Another bad nights sleep, first waking up too hot and then getting too cold. Am I Goldilocks?
At 7 am the boat sailed from its mooring to move closer to the middle of town. We had a gorgeous view for about ten minutes until they parked another couple of boats alongside us.
There were several tours available today but since we’ve already been here a number of days we were happy not to sign up. In fact watching the giant groups of slow moving elderly Americans shuffling off the boat didn’t inspire us to sign up to any walking tours this week.
We had initially planned to go to the Children’s Railroad for the day but our heart wasn’t in it. Instead we decided to go to Monument Park, an area out in the suburbs where they moved all the Soviet Statues in the 2000s.
The journey involved public transport with a couple of changes, which might have put some people off, but it was part of the adventure for me. For one, you get to see how the locals get around. After buying our day pass, we took the metro and then swapped to a bus. The bus driver resolutely refused to look at us when we tried to show him our transport passes. This is a surprisingly common reaction.
The park was great, highly recommended. There was hardly anyone there, there would have been less than ten visitors in the two hours we were there. The poor lady in the ticket office had to listen to Communist propaganda music all day. It was available to buy as a CD; we didn’t buy one.
After wandering around the statues for a while, we went next door to see the photo exhibition on Soviet history in Hungary. Most mind blowing were the videos they were showing, training films for secret agents in the 60s. How-to guides for recruiting informers, breaking into an apartment with or without a warrant, or trailing and filming suspicious people. It was incredible. I suppose the same stuff goes on in North Korea now, and probably also China and Russia.
We were getting quite hungry by now so decided to have another try at the New York cafe. When we got there the queue was shorter than the other day but still out the door and not moving so we gave up and went back to the ship for tapas which was all that was available by mid afternoon.
Evening cocktails and a briefing for tomorrow’s activities at 6 and then it was on to the conference dinner. Since there were only a handful of participants this was quite an intimate event. We were sitting right across from the lecturers. Simon had preloaded with a wicked martini on top of several beers so I had to keep jabbing him when he got too expansive and talkative. The food was great but it was not a relaxing meal for me. It turns out they are religious so I was very pleased I hadn’t brought up the subject of politics.
Luckily at 8:30 we were all called on deck to see the boat setting off, heading upriver of Budapest. The lights were gorgeous and we took lots of photos. It quickly got too cold to stay out so it was an early night, ready for an early start tomorrow.
