Playin' Hooky

A group of us decided to ditch language school (which has become somewhat laborious) for the day and instead go out to see more of the city.  I met up with Joe, Neal, and Jared by the Astoria metro stop and we headed out to see Margit Island.  Beautiful place even in the winter:  lots of open space, and a zoo to boot.

Pretty duck at the zoo on Margit

The view of Parliament from Buda (we stopped over on our way to Margit).  Note the icy Danube.

Some pretty steeples on a church in Buda.

We left Margit and met up with Ranjan to see Terror Háza, which took us several hours (no cameras inside, sorry!).  Terror Háza is a museum of the fascist and communist days of Hungary, specifically of their secret police forces, which operated out of the very same building as the museum.  As you can see on the wikipedia page, the museum and it's intentions carry more than a bit of political charge.  Regardless, it's a good sight, and the museum's design is aesthetically very good.

Where else could the day end but Ikea?  Back down the yellow line (the second oldest metro line in the world, only to London), up the red line to the end, and into Meatball Palace.  I shot a few pictures of the signs regarding the deal for translating on Google once I got home, and as I suspected, the deal is limited to one plate per customer.  Regardless, all of Budapest seems to have a tacit agreement to ignore this regulation (damn Swedes) and rejoice over heavily-subsidized meatballs.

The best deal in the history of food.