Szőttes folk dance camp 2008

From the 4th of August till the 10th I was in Várhosszúrét (Search for : Krásnohorská Dlhá Lúka) near Rozsnyó (Rožňava) which lies in east Slovakia. I was attending a folk dance camp there with a good friend of mine, Gábor.

Lets start from the beginning on: in June on a short notice I started to visit a Hungarian folk dance group called Szőttes (twice a week 2-3 hours). And there, as they wanted us to join the group, we were motivated to come to this camp, as we would learn a lot there. When it was clear that I won't get my internship trough IAESTE to Spain I was happy that I have at least something to look forward to.

We were sleeping in tents, had a great weather (it rained just on Monday and Saturday). The little village and the mountains around it were breathtaking. It was like beeing stuck in time. The calm surrounding with the traditional carvings. One of the local pubs was having a traditional design. But of course one of the local shops and the local "house of culture" (the place where the cultural presentations used to be in a village during socialism - concerts, presentations, meetings) where having the typical minimalistic construction. Most probably they were built during the socialism. Nevertheless those were insignificant in the whole picture of the village. The small Hungarian community gave me a very pleasant feeling.

The program - 6 days 3+3 hours of dancing a day + during the night there was a dance house. We learned traditional Hungarian dances from two regions (Mátyusföldi and Kalotaszegi). We started with the Kalotaszegi (from the village Bogártelek) dances. They were according to me much easier then the Matyusföldi dances, though the second one is much more fun :) Of course we learnded just the basics of these dances, but it was very interesting for me to see the little differences in them. Also the character of the Matyusföldi dance catched me. It was very much like a game, with a lot of moves, were you change get away, got close, run away, court your partner...

The Bogartelki dance:


Is definitely more fun when you're there ;)


The only problem with the whole show was, that I had an inflamation of my right ear the whole time, so no alcohol, nor staying up long through the night for me :( Definitely missed a lot of fun.

Of course from time to time the question popped in my mind why so few people are interested in folk dances nowadays, when it is so much fun. Somewhere on the way to the 21th century people were having so many new things around them that they forgot the old ways. Thank god I was never a type of a guy who just walked with the stream, and figured, that there is much more to see and enjoy!

more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/hajdupeti/SzottesTabor2008

A small movie

12 minutes (+titles), a short movie when you don't know what to do... It's called: Our Time Is Up from the director Rob Pearlstein
(a psychologist who gets to know, that he has six weeks to live and so decided to tell the truth...)


This reminded me of a TED talk I saw recently, about positive psychology, where the guest presenter says, that he wanted to make miserable people happy with psychology. But he got only to the point where he got the people in a state of emptiness. This is where he started to search why people are happy. See what they found out till now.


Are you living a happy life?

How politics work

After the last elections in Slovakia, the political party SMER-SD with it's leader Fico got the best results. After the elections I have seen the small video clip below, which pretty nicely describes his tactic between the voters, and works marvelously. Czechs made a lot of good movies during the socialism, some extrelmy funny ones, and some with words of wisdom like this. I tried to translate it from czech... I had my difficulties in the process, but hopefully it understandable :)



Grandpa: What is our strategy for the campaign before the elections?
Candidate: ...
G: That everyone should have everything. Am I right?
C: Yeah, of course.
G: Every dumb ass knows that. But, what strategy to use to get to this? ... Come on, say it. ... So that everyone won't have anything.
C: No way!
G: Yeah. We just won't tell anyone. Just like you can't allow anyone to think, that you don't understand something. Your the head of the city, that means that you understand everything!
C: But I can't do that!
G: I know that to, but you can't let that show! See, the only thing you really must know is, that you need to know something about everybody... But be aware! Most importantly with those people who understand this.
C: Gramps, were did you take this from?..
G: ..and be careful! With the nit witted people be gracious! Show them that, that anything the clever people say is complete idiocy! Cause you can't argue with those who understand it, so you'll hurt your reputation! Because if you don't have the aggrieved, the harmed and the incompetent on your side, then you won't get far. Remember that!

Title of the movie: Tri chlapi v chalupe

Deevastating icy rain

A few weeks ago there was a huge icy rain in here. In a near city it had horrifying effects (roof, cars destroyed). I was home, we had "just" nut sized ice pieces falling down... at my grandparents place the ice stayed for another half an hour in the garden. I didn't make pictures from my grandparents garden before the accident just this one:

We were there to cut the wine, cause there were to many fruits (are they called bunches?) on them. Just 1 day before the rain :(

The garden afterward:

That time when I prelonged my stay in Bratislava

A small reminder of a few beautiful days in Bratislava this summer.

