Farewell, Budapest
Is it already August? Today Jen and I packed our bags and headed for the train station. It is amazing how we feel like we know a city after using the public transportation for 48 hours or so. We hop easily from road to tram to bus. It’s nice to have a sense of direction. (My sense of direction is named Jen.) We dropped our bags off at the train station by eight, and navigated our way to the House of Terror. This museum is dedicated to the history of the reign of terror in Hungary by the many parties of Nazi and Soviet Communist rule. Essentially Hungary, formerly of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, has had the short end of the stick for a hundred years or so. Because of the central location to both Germany and Russia, the country was a battlefield during WWI, WWII, and into the 50’s as Russia was establishing control behind the Iron Curtain.
The museum was three floors of one amazing exhibit after another. Each room was accompanied by a typed English history and explanation. Jen and I took our time to read every page, and explored each room. One of the more fascinating bits of information I learned was how the Communist government did not necessarily dictate that everyone had to be a factory worker, but they made the lives of farmers so impossible that their only option was to give up their lands, their livelihoods, and their houses, to become factory workers. The entire museum experience was very powerful and moving.
We left the museum around 12 and walked for a while to find food. Once we established that we were hungry, tired, and cranky, we decided to wait on lunch and go to the Dohany Synagogue, the second largest in Europe. It was as massive as the biggest cathedral we’ve been in this summer, and ornately decorated in its own way. The chandeliers were massive fixtures with large white globes… pretty ugly.
In a small courtyard behind the synagogue there was a truly beautiful sculpture made of stainless steel. It was a weeping willow tree complete with long, sweeping branches and feathery leaves. On each steel leaf was the name of a Hungarian victim of the Holocaust. There were several tour groups in the courtyard, so it made the visit a bit crowded. Jen and I left to find some much needed food.
We started for the train station just as the sky split wide-open and covered Budapest in a torrential rain. The rain only stopped once we were safely inside the train station. We retrieved our bags from storage and bought, what proved to be, the worst cold cut sandwiches ever made. Jen figured out which train car we were in and we tentatively climbed aboard, unsure of what a “couchette” would entail. We were full of stories of warning about the shady characters we would meet on our night trip to Krakow. The only shady characters in our car were two delightful Canadians who have traveled the world together. Carol is a dental hygienist, and Mark is a neuroscience professor, both from British Columbia, Canada. Scary people indeed. Surprisingly, the next leg of their trip is on the same train, to the same place, in the same car, and the same time as our trip to Prague. It is really a good thing that we all get along and enjoyed each other’s company.
Jen and I had the top bunks in a car with six bunks. Like little monkeys, we climbed to our top bunks and settled in for a good nights sleep aboard a frequently stopping train to Poland. We were woken first by the Slovakian border guard and then the Polish border control. Jen and I were happy to add two more stamps to our passport. Everything was pretty straightforward in all. We were glad to have one overnight leg under our belt so that we now know more of what to expect.
– Kendra
