This Anachronistic Post from July

And there's also this anachronistic, never-before-seen post from July that I never finished and forgot to publish...

My Summer, in a Nutshell
by Layra A Sparks

My whirlwind of a summer started with the visa application process, with its fashionably late I-20 forms, unmentioned scholarships, unresponsive international student counselors, slow deliveries, worldwide technical glitches in the US visa system, rescheduled appointments, unconventional photo dimensions, automated phone systems, dads not keen on giving me bank statements, people attempting to enter the US embassy with pocket knives, and with crazy photo lab ladies telling me that they won't accept my visa photo because my ears aren't visible. That's right, my visa application was a succession of mini nervous breakdowns on my part, which were only tamed by the fact that my visa interviewer happened to be a USC alumna, and the interview she conducted lasted about two whole minutes and went as follows: "Which scholarship did you get? Are you going to do Thematic Option? Yes, I am a Trojan, fight on! I did TO, I loved it. You should get a pass for the football games. Which instrument are you going to play in the marching band? Silks, that's cool, well your visa has been approved." But before you start thinking everything went well after that, my visa was subsequently delivered to the crazy elderly lady next door. Interesting.

I didn't really have time to think about all this, though, because after getting my visa came the time for all the fun things that come with moving abroad to college - doctors appointments, blood tests, dental surgery, opening bank accounts abroad, getting health insurance sorted, yelling at employees of the National Tax and Customs Administration, buying plane tickets and wondering why one piece of extra check-in luggage costs $100 and why two pieces cost $400, saying goodbye to friends, and in midst of all this, getting a haircut that makes me look like a housewife from the 1950s.

And if that's not enough, my high school made national headlines when the government replaced its unanimously supported headteacher with a former teacher who left her graduating class, plagiarized her application and was appointed through nepotism. Now, as a person with a very strong sense of justice, I could not just let this happen without voicing my opinion, and no, posting a couple of semi-aggressive comments under articles doesn't count so when one of the teachers asked me to speak at a demonstration organized by some parents, I had to say yes. I had to do this for my school. I had to edit that badly written speech and make it into something more strongly worded, and I had to recite it in front of the media. That is right, you guys, I was on f!@#ing national television, with my name in published (or whatever you call that) and everything. Unfortunately, though, it was all pointless and the evil bitch is still reigning over my high school. Yeah, there's that. But we never give up.

Moving on. Just like last year, I took the train down to Sopron for the annual Volt festival, where - instead of the Arctic Monkeys - we saw Bastille this year. Well...it's not that it was bad, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations, and what probably hurt the most was that all the pictures I took turned out to be shit. I was so upset about the photos - and yes, taking photos is a huge part of concerts for me and please don't try to lecture me on how it takes away the joy of jumping up and down in a moshpit - that I couldn't enjoy the concert as much as I wanted to. I was also stuck in the third row, which meant that I was trampled on and pushed around half the time, but turned out to be extremely convenient when I got to HIGH FIVE DAN SMITH!!!!

Yep. I'm trying to finish this post in December and there's nothing else I can think of, so I'll just leave it here. Bye. 

PS. Sorry about the lack of photos, they're all on my other laptop. But check my twitter (@lillaspanyi), I have some there.

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.