Last night we went out to see what New Year's Eve was like in Budapest. Turns out it is quite a wild party! There were throngs of people wearing all kinds of crazy hats, masks, costumes, etc. Our kids got into the spirit of things.
That part was fun. Where we ran into a problem was with people who were throwing firecrackers into the crowd. That was frightening. Abbie and Trey were both very stressed at the pops that were coming from every direction. There were so many people it was hard to keep track of everyone. At one point Natalie became separated from our family. Our friends had set out with us and we could not find them either. We were more certain than not that she was with them but we didn't know. It turned out that she was with them and we were able to contact them by cell phone. So our worry, though intense, was short lived, only about 20 minutes. As it grew later, the party became wilder and that's when we opted out. At about 10:40 we headed back to our apartment and watched a live broadcast from Berlin as they rang in the new year. We could see lots of fireworks from our windows and we could hear the people of Budapest partying well into the wee hours of the morning.
Today we headed to a place called Memento Park. The Hungarians had a clever idea for what to do with all of the statues left over from the Soviet Communist era. They took all of the statues and put them in one park. The Hungarians however, need a little help with tourism. This park is out in the middle of nowhere and it is very hard to get to. Here is where the bus dropped us off. It was a little creepy! There's nothing like being dropped off in No Man's Land in Hungary!
The park was really cool...but was a gigantic muddy mess! They gave us bootie things to wear over our shoes. Here are Abbie and Leanne showing them off!
At first we didn't think we needed the bootie things. We quickly realized that we were wrong and everyone wore them! There were all kinds of statues at the park and it is hard to imagine that there was such a Soviet presence here not so many years ago. Here is a giant statue of Stalin at the entrance to the park.
There was an enormous statue of Stalin that was torn down in the 1956 uprising. The entire statue was destroyed except for Stalin's boots. The boots are actually outside and Trey is standing with a replica that is indoors.
We made the long journey back into the downtown area and went back to our apartment for a while. Then Myles and I dropped the kids off with our friends and we went on a dinner cruise on the Danube. Our kids are certainly old enough to not need a babysitter, but we are not comfortable leaving them in a strange city, where they don't speak the language, in an apartment in the middle of downtown alone. So they just hung out with Leanne and the Key family while we were gone. We have had such a great time with all of them since we have been here. (We are the old ones of the group, though--none of them were born in time for the Bicentennial!) The cruise was an hour and a half and there was a buffet and a live string trio playing.
The lights were beautiful and Myles and I had a very nice date! What a great way to start out a new year! We head back to Gdansk Saturday. In the evening we are taking a sleeper train at about 8:00p.m. We will arrive in Warszawa around 7:00a.m. and then will take a different train for five hours to Gdansk. I am looking forward to getting "home" but it's going to be a long trip!
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