Festival of Folk Arts

I know, I know what you're thinking. Another festival?! Really?! This is what, your fourth festival this year? Don't worry, though, the Festival of Folk Arts is not that sort of festival. In fact, it's more of a fair, where people sell their handmade goods for a shit load of money, and you can't even buy anything useful, but you still spend all your cash. Yes, that's right. For instance, I bought a jellyfish magnet today, even though last year I bought the same sort of magnet from the same guy, only that time it portrayed a frog. So necessary.

You can say what you want, but that jellyfish is adorable.

So wait, now you might ask "Layra, why do you keep going there if it's so pointless?" Well my friends, because it's kind of a tradition, and I've been going ever since I remember. Missing even one single year is not an option. Of course when I was a kid, I enjoyed it so much and wanted to buy everything and went hysterical when my grandma refused to buy me kürtőskalács, and now I walk around going like "Yes, this would be a nice souvenir if I were a tourist, but I'm not and everything's so expensive and I've already spent all my money on kürtőskalács, because now I get to buy my own and ugh." But it's still nice. I even found a hat I liked, since that was my main mission this time, but then it turned out to be about $80 and I sadly gave up on my dreams.

See? It's a different kind of festival. A one for minors and senior citizens.

Also, the whole festival/fair is located in the castle, which is probably one of the main attractions of Hungary, and even through I go there at least three times a year (which means I've been there 54 times already), I still find it surprisingly beautiful. The view is also unsurpassed, at least by Hungarian standards, and as I happened to discover that my new camera has special effects right there today, I was experimenting with those.

Now I know how people take their really cool photos. It's just the filters and effects.

This shall be my new Facebook profile picture.

Oh, and this is mostly off topic, but on our way there, as we were waiting for the tram, I looked up and saw this:

WARNING, GRAPHIC CONTENT AND I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING!!

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Poor little pigeon...is it even a pigeon? :-(

I  think I might have scared the passers by with all the screaming I did.

SZIGET Festival - Day 2

Also known as the Hungarian alternative to Glastonbury*.

Our second day of Sziget was unfortunately less sunny and more muddy. We woke up to a mild drizzle, which then quite quickly escalated into a STORM. That's right. So after switching our pants from long to short to long about three times and doing our hair and make-up for an hour unbeknownst to the raging weather outside, we took off on our next adventure.

When we got there, we once more split paths - Nisa went to the regular entrance while I headed towards the VIP tent, because I am a very important person. After we met up for a quick raincoat selfie on the bridge, I went in, and while she was in the queue for another ten minutes, I was listening to some very nice arguments the staff were having with people who wanted to take their umbrellas in with them. "But I von't yuuz it! I've got uh reinkoot. I'll put it avay, but nooo, I von't give it to yuu!" And such.

This time, we didn't spend our time wandering around, we bought a water and headed straight to the main stage, where people were already amalgamating to see this random unknown Hungarian band Bastille. So we were standing there for about an hour, in the pouring rain, wearing raincoats and talking to a girl from Venezuela (well, Nisa was, mainly) who came only to see Bastille, and the Hungarians were doing their sound check, which I wasn't too impressed by. But as it turns out, they're not that bad! Seriously, I'd only heard one of their songs before, which is the soundtrack of the American Express commercial, but they did have one or two good tunes. And in the end, this random guy appeared on stage and proposed to his girlfriend, which was quite a bit romantic, and the band sang a song for them, and I even teared up a little and got all emotional, but that was all gone when the newly engaged couple got back into the crowd and was trying to push in in front of me. I mean, I'm happy for you guys et al, but bitches, no way are you getting my spot! Especially since I had been repeating "Be aggressive! Don't let anyone in front of you!" for the past hour. Though now I have all these fantasies about Shane proposing to me at ACL, during this year's Lana Del Rey concert. Or Kodaline. I wouldn't mind either way.

Once the Hungarians ended their show, the gods had worked their magic and it stopped raining! Honestly, just as Bastille came on, the sun came out. I kind of felt bad for Mary PopKids, though, because they thought all the people were there to see them, but nope. Anyway, as on Bastille. Fucking. Amazing. All I can say. They might even be better live, especially with Dan Smith's comments all along. Plus, he learnt how to say thank you in Hungarian, and that was adorable. He was also telling us to dance, because he "can't" (spoiler: boy, he can dance), he went down into the crowd, he climbed up onto a scaffold while singing Flaws (!!) and then got stuck. The best part was, however, when he couldn't hold it back and started laughing in the middle of a song. Oh yeah, and when he got the crowd to wave their raincoats. Honestly, it might have been the fact that I was close up, but Dan was just doing so much to communicate with the crowd, and it seemed like he was having such an amazing time himself, and he really did appear to be a decent guy who appreciates all the love he's getting. No, scratch that, all the members of Bastille seemed to appreciate it. (By the way, how do you pronounce Bastille? I say it the French way, but everyone else, even the members themselves, say it the British way.)

