Bits and Pieces of a Budapest Summer

I might have touched upon the lazy co-photographer of the blog previously, although he has somewhat objected to being labelled so, yet is too lazy to protest forcefully. He has however spent some time sorting through his July (and as per our joint observations, late June) shots and here they are in all their splendour.

They range from Minion donuts, through the famous rose ice cream of Bazilika to sausages (yes, he IS interested in food). The latter are of course ubiquitous in Budapest, but the Minion donuts proved to be one of those first world problems you never thought you’d have and should not be problems at all- each time we got to the Donut Library some kid(s) had devoured the entire stock and we were left empty handed. It’s these moments, plus queuing in infested fast food restaurants for the kiddie menu with some random action figure or engaging in lengthy negotiations with a six year old over a Panini sticker trade that you might think it’s time you grew up already. And then you think oh I sooo need that donut/sticker/action figure and it was all so very worth it.

Then there’s a beer bike as well, which were fun for like two days before becoming the main reason why traffic suddenly comes to a nervous, expletive-ridden halt in the Oktogon area at the most unexpected of times. I really don’t want to point fingers at any nation here, but the individuals on the bike often seem to be coming from a land where you’d need to turn into the exact opposite direction at any given time.

I must however confess to having been slighly baffled when said co-photographer became very excited at the sight of girl in somewhat unorthodox attire exiting a building in Újlipótváros- only to find out that she is apparently dressed like the Survey Corps in the Attack on Titan series, a phenomenon which, like Japanese cartoons in general, has yet to move me in any significant way. 

Look Who’s Coming To Sziget- Continued

This could very well be entitled the post I just had to come up with to shamelessly re-share our old Horrors pictures and be all smug about having guessed correctly they would join the line up as well.

I can also express my elation at this having happened, and my bafflement at them still being shoved into an afternoon slot- they were actually great on Sziget in the same slot last time, but they forever will be one of those bands better suited for the darker shades of life.

Since I touched on this subject, I can indulge a bit in the classic Sziget-goer sport of making the time slots a bigger deal than they actually are. Like Kasabian going on the Main Stage before Avicii, oh sweet blasphemy, and Interpol being exiled into A38 at midnight no less- okay, got it, someone actually realized they were dark matter as well, but midnight might be a tad extreme. Also, since when is Ellie Goulding a headliner?!

To be frank I just realized I haven’t really listened to her properly, so I am presently pressing a Youtube play button in a rather distressed state. Had to stop a NIN album for this so it better be good...nope, it isn’t, off for some beers it will be for me right after Foals. Since I had ventured out into the wilderness anyways, I investigated The Script as well and they are either Westlife for sad grown ups or U2 for very senile senior citizen. Or both rolled up into one bundle of Irish scary.

I also confess to having checked the line up to see whether MØ and Major Lazer are on the same day, to figure out if she’s gonna pop up during their set for my Thai lunch soundtrack song- I still can’t really figure out whether I hate or like Lean On, or whether my love of pad Thai makes all that irrelevant. But since they seem to be slotted for different days, they might as well both play it, how lovely.

My dream of having a blast in A38 during the shiny flame throwing main stage apocalypse seems to have been a vain dream after all, as both Passenger and Milky Chance are for me two blokes who wrote an insanely catchy song each- and both songs are perfect for advertising some hipsterish product that you could perfectly well live without- but won’t. I am of course open minded enough to give them the benefit of doubt, and I’ll make sure to let you know how it went.

My other fever dream was to spend Saturday evening at the World Music Stage instead of the main one, watching Goran Bregović for the umpteenth time, but this was dislodged as well, in a rather more positive way- although I never loved Kings of Leon quite as I did other indie rock bands, they were always a group I wanted to add to my ’seen live’ record, hoping this would be the test of whether they’re the real deal.

I will however definitely visit the World Music Stage at some point or other- most acts have already graced the island previously, which is great, because you know what to expect, and I was particularly delighted to see HK & Les Saltimbanks making aanother appearance, they were one of the most pleasant random discoveries of Sziget back in 2012. Yes, I am already excited about this year’s random discovery and I scan the programme feverishly to get an idea who it might be- which is of course the wrong way to go about it, because the random discovery must be unexpected.

When it comes to lessons (never) learned, I am hoping to avoid falling in love with an act right after Sziget and forever regretting not having seen them, so I’ve done some more successful youtube-ing than Ellie Goulding, and came to the conclusion that Foxes on the other hand is not bad at all- only to realize she sort of clashes with Kings of Leon, but A38 is just a really short dash from the Main Stage after all, so I might catch a bit of her as well. Because a crazy stage to stage dash is also compulsory for every Sziget, I can only hope that this year’s venue revamp won’t lead to getting catastrophically lost, as I so very often did in other years.

Pocket Trippin': Hunedoara Castle

The Városliget in Budapest harbours the rather intriguing architectural specimen of the Vajdahunyad castle, an end of the 19^th Century fever dream combining elements of disparate historical buildings from diverse Hungarian inhabited lands.  While it’s not all bad in its entirety, it has always given me too much of a Frankenstein feeling to feel completely at peace with it, and my spring wandering through the taxidermy of the Agricultural Museum has done nothing to ease the tension.

I of course always knew that the basic model is the ‘real’ castle in Hunedoara, and that Hunedoara is pretty close to my hometown, but as it often happens, you long to travel to faraway lands and miss out on what’s right in front of you, so to speak. Hunedoara itself does get bad press for having been a communist monstrosity of mines and factories, and to be frank, it still is pretty dull and a bit too socialist brutal for most tastes.

The castle is of course, as a Brit would remark, pretty.  It feels very much like a castle-ish castle- there are parts from different periods, the newer ones obviously shinier and better preserved, yet it’s the older stone fortress part that gives a sense of real history. It’s also the place where you can escape the tourist infestation, for as a younger visitor exclaimed, it’s just a room!- and then he was promptly off.

‘Just a room’ happened to be the  place where the positions of the canons were still clearly visible and you could discern how they were adapted to the landscape, aiming at the nooks and crannies where  an evil Turk might try to sneak in.  And ‘just a room’ also happened to be called the Nebojša tower, from the Serbian ‘do not be afraid’, a reminder of both Iancu de Hunedoara’s famous battle of Belgrade and the fact that ethnic groups were so intensively intermingling in this part of the world that it’s outright silly to have hissy fits over whom a particular mountain or valley belongs to. Today they belong to anyone who happens to live there and anyone who visits them with an open mind and heart.

The Red Bull Air Race Post

Thought we'd let a bit of time pass before posting the Air Race shots, since it caused so much emotion among the dwellers of the fair city of Budapest. Many went into full blown irate mode cursing everyone from the local authorities to the maker of the known and unknown universes over the (insert vicious expletive here) noise the planes made over the weekend. 

While I'm not going to argue that there wasn't any disturbance in the force, I would not go as far as to say it ruined my life. Since it was a very hot weekend, I had the luck of sleeping with my windows open and it was not the planes to wake me up either during the day or night, but people having loud arguments in the street, screaming their heads off drunk or having their dogs bark themselves into furious oblivion at each other. And these will never go away, whereas the race lasts a weekend, brings people to Budapest and yes there's tiny planes flying under the Chain Bridge. 

So there, we quite enjoyed it, in spite of the (insert vicious expletive here) noise, the (insert vicious expletive here) heat and the (insert most vicious expletive here) Central European addiction to deep frying everything. I won't complain about the beer, although I normally would, because that could be purchased from the nearby Czech beer festival, which made supporting the deliciously named Czech pilot (Sonka means ham in Hungarian) the most natural thing to do.