Budapest = Awesomness

So to start off with I went to Budapest last Thursday (or the Thursday before that... well, the 18th to make it all clear) and it was... well...

TOTALLY . FREAKING . AWESOME

It was my first time visiting Budapest or just Hungary in general and it is just.amazing. I went on tour there with my band (well, my teacher's band really... I'm just part of the band) and it was just.amazing.again. We stayed there three nights and played in three locations. The first was at a retirement home that was very welcoming except that we didn't sound so good... The room was weird and kinda scooped up all the sounds that our band made making it sound blank and iffy... To add to that, most of the audience seem to have forgotten how to smile and/or applause. Now, I love old people, but when you are playing a solo and there is literally not a single person smiling or that looks like they're somewhat enjoying themselves, you feel like your going to choke on your own breath and fall into a dark hole that magically appeared under your feet and no one would care. Sorry for the long sentence... But it's true. And terrifying... But mostly true. Another problem was that we couldn't play too loud because otherwise they would lose the little hearing they had left. But other from all that, it was a very enjoyable experience! Also on that day we were supposed to eat some traditional food at the market (it has a very complicated name and I can't remember it but I think it sounded a bit like pRUndaVicatIOna. What is my life... ) but there was an accident on the road that made us really late which therefore meant we had to buy food at TESCO. Yes, for all British people, they have TESCO in Budapest. Random. The worst part though was that we had to buy/eat it all in ten minutes because the bus driver didn't want us to eat on the bus. I had a bit of a stomach ache after that... And to conclude this first day, we went on a very lovely cruise down the Danube. It was very enjoyable. Yes, very. Just fyi, two of my friends got holes in their trousers from sitting on a nail. That was probably the most enjoyable part of the cruise!

(Don't judge me as a creeper who takes pictures of people's butts, they wanted me to take a picture so that they could see how the hole was. There. End of story.)

BUT LET'S MOVE ON CAUSE THIS IS GETTING VERY LONG....

So, the next day we did some sight seeing in the center of Budapest (I am so sorry but I can't remember if it was Buda or Pest... Our tour guide was not the most entertaining or interesting so I ended up paying more attention to a pigeon eating crumbs than her talking about... I don't know what.) in the mourning and then we got 5 HOURS (Yes I really just typed 5 HOURS) of free time!!! I felt so independent.

Me feeling independent

We had the choice between going to the baths or just walking around town and we decided to just hangout in town. I know that baths are apparently INCREDIBLE and blah blah blah but I forgot my swimsuit at the hotel... aaaaaaaaaand I wanted to hang out with my friends. So, as a group we decided that we try some nice traditional food because the day before we had to live with chips and dry bread. During that process something somehow went wrong and we ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe. Is there a law of physics that can explain this gravitational pull towards this ridiculously expensive restaurant? We all shared some nachos as a starter and then I took a salad of which I cannot remember the name.

Nachos are Yum

I do remember there was avocado and chicken in it though... I also remember that after a few bites my fanta didn't taste sweet anymore. That made a me a little worried. Another worrying thing was that I only ate about an eighth of the plate before I was full... AND IT WAS A SALAD?!?!? I felt so bad when the waitress took back our plates, all of my friends had finished their meals. All of that independence and maturity I felt a while back? Not there anymore. We also all shared a cheesecake with caramel on top. My friend Liam asked if the waitress could cut it into four so we could share. Thankfully I had some sense in my brain to ask for four spoons instead. Good job Liam, good job.

Next stop we did something very Hungarian, caricatures! I know right!?! So Hungarian. But it was fun! Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it yet so you'll have to wait a while. After that we went to this reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally cool fountain that was a square and would stop when you went near it. It was so awesome. My friends Poppy and Liam got soaked though, they purposely ran/jumped (90% of the time they jumped through the fountain but we didn't tell them that...)  across and they were dripping wet for the rest of the day. Here is a video of me defying the water:

Soon I will become like this

Oh! Look at this awesome picture I took of my friend sitting on water

From that point on we'd decided to go visit something interesting, and we did! Starbucks! (Why did I even bother coming to this country?!?!) BUT IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!! We ended up going there because I needed the bathroom and to get to the bathroom you need to buy something to get the code for the bathroom. Complicated, I know. But since we had to buy something three of us ordered drinks and the other got a snack (my friend Thomas if you must know). We had a bit of fun when ordering because we renamed ourselves on the cups (I know everyone does but c'mon, this thing never gets old). I called myself Feta (like feta cheese but the cheese part would have been too long), Poppy named herself Opium and Liam named himself G-Dragon. Thomas said that if he had named himself he would have been called Merlin, which is awesome.

