The Clangers, A Statuesque Guitarist, Another Lake and A Sunday Morning Jive Party

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You'll be relieved to hear I've had an eventful couple of days, which you may have already ascertained from the longwinded title.

On Thursday night I introduced Aniko and Agi to The Clangers on You Tube. We were looking at some Hungarian children's cartoons, which I really enjoyed, so I retaliated with The Clangers and they really were very impressed. I was glad to be able to offer some high quality cultural treats for them other than ukulele songs. The Iron Chicken was a particular favourite. Along with the ukulele, The Clangers will soon be embedded in Hungarian daily life I have a feeling.

On Friday morning we went for a little excursion up a very steep hill, it was incredibly hot and I almost collapsed from the heat. The others bounded up the hill and I staggered along behind, it was quite embarrassing, but the main thing was that I didn't die and I made it to the top. I'm sorry to have to say this but we did surmount a rocky outcrop. There it is, it's unavoidable, but if there's a rocky outcrop then it has to be said. That was when I played my ukulele, by popular demand, of course!

On Friday after class I went up to the Castle where they have the Craft Festival (because of the national holiday). I met with Aniko and we looked around the stalls where they sold all sorts of folky things like lace, straw dolls, terracotta pots, knives (a bit more serious looking than my Swiss Army Knife) and lots of tastey foodstuffs, as well as wine and beer bars. The best moment was when I found some swanee whistles (proper Clanger style) Aniko could hardly believe it and after that much of our conversation was whistle-based. We had some Hungarian wine which I have to say was a bit disappointing. Last year they had a proper wine merchant and we drank some lovely Villany (Southern Hungary) wine. This year there wasn't such a good selection... rather vinegary.

Anyway after that we went to watch some music - Palya Bea, a singer who does folk songs but with some jazz stuff going on. There was a rather special guitarist. A young stickthin man who didn't move at all, I could barely see his fingers move - I don't know if I've ever seen such a motionless musician. He played pretty well but looked like one of those human statues you see in city centres painted gold apart from he really didn't move. At the end of the concert they carried him off on a trolley. Not really, but it could have happened. The drummer did a wicked solo on the Gordonka - which is a kind of cello but more of a percussion instrument - you hit the strings with a stick and pluck them so they snap against the wood (that's where Bartok got his special pizzicato from).

After that we went and watched a Hungarian folk band (violins, viola, bass and singer) The singer was also a story teller. I didn't really understand much of what he said because apparently he uses a lot of archaic language. But he was a proper bushy moustached Hungarian with rosey cheeks and a pouch on his belt. There's a video clip of the musicians with a Hungarian dancer (also with moustache and pouch in tow), but you know I've yet to manage to successfully download anything. I might try to do it via Youtube... if I can be bothered.

On the way home I taught Aniko the All I Want Is U-kulele song, which she learnt very quickly - even the harmonies so we've got a good thing going now. I'm hoping she'll teach me a nice Hungarian song... So now I've sung it on a Hungarian tram. It's becoming rather ubiquitous - on the Italian coast, in the Swiss Alps, on the German train and now on the Hungarian trams. No stone unturned.

Then yesterday, Saturday we went to a lake where we met with Zsuzsi, another friend who I met through Aniko. I used to stay in her house because Aniko lived there for a few years. The idea was to go swimming in the lake, but just as we arrived the sky clouded over and it was rainy and windy. I wimped out, the others went in. Apparently the water was lovely but the problem was afterwards when they came out they both looked very cold. But all was ok as we drank some Unicum - a Hungarian herbal liqueur, which warmed everyone up and we also danced and sang - Zsuzsi now also knows the song, and so we have the 3 part harmonies, well nearly. We caught the train back which was quite amusing because Zsuzsi was wrapped in a huge red towel, Aniko was wearing trousers and shorts simultaneously and I just looked comical without need of a costume.

I stayed at Zsuzsi's (Aniko had something else on). We went up another hill, not so hot, but fairly steep - on the way down we just slid on our bums - it was grassy you see. We then went for a beer down at the local pub. There we met with some of Zsuzi's friends. I love the fact that everyone says hello to everyone in these places (Piliscsaba is a small town in a forest, but feels like a village) and Zsuzsi seems to know everyone. There were several alcoholics in the bar. One of them joined us for a bit. His son is a famous football star, but sadly has nothing to do with his father because he is an alcoholoic and he actually lives in the pub. He showed me a newspaper artical about his son who plays for a Scottish team, but the artical was about the fact he has Swine Flu. Zsuzsi sometimes washes his clothes for him. I think Hungarians are amazingly socially... I can't think of the word but they are very friendly, open and considerate. It's a massive generalisation, of course, but through Aniko and Zsuzsi and their friends I just keep meeting people and everyone takes the time to chat with me (even though it requires a lot of patience). It's totally different from the London keep-yourself-to-yourself-in-case-the-other-guy-is-a-madman mentality, that's for sure.

This morning we had a lovely breakfast with home-made bread and jam and proper English tea with milk!
Andras, Zsuzsi's boyfriend, played me various CDs - he has some really great stuff, none of which I had heard before. One Hungarian album Bear Dance had the three of us dancing like lunatics - you might have witnessed me in full swing as a lunatic dancer, but this was Sunday morning, no alcohol - just silly happy people!!

Now I'm back at Aniko's place - she's gone to Norway for a few days. I'm just hanging out in the house. There's a tennis court outside and that's the only noise I can hear, people hitting tennis balls. I like it. What a racket!! Teehee!

Tomorrow back to school, so I'd better get on with some homework...

Cx

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