Celebration

Yesterday was a day out again. Frankly, that's all I have these days: days out and days off. And that's the reason I'm down and out. Okay, put away the joking, I'm telling you about our August 20. (I won't go into details of August 20, as it is a well-known public holiday for Hungarians, and others can read about it if interested.)
We left after 2 pm, me, my boyfriend, and my sister. We headed towards the Parliament to watch the coronation regalia. We got there at about 3.30. There was a long queue there, but it moved pretty fast. My only problem was the heat (and that some really boor people ignored the bars and the queue and got in front of us from the side). We were screened by police, then finally got in. We weren't allowed in any other room but the dome room, where the coronation regalia are kept. By the time we got in there I was a bit pissed off by the  masses. At 4 o'clock we watched the changing of the guard, and I really liked it.
By that time I really wanted to take a leak, but of course there weren't any public restrooms near and far (typical of Budapest). We went into the Museum of Ethnography, but they were tricky as we should have paid 200 forints in case we didn't watch the exhibitions, which we didn't want to.
So, we went to Heroes' Square by sub, as there were transportable toilets, and also we wanted to watch the army vehicles displayed on the square. One of my brothers-in-law is a soldier, and he took the oath yesterday morning, that's why my boyfriend knew about the situation of the square. Unfortunately, the army vehicles weren't there when we arrived, so we decided to go into the Museum of Fine Arts to use the bathrooms. When we entered, it turned out that even temporary exhibitions were free (as on August 20 all state-owned museums are free to enter), so we decidied to watch the Mummies exhibition (after using the toilet at last).
There were four mummies displayed there, which belong to the collection of the museum. They were examined by CT (a thing that I only know of from ER and House M.D.), which enabled the researchers to find out a lot of things about them. Before that I hadn't been too interested in mummies, but this exhibition was really exciting. I read almost all the descriptions, as they were quite interesting. For example, there was one about the method of reconstructing the facial features of mummies. And there was a reconstructed face, too. What I found really interesting was that all the things had a religious (or superstitious) explanation. For example, they slept on a headrest in order to be protected from evil forces during the night. As my sister pointed out, it's a sad thing that the bodies of once alive people are exhibited this way, though I think it's still better then when they were robbed and kidnapped by treasure hunters and extravagant collectors. For me, they were rather scary than miserable.
We got out of the museum just before six, as we were led out by attendants who wanted to get home asap. Then we went for a walk in Városliget, and sat for a while watching the ducks and a swimming dog. Then we decided to get to Batthyány because we wanted to taste the so-called cake of the country. This cake was advertised in the brochures about the celebration, and it was made with millet and apricot from Kecskemét, my hometown. Of course by the time we got there, there weren't any left. Someone said that there were only two thousand pieces made, and they started selling them the day before.
So, instead, we went to Nagyi palacsintázója, and had some nice Hungarian pancakes. There was a long queue, and there was extremely hot. I think they made a huge income yesterday, as lots of people wanted to see the fireworks from the Buda side, and they spent hours waiting and finding the right place to see as much as possible. The pancakes were really delicious, though I asked my regular ones (ham and mushroom, and cottage cheese with fruits).
Due to the changes in public transport the way back home was a bit complicated, but we managed to get to my boyfriend's place at about 9, just about when the fireworks started. We watched it, listened to the commentary, and walked home. We were all tired, but it had been a nice day.