I woke up early (thanks to the sun not by choice) and had a
small breakfast at the hostel consisting of cereal and toast (what is this
thing called toast? You put bread in a small machine and it comes out crispy
and brown?!) before heading out to the
Terror Museum. The museum opened at 10am and I thought I would just start there
being able to go visit other museums as well. Well, when you go visit
non-Balkan countries there are apparently these things called crowds and lines.
Yes, for the first time EVER since I started this journey, there were not only
more than one other person in the museum, but there was also a line to get in!
We’ll we all waited to get in as I took a few pictures of the museum itself and
the surroundings. It felt a bit wrong to take a smiling “Look I’m in Budapest!”
picture in front of the museum, but the road was so pretty!
The Terror Museum is located in the old “House of Loyalty”
of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party (the Nazis) and then the communist secret
police headquarters. “In the cellar of the ‘House of Loyalty.’ Members of the
Arrow Cross tortured and killed hundreds of people. In expectation of Hitler’s
secret weapon, teenage boys were drafted for useless battles on the Nazi side
and innocent Jews were plunged into the icy Danube.” Then the Hungarian
Communist Secret police took over the building in 1945, “they reduced people to
subjects: thousands of citizens feared them, and they in turn, feared each
other. If ordered so, they killed without hesitation, or on the strength of
confessions exhorted during brutal interrogations, they sent their victims to
the gallows, to prisons, and labor camps.” The
communist regime “seized, mistreated, or crippled one person from every third
family.” (These are quotes from the booklet they give you at the entrance.)
I also essentially have a small book about the Terror in Hungary that I think I
will be putting in sheet protectors and placing in my classroom. The first two
floors were interesting, but I felt they were a bit revisionist compared to
what I had heard about the Hungarian communists in my history classes, but they
claimed (and since this is the domestic view, it does deserve some credit) that
the Nazi’s and Communists were both unwelcome occupiers who killed
indiscriminately during the reign. And the Hungarians never wanted or supported
them in any way, ever. (This is the part I have a problem with.)
But the cellar. Man, I’m getting chills and tearing up just
trying to write about this. There is something different between going to a
memorial museum and being in the place where they killed people that is just
chilling and almost indescribable. When I got down into the cellar, I walked
past a few rooms, just thinking “man, they kept people in here.” But then there
was one room that was so tiny that you could only stand. I walked in, turned
around and realized I barely fit. Then it hit me. They used this room for
torture. They shoved grown men in here. They starved people in here. The drains
in the floor were more than likely not for water. And then I had to get out of
that room. The realization that I was standing where someone had died, more
than likely for nothing- a wrong word said or not believing in the party line,
or just happening to have been born Jewish. That there are things that I have
said that if I were born under a communist regime that would have gotten me
killed, or at the very least sent to a labor camp. The rest of the time in the
museum was just chilling- there was a padded room that I walked into that was
so chilling, I had to leave rather quickly. There was the room where they hung
people. There was the room with the torture devices. Then there was the memorial
room- with candles flickering and pictures and crosses. I’m not sure I can
explain how different it is to visit a memorial house, rather than the place
they actually killed people in. I’m not sure you will be able to understand
until you stand there and have that realization yourself.
After this chilling start to my day, I went and got
deliciously recommended (AKA they gave me a discount card) macaroons. One with
chocolate and one with caramel. Oh so good! It’s called La Delizia, and is located really close
to the terror museum. Put this place on your list if you are going to Budapest
go here for a yummy snack. A bit on the pricy side, but they were the first
cookie shop in Budapest. After this, I went to the National History Museum.
Where, apparently, relics of the past 1100 years fill up the four floors of the
museum. There was the St. Stephen’s Coronation Robe (supposedly the most
valuable…) and is one of the oldest examples of European Embroidery in the
world. But for me, besides the general history of the museum, the best
part/coolest part was Beethoven’s
piano. No joke, they had his piano that he gave to Listz (most influential Hungarian composer
of the 19th century, celebrated pianist, outstanding conductor of
his day). It was just cool to see this piece of history. There were a bunch of
other random things in there from way back to the Ottomans/Austrian-Hungarian
empire/ communist times. It was neat. There was some interesting things in
there, that you might not see elsewhere.
I was able to get some postcard here and the lady said the
post office located in front of the Nugati train station would still be open.
