So, I went to Budapest!
It was largely awesome, the only negative points being the fact that it was absolutely freezing, and the fact that almost everything shut down from xmas eve afternoon until the day after xmas. Still, despite all this, we managed to cram quite a lot in:
- The Dohany Street Synagogue, with its attached Jewish museum and Holocaust memorial. A really beauiful building on its own merits, and the museum had a lot of very interesting exhibits, as well as a rather disturbing room about the Budapest Ghetto and the local events during the Holocaust, including the massacre of staff and patients at the Jewish hospital. It put a different perspective on the streets nearby, which used to be the Ghetto.
Also, the Nelson Kavehaz, almost next door, does excellent hot chocolate and lovely scrambled eggs with sausage and onion. Mmm. The hot chocolate was so good that we went there once on our way into the synagogue, and then again on the way out.
- The Terrorhaza, the museum of the Terror. While I did get the frustrating feeling that I was missing quite a lot owing to my lack of Hungarian language ability, the way that the musum is set out - almost like an art installation - is effective and affecting enough to make an enormous impression, despite the limited information available in English (there were information sheets in English available in almost all the rooms, but many of the displays weren’t labelled in anything in Hungarian, and some of the rooms didn’t have information sheets, including one of the most interesting ones, which appeared to be built out of ubber replicas of bars of soap). The way it’s set out means that you start on the second floor and work your way down, and the bit that sticks in my mind most is getting the pitch dark and excruciatingly slow lift down to the basement, in which is screened an interview describing how the regime hanged people.
- The Hungarian National Museum, which we found almost by accident on Boxing Day, and which turned out, by some small miracle, to be a) open, b) free, and c) warm. Also, very interesting indeed. I have a bit of a thing for Hungarian history, obviously.
Other than that, we just did a lot of walking about, something that Budapest is perfect for, and our apartment was ideally placed (we were staying in the Harsfa apartment, which was largely awesome, aside from the leaky shower; very cunningly set out, and perfect size for two people) on the Pest side. We largely missed the Christmas Market (though thankfully we were in time to get some giant cheesy pretzels), and spent much of our time walking through eerily deserted snowy streets and squares, which was rather magic in itself.
All my hard work in finding vegetarian restaurants for the sake of my vegetarian boyfriend nearly came to naught, as most places were shut between xmas and new year; however, we did make it to Vegetarium on our first night, which had an extensive menu, excellent food and good beer, and we would have gone back if we could. The rest of the time we survived on indifferent sushi from a nearby Japanese restaurant, and frozen pizzas from our local supermarket over xmas when all restaurants were shut. Oh, and cake: Gerbeaud, of course, was excellent, if rather crowded; Central Kavehaz did a great Esterhazy cake; and the Gerloczy Cafe saved our arses by being open on xmas itself, when we’d just come back from a lengthy walk up to the Var in Buda, and my feet were numb with cold. The pub right next to our apartment was somewhat frightening, but fundamentally decent, serving cheap beer and allowing us to meet some of the more colourful locals (though I did lose my gloves there).
Pictures are slowly being uploaded on my flickr page, but aside from that, I am up against a novel-related deadline, so hypermobility is officially on hiatus until 2008. Happy new year, and all of that; see you on the other side! x
