Sziget Festival (Budapest)

[pic: the Budapest sign at the festival]

As I mentioned in my last post I changed my plans around a bit to go to the Szegit Festival and to see Muse and Kasabian. The Sziget Festival (pronounced "shigit") is the largest open air music festival in Europe, with Paleo in Switzerland being the second largest. Its held at a very cool venue, on an island on the river that runs through Budapest.



[pic: the bridge into the Sziget Festival]

To get there I took a flight from Berlin (as I couldnt be bothered with the long train ride and Berlin is where I could get cheap flights). Berlin really is a great place - its been the surprise package for me this trip. I`d go back in a heart beat.

The Sziget Festival was very similar to the Big Day Out except it was larger in size, went over an entire week, and there was practically zero crowd control. The crowd did as they pleased and there were constantly people crowd surfing and "fight circles" were breaking out in the middle of the mosh pit where everyone retreated into a circle and then charged into each other and started shoving each other around. An experience, but very crazy - there was a serious chance that people could be crushed to death if there was a sudden panic. At the festival there was also a place to go if you wanted to go zip lining (essentially a HUGE flying fox) and they even had a Karaoke stage right next to a bar...



I got there in time for Billy Talent who is a Canadian hard rock band with a foul mouthed lead singer who has a cartoon voice. This cracked me up, he was swearing away, singing a really aggreeive style of music and when he chatted to the crowd between songs he sounded like like a cartoon character.



[pic: the Billy Talent gig. Although it looks like there is a lot of room in the crowd and its quite sedate its actually a fight circle - you can see a guy with blondish hair about to take out the guy with the blue baseball cap. Very psycho. Note also the crowd surfer in the background]

For the main acts, my plan was to get as close as possible to the action but this proved difficult. I was about 20 meters from the front for Kasabian, and got about 5 meters closer for Muse.



[pic: part way through Kasabians set]

Both bands were pretty awesome. I really enjoyed Kasabian but again Muse took the cake. My only criticism is that the set they played was pretty much exactly the same as at the Big Day Out, which was disappointing. In the bands defence this festival is part of the same tour that began in Auckland so maybe I`m being a bit harsh. In any event the atmosphere was electric and it was a terrific show. Again they had an awesome light, smoke and lazer show to accompany the music. The crowd was as tightly packed as anything I´d ever experienced and every time I took a pxt or photo I was terrified that I was going to lose my camera. There were plenty of crowd surfers as well which was more frustrating than anything else, if you didnt keep an eye out there was a good chance one would fall on you....



[pic: the start of Muse`s set, the lead singer Matt Bellamy wearing some silly glasses]



[pic: Muse busting out the lazers...]



By the end of the show I was drenched in sweat, spilt beer and mud, and I was exhausted from trying to hold up crowd surfers, but I had a smile all over my face...

All in all a great night.

Anthony

Vienna

I've spent the last 3 days in Vienna. Vienna is currently ranked the worlds most livable city by the Mercer Quality of Living Survey and this was the main reason I decided to visit.

At first glance Vienna looks like any other big European city but once I went into the centre I discovered that it is the most visually beautiful city I've been to since Paris. Its buildings and parks really are very impressive and its an easy place to navigate around. The food here is pretty good as well (Weiner schnitzel is from Vienna - Wein is what the Austrians call Vienna. This means that technically all "Weiner schnitzel" you eat outside of Vienna is actually schnitzel Vienna style, just like all "champagne" you drink that comes from outside the Champagne district in France is sparkling white wine...there's my useless fact for the day).



[pic: in Vienna they have Indiana Jones on the street signs...]

Despite living in such a nice city the Viennese all seem to walk around with a chip on their shoulder. Everyone seems grumpy for some reason that I haven't been able to work out. The guys in particular seem to come across as grumpy and gay - its really quite funny.









[pics: a collection of the pictures showing Vienna in all its glory]

The hostel I stayed at here was really good. After being landed with families and old people in every hostel I went to in Switzerland I decided that it was time to go to a few party hostels. This hostel had its own bar with 2 Euro beers so met my requirements well! Met a few cool people here as well, including a group of English and Irish girls who were really hard case. One girl in their group is quite staunch looking with blonde hair whereas the others are smaller and have dark hair. Apparently after they visited the Jewish museum in Berlin they thought it would be funny to draw a joke "propaganda" poster in their travel diary depicting the blonde girl as an Ayrian and her friends as Jewish. This is pretty bad form and I don't condone it at all, but what's funny is they showed the poster to their American room mates without realising that the Americans were Jewish!

...pick your audience girls.

I also met a few other English guys who were going to the music festival in Budapest to see Muse and Kasabian in a few days. Apparently its one of Europes best festivals and they suggested that I join them. As I think Muse is the best live band in the world I didn't need much convincing! So I've changed my plans a bit and after Nuremberg I will have to make my way to Berlin to fly to Budapest for a few nights to catch the festival. Its a bit out of my way but then again when am I ever going to have the chance to go to a music festival in Budapest?! I'm really looking forward to it.

