danube.embankment

you are on your way to a foreign land, a new city, a land with a foreign language.  you don't know her well, but yet you can’t wait to meet her in person.  hungary is her name and budapest is the city that you newly acquaintance to.

you can’t wait to see the beauty of Budapest after you settled in your new ‘home’, an apartment in a charming neighborhood just one block behind the Danube river that facing margaret island. you walk to the danube river bank or some called it duna river (you guess is the same), the street is rather empty on a sunday afternoon, you wonder if it is safe to walk around just like that and have your camera hanging on your neck.  you follow your instinct and reach the parliament house, a building stood beside the danube river bank.

the parliament's entrance is looking out over Kossuth square. This neo gothic building apparently has 691 rooms, but you find a comfortable corner to sit and admire the parliament, just by the fooot of a statue. you said a statue because you don't remember his name any more.

your first impression about buda or rather pest lies within the danube embankment, you love the breeze that cools you down. You walk passed the parliament house to the riverside and there you wonder up and down and wait till the sun sets. far away, you see many misplaced shoes along the embankment.

 up close, you realize that these are bronze replicas of shoes.  and you say to yourself, surely there is a story behind these shoes.   these shoes on the danube embankment was created by gyula pauer. it is a memorial to the people who fell victim to the arrow cross militiamen in budapest and depicts their shoes left behind as they were cast into the river after having just been shot during WWII. this is the site where jewish men, women, and children lost their lives. The place where they were shot for their beliefs and thrown into the icy winter waters as a means of extermination only after they removed their ever so valuable shoes. they may have lost their lives, but the memory and their shoes remain forever.  heavy. You feel weary and sorry for the lost lives.  you ask God to bless these souls…

sun is about to set, it is good that you can shift your focus away from the heavy and weary bronze shoes.  you watch the sunset, the sky turn yellow, pinkish, orange and purplish.. Then the lights up. the amazing beauty showing herself in the twilight! you took a lot of photos of buda, you like her in the late afternoon, in the sunset, at the twilight and even after dark.

now you are satisfied, it's about time to walk back to your home before it is too dark. you are not sure how safe budapest is at night.  you walk back, pass the parliament house. it looks very different at night...

as you compare the parliament photo that you have taken at the day time and at the night time.  the building has a mythical look and scary feeling at night, at least this is how you feel it...

you look to your right, the ethnology museum of budapest also changes it look at night, more enchanting at least.

you walk further, the direction toward your home, and you see the fire lights up here at the square, you don't know what does it mean, it must be symbolic you guess! 

you want to eat something authentic on your first dinner, goulash comes to your mind naturally.  along the street that leading to your 'home' there are plenty of restaurants and eateries for local people really. you go into one base on your common sense, no english sign, no english menu, waitresses barely speak a word or two in english. this is what you wanted, a local restaurant frequented by lcoals only yet you are frustrated but at least the goulash shows up on your table is rewarding, you have your goulash with dumplings and a glass of red wine.  hearty but definitely the best goulash you have ever tasted so far...
and you go 'home' and call it a day.

[15th August 2010]