The weight of it all

We’ve just finished up our last full day in Budapest. We set out this morning to see the massive Market Hall. I got in trouble right away by crossing over the wrong street and then back over yet again to a (different) wrong street before I got things under control and started the daily march. As far as I can tell, the Market Hall is full of souvenirs you don’t want and food that you’d have to pay me (a lot) to eat. Here, for example is the beautiful hall from the outside and some fine-looking morsels on the inside. I’ve been eating some meat(pork) on this trip to accommodate my corn/wheat/almond issues but I will not be partaking of this stuff. I think, on the left, there’s a spinal cord for sale…is that possible? Alexis?

We moved onward to the Great Synagogue and Jewish Museum – second largest in the world, after one in NYC. It’s right at the entrance to what was the Jewish ghetto in Budapest. Although Hungary had mistreated the Jews long before World War II, the Nazis did not deport the Jewish citizens of Budapest until early in 1944, when the trajectory of the war had started to become clear. Undaunted, they deported like 400,000 Jews in just a few months and locked about 70,000 into the ghetto (please do not assume these numbers are wholly accurate but they are appallingly close). When the ghetto was liberated, there were over 7000 dead bodies just laying there.

So the synagogue really resonated with me. It was left in shambles after the war and the Soviet stronghold and finally renovated about 20 years ago. I am not a religious person at all but it felt important to be there. Here’s the inside of the synagogue and the courtyard memorial to the 7000 bodies found there:

Enough, I say. We left the synagogue and I dragged Ron to his THIRD Mediterranean meal in Budapest. All this man wants is a pizza and I just don’t know how to make it happen here with the gluten free needs and the language issues. He did manage to get himself his daily doughnut:

The last part of our day was unplanned wandering, Ron continuously reading the map wrong, arguing about our direction etc. Doesn’t it seem like he’d be correct some of the time? A modern miracle that he ALWAYS picks the wrong way! At least there’s handrails along the Danube so I know he won’t fall in.

At any rate, we headed north (Ron proclaimed it south) and ended up at Margaret Island, which is a park built onto an island right in the middle of the river between the Buda side and the Pest side of the city. We hit mile 5.9 of our walk as we got there and we were in a heated discussion about walking back to our apartment (Ron) or taking the yellow trams. We saw a fountain up ahead and decided to sit down there and relax a bit and, in doing so, encountered one of my Budapest highlights. Margaret Island is where the Budapestians (??!!!???) go to relax. It’s American-free and charming, with comfy benches surrounding the fountain, which, as we sat, burst into action, playing Hungarian folk music with choreographed water displays. Children were dancing and babushkas were sitting and it was exactly what I needed to see – life, liberation, still present. Here’s the fountain in action:

And finally, Ron won out and we trekked the rest of the way home. We’re sitting at a solid 8 miles as I write this and we’re headed back out in a bit. In the middle of that last trek, we came to a park that had thousands of people screaming, watching Brazil-Mexico on an actual enormous movie screen. And then we moved about 300 feet forward and came upon a second group, watching a second screen. They were back to back in this huge park – one group of thousands supporting Brazil and one group (slightly smaller) supporting Mexico – and never can the two meet, apparently.

Soccer is serious stuff. And to think I sent my baby girl out onto the streets of Venice in that Munich jersey all those years ago. I’m sorry, love.

Onward to Sicily – no more history – just basking in the sun. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days.