I visited Kegyeleti Muzeum, a museum of Hungarian burial practices - everything from mourning clothes and coffins to horse-drawn hearses.
I'm also beginning to think that I should travel the world and write a book about the different restroom facilities. Here are two interesting restroom experiences I had.
Holocaust Emlekkozpont (Holocaust Museum) had a very powerful and impacting exhibit. The name of the exhibit was from oppression to genocide. The exhibit included evidence from the holocaust including laws, political oppression, timeline, personal articles, camp uniforms, video, and written accounts of survivors. It was an incredibly moving experience, especially video showing concentration camp prisoners being rescued. I started tearing from all the upsetting images on how skinny survivors were, and the piles upon piles of dead bodies.
Naturally after experiencing something very upsetting, I went shopping along Raday utca. There were artsy boutiques and little cafes and bars. It was quite breathtaking, and there were certainly a LOT less tourists than Vaci Utca.
I also ventured into Nagycsarnok (Great Market Hall) and bought a few items, conducting the transactions in Hungarian. I was so proud of myself! I bought some strawberries, desperately hoping that they would uphold to Romanian standards. WRONG! I was very disappointed, but they're still more flavourful than in the US.
The Rough Guide to Budapest spoke about an eclectic shopping centre, Parisi Udvar, not far from Fereciek Tere. Eclectic isn't the word for it. There were only a few shops in a huge shopping centre, that looked like it should be a church and not an arcade or mall. Very beautiful, but strange nonetheless.
After that, I headed towards northern Pest along the banks of the Danu. I visited Gresham Polata (Gresham Palace) in Roosevelt ter, down Zrinyi Utca to Szent Istvan-Bazilika (St. Stephen's Basilica).
From there, I walked all the way up Andrassy ut to Hosok tere. It's a beautiful square with two museums flanking the famous Ezeréves emlékmű (Millenary Monument) in the middle of the square.
I headed to the zoo, and had a very difficult time getting out of the zoo when it closed. Why you ask? Because the zoo map was in magyar, not angolol, and to complicate matters even further, the zoo was under heavy construction and exhibits had been moved. I had a very difficult time finding anything in that place. However, they had some really good exhibits and the animals appeared to be cared for well. Here are some of my favourite photos:
After finally finding the exit of the zoo, I made my way towards Vajdahunyad Castle. It's an absolutely gorgeous castle, and I just couldn't help wondering to myself - did you really need all that space? Really??? Maybe that's why the divorce rate was lower back then - you never saw your spouse because your house was too big.
By this point, I could barely drag my feet enough to move, so I head back towards the hotel and decided to eat dinner at one of my researched spots, Bombay Express. It's fast-food indian style. It's like a cafeteria. You go in and get a tray, and then you make your selection and they serve from steaming hot trays of different dishes. You then choose your drink and pay. I had basmati rice and mixed vegetable curry with paneer. Delicious!! My stomach was not very happy after ingesting all that food because, I'm pretty sure, that was the biggest meal I've had in almost 3 weeks!
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