Feta - Opium - G Dragon
Unfortunately the waitress had really bad handwriting...

We lingered in Starbucks for a really long time spending it by taking pictures with the timer on my camera. We had soooooooo much fun but the WHOLE time there was this woman just staring at us like a bunch of bafoons (we did look a bit crazy, I must admit BUT STILL! HOW RUDE!)

After Starbucks we didn't have any time left so we joined our group and headed of to the Conservatory of Musicology or something like that... We ended playing in the room where Bartok HIMSELF composed and played all his songs. One of our players actually played on HIS PIANO for one of the songs in the concert (I'm proud to say that I did touch the piano and it was just.amazing.)

This is Bartok

We played SO WELL in that concert I was so proud! It was our biggest gig and the acoustics were INCREDIBLE! It was actually kind of emotional :')

BUT THE NEXT DAY

We went to a castle and they organised a medieval tournament for us which was E.P.I.C. Literally incredible. The actors were amazingly talented and hilarious! (here's a video)

Then there was me...

I know. I'm so talented.

BTW the king is my PE teacher Coach V (Since then called King V) and the one on the torture chair is a guy called Izzet in our band who plays trombone. Later that day we had a concert in the castle which was just. amazing. Really, we played outside in this courtyard where our music could be heard through the whole village! It was also a lot of fun because we didn't have to wear concert clothes and it was just a nice laid back concert. The only problems were that it was like thirty degrees Celsius and the wind kept on blowing our music off our stands! After that concert EVERYBODY was sun-burnt except for me. I don't tan (never have and probably never will at the rate it's going) which really sucks. To be honest I wanted to get a little burnt so that I could show off to my friends about how nice the weather was :3 But that obviously didn't happen.

Later that day some professional musicians and dancers came to our hotel and put up a performance just for our band. I think it was probably one of the highlights of the trip because that evening everybody felt like family. The musicians (two violinists, one viola and a base) played traditional folkloric music which was just. amazing. The lead violinist played so fast his fingers were a blur to the naked eye. He also mimicked bird chants on his violin which was epicly cool and impressive. The dancers (two men, two women) danced to their music and they were almost as incredible as the musicians. They have this weird dance were they're always jumping around and hitting their boots making a sort of rhythm to the music. They also started to sing along with the music in certain songs. At one point only the female dancers were dancing and they were both balancing bottles of juice on their heads. Even physicians wouldn't be able to explain how those bottles stayed put during all that dancing! Finally at the very end they invited people from our band to dance with them in a circle. This was THE MOST HILARIOUS thing I had ever seen! All of these people that I knew dancing a dance which looks quite ridiculous MADE MY DAY! (or the rest of it since it was evening) Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me so I couldn't take any pictures or videos :( I seriously regret not bringing it. 

FINALLY on the last day we went to visit the small island in the middle of the Danube. We had about two or three hours of free time to visit as much as possible and eat a decent meal before our plane ride. We all decided to go visit the labyrinth and that was a very big mistake. Obviously the moment we got it everybody decided to split up so that it was impossible to find the rest of our group. I managed to get out alive with my friends Thomas, Daniel and Freidi (who was originally in a different group) perplexed on where the others could be. We tried to call the rest of our group but the labyrinth is underground so there was no signal.

We decided to abandon them.

MOVING ON, we met up with our friend Poppy because she didn't want to go into the maze of death and desperation - which was intelligent of her - and we all went for lunch in a nearby restaurant. I remember  that Thomas and I took chicken paprikash with dumplings. I also remember Thomas asking where the dumplings were when they actually turned out to be a sort of mix between pasta and rice. We both looked like complete idiots.

What we were expecting

What we got

They didn't taste bad though. They were actually really good! (pat on the back for me for not being a complete fail) After all that drama it was time to leave (we almost missed the bus because we had to go to the bathroom) and fly off on our plane. Which was half enjoyable because I don't like planes but I did like chatting with some friends. To end this post, here is the last picture taken on the trip.