).
At the closing party of a salsa camp July
2007, learning a lift at the Canada Salsa Congress in October 2007, at
a Halloween ball November 2007, going out with my sister and her boyfriend
New Year's Eve 2007:
From the preliminaries of the 2008 Toronto Winter Salsa Carnival
Amateur Salsa Competition:
And some from the semi-finals. (I fell on the ending pose so we finished
5th, nevertheless it
was a great experience, we're in for next year:).)
The first four were taken as we competed, the last three is social dancing
afterwards- hence the relaxed happy look:).
Drawing
I wish I had more time for it, sketching, drawing and painting is something
that I hope I will get to do more and better, sometime before I die.
Little things I've drawn:
A small castle Balazs and I saw on our 2006 Italy vacation
, Balazs's drawing of the same is on
his page.
A picture of Toronto that I drew for a friend:
Kids
I enjoy being around kids, playing with them and trying to be a kid again.
This is me reading a story to
Balint Virag's daughter
Adrienn
.
When Balazs and I lived in
Princeton, I used to see my niece Dorka
and nephew Michael a lot. They are very fun kids.
Michellie
,
the daughter of
the owner of my favorite lunch place Daily Express Cafe (Bloor and St
George, great food!) is an awesome little friend, we love to draw pictures
together.
Domi is my friends Betti and Laci's son, I only get to see him a few times
a year when I go back home, and he's only getting cuter and cuter:
,
Vacations
Vacations, I believe, is something that Balazs and I should do for a living,
we're so good at enjoying them:). I haven't found out yet if there was a way
to vacation for a living, but until then, we'll keep doing it every summer.
Below you can find the short story of our 2006 Italy trip, and hopefully
soo I will write about Provence 2007.
One of our most memorable destinations so far was definitely Hawaii:
Cities
Having grown up in Budapest
and loved it, I'm a true city girl. I actually
like crowds on the street and at the mall, subways, long avenues and small
downtown streets, restaurants and shops and millions of people living in
one place. Every true city girl hast to see Manhattan
at least once. Manhattan was
arguably the best part of living in Princeton, tied with being close to
Balazs's brother Mario's family. My current home Toronto
is a very loveable and liveable city. In ways I can't explain, it reminds
me of Budapest.
Family
I'm married to world famous mathematician, and soon-to-be world famous
salsa dancer,
Balazs Szegedy, who
also happens to be the best husband on Earth.
And I am, amazingly, his wife. This is us in Monaco, summer 2007:
The rest of my wonderful family is in Budapest, Hungary.
My not-so-little-amymore sister Marcsi and I are very close. When we were
this little
, we had a bumpy relationship,
but we grew up
to be great friends. My mom is one
of a kind. I think she's the most family-oriented person I've ever known.
She's quirky in her own way, and I've done a good job of learning some
quirks from her:). This is her, me, and my sister skating
in Budapest around Christmas 2007:
. My dad is an engineer in all parts
of life, at least as far as I can tell from the outside. He's very helpful,
practical, and has a dark sense of humour that stings. He's fun, too, when
I lived home, we used to cycle and skate together, and nowadays when I visit,
him, my mom, my sister, her boyfriend, Balazs and I all go out dancing
together. This is him with me and my brother Tomi, obviously taken a while ago:
. My brother Tomi
gives me a lot
of perspective, being quite different from anyone else I know. We still have
things in common, mostly the things that I consider my "wild side". He's
turning into an amazing cook lately, even thinking about the liver sauce he
made once makes me hungry. My grandma Nyonyo, here with my mom:
,
lives in the same house as my
parents, so I grew up very close to her and my grandpa Pappap, who passed
away in December 2003. She insists that she can't handle emailing, so we send
each other old fashioned letters. I find that quite romantic- it's nice to
find something exciting and not just junk or bills in your mailbox. Pappap
was a warm person whom I miss a lot lately. I think I inherited my major sweet
tooth from him. Or maybe from my grandma on my father's side, who passed away
when I was a teen. She loved to play board games with us and eat dessert
together. My father side grandpa has recently passed away in his mid-80's.
He loved plants and especially cactuses, which makes for many family anecdotes
that I won't go into here:). As long as she lived, my great grandmother
Mamika also lived only a block away from our house. I used to run over there
when I was cross with my mom and she'd give me drops of lemom on sugar, or
sumething yummy that she'd cooked or baked. She passed away when I was 9.
