Little Adventure: The best night ever (so far)

Yesterday I spent the day in my dorm room, reading and actually getting some work done (two thumbs up!). I skipped on the boat trip in favor of getting work done not so much because I felt I had an obligation to do work, but because I was tired from spending the 2 previous days in the sun. I had more or less decided to stay in for the evening as well, but was persuaded by Mark to go down to and check out the "bridge shit." I had walked along the bridge the day before, and the booths looked pretty cool, but that's not what persuaded me to go out. Rather, I remembered that I had seen a sign advertising "Hungarian Jazz Music" for Sunday evening. It's a good thing I remembered that, because it was the best night I've had here so far.

This was really, really fabulous:

The first group that we saw was... I don't know. I don't have words. In one sense, it was standard jazz. The band was all wearing the same outfit, they were playing jazz music, etc. But the lead singer (as you will see) was the craziest thing I've ever seen. He had a cutoff shirt on and tattoos everywhere and weird hair and red stuff smeared all over his face (I can only assume it was supposed to look like blood) and he was shouting and drinking and just being insane. My roommate, Sacha, described the sound (quite correctly, I think) as being very similar to the music played in Jabba the Hut's hideout in Return of the Jedi. Just look (and then listen):

That wine bottle was handed to him by an audience member.

Really, really fabulous. I decided to stick my tongue out at the last minute. A wise choice, I think.

This is the craziest guy I have ever seen:

After this masterpiece, we sat on the bridge and ate some Pringles and drank some beer.

Here are some shots:

A much better shot of the flowers and the street fair scene.

First order of business: Pringles and one of those horrible Soproni beers. It's growing on me (and it's cheaper than Heinekin). In Europe, there's not such thing as a beer garden. You can just walk around with it. So we plopped down on the side of the bridge (not the part that hangs over the water, Mom) and had our Pringles and drank our beer and listened to live jazz. Our view:

Some random shots of things being exchanged for money and people looking to exchange money for things:

I thought about buying one of these for some of the kids I know, but then I remembered that most of the kids I know are boys. But Henry does call his long t-shirt a "dress"... hmmmmm.

CUTE.

I do love pasta... but I don't need a hair clip adorned with pasta.

From the Buda side.

Candy!

More candy!

Even more candy!

From right to left... Pest

Danube (Duna, they call it here)

Buda

The magnificent bridge we spent the night on (not "spent the night" as in "slept," but "spent the night" as in "were there for most of the night").

The Four Seasons on the Pest side.

A friendly local dog. I love dogs to begin with, but after a couple of beers, this made my NIGHT.

The dog was on his way out - the last group had just played, and so I headed to the Metro station. I had my iPod with me, and so I got to walk through the city with music pumping into my ears. I used to dislike the whole iPod thing - it seemed that people were disconnecting from the actual world. But then I tried it... and it's unbelievably good sometimes. So here are the photos of my trip home from downtown, with lyrics from the songs that were playing. Some of the lyrics really enhance the photo, I think. They certainly did when I took them. (Gotta love shuffle mode.) It can be a little music trivia - you all can guess the song (some of them - in fact, most of them - should be pretty easy).