Tuesday 9 August 2011
We decided to try the restaurant on the edge of Haller Camp, and it was good and cheap. We shared one Hungarian omelet and two ham and eggs, the remains of which went on the huge rolls they served and made three tasty sandwiches for lunch. We saw Nadine and asked if she'd like to join us for a day on the town, so off we went for Margaret Island, something she wanted to explore that sounded good to us. We walked the full length and took in all the sights, including the rose garden, the ancient ruins, the petting zoo and the fascinating dancing fountain, synced to classical music and opera. One piece was a cappella, a Hungarian-language opera, Nadine said. It was beautiful.
Despite some kind of serious stomach upset, Nadine soldiered on through a long day and was a master urban navigator, aided by Charles' natural instinct for map and metro interpretation. The next goal, which we really wanted to see and which had eluded Nadine's search earlier was Monument Park, the largest collection (by an enterprising new capitalist) anywhere of massive Communist-era statues which survived the topplings that followed the end of Soviet Communist domination of eastern Europe. As we were walking and trying to figure out how to get there (it's outside of Budapest, and a little obscure), we learned something interesting about Nadine: she's a tour guide at Buchenwald, the preserved Nazi concentration camp near Weimar.
The journey to the park by subway and buses took a good hour and a half, but it was well worth it. We were amazed and amused at these giant statues scattered around a large park. We strolled from Stalin's boots to Lenin's bust and took some photos imitating these ideologically correct figures. Charles' press pass got him in free, so he decided to splurge on a t-shirt you can't get anywhere else, one depicting the great minds of the failed system as a rock band on tour.
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| Stalin's boots |
We decided to try the restaurant on the edge of Haller Camp, and it was good and cheap. We shared one Hungarian omelet and two ham and eggs, the remains of which went on the huge rolls they served and made three tasty sandwiches for lunch. We saw Nadine and asked if she'd like to join us for a day on the town, so off we went for Margaret Island, something she wanted to explore that sounded good to us. We walked the full length and took in all the sights, including the rose garden, the ancient ruins, the petting zoo and the fascinating dancing fountain, synced to classical music and opera. One piece was a cappella, a Hungarian-language opera, Nadine said. It was beautiful.
Despite some kind of serious stomach upset, Nadine soldiered on through a long day and was a master urban navigator, aided by Charles' natural instinct for map and metro interpretation. The next goal, which we really wanted to see and which had eluded Nadine's search earlier was Monument Park, the largest collection (by an enterprising new capitalist) anywhere of massive Communist-era statues which survived the topplings that followed the end of Soviet Communist domination of eastern Europe. As we were walking and trying to figure out how to get there (it's outside of Budapest, and a little obscure), we learned something interesting about Nadine: she's a tour guide at Buchenwald, the preserved Nazi concentration camp near Weimar.
The journey to the park by subway and buses took a good hour and a half, but it was well worth it. We were amazed and amused at these giant statues scattered around a large park. We strolled from Stalin's boots to Lenin's bust and took some photos imitating these ideologically correct figures. Charles' press pass got him in free, so he decided to splurge on a t-shirt you can't get anywhere else, one depicting the great minds of the failed system as a rock band on tour.
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