I arrived in Nuremberg earlier on today. I decided that I need a break from the hostels and have checked into a hotel, so Im looking forward to a few decent nights sleep! I haven`t yet had a chance to explore Nuremberg but I can say already that its got the most confusing metro system in the world. Its one of those silly ones where you have to change trains about 4 times even though your stop is on the same track. Of course I didn´t know this when I first got here so jumped on the train that was going my direction. The train then set of on the wrong direction (ie, when it arrived it arrived travelling left to right, but then it set off travelling right to left). So I went a stop in the opposite direction. Not to worry, I thought, I´d been travelling for about 7 hours so I´d probably just got my platforms mixed up. So when the next train arrived I double checked the line and direction: I was definitely on the right one. It took me a stop in the right direction then took me back to the stop that I´d come from! By this stage I´m getting pretty frustrated, but I perservered once more and realised that you had to go a stop in one direction, then change trains and go for another stop, then change trains again etc...

Why they do it like this is beyond me, maybe just to confuse the tourists!

Anyway I must fly.

Anthony

Don´t mention the war!

After Geneva I went to Interlaken and then Basel. Interlaken was killed by the weather but Basel is a very beautiful city and I was lucky enough to be there for the Swiss National Day. This involved heading down to the river Rhein, having a few drinks, mingling with strangers and watching the most amazing fireworks display I´ve ever seen. There were so many firworks they literally shipped them in on a barge, like freakin King Kong!



[pic: Basel fireworks. As is often the way, this picture really doesnt capture how impressive these fireworks were]

After that I trained to Munich and met up with Matt Smith. It was terrific to see a familiar face! Munich (and Bavaria) is what people think of when they think of stereotypical Germany (ie, beer halls, laderhosen, sausages and Nazis...). Its a really interesting place and very pretty as well.





On our second day we decided to go to the Dachau concerntration camp. It was a harrowing experience. I´d heard from Jemma that apparently no birds fly over the concerntration camp and this proved to be true, which gave it an even more eerie feel. The first thing that strikes you when you visit a camp like that is its sheer size. Dachau was the first concerntration camp but certainly not the largest and it was truly massive. When you also think that Dachau was one of 2,500 simililar camps around Europe you it hits home what a massive institution it was. The institution being the state sponsored persecution and, eventually, extermination of fellow human beings. Its a frightening thing when you realise its not just a few wackos doing this, but an entire institution.



[pic: Dachau concerntration camp, the main yard. This gives you a sense of the scale when you consider that the space depicted here represents about one fiftieth of the size of the entire camp]

Its also frightening when you begin to learn about the systems that were used to maintain order and ensure that everyone went along with it. They were clearly thought up by some intelligent, yet very evil, people. For instance, cleanliness was the medium used to terrorize the prisoners of these camps. When the prisoners arrived they were showered and brutally shaved to make sure they were clean. If anything wasn´t clean, they were beaten, whipped and made an example of. This process was repeated whenever they were forced to move camp (which we were told happenned regularly). So when the SS wanted to gas the prisoners all they had to do was move them to a different camp and instead of shower them show them to the gas chamber. Of course when the prisoners arrived at the new camp they were expecting a shower and didn´t find out they were being gassed until it was too late.

Another scary system in place is that whenever a prisoner was beaten or tortured it took place in the shower rooms. This is so all evidence of the crime could be covered up by turning on the water and washing everything away. Very important if there are to be visitors that are about to be shown the camp for propoganda purposes...

All of the brutality that went on at these camps was carefully orchestrated. Nothing was an accident. Even the most horrific torture was ordered, and signed off by a number of different officers. This no doubt allowed the soldier carrying out the order to feel absolved of any moral responsibility.

Complex and smart systems used for the most evil of purposes.



[pic: A picture of a reconstructed "dorm" room. There were about 3 prisoners per bed]

And there was absolutely no hope of escape either. The prison was actually a small part of a much larger camp and if you did manage to crawl through the electrofied barbed wire fence, and through the moat, you would find yourself in the middle of the SS barracks (where a few thousand SS were based). Even if you got out of that you knew that because you escaped the guards would round up 10 people at random from your room and execute them. Just as bad, when the camp first opened it was only the men that were sent there and the women and children stayed at home. If you were to escape the SS would simply round up your family and have them gassed.



[pic: this shows the perimeter of the prisoner section of the camp. If you can make it past the shown moat and electrified fence you found yourself in the SS part of the camp. I should also point out that I didnt take any pictures of the gass chambers - it didnt seem appropriate at the time]

All of these systems were put in place to control an entire population and they were very very effective.

I´m pleased I went to Dachau and saw it for myself but by the end of this Matt and I were in need of a pick me up. So we decided to go to the Englisch Gardens for a beer. We decided to detour via the man made wave to check out the surfers and stumbled upon the nudist part of the gardens. This was pretty gross, especially the obese German guy who was jingling his tackle at the passers by.

So we went there for a pick me up but in the end only succeeded in replacing one horrific image with another!



[pic: the surfers at the Englisch gardens]

That night we met up for dinner with Sebastian (a friend of Matt´s who worked at Simpson Grierson for a while) and his friend Fabian. Both are terrific guys and it was great to be shown Munich by some locals. Sebastian even offered his place to stay for Oktoberfest which was an incredibly generous offer. The only catch is if we are sitting at his table we too would have to don laderhosen...

I´m currently in Salzburg. Its a pretty place but has been killed by the crappy weather (which looks to be settling in). Vienna tomorrow so hopefully I have better luck there!

Anthony

PS. I hope to post pictures soon!