More Whimsical than You Might Expect

Bug & SewDiva demonstrating Hungarian - Soviet friendship

From the Museum we headed out in to the sunshine (it was 88 degrees!) and got on the tram out to the train station at the edge of Budapest. From there we had to find the bus station and buy tickets (and then find the right bus – always an adventure) and take the bus out to Memento Park. After the fall of communism, the city started to take down all of the communist statues around Budapest and were going to just destroy them when someone had the great idea to collect all the statues and put them in a park. Now, this may sound like another depressing museum to go to (hello – House of Terror), but they really managed to make it quite a bit more entertaining than you might expect. The statues were arranged around the edge of a large park. There were quite a few statues of people we didn’t know (maybe if we’d paid more attention at the Hungarian National Museum we would have known but oh well) and then LOTS of statues about Soviet-Hungarian friendship and celebrating the failure of the 1956 revolution that tried to get rid of communism. In the middle of the park was a nice red star planted out of salvia. Over all it was quite nicely displayed. There was also a museum that had a viewing room with some very amusing training films for the Hungarian Secret Police – how to do an illegal search, plant bugs and recruit unwilling agents with blackmail. They also had a gift shop with some really great stuff – Sounds of Communism Volumes I and II, army hats, real Soviet-era Postcards, t-shirts and mouse pads with East Park (think South Park with Communist leaders) cartoons and even shot glasses with the hammer and sickle. Really great stuff. Then it was back to the road to wait for the bus. It was quite an adventure to read the bus schedule but we managed and sat down on a retaining wall to wait. The whole day had been really hot and we’d all gotten a bit sunburned but as we waited, the clouds opened up with the biggest rain drops you’ve ever seen. It was still sunny and hot, but now we were also getting wet. Just about the time the bus arrived, it stopped raining. Ahhhh, weather in Hungary has been such an adventure.

We got off the bus and back on the tram to our favorite Hungarian restaurant – that we’d been to just the night before. We tried their version of a “cheese dumpling” and although it was good, nothing quite like the Papanaşi in Romania. Then to our favorite internet café for some red wine and blog posting.
Guest post by Bug