Bathing in Budapest!

Finally the rest of our Budapest visit. As enjoyable as the Opera and the cafe was, it was not the grand total of our four plus days in Hungary's capital. Despite the bad weather (it rained HARD over half the time we were there) we did a good job of getting out and exploring an interesting town. Our two big highlights were the House of Terror and the Baths in City Park.

The House of Terror (terrible name, good museum) was the former headquarters for both the Arrowcross (Nazi-occupied Hungary's version of the Gestapo) and the AVO/AVH (communist version of the secret police). It's now a museum covering that time of terror. The museum itself was interesting and had a number of exhibits that certainly seemed fairly moving. Unfortunately for us (and everyone else from a number of countries that pointed out the same issue) there was very little information in anything other than Hungarian (There were page-long general description in each room (though nowhere to sit and read them), but little Engish in the captions/labels/etc.) As a result, we were left to look at pictures and read the sparse english descriptions. Throw in the very unfriendly security guards and staff and we were left with the opinion that it was a worthwhile experience (we still learned a lot about the various regime's brutal suppression of radical movements) but one that could have been improved exponentially with just a little bit of effort on the museum's part.

The other story from the Terror Museum was Becca catching her toe on a metal letter and ripping it open pretty good (Casualty score for the trip so far: Becca 3, Brian 0). Of course, we didn't realize how badly she'd cut it until she'd walked across a room leaving a slow drip of blood across the floor. Talk about trying to make the museum interactive...

(And we can't decide whether splattering the floor with blood at a Terror Museum was incredibly appropriate or incredibly inappropriate)

The other big highlight of the trip was a visit to the Szechenyi Baths. Hungary's Carpathian Basin is a thin crust on top of a lot of hot water. As a result, Budapest is the home of 123 natural springs and 27 thermal baths. We decided to check one of the thermal baths out as we had been told this was a great opportunity to hang out with the locals and experience a Hungarian tradition. I have to admit I was pretty excited about the idea of just hanging out in the warm baths for an afternoon (this despite the fact that I'm not a big water guy) as the bed in our hostel had caused by back to lock up pretty severely. Despite some inappropriate mental images of people in ill-fitting speedos, we headed out to the baths.

It ended up being just a cool experience. Neither one of us figured we'd be there for more than an hour or so but three hours later we were wishing we'd shown up earlier. We just spent the overcast afternoon going back and forth between the two outdoor pools in a wonderful royal like setting with statues etc. One pool was cooler (with bubbles and fountains and a fun current track to float around) and one was quite warm (with hard shower like fountains to work your neck and back and men playing chess).

We also made a couple quick detours into one of the indoor mineral baths (water is a little green as a result) to refresh the body. Becca went outside of her comfort zone and tried the sauna with me but lasted about 30 seconds (I wasn't much better; it was certainly hotter than the saunas at home) before exiting and plunging herself in the cold water. Sure we ended up all wrinkly but we were pretty happy to have experienced a true Hungarian treat.

In all, we were glad we had come to Budapest. Though it didn't make its way into our top cities ever, it was a nice look into a place that had once ruled and empire, then been devastated by two oppresive regimes, and now was getting back on its feet with a vengence.

Brian

Kill the Wabbit! Kill the Wabbit!

On Thursday, Becca and I decided to get dressed like real adults and take in a night at the Hungarian Opera House.  Though the season is over, they are having a special festival right now and performing a couple of Verdi's operas. 

 

First though, we showed up in the afternoon, dripping wet, and after donning protective gear toured the beautiful building. The Budapest Opera House is supposed to be one of the nicer ones on the continent, though much smaller than LaScala, etc.. It actually had made the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph jealous by being nicer than the one in Vienna and by being the first to encorporate a number of technological inventions (such as the first such building to have fire safety attributes and to incorporate air conditioning: blocks of ice under a vent under each seat!). It's just a beautiful, opulent building and we were excited to think about the fact that a few hours later we would be climbing those stairs ourselves.

 

For the evening, we had tickets to Il Troubador, evidently one of Verdi's most musically impressive but ridiculously plotted operas (seriously...read the link). Needless to say the best investment of the evening was the program with an english speaking synopsis of the opera (and of course some opera glasses).

 

It was the first opera for both of us, and we actually enjoyed it more than I think either of us thought we would (in addition to just enjoying the whole scene of being there).  Fortunately, as this is one of the big time places, the opera was subtitled (since it was performed in Italian). Unfortunately, since we're in Budapest it was subtitled in Hungarian. Ah well...we just had to rely on the program notes and our imagination.

 

A couple more thoughts about the evening:

a) it was really fun to put on the one nice outfit we had packed and pretend to be real people for the evening

 

b) we would get really excited the couple of times we either recognized a word or two in Italian or even more rarely, recognized one of the pieces of music. The most famous (to the non-opera connoseurs) part is probably the Anvil Chorus.

 

c) the budapest opera is probably the cheapest world class opera to see. The most expensive seats (in Empress Sissy's old box) were probably about 75 dollars, standing room ticks were 1 dollar, and our upper level seats were about 16 dollars. Not bad.

 

d) after being all excited about getting to room these grand staircases and rooms and walk in through the fancy lobby and then into the concert hall for real during the opera we were totally denied. See...our seats were where the commoners would sit back when, so there was actually a separate entrance around the side of the building and you climbed up some side stairs to the top, never actually entering the rarified areas where the nobles socialized. Good thing we took the tour! Though to be fair, the view from our seats wasn't too shabby.

 

All in all a great cultural experience and we both safely say that we enjoyed the opera alot more than either of us would have imagined.  Perhaps we will try to take in another one before we head out of Europe!

 

-The Newly Cultured Brian & Becca (yes, a joint post!)