Debrecen, Day 2

Happy birthday Ronin! Today was Ronin’s 7th birthday, and we spent the day in Debrecen with our Fulbright friend Maya. We got a late start to the day since we let the kids (and us too) sleep in and then went to Spar to get some breakfast pastries. Everyone got to pick out whatever they wanted for breakfast. We got to the tram but then JonPaul realized that he left his phone at the apartment, so we had to go back and get it.

We finally got to Maya’s place where we left our bags for the rest of the day until we would catch our train later in the day. Maya lives right in the middle of town, and Willow wanted to take a picture of her door. Right by her house is a cool water feature that spurts water in arches at various intervals. It was pretty neat, and the kids liked jumping around it, but we told them that we could not jump through it!

We walked a short distance to the main square called Kossuth tér. This is where the Great Reformed Church is, which is a huge yellow church. In the square there are two different fountains and some statues. Of course, the kids had to take a picture with the seated statue on the bench. The big statue is of Lajos Kossuth. There is also this cool mosaic seal in the middle of the square.

The inside of the church was rather bare. Almost everything was a smooth white with just some polished wooden adornments. However, the upstairs balcony had an exhibit of artwork that was actually made from yarn. These were all super cool and I really liked the 3D texture you saw from the yarn. It was really hard not to touch them! We then walked up a winding stairwell to the attic area where you could walk around the ceiling of the church. It was neat to see the top of the dome from above. From here we walked even further up to the two bell towers on either side of the church for some great views, and then across the walkway between the bell towers.

There was a garden behind the church that we walked through. Maya said this was the place she came to sit and relax. There was this interesting statue with what looks like the Lord’s Supper on a table in front and then an opening with a gate in this rock with the sun atop. The kids ran through the opening a few times, saying it was a portal to another world.

We then walked the short way to the Déri Museum, a history museum of the Debrecen area. The outside of the building was very pretty, and there were these statues that the girls wanted to copy. I think they did a pretty good job!

I wasn’t sure what to expect in this museum, and it didn’t disappoint. It was a history of lots of different eras, starting from about 6000 years ago with remnants of ancient pottery, metal, and bones. There was a whole exhibit about burial rituals, which the kids thought was fascinating. There were lots of other exhibits, including a fur teepee and what Ronin called a ‘tomahawk rainbow’.

From here we went by St. Anna’s Cathedral, which is another yellow church, but much smaller than the last one. The inside was actually a little more ornate than the big church, but we didn’t stay long. Outside is a statue of pope John Paul II, and the kids thought it was cool to stand by the pope with the same name as their daddy.

After some pizza at a local restaurant we hopped on the train to come back home. All in all, it was a great long weekend, and I hope Ronin had a great birthday day!