After Bastille sadly left the stage, we went to the bathrooms, or whatever those stalls are called again, where of course Nisa also had to start a conversation. This time with two Welsh girls. It went as follows:
"Wales is awful. Wales sucks. It's SO boring. We don't like Wales. I mean, we love Wales. It's great, if you're from Wales. But if you're not from Wales, it's boring. London's nice."
Then they entered the stall together, and after a minute, we witnessed the whole thing starting to shake violently. I think they were having sex and I stand by that, but Nisa said the place was too small. (I mean, it kind of did take a short time for them, so the question is, what were they doing? Leave speculations in the comments below.) They were also covered in glitter, one of them was barefoot, and they were completely drunk - so, average festival people.

Then we walked back to the main stage, now full of enormous baby bottles, for Lily Allen. As on Lily Allen, she's alright. I knew about two or three songs and I could sing along to those, nothing special, but maybe we were just too far. However, they released about 200 beach balls onto the crowd, which might look good on the photos, but was a horrible idea at the time, considering that it had rained half the day. Within five minutes, my hair, my hands and my clothes were all covered in mud. At least my camera was spared... I repeat, not a good idea.

(This isn't my photo.)

And yet another not too good idea - moving so close to the stage for the next act, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. We were about in the 15th row, but I couldn't really tell, since there were so many people, and the couple making out loudly next to me distracted me quite a bit. I also lost Nisa in all the pushing and shoving and punching. Macklemore himself was pretty decent, though. I'm not a big fan of his music, but guy sure does know how to make a show. The crowd went absolutely crazy, and all parts of my body were sore from standing the whole, but they kept dragging me up and down, as we were all standing so tight. In contrast to me, who knew three lines in total ($20 in my pocket/ this is fucking awesome/ like the ceiling can't hold us - and even there I thought it was "the city"), everyone else seemed to know all the lyrics and were singing along way too loudly. I mean, all I could hear was really false singing. And then this happened too:
"Who came with his/her boyfriend/girlfriend? [screaming] Wow. That sounded like twelve people."
On another note, the concert was never going to end. Macklemore had finished about three times, made us cheer separately for every single person on stage, made us sing happy birthday to a backup dancer, promised to (verbatim) fuck our mothers in a tent, and then he of course had to declare that this night was so crazy that they have to play 'Can't Hold Us' again. I was slowly dying inside...

(This isn't my photo, as I couldn't even move) 

Two years later, after the concert finished, we went back into the mud, slipped a few times, decided not to collect trash and thus lost 500 Forints, had some pasta, took our Festipay cards back, met some more typical festival people, and went home. We took a last selfie that nobody is ever going to see because it's that bad, and said goodbye to the best festival ever. I was sad. I was sad, but I didn't realize just how much, because I was way too tired for that.

Yep.

So this has been an unbelievably censored version of our Sziget experience. Hope you enjoyed.

*Nisa said this, got to give her credit.

PS. I'm abusing the strikethrough font, I know, I'm sorry. But it's really addictive...

PS. 2 How do you pronounce Bournemouth? This was our major argument with Nisa, so I'd like to how YOU pronounce it. But be careful how you answer, because this is my blog, and I'm watching you!

More photos of Bastille on my Flickr.

SZIGET Festival - Day 1

When something interesting happens in my life, I usually write about it once I've calmed down. And as we all know, that can take some time (I still haven't published anything on Paris, even though it was last Spetember!) Well, I didn't keep to that now, so if this post takes a turn to "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I went to Sziget, yaaay!!", I'm sorry about that guys. That said, you've been warned.

So, one of the big events of this summer was the Arctic Monkeys concert, which you all probably know about by now. They're my favorite band, the concert was a blast and I thought it couldn't be surpassed - but as it is, I was wrong!! And here goes why...

I went to the SZIGET Festival, which is probably the largest music festival in Central Europe!! The whole thing started out as me wanting to go to the Imagine Dragons concert only, but then Jake Bugg and Bastille were announced, and as I absolutely adore them too, soon I was standing with two tickets in my hands. Two tickets and nobody to go with. Really, finding a friend who was free at the time, was willing to go and willing to buy tickets was a real pain. That is why I was so grateful and relieved when my friend Nisa said she'd come with me, even for two days! She had to come here from a different country (!!) and she even stayed at my place, so that's commitment, but honestly, I'm so glad that I went with her in the end, and not anyone else. Really, I am. Also, her amazing dad offered to take us there and back every day, so we didn't need to use the public transports and deal with the canned tuna effect for two hours.