Just a few days ago one of my best friends visited Bratislava for a few days(he lives on the other end of Slovakia), so there was a need of meeting him. In Slovakia you usually try to find a good fake reason to meet up (or go for a drink) with people. In this case he wanted to give me my birthday present. :)

After failing to solve some thinks out in Bratislava I met with the guys at around 5pm. With him there was also Pivet a German girl and her Romanian boyfriend (with whom naturally we had a fight about Trianon and the Hungarians living in Romania. I'm pretty sure that I've picked the fight. Now that I think of it, he may have had no real overview about the matter, but had enough national pride to defend his nation by saying the same argument over and over again... Will need to focus more on reading peoples behaviour, was never good at it, but maybe now it will work better :) ). Afterwards also Petkan joined us. :)

Anyway we went to Slovak pub, ate from all kind of Slovak specialities. Then I had a meeting with old friends from AIESEC (something like a CU alumnie meeting), but had just 45 mins. before my bus left from to my hometown... At least I thought I would like to catch it.

The fact was, that I had nothing to do at home. This gave a very good position for Luki for convincing me to stay, what he used out... At the end we grabbed a few more beers and stayed at Petkans flat that night. After 3 of us drunk around 4 liters of mulled wine (The wine was pretty much undrinkable before boiling and adding some special Tesco mulled wine spices :) So for you to know, if you come to Slovakia and want to buy bad wine it is pretty easy to find them in shops, because it is cheap and is in plastic bottles or cartons...)

Continuing our tail the next day was pretty calm as Luki had stomach ache, and I wanted to go home to eat properly... Yes, wanted to, but as easily as yesterday I was persuaded to stay. We had a quite day, having a good talk in the city with Janie. Never had an opportunity to hear her out till now, what I do regret now. Quite an interesting person with a good taste of humor.(I write this here cause it is unsure when I'll meet her again.)
Then went back to Petkans apartment and killed time.
I went afterward to Doms beer pong party. Was as good as it used to be one year ago, but there are now again a lot of people I don't know, and won't have a chance to get to know for a while. Which made me realize, that I'm now in the same situation Sherisse was telling me about half a year ago, and heard also from a lot more people: there comes a time, when you get tired of getting to know new people and not being able to rely on the fact that they will be around even after you made a strong bound to them. It is definitely a hard thing and I'm not sure how I'll handle this situation.

I left early from Doms party. I haven't seen Luki for ages as he was in Australia, and he planes to leave again for an internship in Europe. I got back at around 11pm, and we were singing till 1am :) Luki was playing mostly Pink Floyd songs on his guitar + I will need to learn Hey Joe again in Hungarian... Awesome experience, as I'm a fan of such events.

We took the next day easy... Watching a movie, just chilling and as usually I wanted to get home with a bus at 7pm. We went to the "beach", had a drink and went to the Slovak pub to meet an ex-intern who was in Slovakia in 2001/02. It must have been a lot of fun having her around, we had a lot of good talks, there were a lot of people I haven't met for ages (alumni meeting number 2 :)) We finished at around 1pm. We were going again to Petkans apartmant (yep, was convinced to stay again... but wait for the twist...), when I suddenly realized that I forgot my bag and the flowers for my mother in the pub! While running back I realized that at around 2pm there should be a bus going home. Now I know 2:15, bus stop 11... Thou these facts were unknown at that moment, so I waited at the usual spot (at the other end of the station), and nothing came, so I called a cab and went to sleep with the others again :P

The next day I missed my bus again, and waited for 2 hours for the next bus to come, luckily Vaida was waiting with his brother at the bus station also, so I made them company. They met another Lithuanian girl, with whom they were talking afterwards. In a nice sleepy state I was able to listen to the Lithuanian language, remembered YouCan in 2004 and listening to Spanish and Portugese people :) I liked it. (On the photo, there am I with the same clothes for 3 days... Which were spend with friends and in a very good atmosphere, I definitely smile in my heart ;)

There are two more things I want to mention.
The perfect cooking skills of Pivet, though there were meals, which are easy to prepare, the taste was marvelous! Thank you!
And the few hours spent talking with Nadja, who I discovered lives in the same flat where we were staying. It was nice to her speak about annoying neightbors, dogs, german comedians and studies. Looking forward for the next opportunity!
As a lot of years in my life I was spending before the German television (we had satelite). I've got a quite good German vocabulary from those days + a piece of German culture just stick on me. Talking to her makes me get nostalgic feelings, spicing up the talks to an interesting person even more :)

Thank you all! Looking forward to meeting you again!

Tesco curiosities - Red Fruit Flavour?

I was wondering maybe I missed the marketing campaign of the next generation soft drinks... hmm this was quite a surprise:

An amazing weekend

This weekend I was celebrating my birthday, which was a few weeks back. The feelings afterward are a bit awkward. Like in all "best" parties I don't remember much of it :P

With my mothers help I have organized a small cottage inside the bath's in my hometown. The weather was perfect, the people in a good mood, their first experiences made them have a good mood, which lasted during those two days.

