Sketches of Pest

So our Buda day was definitely a step-by-step run from place to place. While it was great, it was pretty tame and kosher. Perhaps we were all jazzed up and wasted energy from Belgrade and the overnight train to Budapest, but we were looking to spice it up on day 3 of Hungary.

And the weather wanted us to, as well. The sun was out; everything was lined up for a great day. And as cool as the place looked in general, seeing it in the sunshine was truly specatcular.

Our first stop was to Hősök tere, or Heroes' Square, abutting onto City Park. This astounding monument commemorated the rulers of the Austrian Empire, as it was built during that phase in Hungarian history. City Park was a beautiful green space, with pick-up soccer games (facetiously the Hungarian national team), statues of antiquity, and a large and beautiful Hungarian bath. Connor decided he'd be up for a swim while Wendy and I headed for the Palace of Fine Arts for the mummy exhibit.

This outstanding exhibition had four mummies in various states of unwrap, donated by a generous benefactor to a project that set about reconstructing the life and history of the four recovered ancient Egyptians. They even set about facial reconstruction of one of them using advanced CT scans and ideas of what people of that time and area looked like. Aside from the man's unfortunate overbite, seeing a mummy's face reconstructed was absolutely awesome.

The rest of the museum had an extensive art collection, including many pieces of religious medieval art. Now, this isn't my favorite style of art, despite its absolute technical perfection, so there wasn't too much that grabbed me. There was one thing that absolutely did grab me, and it was tucked into a corner in a side room, unnoticed by many, I'm sure. But this small sketch from Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, had me enthralled:

The mummies behind us, the stench of dirty socks ahead, we went back to the hostel for a much needed laundry session, reading and relaxing while the washer spun out the backpacking dirt.

It was time for some Curry Wurst, where they slather ketchup and curry powder on a bratwurst (delicious, whether or not that sounds tasty) and some cheap whiskey and drinkable beer before calling it a night.