Our first day didn't start out so brightly, as I - unsurprisingly- left my camera at home. Yay me. We had to go back. Then, once there, we didn't know where to get out of the car. Yay once more. But once we stepped out onto the street, everything suddenly fell into its place. With my ticket, I could go in through the VIP entrance, which had no queue, and boosted my ego quite a bit. I was in within five minutes. Of course I had to wait for Nisa, but that too was way easier standing in the shade, leaning against a tree (maybe it was a fence) and fanning myself with the passport I was given.

So once we were in and noted that there are more than a few people around, we got out Festipay cards and went on a quest to explore the island. As it turns out, we were not that successful, and we missed quite a lot of fun places, like the 'Before I Die' wall and the Luminarium, but at least we got to the main stage soon and had a first row spot for Jake Bugg...

...who was the first act. He was about five minutes late probably since, as we kindly observed, he was just doing drugs backstage, but then he put on a show that went way beyond my expectations. Thing is, I like Jake Bugg. Not as much as the crazy fangirl next to me who was screaming "Fuck me Jake!" all along, and whom I wanted to beat up by the end, but I like him. And even though I used to think that's embarrassing, it really isn't. Because he might only be twenty, but his music is damn good. And he might walk onto stage bored as hell, already thinking about going back backstage to continue doing drugs, but the crowd still went pretty crazy, and most people still knew the lyrics to his songs. And that probably means something. Wait, where am I going with this? Anyway, he's ridiculously good looking too, though Nisa doesn't agree with me on that one. She also kept calling him Jakie Boy, so that's his new name from now on.

Following Jake, we went a little closer to the stage and ended up in the third row for Imagine Dragons, who came on about 45 minutes later. So much standing, but again, it was worth it. Because, up until this point, this was probably the best concert of my life. Dan Reynolds, the lead singer, was making real effort to entertain us - he walked around the stage, went into the crowd, poured water over us and almost over my camera all while singing 100% on-key. Honestly, he sounds just as good live as in the studio. Also, the bassist guy (Ben McKee, he deserves proper name recognition) just stole my heart - he was standing right in front of me and was smiling all along. Oh, and Wayne Sermon, the guitarist, has a golden mic AND a shiny golden guitar. Because that's just how rockstars roll.

After Imagine Dragons, we went to find the toilets plastic boxes with a hole, which was one of those experiences that made me wish I were a guy. Those stalls are vile. Then following a short break, back we were in the crowd, cheering for Placebo from afar. I mean, Nisa was, I barely knew two of their songs. Not that they were bad, they weren't, not at all. I was actually quite happily singing along with lyrics I just made-up. Little did I know what was to come...

Now, every day has got to have a low point, and if I had to name the one of August 13th, I'd no doubt say it was the Skrillex concert. You know that Inbetweeners episode in which Simon experienced moshing for the first time? Well, imagine that with approximately 70 times as many people, naked and sweaty bodies and screeching electronic music that is slowly sawing off your ears (aka dubstep - sorry guys, not a big fan of it). I mean, the music alone was kind of bearable, but the two incredibly drunk and incredibly shirtless guys next to me, who were shoving me around were not at all. Thankfully though, Nisa - being the outgoing one from the two of us, who can actually make friends - started talking to these French guys who let us in front of them thus blocking the guys who acted as if under electrocution. And then this other random festivalgoer told me to dance, so I did and we had a decent five minutes. But then, of course, the French dude got weirdly inappropriate and it was time to leave. Or at least that's what I tell people, I mean, I'm not going to admit that a Skrillex concert freaked me out. So we were pushing our way through the endless sea of people, having people touch us in all the wrong places, and I really felt like this is the end, but then we eventually made it out, and off we were to Miles Kane.

Miles Kane is known as the less cool version of Alex Turner, and I didn't know his music that well until this point, so I wasn't sure as on what to expect. I didn't even recognize him at first, because he cut his signature Beatles hair. But then we found a perfect spot in the back with space for us to dance - we weren't going into the mass of people following that Skrillex thing -  and were simply having fun for the rest of the night. Miles Kane was really good too, and I felt bad that he got banished to a small stage in a tent, but oh well. Some people, ahem Nisa and I, still like you Miles!

So once Miles Kane ended, we were hanging out for a bit, then Nisa's dad picked us up, which we were so thankful for (we were already being pushed around the whole day, no way did we need more of that on the tram), he took us to McDonald's where we had burgers with meat that probably wasn't chicken but I was too tired to care, and then off we were to bed.

Needless to say, we didn't have to make an effort to fall asleep.

You can find more pictures on my Flickr.