Welcome to the chronicle of my hair, Heather's Hair.

Budapest was originally 2 cities (3 if you count one invasion reorganization), Buda and Pest. Buda is the side with the Castle and wealthier folk. Pest is where everything happens. We stayed on the Buda side but right at the Liberty bridge so it was easy and fast to get across. Budapest is sort of dull. Not nearly as exciting as its sister city, Vienna or Praha. Basically the city has been totally destroyed by war so many times, there is nothing to see anymore. The shopping is great and the spas are wonderful but the site seeing leaves something to be desired. We want to go back and just stay in the hotel at the spa for 2 days. Our Thai massage was great. The girls were really interesting to talk to.

This is a night shot across the river of our 5-star Spa hotel that only cost $52/night. Obviously the picture doesn't do it justice. It was really beautiful.

As you can see it was rather interesting looking on the inside. Sort of reminded me of a 5-star insane asylum. Very sterile, though being a Spa, that is probably a good thing.

As you walk over the bridge towards our hotel (we were on the Buda side) you get this view of the castle and palace. The red light is a car rushing by.

This is another picture on the same bridge, same walk, but we put the camera down on the railing. No cars either.

This view is from the Funicular that takes you to the castle. Just a nice picture.

From the castle you can look down on the Pest side. This roundabout at the center-ish of the picture use to have a communist red star around it and the only cars circling were Trabants. The star was moved to the Communist Statue Graveyard which you see a few pictures lower.

These were two really cool looking buildings we saw. The one on the left was on the main walking/shopping street on the Pest side. Lots of ornate carving and such. The one of the right was an old hotel that obviously had been used as cheap apartments which they were now renovating. Something I noticed was that there were lots of buildings whose second floors and up were really cool looking but the facade on the first floor had been redone to be very nondescript. Communist, if you ask me.

Look it's the Mall! Looks like it could be any mall in any suburb of the good ol' US of A, but it isn't. It's the largest mall in all of Europe! Situated in the new "center of Budapest", across the street from the main train station.

This is the great Market hall. It is next to the river and use to be where they built ships. It is beautiful inside, as you can see. The main floor is mostly food stands. Better produce than you would ever see in Germany. The second floor is part food court, part souvenir stands. Some of the lace tablecloths are amazingly beautiful.

This is the Raoul Wallenberg memorial behind the Old-New Synagogue. He was a Swedish diplomat on par with Schindler. When the Russians took the city from the Axis, he jumped in his car and went to the end of town to meet the Russian general. He was never heard from again. Anyhow, if you want to read the sign, click on the picture and you will get a bigger picture that is easier to read. We got there at dusk so it was hard to get the right shot.

Here you see the back of the synagogue and an inner courtyard that had a bunch of headstones lined up and a family of kittens living in it. The kittens were an interesting contrast. The headstones seemed to be of people that died in concentration camps. Unfortunately for Hungary, they sided with the wrong side in both World Wars. Their population was devastated and they lost a lot of land in the various peace accords.

This was the Miro Cafe I was telling you about in the coffee speech. Cool furniture. It was near the castle on the Buda side.

This is one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. It is the most frequented by the Budapest-ians. It is Saint Anne's and sits near the river on the Buda side. It seemed to be closed for a month or so (which was the most I could make from the Hungarian notice on the wall) so the picture taking was limited. It reminded me a lot of a really large and ornate living room. there were portraits instead of murals. It was just beautiful.

I got a cool female garage attendant dress at this used clothing store. It's light blue even. I'm thinking of having the name Bob embroidered on the lapel.

This is a restaurant the my friend Virgie and I went to when we visited Budapest summer before last. Patrick and I happened to be in the neighborhood so I thought we should take a picture. The food was pretty good in '99.

We found this Sushi bar in the "Time Out Budapest" tour book. In the book there is a picture of the sushi chef. When we got there it was the same guy! The hotel made us a reservation and told the hostess 2 beautiful women would be coming. See I told you Patrick gets it all the time.

The pictures below are from the Communist Statue Graveyard. We had to take 2 buses but it was totally worth it. I guess statues were the one art form that was acceptable. They were owned "by the people", not the elitist capitalist pigs, like most art. It was all so huge too. The strange twist was that almost all the Comrade's that became statues, eventually ended up in some Gulag somewhere. Apparently you could fall out of favor with the party pretty fast and easy.

This was the bottom part of the Liberation Monument. The top part, a woman holding a palm leaf over her head which is still on the top of Gellert hill. She was peace oriented. He was military. He's in the graveyard. See the little me on the left. The statue it 6 meters high.

Whoop-de-do the Republic of Councils' Pioneer Memorial Plaque. Boy and Girl Scouts for Communists.

Above is both sides of the KMP Printing House Memorial Plaque. Kind of big to be called a plaque in my opinion. The Printing house illegally published communist papers during the fascist regime of 1922 so the "workers could hear the sound of truth through their militant words."

To the left you'll find the Martyrs Monument. No not just any Martyrs but the ones the masses were convinced were held in prison cells under the street in front of the Budapest Party Headquarters in October 1956. Of course there were no cells. So why a memorial?

I'm pretty sure this is the Heroes of Peoples' Power Memorial. It was built for the people killed in an uprising on October 23rd 1956. What it should really be for is all the people who were killed in the blood bath when the Soviet Union came in to squash the uprising.

This is the Bela (accent on the e) Kun Memorial. Bela was a leader of the Republic of Councils. One of the many post WW1 governments that didn't last long. He ended up in Soviet Union and was "liquidated by his own comrades". Go figure.

Here is the red star I was talking about above that use to be at the center of the roundabout below the castle at the end of the Chain Bridge. What a pretty commie red star.

Lenin was a popular guy. Was. This was 2.5 meters high and created by the Csepel Metal Works for Krushchov's visit to the factory in 1958. The original was of such poor quality it disintegrated and had to be recast. Ha ha.

Here we have Marx and Engels, the fathers of all this trouble. I think the Cubist rendition is refreshing. This is on the left side of the gate below.

The gate above does not open. You go in on the side. It is symbolic. The poem on it is so moving that I am going to copy it all for you here on another page because it is really long. I recommend reading it though. On the door there is only a portion and it is in Hungarian. It was written by Gyula Illyes (accent on the y) in 1950, published in 1956 at the beginning of the revolution.

This picture doesn't do this statue justice. It is a 4 meter high statue of Lenin. It is on the right side of the gate in the picture above. He isn't looking really happy and it is therefore very overbearing. Very strong. It stood alongside the great road where the May 1st celebrations and mass demonstrations took place.

I think this is the Display of the Worker's Militia Monument. They don't have the pictures in the guide book and I didn't write down the numbers. Suffice is to say, there were lots of plaques and memorials to the various worker parties.

This is the Republic of Councils Monument. Originally it was a poster calling the workers to arms. When they needed a statue of the council, they had to use this design. (I don't know why that is what the guide book says). It is 9.5 meters tall. See how small Patrick looks?