Sziget Festival
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2007
1
4
43
Trip End
Ongoing
Loading Map
Budapest,
Hungary
Monday, August 13, 2007
The long version: Ljubljana was a disappointment so we cut short our stay and headed to Budapest where we had 24 hours of extraordinary good luck. Everywhere and everyone said that camping tickets had sold out, however our hostel claimed to have some left we could buy. We were immediately suspicious but bought them anyway; counterfeit tickets are the work of dodgy cockney geezers and irritating touts, not International Youth Hostel Association receptionists. The train to our campsite was throbbing with excitement and a huge group of pissed up Germans, convinced the train we were on when past the festival and you could get in 2 days before it actually started. We naturally joined them and watched as they walked through the gates. The man at the gate scanned our tickets, frowned, and appeared to carefully ponder his next move. Ushering us forward he whispered something in Hungarian to which we replied, "err English?." He hastily gave us wristbands and whispered "go, go, quick." As much as we cursed the woman who obviously sold us fake tickets it didn't matter, luck was on our side, and we entered a half finished festival with stages, bars, and toilets still being installed (i made a few notes for future FaTdOgs).
Ljubljana
The first three nights were a little tame. It was impossible to escape Hungarian rock music (imagine the worst music you can, add incoherent foreign lyrics and your not even close to add shit and annoying it is) and I realised how much of a music snob i was and kept complaining that there wasn't any minimal. We kept getting too pissed and spending most of the nights eating kebabs and latos (deep fat fried dough with cheese and sour cream) and laughing at people who had fallen asleep in random places. However, by Friday we had become infected with hippyfestivalitus. This disease makes you completely ignore your personal hygiene and appearance, crave getting dreadlocks, and make you dance uncontrollably to every beat you can find. We danced to ska, reggae, samba, brass bands, dub, a Macedonian gypsy band, trumpets, drums, everything apart from Hungarian rock music. I even started dancing when everyone started beating the dustbins with sticks. On the Friday it rained for 24hours and turned the island into a mud bath, but we really didn't give a shit. Rather than be embarrassed, when Kerry pissed herself she just laughed. Going into a toilet she mistook the toilet seat for a dark hole, and while squatting over it (you don't want to sit on other people's piss) she relieved herself all over her leg as it dribbled off the seat (in her defense, who puts the seat down at a festival).
The atmosphere throughout was amazing. People were crowd surfing to jazz music so you can imagine how mental the crowd went when the Chemical Brothers, Faithless, and Cassius performed.
Budapest
In the dance tent, plump djs, silicone soul, Dave Clarke, and Booka Shade were all awesome, although the highlight was Satoshi Tomii on our final night. Kerry wishes to DJ whore him now. I've got some wicked videos and photos of it all and will put them up with the next entry.The most amazing part of the festival was how cheap it was to stay there. Beer cost pounds 1, bottle of wine 3, a curry 2.50, but most things were free. If you listened to the Hare Krishna's preach you got given a free meal, soup for lunch and vegetable curry for dinner, if you wanted to dress up and fight in Sumo costumes it was free, head massages cost nothing, and they had a huge inflatable football goal you could play in for free. In a week we spent less than what we would of in 1 day at Creamfields. Random people had come from everywhere to this festival. We met French, Germans, Spanish, Irish and a couple of sound Aussies. They introduced us to Unicom, a shot that resembles Jagermeister but is a lot more drinkable. After about 12 each on the Sunday night we were pretty impressed with their stamina, until Loz went to the bar and never came back. Lightweights!
Anyway to cut my longer story short, 7 days at a festival pretending to be a hippie is a long time. By Monday we were completely exhausted and decided to leave on a good note and went on a 23 hour journey to the island of Krk on Croatia Dalmatian coast for a few days on a beach to recover. Will post photos and videos with the next entry, hope everyone's okay, inabit!
P.s. All stars camping part 2 - Sziget festival 2008???
