I mean, whats not to love?
The weather today is hot, hot, hot - but with a nice breeze to keep things pleasant. The peasants who come to my square on Saturday mornings to sell fresh produce sell cherries from their garden for two euros a kilo. Thats a good start.
Then, there's "striped" chocolate ice coffee with cherry at Aztek Chocolat, in the city's second-prettiest courtyard. And, I love a good parade. And I stumbled right into one ambling further into downtown. Folkloric carnival - and not as cheesy as it sounds like, either (tho I dont mind cheesy, anyway).
Folk dancers and musicians from around Europe, each under their own country's flag, danced and marched from the Buda side of the Lanc bridge over to Pest and down the riverside to Vorosmarty Square.
The score board: The Polish have the prettiest dresses, and the niftiest moves - and, together with the Italians, some of the ugliest women. No surprise there. The Italians, in turn, were by far the most elated and vivid. The Greeks were the most gay. The Hungarian teens were the most distracted, and the Cypriots the most listless. The children loved singing. The brothers from the Erdely had the lewdest trousers (there's something about that parallel, vertical embroidery that draws one's attention to the package in between). The Mexicans (Europe is a relative concept) had the most attitude, and were the biggest crowdpleasers. The Hungarian violinist was the coolest guy, hip haircut, sunglasses and studious nonchalance included. The Romanian Hungarians had the prettiest bells on their skirts. The Latvians had to be asked where they were from. The Spanish had the proudest women. And it all blended into one happy European family, with the Italians at one point collectively mimicking the steps of the Greeks in front of them. It was the perfect medicine for all the headlines' EU acrimony.
There was music, ranging from classical chamber music on the bridge to a kind of dark Hungarian folk rock on the Pest side (I've been starved for music, I dream about cassettes). There were wooden tables and a food stall, lots of meat and sausage but also a plate full of fried vegetables and yummie potatoes for two euro. There were folk stalls I instinctively avoided (remembering the usual tourist trap stuff) but was drawn to after all, and they had genius gifts for kids. So I now have a handful of plastic bags with a wooden sword and shield (with the Hungarian arms..) for my nephew (OK, perhaps if he's a year older), a little purse for N.'s daughter, a jumping fairy for J's baby, and this cute wooden letter-toy for R. ... and a set of tall, blue vases for myself (euro a piece).
They also had these beautiful, large wooden puzzle-toys - all seventies like - well, a wooden tree, for example, but made up of (and disassembable into) different parts, with all kind of tropical birds hidden in it. Or a waterdrop with all kinds of fish in it - all handmade and -painted in Hungary, with childsafe paint - and I found all that out in Hungarian, too. (But I couldnt afford one of those.)
Anyway, goodies. Then there's the bit about Hungarian girls having the most winning smiles of all - especially if you're a young guy trying to speak Hungarian. Its like they all spontaneously fall in love with you. Really. Good show. And on the Buda side of the bridge, they had all the kids' stuff - and there were lots of cute kids milling around all over, they loved it - a little guy in a hansop running ahead of the parade all the time, his mother rushing after him, and two girls in dotted dresses (one blue, the other red), with identical scarves around their head, like on a Beatrix Potter postcard - and on the Buda end of the bridge, an improvised open-air "daycare center" where benches surrounded a playzone with four musicians playing folk tunes and childrens songs to the kids tumbling over each other. (And none of the uptight parents stuff either, with a father picking up a kid with one hand, cigarette in another <grins>).
Into the actual tunnel that drills underneath Castle Hill, which you normally never get into because its cars only (and a hellhole of traffic, too), it was now pedestrian zone with activities all in the sign of "ability" - or disability, if you wish. So there was a very hip young deaf guy and girl teaching interested passers-by sign language, there was a obstacle course for people wanting to try out riding a wheelchair, and there was a parcours organised by a bicycle repair shop where you could try riding different kinds of weirdly working/shaped bikes.
Plus, at the start of the Alagut, the volunteer with the bravest job of any festival I've so far seen. This young, kind-looking guy with tassled hair standing in a big place filled with big, soft balls and very young children - part of the daycare thing - I kept trying to count the children, but never did manage, but there was a little over a dozen - all absolutely exhilerated about each of them throwing as many balls as hard as they could at "the big guy". He threw them back as well as he could, but by now looked a little haggard.