Now that I live far away, I miss my close-knit family a lot, and winter breaks
and summers have taken on a whole new meaning, being the only times I go
home to see them.
Other people I love, and miss:
If you are a person I love, and miss (a way to tell if you are
such a person: check if you like and/or miss me- if the anwer is yes, you
most likely are:-)), please send me a picture of yourself! Or, even better, a
picture of us that you like, if you have one. I'll put them up here!
The list below is far from complete.
My best friend of ages (14 years??),
Gergo, who's always been
there for me.
My college friend Vajk, who's just simply the most selfless trustworthy
person on earth.
Many of the wonderful people in/from Hungary who have known me for
ages and continue to be the best of friends despite my sporadic emails
and even more sporadic appearances: Medzi, Sipi, Betti and Laci,
and so many more...
The most awesome girlfriend, shopping buddy, and mommy-substitute,
Alex, she's
the best!
The woman whose friendship made a tough year easier, also the funnest
person to spend a sleepless night with,
Catherine.
Update on our living conditions
For family and friends, is
here,
in Hungarian.
Some recent trips
Rio in June 2008
Plitvice Lakes National Park and Croatian beach in August 2008
Italy 2006 August
Balazs and I had a wonderful vacation in Italy this summer. (Someone
should employ us as vacation-ers, we're so good at it!)
Here is some of what we did:
On the 14th of August, we took off with a plane ticket to Naples and
a map of Italy. We had little of a plan, and no ticket back, as usual.
Me being exceptionally organized, I reserved a cheap hotel in Naples for
the first night. Scary as it looked from the outside, it turned out to be
a very nice, quiet B&B, so we ended up staying for an extra night.
After exploring Naples for a day (and some failed shopping attempts),
we took the ferry to the beautiful Island of Ischia, and located a camping,
which still had just enough space for our little tent, in the most
mosquito-invaded corner of the whole place. It was on the beach though, and
the island was as enchanted as you could wish for. The first night we found
a little village on the rocks that we modestly named after ourselves:). We'd
return several times, for
romantic walks,
dinner
at a really fancy place
(in Italy, you've gotta splurge on
food!), and
the unforgettable desserts at a local bakery.
There were many wonderful things to do on this Island, one of the best
attractions was a pretty little castle that we
sketched (check
out his page for his drawing of the same thing:).
Of course you have to take at least a day-trip to
Capri
if you're spending time around Naples. The boat trip to the Blue Cave
was somewhat excruciating, with the sun shining ruthlessly and the long line
of boats crowded with tourists waiting to get in. But it was well worth
the experience of swimming in the gleaming blue water and listening
to our guide singing "Oh Sole Mio" ever so falsely:). The island itself
is just as adorable as the Blue Cave is stunning. I loved its high rocks,
magnificent views and
cute little
streets.
When we got tired of the cloud of mosquitoes surrounding our tent and the
tedious way of obtaining hot water from the showers, we moved our base
over to Sorrento. This camping was almost as bad mosquito-wise, but had lovely
showers and a pool where you could spend half the day on tanning beds,
drinking good European Coke:), and watching the crowd of excited kids
playing in the water.
From here we took trips to the gulf's other must-sees, all of which
are must-sees for a reason. The top of the Vesuvio was a bit cludy the
day we went up, but beautiful still. The buried ancient cities,
Pompeii and
Erculanum
are truely amazing. My favorites were definitely the
ancient
snack bars:).
We decided to take the train home (not much choice, not having a plane
ticket:), and stopped in Pisa for a day. I know that everyone takes a picture
like
this one,
but I'm convinced this is one of the best of its kind.:) We went
up
to the top of the tower too (now you can- I hear they've injected some
concrete under, so it's not dangerous anymore).
As I'm writing this, and it's raining outside, getting colder and
colder in Toronto, and I'm supposed to work not daydream about vacations,
I can't wait for next summer.
Utah 2006 July
I participated in the 2006 PCMI Summer School in Low Dimensional
Topology. The reason this goes here and not on my math page is the location,
and the awesome group of people I met there.