Considering that I really like to send postcards from the country I live in, it
was important to me to try to find this place. And since everything would be
open tomorrow, this would be fine, I had plenty of time (note- the directions
and happy go lucky foreshadowing!) So I hop on the metro and get out at Nugati.
Then I cross the street and look for the post office. It is no where to be
found. So, I continue looking down a few of the side streets figuring maybe
across means beside. No luck, after about 10 minutes I give up and decided to
go to the Fine Arts Museum. They had an interesting looking exhibit “The birth
of Art Photography” going on. And I got a discount. I got to walk past Hero’s
Square (There is the Archangel Gabriel- who told the first king he would be
king-the 7 tribal leaders who formed the
Hungarian empire, 14 statues of kings and famous people, war/peace/wealth/labor
grace the outer edges.) on my way to the museum. The museum had three different
exhibits (and a MAP!!!!). They only hosted foreign art there, but man there
were some good paintings. A lot of “Madonna and Child” and “saints” and “kings”
and oh-dear-God-the same old same old things that people painted. I am not a big
people person in paintings- give me scenery all the time and I will be happy.
Also no still lives of dead animals, kind of disgusting! But there were some
amazing paintings in there. The photography exhibit = not as cool as it
sounded. It focused on the very beginning of photography as it became more
widespread and less regulated to studios. And it told this history of
photography, but without any really cool photographs that I was hoping for. The
mummy exhibit was really interesting- they CAT scanned mummies to show a 3-D
version of the mummies as well as the normal x-rays. They also commented about
testing the mummies to make sure that we wouldn’t get sick, we wouldn’t by the
way.
After leaving this museum, in which I had spent about 2
hours or so, I walked across the Hero’s Square and went to the other random
museum there, since I was already here and wouldn’t make it back to the other
museums before they closed. There was an exhibit my this Serbian lady about “8
lessons on emptiness” which I thought was to be a photography exhibit, but
turned out to be a video installation that lasted about 30 minutes or more. Not
as cool as it originally looked. Mostly because everything in the museum was
SUPER modern- the modern where no one understands but the artist, and then
sometimes not even them. The Serbian artist, Marina Abramovic, created this
work in 2008 in Laos with children representing the military. The other exhibit
was “European Travellers: Art from Cluj Today.” Cluj is apparently a region in
Romania where a new art scene has taken over since 2000. But it is all really
modern and new age, so not my thing. So after quickly walking through both of these,
I decided to go check out the castle.
No joke, there is a castle in the middle of the city. It
even used to have a moat! Basically I was able to take a bunch of pictures and
walk around the courtyard, but everything else was closed, the moat was even
dried up. (Although apparently you can have a wedding there- as one was going
on.) Then I wondered into a random concert/police showcase. There were fire
trucks, bomb squads, police, etc. there showing the people what they regularly
did/ the equipment they used. Kind of random. But the park was pretty.
Then I hopped back on the metro to go back to the hostel to
quickly rinse off before going to the folklore performance and dinner cruise.
But I met up with another girl at the hostel, Claire, who decided to go with
me! So off we set to find the place. We got there right on time only to
discover that the folk performance was cancelled. Sad face. We still decided to
do the river cruise, because why not? But this meant we had about 2 hours to
kill in down town Budapest. We ended up walking around, looking at souvenirs
(who knew this would come in handy tomorrow) and then getting a slushy. We just
sat and drank our slushy and just chatted. It’s always nice to get to know someone,
even if just for a bit. Then we headed back to the dinner cruise. Which, I do
not recommend. You don’t really get to see a lot of the city, as it is only 1.5
hours long and dinner takes about that long. But we did get free wine and
champagne, and really delicious food! It was a really awkward dinner, as they
placed us with others, but they only spoke Spanish. So basically Claire and I
talked to each other with a little bit of her speaking to them in Spanish as
they spoke to each other. After dinner, we went up and watched part of the city
go by as we talked about how we never would have guessed that we would be in
Budapest at this point last year. After the cruise we waited about 20-30
minutes for a tram that was supposed to still be running before giving up and
just walking the 20 minutes back to the hostel. Where a much awaited shower and
sleep were necessary!
So- you will now notice that the blogs come with no pictures. I have reached the limit on pictures allowed on this google account. So until I find something else that I can use, I hear by will be providing you with links to the Facebook Page of Travel By Cassidy where I will get to share even more pictures with you that I can't on the blog. If you have a facebook, feel free to like the page so that you can be updated regularly about my travels.
This is Budapest Day 2's picture link: http://on.fb.me/IQn6mi
