Budapest, Hungary 2015 - Part I

We were in Budapest for a few days and on the first we explored the city by doing what the locals did and visited shops, centers, and parks.  The first stop was at a market/grocery store, which reminded me of the grocery stores that were around when I was a child 40 years ago in the US.  We also rode a tram, used the subway, visited the modern city, as well as the late 19^thcentury market which was still in use today.  Our guide, Gabriella Kiss (pronounced quiche), was born when the Russians still occupied Budapest and she was also a historian.   She took us to a small, quaint park that she was overly excited to share with us and kept asking if we thought it was nice.  Out of respect I said it was beautiful but it truly was an average park and I didn’t realize until later that they didn’t have nice parks in Budapest and she took us to the nicest park the city had to offer.  Gabriella took us to Parliament, which was the first historical building that we saw without scaffolding because they finished the restoration process at the end of 2014.  Gabriella was honest with us when she took us to visit the bronze shoe memorial at the river by sharing the horrific story of the Nazis final push to kill the remaining Jews before they had to surrender in World War II.  We also discovered that Hungary is a poor country that has been occupied by others throughout history and they lost most of their country before World War II began.  She said Hungary joined Germany because Hitler told them that they would get their country back.   Gabriella also showed us a Hungarian memorial, which portrayed Hungary as a victim in World War II by Germany, which she said was controversial because they joined Germany and they were not victims.