To begin with, I happened to be roomates with Jana, who is also here
in Toronto working with the same advisor. She's very cool and I was more
than happy to meet soemone from my future department. My other roommate,
Elena, was wonderful, too. To make it even better, I ran into two people
I knew from Eotvos University in Hungary, where I did my undergrad. That
made us five, the exact number of people you need to share rental-car and
cabin costs and thereby take a cheap weekend trip to Utah's famous
national parks- we chose the Arches and Canyonlands, those two being the
closest to Park City.
We got
rained on
in the desert, both mornings. And both afternoons, we were wishing for
the rain!
This is
Vera and I.
She did all the hiking with a crutch, her thigh was broken, and she
never complained a word.
I even
climbed rocks!
Her thigh being broken, Vera was only slightly better at it than me.
Jana and I ran to the
delicate
arch veiwpoint.
Jana made some nice
panorama
pics.
We all had
lunch
under a tree: Jana, me, Vera, Gabor, and Elena.
Some of us girls
on a rock.
That's me
on top of that
arch!
And here's some beautiful
evening scenery.
And some from the semi-finals. (I fell on the ending pose so we finished
5th, nevertheless it
was a great experience, we're in for next year:).)
, Balazs's drawing of the same is on
his page.
.
When Balazs and I lived in
Princeton, I used to see my niece Dorka
and nephew Michael a lot. They are very fun kids.
Michellie
,
the daughter of
the owner of my favorite lunch place Daily Express Cafe (Bloor and St
George, great food!) is an awesome little friend, we love to draw pictures
together.
Domi is my friends Betti and Laci's son, I only get to see him a few times
a year when I go back home, and he's only getting cuter and cuter:
,
and loved it, I'm a true city girl. I actually
like crowds on the street and at the mall, subways, long avenues and small
downtown streets, restaurants and shops and millions of people living in
one place. Every true city girl hast to see Manhattan
at least once. Manhattan was
arguably the best part of living in Princeton, tied with being close to
Balazs's brother Mario's family. My current home Toronto
is a very loveable and liveable city. In ways I can't explain, it reminds
me of Budapest.
, we had a bumpy relationship,
but we grew up
to be great friends. My mom is one
of a kind. I think she's the most family-oriented person I've ever known.
She's quirky in her own way, and I've done a good job of learning some
quirks from her:). This is her, me, and my sister skating
in Budapest around Christmas 2007:
. My dad is an engineer in all parts
of life, at least as far as I can tell from the outside. He's very helpful,
practical, and has a dark sense of humour that stings. He's fun, too, when
I lived home, we used to cycle and skate together, and nowadays when I visit,
him, my mom, my sister, her boyfriend, Balazs and I all go out dancing
together. This is him with me and my brother Tomi, obviously taken a while ago:
. My brother Tomi
gives me a lot
of perspective, being quite different from anyone else I know. We still have
things in common, mostly the things that I consider my "wild side". He's
turning into an amazing cook lately, even thinking about the liver sauce he
made once makes me hungry. My grandma Nyonyo, here with my mom:
,
lives in the same house as my
parents, so I grew up very close to her and my grandpa Pappap, who passed
away in December 2003. She insists that she can't handle emailing, so we send
each other old fashioned letters. I find that quite romantic- it's nice to
find something exciting and not just junk or bills in your mailbox. Pappap
was a warm person whom I miss a lot lately. I think I inherited my major sweet
tooth from him. Or maybe from my grandma on my father's side, who passed away
when I was a teen. She loved to play board games with us and eat dessert
together. My father side grandpa has recently passed away in his mid-80's.
He loved plants and especially cactuses, which makes for many family anecdotes
that I won't go into here:). As long as she lived, my great grandmother
Mamika also lived only a block away from our house. I used to run over there
when I was cross with my mom and she'd give me drops of lemom on sugar, or
sumething yummy that she'd cooked or baked. She passed away when I was 9.
Now that I live far away, I miss my close-knit family a lot, and winter breaks
and summers have taken on a whole new meaning, being the only times I go
home to see them.
My best friend of ages (14 years??),
Gergo, who's always been
there for me.
My college friend Vajk, who's just simply the most selfless trustworthy
person on earth.
The woman whose friendship made a tough year easier, also the funnest
person to spend a sleepless night with,
Catherine.
