Pest

Got up early yesterday morning to head to a Turkish bath. I was only there for 2 hours (apparently people usually stay for 4-5 hours), from 7:30 to 9:30 am and got sunburned! I didn't even think the sun was going to shine... haven't seen it in so long. Sure enough it did come out.. and even though I was only outside for about an hour (some of the baths, the sauna, the steam room were all inside) I now have a red face. I have no idea how people can stay there for 5 hours. I got bored of jumping from one pool to another pool to the sauna, to another pool, etc. I was nice and relaxed afterwards though!

I then wandered around the rest of City Park, stopped in at the Budapest Zoo for a bit to remind myself how inhumane humans are, and then checked out Heroes Square. It is composed of statues of famous Hungarian rulers and a 36 m high column with Archangel Gabriel at the top and the statues of the seven conquering Magyar tribal chiefs at the base. Heroes Square was built in 1896 to celebrate the millennium of the Hungarian conquest of the Carparthian Basin.

After that, I still had some free time before I had to catch my train so I went to the House of Terror. The museum is housed in a building that was once the headquarters of the Arrow Cross Party, then the Hungarian Nazis between 1944 and 1945, before being taken over by the Communist secret police (once Soviet troops had "liberated" Hungary). Built in 2002, the House of Terror is a very "flashy" museum and caused some controversy when it opened. Interestingly, it has a wall of "Victimizers" which has the photos of people (both living and dead) who helped either the Nazis or the Communists (or both!). The basement was used as a prison by both the Hungarian Nazis and the Communists, and many people were tortured and killed there. I have learned a tremendous amount about Communism on this trip... I suppose much of the reality of it was too... I am searching for the right word... but sensitive is as close as I can get...too sensitive for 14 year olds to be taught (which is the age I was when I learned about Communism). Of course at that time, much of recent history was yet to be written.