Statue Park and Margit Island

Today I went to Statue Park. Statue Park is one of Hungary's most famous attractions. When all of the tyrannous governments finally fell in Hungary, someone had the bright thought to gather up all the statues and relics of political leaders and tributes to communism, and hide them away for a while so they didn't get destroyed a la The Berlin Wall. When the political realm became calmer, this guy took all these statues and created an outdoor museum open to the publc. For less than five dollars you can climb around on statues of Lenin and Stalin, sit on the feet of huge memorials, and buy CD's of "Hits from Communism". There are lots of red stars everywhere and the statues are laid out mildly helter-skelter. It's quite a process to get to the park as it's located outside of Budapest on the Buda side. We took a round about way and utilized the metro, a tram, and a bus. The bus stops and you step out into a ditch. There is no bus stop or anything defining the place as a public transit line. You traipse through weeds and dirt and emerge at a creepy-looking building. When you go in, all you can see is red stars: watches with red stars, flasks with red stars, post cards with red stars.... This, I found out, is because you actually enter the gift shop before the museum. However, the feeling of unease is heightened by the fact that there are hearty communistic marches being played through the speakers. I posted some new pictures on my picture website of the park. They're much better at explaining the atmosphere than I could ever hope to be.

My other news is that I finally went to Margit Island. This island, named after Saint Margaret, is located in the middle of the Danube, close to the center of the city. It's like a theme park atmosphere! There's a track around the outside which runs around 5 kilometers. Hard-core athletes and social runners alike use this path. Inside the track there's a petting zoo, swimming pools, parks, soccer fields and open areas, little stands that sell hotdogs and mulled wine, and the ruins of the convent where Saint Margaret was sent in the 13th century. The ruins were really cool because they were so authentically old and, well, ruined. I put a couple pictures up of the ruins, as well as of a peacock. In the zoo, there was a large establishment of peacocks, and while most of them had their feathers sedately folded on their backs, there was one zestful male who felt the winds of spring, and thus mating season. He had his plume ravishingly extended. Everytime a female peacock would walk by, he'd shake his feathers until they buzzed and rattled, and sort of arc them around her. It was beautiful, yet a bit silly to watch.

This weekend is a long one for me. There's a holiday on Thursday that is celebrated twice a year here in Hungary, and thus, I don't have school. Unfortunately, last fall when the same holiday was celebrated, the celebrations turned political in nature, and soon turned into riots. It's predicted that the same thing will happen again this time around. Even worse, those riots will be about 4 minutes from me since they're held primarily at Astoria, and I live near there. However, luckily this is the weekend my mom and sister are coming into Prague, so since I have some days off, I'm taking a bus to meet them there! I don't have to be around the riots, thank goodness! In America I might find it interesting to watch a political uproar, but here in Hungary where I really don't know the judicial or legal system, and the only words I recognize are things like, "excuse me," and "apple," it may no be the best idea to become politcally active at this point.

That's about it. Have a great early Daylight Savings Time America!