Beeing torn apart by Richard Bona

14.04.2008 - Richard Bona in PKO, Bratislava, Slovakia. What a concert! (Click here for interview after the concert)

First I was afraid if I wouldn't like the concert after an AIESEC conference I still feel the PCS (post conference syndrome see: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/AIESEC note uncyclopedia is not a relevant, nor trustworthy source of information! see rather wikipedia!), longing for the great OC team, but the international atmosphere on the stage made me quite fast comfortable in my position as a listener ;)

I always loved the typical African singing voice which is for me so indescribable, and now I had an opportunity to listen to it. Though I heard less from it then I expected, it was still a marvelous event far beyond my expectations. His repertoire listed mainly traditional African songs and I would say Latino type of music.

The problem on the Jazz concerts in Bratislava is mainly that you have to sit. And this concert was definitely for dancing your soul out. That's why I say I was torn apart. Should I enjoy the well positioned tones following each other by solving their mystery or let my body flow with it. I lost to my natural desire very quickly an was hard to handle in my chair, though as usual most of the audience bewared a calm had. But the clapping, screaming, whispering in the background broke through and 30 minutes before the end of the concert the whole place was clapping and singing "sen sen sen"... so much that Mr Bona and his band stopped playing for around 2 minutes and made the audience enjoy themselves.

He is a great entertainer. He put a lot of great jokes in his concert and made us laugh a lot of times. Like "only women over 40 should sing now"... silence ... "oooh, when you are over 40 in Bratislava your finished" :)

He also gave a solo to his percussionist from Colombia, to have a solo. Amazing.

At the end of the concert there was a 3 minute long standing ovation, one song where the audience had to stand, and should dance... but that was already to much for this type of people... anyway the mood was good and after another 3 minutes of clapping it was said to us, that there is going to be no more music. Central European people don't complain after this. Used to the fact, that the end, means the end, and so the people where slowly moving on.

All in all I was moving all the time in my chair, one of the best concerts of my life, hope to have a good Latino party on Friday ;)

Brezno

Sometime during February I was in the Low Tatra's (Malé Tatry) in Slovakia. I was there with a few good friends and enjoyed the weekend a lot, with sleeping, drinking a bit, playing table hockey and table football and singing. The usual stuff, which makes you feel fine and enjoy the company of good people. I don't want to go into detail. Don't think I want to.

What I want to talk about, and I'm sure I will remember for a longer time, is the city Brezno and it's surroundings. The first day I was going by foot for around 12 km's to see a near cave. The nature was beautiful, the weather clear, the roads slippery... The time flew by, and with a good friend to talk to it is always a good experience. Around 1pm, when we started to feel hunger, we stumbled upon a small cheese shop, where traditional Slovak cheeses were sold. Delicious! We bough also "bryndza" (sheep cheese) and "korbaciky" (woven cheese - the best were with onion flavor yam). And then we visited a stalagmite cave near there. (no pictures allowed, only for extra costs of course).

The second day I had a trip to Brezno. One of my friends lives here, so I was very interested in the city. As it is not a big city (you can see the whole city from the near hills) I enjoyed to walk freely and not getting lost a lot ;) As it was such a wonderful day I made a walk near the river, after like an hour I started to get hungry, so I tried to get to the city center. I was thinking what would I say, when somebody would ask me where I'm heading to, and I imagined to reply to a friend who lives in the Hviezdoslavovo street (in every Slovak city there is a street with that name.). For my biggest surprise just a few minutes later I found that street. Theory proven :P

Then my travels continued and with a rather long detour I got into the city center. Nice :) Wanted to eat something, found a pizzeria, at 16:00 they serve every pizza for 90 Skk. Fine... it's 15:00. Let's go around a bit more. Following some older buildings I got to a church and behind it was a road up a hill. I believed I will get a nice picture from the city from up there. I think in this case I was mistaken... at least not with a mobile camera...

The road went right into a graveyard. I felt a pleasing calmness and sadness while I was up there. I was looking around and found a few old graves and sepulchers. It was a beautiful day. I needed to be alone for a while, and this was the best place to do so.

and a nice pizza and a good beer at the end!
Cheers!

"Emotional security" or when things change

I'm very sad in the last weeks, cause I lost a point I could lean on emotionally. I believe that most of the people have habits they don't give up, because they are used to it and feel secure doing/experiencing them. Such habits, moments can relate to experiencing the same situation for a long time, or just a few moments which carved themselves in our minds. Some of the situations I value: is a shower with hot (not boiling) water on my skin, as I used to go to the thermal baths quite often in my childhood - this brings quite pleasant memories back. Or simply sitting before the computer and hearing music which is in harmony with my feelings. This is more like a dull feeling of comfort. A feeling of something I know and am sure, that nothing can surprise me or hurt me when I do it.

I lost such a secure point in my life this year. After so much talk about climate change and such this year I finally admitted that it can be true. The second sunny warm winter in the south of Slovakia. How sad for me. If you live your whole life with four seasons than you can't really imagine, how could it be without one of them, how could it change. And now it is here. While the spring is still full of the birth of life - bloom, animals appear, the summer is hot as always - giving the feeling of freedom and joy, the autumn amazes me with all its color and gifts I miss the winter. I miss the snow.

The nature died this year also. The trees lost their leaves, the flowers disappeared as most of the birds and animals, but the country didn't disappear before my eyes under a white layer of snow. Except of x-mas and New Years Eve there was no snow or snowing around. I miss the feeling from my childhood, when I made snowballs, enjoyed the falling snowflakes.
I shouldn't romanticize the memories too much. But the though of snow comforted me. And this feeling is missing this year. If I would go into the wiccan believe - though the sun was killed in autumn this year again, his body was never buried. The cycle of life lost from it's beauty.

