Holi Peace Festival

For those of you who haven't heard about the Holi, it's an ancient Hindu festival usually celebrated in the spring. It mainly involves people throwing colored powder on each other in the name of love. Now, as many other religious traditions, the Holi festival has also been commercialized, its date has been transferred to the summer, live music has been replaced by DJs and unknown bands performing with playback, and its name has been changed to Holi Peace festival, which is presented to you by Loop events. I see this as kind of sad.

Nevertheless, after hearing stories from friends and generally finding the concept intriguing, I decided to attend the very first Holi festival in Hungary. AND I DIDN'T REGRET IT. Honestly, despite all the things going awry in the beginning, I ended up having a wonderful night!

Wonderful. Night.

So, here we go:

After two of my friends cancelled on me, the third friend I asked said she would come, and that she'd also bring her sister. Great! Company! Everything fine until the day of the festival. Which was when

1) I left my ID at home, and had to go back, so
2) I missed my bus, so I only found out late that
3) my friends went to the wrong place and
4) it took a while for them to get there ("The office building! The one with the D on it! No, red bricks, not grey!"), so
5) we got in rather late.

Anyway, we did get in at last, so none of the previous turmoil actually matters. And what was inside was, well, quite a scene. Everyone - except for me, who couldn't open the packet of purple powder for half an hour - was throwing colors at each other, and jumping around and dancing, and trying really hard to look unrecognizable. It was only 6 PM, so there weren't any inappropriate naked impromptu performances yet, and no random people attempted to hug us a bit too tightly, and all was blissful.

I dare you to find me!

Except for the music. I don't know who was responsible for the music, but I want to strangle that person. I mean, they had Hungarian rap - which is well-known to be the worst kind of rap - and a couple of DJs I'd never heard of, and an apparently popular band with a really obscene name. And I know, I know I'm a bit of a music snob (a bit?) and I know it's unrealistic to expect indie music at such a festival and I know I have a bias against Hungarian music in general, but come on.

So after an hour, when everyone was already looking like Zoe Saldana in Avatar (which I proudly admit not to have seen) I was also among the group of people dancing to bad music, throwing purple power up in the air and being covered by green powder coming from fire extinguishers. And I thought, hey, this is so not how it's meant to go down, but hey, it's such a blast, so you know what, who cares?

If you saw a very colorful person wrapped in golden foil walking down the street Friday night, that could have been me.

You can find the official photos here, here , here and here.

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PS. The powder didn't come out of my hair. You know how I wanted to dye it purple? Well, this was not how it was supposed to go down.

PS 2. Not all photos are mine. Some are courtesy of my friend Szandi, others are official.

PS.3 If you couldn't find me...shame on you! I'm on the very left, right in the middle.

First Weekend of Summer

Friday night, to celebrate the end of the succession of disasters that this school year was, a couple of friends and I decided to go to a night party at a water park! Which, well, really was an apposite idea! For those of you who didn't know, I'm basically an amphibian. For real. I find it nice and happy on land, but take me near water, and I plunge in like a desiccated mermaid. Or maybe less gracefully than that, but that's not the point.
So one of my friends turned up in a huge, leather-seated SUV, and we sped off into the night. We also stopped by at the largest Auchan I'd ever seen.

Anyway, after three security checks and two trips back to the parking lot, we were finally disarmed enough to be able to enter the water park - which happened to be the very definition of paradise, for me! There were steep slides! There were bowl slides (which we got stuck in)! There was a wave pool! There was music! There were flashing lights! There were hot tubs! People were dancing everywhere! Yep, I think I'm going to stop raving about it now. We were there until about 2 AM, and then concluded the night by holding a cherry seed spitting contest in the parking lot - a rather common activity for adults driving expensive cars.

The day following the water park was rather uneventful, especially since I got up from bed at 2 PM, but on Sunday, we held my birthday party at a restaurant! And I got a new camera!!

It's so great, because people are tricked into thinking it shoots on film!

The place was real fancy, the food was good, and the cake was outright delicious. Out of courtesy, though, I'd rather not go into details. That cake was crunchy heaven.

The last slices I managed to salvage.

Following lunch, we decided to go to the book fair that's in the city every summer, but that proved less successful though. Mainly because there were so many people. So. Many. Total tuna effect. I also found the three books I just ordered online the other day for quarter the price. These are the moments when I'm all like "WHY...WHY...WHY??" Oh well. Also, beside my two film history books and the autobiography of Jean Renoir, the rest of the books were either

a) Game of Thrones

b) The Fault in Our Stars (read it before the hype call me a hipster, not John Green's best)

c) discussing medieval weapons in Central Europe

or

d) Game of Thrones

It goes without saying that I didn't buy anything.

This picture is absolutely necessary because look at the

book fair in the background!

So HOW does it feel?

Yesterday, I turned 18.

I attempted to remove my birthday from Facebook to see who remembers it anyway, but failing that attempt, I decided to accept my fate with quiet resignation.

And it all went well at first: "Hey, happy birthday, congrats!" Press 'Like'. Write 'Thank you! :)'
And then, the people who knew better than that, and texted me: "Layra, happy birthdaaaay!! Loves" Write back, thank them. Tell them I love them more, because I do.
And then, the people who actually called me: "Happy birthday! You're finally 18! That's so great!" Thank them. Tell them they're the best.

And I was happy, you know! I was touched by all the kind wishes and the people who took the time to call me, and I was genuinely content, and that was when this happened:

"So HOW does it feel to be an adult?"

Because really, how do you think it feels? Because being 18 years and 3 hours old is SO much different than being 17 years and 364 days old, isn't it? Because I'm already sinking into the ground from all the responsibility that encumbers me! Because I'm already soaring into the sky due to my newfound independence! Because I'm already filling out lottery tickets and filing tax returns! Because you must, you absolutely must ask this question!

So, since you've asked, I'll answer, but I'm going to have to disappoint. I feel the same as before. My mom still makes my breakfast, my grandpa still accompanies me while driving, and I still break the rules by buying tickets to over-18 movies.

Oh wait. That's no longer breaking the rules. Damn.

...

PS. Is it even POSSIBLE to remove your birthday from Facebook? Is it? IS IT? This is important!