...

I haven't written in ages, I know... I feel low and extremely stressed today. I was wondering around the conference building and the zoo. This day shouldn't be like this. I'll be in Utrecht by the evening.

A new start

I should be writing e-mails to many of you but this time I'll just go for a simple short post.

Things are not going very well. The Sziget passed, some of it was very good, some of it was bad. It didn't depend on the Sziget itself, but things with Sali took some bad turns, probably due to the Sziget, but I just hope it will be alright in the end. I don't want to be on bad terms with him. It's an excruciating feeling to be in this situation. I understand what might be the underlying problem, but I hate to be treated this way. Things at home are also complicated. I'm continuously fighting with my mother and she and Béla bácsi have some pretty serious trouble. So, now my role is to confort her, even though half a day before the climax of their arguments she was insulting and mocking me. I think they'll divorce, it's been bad a couple of times but not this much. I feel sorry for her. It seems that bad luck with men runs in my family. It really does. I didn't manage to see all the friends I wanted to see. I dealt with the data for my thesis; and that looks alright, but it took ages and I hate it all. Tomorrow I'll get on a bus and travel for 22 hours to get to Utrecht. While having my period. How nice.

And there a new start will await me. I'll arrive there
- single
- 9 kilos lighter
- with glasses (I like them, I can finally see and they look fine)
- supposedly relaxed and charged with energy (no, probably not).

This has not been my year so far. Maybe from now on. But I'm tired.

A historical moment

Yesterday was the 0th day of the Sziget, the biggest summer music festival in Central Europe that has been organized every year for the past 15 years, and which happens to take place in Budapest on an island of the Danube (sziget means island in Hungarian). For the 15th anniversary, the organizers invited an old Hungarian band, LGT (or Locomotiv GT) to give the first concert of the festival the day before the event started. The "good-bye" concert LGT gave was 15 years ago... They wrote the songs that our parents were listening to in the 70's, many of which I was 20 years later singing in camps around the bonfire. No wonder the large area in front of the main stage was completely full. Most of the visitors were probably older than the average Szigeter and many of them brought their children along. It was a historical moment, indeed.

If I ever had the opportunity to record an emotion and then re-experience it, then one of my chosen moments would have been this concert and how I felt. Imagine thousands of people in the open air, singing together the songs that haven't been heard this way for ages and before then, when you could only enter a concert wearing a tie and when a red flag was naturally part of the stage. 50.000 lips were uttering the words at the same time and 50.000 hearts were beating at the same rhythm (especially because the vibrations from the drum could clearly be felt in the chest :). There was a general sense of belonging somewhere. So many people started to cry.

And of course, the members of the LGT are fantastic musicians. They had a great repetoir of songs and they kept their youthfulness and energy even though they are now in their fifties. The guy with the guitar was jumping all night long, which would have been a proper workout for a 20-year-old and he didn't seem to tire at all... One of the members played 7 instruments that night including the violin, the guitar, the flute, the drums, the mouth-organ and the saxophone. Most importantly, you could see that they all enjoyed playing. This is what we call örömzenélés, or happinessplaying.

The LGT played for more than 3 hours straight. They came back to the stage twice after the rhythmic "LGT" chants. They worked with several other musicians, but the last song was performed by only the 4 of them, and the audience, of course. They couldn't hide that they were touched by the moment. By the end, three of them were at the brink of tears. It was so beautiful.

Then and now:

And the 50.000 people on the Sziget. You won't spot me, I was at the front :)

(Photos by Ottó Kaiser and the Sziget crew.)

Im memoriam Walter

Rest in peace.

Monster

Yes, my mother proved it again. Well done. Well done. Congratulations. Do people enjoy acting like assholes with me? It seems so. I can take it for a while, it's fine. But at one point it gets too much.
.... you all.