I want to see real winter in my hometown again.

Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!

On the 1.September in Bratislava there were the crowning ceremonies again (5th in row). What I pictures I have seen on some ceremonies before, they were a bit better prepared, but anyway it was a nice experience for me.

I was of course a bit disappointed, when the queen of Hungary is crowned and not even one Hungarian world was heard (Slovak, Latin and German were), but anyway I had to accept it as a big theater, with a touch of a medieval fashion show...

Well it all started with a quite tricky weather, which couldn't really decide, if it wants to rain or not...

Well the crowning was fine, no raindrops falling from the sky, it all went on without problems. One of the biggest attractions was, that Otto von Habsburg came for this event also. He would be the rightful Caesar of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy.

The most fan part for me was what came after this. The people started to move and we were heading on the other side of the Duna. To say the truth from all those medieval clothing I loved the most to group of people, which were thank god quite near to each other. From one I made a lot of pics, see the link below, from the second, sorry no sound :P

What I'm talking about is the group with fur cloths, which amazed me again and again. The (most propably) fox fur on them has a such beautiful color, that I was loving it from the first time I saw it. The queen and the king weren't important anymore :)

And the second group was the drum players, who gave the ritm in my legs, which made me understand how well would I feel to go with drums giving the ritm to my movement.

I enjoyed this pretty much, although when we were crossing the bridge the clouds got overfilled and let on us a whole lot of water at once... At least it wasn't lightning and in around 30 mins the weather was fine again.

We tried afterwards the "local" stores. If anybody knows what burciak is in English please tell me, we had some glasses of that (one of the best I have ever tasted). Bad luck, that I had to leave earlier and couldn't see the cavaliers.

Another nice experience. And a few pics taken with my now broken phone :( http://picasaweb.google.com/hajdupeti/ASmallCrowningCeremony

Bazant Na Mlynoch 2007 (Pheasant At The Mills)

- For those who may find this blog entry searching for info on the Bazant 2008 -> 30. May, Friday, Mlynska Dolina; main acts:
Puding Pani Elvisovej, Polemic, Hex, Horkýže Slíže, Aneta Langerová, Tina, Komajota
So come and enjoy -

Don't be suprised by the name... Pheasant comes from a Slovak beer brand called Zlaty Bazant (Golden Pheasant) and Mills is an abbreviation of a place in Bratislava called Mlynska Dolina. Mlynska Dolina is basically a small student city in Bratislava, with a few thousand students living there.
Bazant Na Mlynoch is happening every year, at the end of may. It is a one day event, with a lot of live performances from Czech and mostly Slovak bands. For me it is one of the best events in the year!!! As I enjoy hearing instrumental music I don't go to discos, cause I got annoyed by the music instead of enjoying it, and I have no real community with which I would go to concerts.

Anyway how does My bazant look like:

- I meet at least 30 friends I haven't seen for a few months. So I am with them, till it is fun, till we have something to tell, and then go on to find new ppl :)
- Enjoying the concerts. Not important if it is "calm" music or for jumping :)
- Drink a lot of beer :)

This year:
The worst part of it was, that one of my favourite live bands didn't came - Ciste Tvary :( The bass player was my schoolmate when I started studiing informatics in the University.
The bad part was the showman Sajfa - I never liked that guy.
The missing part - No Vidiek this year, so neighter they show, which brings a very good mood nor their hits: When it's 7 a.m I turn on my radio (Ked je 7 rano zapnem radio)... :P
The best parts of this years Bazant were, the two last concert where I was fighting myself into the first rows... I don't think I will do it again, but according to the circumstance, that my ankle still hurts a bit it was the best place for enjoying the concert (so I was seeing Polemic and Buty from the first line) :)

Anyway Buty as the finishing band wasn't a good joice. They are playing good music, I liked it a lot, but for drunken ppl who want to party there should have been a better music for dancing, after Polemic (who are real showman). Last year it was raining like hell, and Buty wouldn't be able to hold those ppl around like Kristof last year. Most propably this year 40-50% of the ppl would have left after Polemic.

I think this festival makes me feel younger than I'm. And most propably that's why I plan to visit it in the next years also.

Slovak lesson - A day after... Sietovica

Well, hello again. saturday is here, and this time it means Sietovica. For those who don't speak Slovakian, a small insight into the Slovak dictionary.
-ica : almost every word that ends on -ica has to do with alcohol. There are two main groups we can divide the words ending on -ica:
1.) Spirits with high percentage of alcohol - the new word comes from the original fruit/plant like slivovica (slivka = plum), hruskovica (hruska = peach), jablkovica (jablko = apple) and of course we shouldn't forget borovicka - which is the national drink of Slovakia and is made of the same plant as gin.
2.) Drinking events - if there is a group of ppl, who share something common, and have a party together, then the party's name can be derivated from the common thing they share. Of course other ppl may join also... Most popular ones: kruzkovica (kruzka - course/class), chodbovica (chodba = floor - everybody is invited, who lives on the same floor), Mikulasovica (Liptovsky Mikulas is a city in Bratislava, the party is fro all ppl who come from that city).

So what is sietovica - all the students who know eachother from the intranet at the dormitories meet for a huge party :) On the biggest party there were around 30-40 ppl max and around 15.000 Skk was paid at the end (25Skk - 0.5l beer, 40-50Skk - 0.5dl spirits at least 40%).

I don't want to talk much about the event, a lot of party ppl, having fun, and finished in the morning around 3-4 o'clock on my room a bit sober as I usually say and dead tired. :)