Budapest and the Sziget Festival in August

If you know me well you know that I like to go to a music festival or two. I decided that in the northern hemisphere summer of 2009 I would go to one in Europe. The choice is vast, there is at least one on every weekend of the summer in one country or another. I decided I would venture to Hungary for the first time and go to the Sziget Festival in August.

It was a great decision. Hungary is still a relatively cheap country, and is not in the Eurozone, meaning that I didn’t get raped by the currently tragic Pound-to-Euro exchange rate.  Apart from that, it was also a huge festival in a beautiful city.

The festival was on an island on the River Danube in suburban Budapest.  You could come and go as you liked, so when there weren’t any bands you wanted to watch, you could go to one of the nicest cities in Europe to go sightseeing.

The line-up was vast, but I managed to catch these acts:

Wednesday: Snow Patrol, Lily Allen

Thursday: Ting Tings, Bloc Party, Fatboy Slim

Friday:  Jet, Primal Scream, Pendulum, Prodigy

Saturday: Placebo

Sunday: Maximo Park, The Offspring, Faith No More, Turbonegro

It was a tiring 5 days!

I had gone semi-alone.  None of my friends in London were able to come along, so I found a tour company offering to do it as a package tour. Wasn’t much of a tour, more like a handful of people, most of whom had never met before, all going for a week of fun.  It was a small group but a great crew to spend the week with, although my liver needed some rest by the end!

The festival itself was the most organised event I had ever been to. The island has everything you could possibly need, from hot showers to internet cafes to convenience stores, and of course many, many bars (serving cold pints of beer for about £1.50 a pop).

And as for Budapest, quite a beautiful city. Perched upon the Danube, with plenty of fine European architecture – it provided a great setting for some river cruising and riverside pubbing.

Flashback to the Rocky Mountains

I spent another evening in Windows Movie Maker last night. I complied some footage I took on my train from Vancouver to Edmonton, the first leg of my train journey across Canada last year.

This was the result:



For more detail on the overall journey, check out the older blog posts from April 2008.

Video killed the blog star

I have long been thinking about doing some vlogging instead of (or as well as) blogging my travels, and creating little videos of some of the places I visit. The problem is I can never be bothered filming any commentary whilst on location.

But I decided to have a bit of a go anyway, and created a short video based on some snippets of footage I took last winter while I was in Helsinki.

This is the product:



My first ever YouTube upload!

I hope to create some more video files either about my future or other past travels.

Bonfire Night in Birmingham

It is the 5th of November. And I am in England. That means it is Guy Fawkes Night.  To quote Wikipedia, it "marks the downfall of the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605, in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to destroy the Houses of Parliament."

Strange thing to celebrate for over 400 years, but it is an excuse to light massive fires and set off fireworks - everywhere - so why not?

My first year in England was in 2006 and as daylight savings ended and November 5th approached, fireworks were being let off all over the place in outer North London suburbia where I was living. Firwroks aren't illegal here, and you can buy them at the supermarket.  I didn't understand the fireworks craze at the time, but it all culminated on Guy Fawkes night, when my friends took me to "Ally Pally" (Alexandra Park, which has a palace in the middle of it) to see one of London's largest fireworks displays. I liked the tradition of rugging up and seeing the festivities.

My second Autumn in London, last year, I was living in Clapham. Friends and I headed down to Clapham Common to see the fireworks but missed it due to a timing issue. The crowds on the High Street were an experience in themselves though.

This year I am living in inner London Rotherhithe, right near a large park called Southwark Park. So I was looking forward to seeing the big fireworks display there. But I ended up having to go to Birmingham for a business meeting in the afternoon, and by the time I got back to London it was all over. Though I did get to see quite a few massive bonfires by the train tracks on the way back to London.

Walking home from Bermondsey station, I had never seen so many people in the area. Bonfire night really does bring out the people. I noticed how mild the weather is this year. The previous two years I had been very rugged up for the freezing conditions outside this time of the year - and that's how I know November in London is already bloody cold. But it's not too cold at all this year. Not that I'm complaining.

I look forward to catching one of  the fireworks displays on Saturday night instead, although as I write this, I can hear constant fireworks outside, from people exploding their supermarket fireworks....as they probably will well into the night.