053 - thu 22 jun - budapest

we awoke and headed for a museum. of all the museums we had been too, this one definitely had the least museum-y name of them all - 'the house of terror'! muhuhuhu HA! i probably shouldn't really be making light of what is always a pretty serious issue - the museum was concerned with the communist era, particularly the communist era in hungary, from the influence of nazi germany, through to homegrown hungarian communists, and then the prolonged russian occupation. but the museum itself was so heavy-handed and dramatic in its presentation of history that its hard in hindsight not to be a little bemused by it all.

i dunno. suz and i had pretty different opinions about this place, and i think its definitely the kind of 'museum' that is going to polarise people. you can't not be provoked into an opinion by it. even from the outside the house of terror is an incredibly imposing building, a traditional old european building that has had every window blacked out, and looks kind of like its had a giant sheet of metal sliced through its upper most level, with the words 'house of terror' menacingly stencilled out. once inside you learn that this building was the focus of administration for nearly all of hungary's most despicable communist secret services. in the entry hall you see the first signs of the dim moody lighting that characterises the entire museum, and you also get your first tatse of the 'imperial march'-esque cinematic music - again menacing - that follows you around most of your tour. its a dazzling modern multimedia experience that cost millions of dollars, and caused a lot of controversy during its building, when the opposing sides of post-communist hungarian politics bitterly fought over its appropriateness. the whole political element of the museum, and how its building reveals a lot about contemporary hungarian politics, was probably what interested me most. google it! the strangest thing is at the end of the tour. the second-to-last room is the least gloomy of them all, with video screens displaying footage of the end of communism in hungary, scenes of joy, freedom won back after decades of hardship. but after that, the last room jerks you back into the gloom, because its walls are covered with the faces of people who were involved directly and indirectly with the communist government, with the word 'victimisers' hovering menacingly (again, menacing) above the hundreds of photos. and the thing is, a lot the people shown in this 'hall of victimisers' (like some perverse hall of fame) are not only still alive and well, many of them living in budapest, but many of them are politically active or involved with the contemporary media. so... its hard not to then completely re-assess your reading of the entire museum, that its not just an epic tale of tragedy and gloom, but its also a public space with a very contemporary political purpose to sway the opinions of everyday hungarians, perhaps towards a way of thinking about the past that lines them up neatly with one present political party over another. is it just one big negative political advertisement? or am i a communist?

anyway... after that dose of heady seriousness, we headed for the famous baths, the name of which i don't have at hand, and besides its almost as hard to spell as it is to say. budapest has many thermal baths, but we went to the most famous and probably the most tourist-friendly. we indulged ourselves in pools of varying temperatures. it was a great way to spend the afternoon, after such consistent hot weather in our days in budapest.

we then made for raday street, a buzzing street of restaurants and bars where we found ourselves some dinner. the street had a very laidback but trendy vibe that definitely made us homesick for our favourite places in melbourne. budapest has a very liveable feeling about it. and its made up of some wonderful grand and old buildings, it has a rich history, and it is open and welcoming to foreigners without yet being completely overrun by tourism and louts. it wears its history on its sleeve, and you never know what you are going to find around every corner.

after dinner we did a big sweeping walk around town, taking a lot of photos of very beautiful buildings lit up at night. we ended up in a bar to watch the second half of the australia v croatia world cup game, which was no mean feat considering that 99% of bars had decided that it was a more financially sound decision to show the drab japan v brazil game over the nailbiting and very crucial australia game. but we eventually found a bar, we had some beers, and we bit some nails as australia scraped through. at the end of the game we got a text message from rodrigo and ferdinand, who were at this stage now actually in croatia, and we were happy to find out that they had not yet been lynched by angry croatian football fans looking to take out their frustrations on the nearest antipodean targets.

click here for photos