Archaeotek Summer- Exploring

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I am pretty excited about the next couple of weeks. I had an awesome day today. We got up early-ish (7:30, but after a long day, that’s early), had breakfast at the hotel, and then headed out exploring. We first checked out the train station directly across from us, as that is where we will be catching our early morning train to Cluj, and we wanted to scope it out. There are only two platforms. We’ll be golden. Then we struck out for the Danube, only a glance at our very touristy map after a half hour revealed our direction to be exactly opposite to the one we should have been heading, so we ditched the river idea for the moment and continued on to see where our little utca, or street, would take us. It led us to a massive park, full of playgrounds and statues and such. I soaked my pants by trying out an awesome looking slide. The playgrounds here are much cooler than ours at home. Never mind the toddlers, we need playgrounds for big kids. They’re awesome. There was also a wicked statue that I shimmied part way up. Pretty cool view. From there we found a square with the requisite large statues of mounted men and winged women, only these guys had the most epic facial hair EVER, and one of the horses had antlers for a headdress. It was pretty wild. An apricot ice-cream cone later, we drifted towards the river again, along a lovely shaded avenue lined with gorgeous old European style buildings and trees. A stop at some interesting statues where many school kids gathered revealed a building with cameos all along the siding and a strange framework running up and over the building. The statues turned out to be a memorial to the occupations of the Nazis and the Soviets and a section of the Berlin Wall, and the building is called the House of Terror, which is dramatic sounding. I really wanted a picture of me dangling from the top of the Berlin Wall, but we weren’t sure that was Kosher. Anyway, we spent a good hour and a half to two hours in the museum, which commemorates the double occupations. Apparently it was a detention, torture, and execution place during both occupations. Walking through there felt like reading George Orwell’s 1984 all over again, but in real life. Or watching V for Vendetta without the happy-ish ending. Ah, ok, strange little coincidence, as I was purchasing my (ISIC discounted) ticket, who walks up to the teller beside me to purchase hers but my cousin Francis!? Strange. So we wandered through together and will hopefully be taking a caving tour tomorrow through the underworld of Budapest (apparently they have a cave system under the city similar to Paris’ catacombs). So that was fun. And creepy (the museum’s premise, not meeting Francis). We had lunch in a little café and waited out a series of rainstorms before continuing on to the river to sightsee and shop a tiny tiny bit. I bought a new bathing suit to replace one that I got when Sophie graduated four years ago. It was a good purchase. From there we wandered up to Kazinsky Utca, where we were set to meet another team member or two, but only the one guy, Stephane, showed up. It is an awesome little place, a sort of hangout/ bar/ courtyard. There are several different bars set up, serving different things, the tables and chairs are a mishmash of things rescued from dumps, including old cars. We sat in the backend of a car with a table in front of us. And there was a pizzeria. When night fell they projected films (Planet Earth where we were) onto screens on the walls, and there was a gnome swinging on a swing hung from the ceiling. And a band playing reggae. If Cluj is anything like here, I’m gonna have a BLAST!

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