I missed most of the fun, while I organized the people, food, accommodation, payment... you can imagine. And in the evening, when the party started I pretty soon lost all the memories. I still remember giving everyone a sip of my birthday present - Danish alcohol (will find it's name) in the small happy birthday cup, which can contain around 1cl of fluids. Perfect way to share with everybody! So I did that, and though Anders told me it was a quite expensive bottle, I prefer using it that way. I'm sometimes the guy who waits for those "special moments", but the longer I live the more often it happened that the special moments just didn't seem to arrive. So I decided that to show the friends I care for my gratitude by giving a piece of the alcohol to them... Most probably it looked like a drunk guy wanting to make everyone else to drink and get wasted, but for me the thought was what counted.

With a lot of old and new friends around me, who one by one thank me for a great weekend I'm a bit sad that I don't remember much, but still think of joy, happiness and a lot of fun, when I remember that day.

PS: will need to get the receipt for the cherry soup :) I have a few photos, they will be added later on

PS2: The few photos were added, they capture very little of the whole atmosphere. Will need to learn to make pictures with a camera! http://picasaweb.google.com/hajdupeti/Bday2008

Bazant na Mlynoch 2008

And here it is again! Bazant na Mlynoch (see last years entry here!)

This years Bazant definitely better from the perspective of concerts. The finishing with Polemic and Horkyze Slyze made a terrific atmosphere (although miss wet T-shirt was a complete disappointment. It's called miss wet T-shirt because it is white, there is nothing below or above it and it is a t-shirt... and not a black fishing net like this year :( No real nudity, but at least some nice dancing... see yourself)

Anyway first bad to look at was Flavour United - Czech band played some kind of latino/reggae - they weren't excellent, the singer girl had a pretty good voice, while the black "rapper" was not understandable at all...

After a few meeting with friends, beers and uninteresting concerts later Polemic came on the scene. This was the time I understood I made a huge mistake coming there... in sandals. My confidence was empowered by the guys who brought bottles of beer and 40% alcohol in the crowd, which I was pretty sure would land below me. So after 5-6 songs I always moved in the back rows, where there was still dancing, but no more pogo. During Polemic it was fine, Horkyze Slyze even better. After the first 5 songs of the second band I was so afraid, that my legs are bleeding, that I went out of the crowd to watch in the dim light. I didn't see anything, calculated that drunk people are lucky + and believed it was just dirt and went back into the crowd, though further behind, so people won't jump on me.
What came next was also a bit surprising a huge dose of a "beer shower". Will remember this as an experience and not as a reason to take a long shower after the concert :P
All in all when after a huge concert and the feeling of proud for not being able to speak nor move my head the next day I went to my room, and examed my feet. It was perfectly healthy :) So I concluded, that there are a lot of thinks I'm afraid of, just because I'm not in daily touch with them, and went to sleep peacefully after going out again at 4:30am.

Looking forward for the next Bazant, hopefully with Vidiek! And more free time attractions like in 2004!

In The Waiting Line

I had a few experiences the last day which I was thinking about, while listening to the song In The Waiting Line from Zero 7 - good music for such activities.

I was talking to a person a few days ago, and she mentioned her interest in gypsy culture. I find this topic quite interesting, as I try to eliminate my prejudices if possible.

The gypsies at least in Slovakia (though I know about a few neighboring countries, too) are usually treated badly, and not without a reason. There are huge "ghettos" in Slovakia, in which only gypsies live, and if the social system tries to help them, then in most cases the help is abused. For example if they are given new flats, then in a few months they are usually looking like a waste dump. There are also quite often caught in the act of stealing. Bad behavior, violence, stealing a lot of children and not caring are the things most often come in people mind. Though there are exceptions of course people meet those more rarely. It is hard to get forward from such community, which also means, that there are only a very low percentage of them going into universities, if there are any (in the application form for the university there are most of the nationalities living in Slovakia including some which have lower then 1% of the population, but the gypsies are not listed - I didn't pay enough attention, sorry, false information) - in most studies the problems are related to their lack of education and the discrimination against them.
- All this information is subjective, and NOT based on my experience -

But I value the gypsy culture. It is still (though much less today) a part of the Hungarian culture. Gypsy music was a very important part of all the better restaurants in the country before the world wars and the growing popularity of the radio and recorded music. Until today I believe in the significance and beauty of their dulcimer and violin play, which underlines the regions folklore. Also they were moving traders and building special bricks, and other stuff only they knew how to produce. They were a part of the culture in a good way, too.

This second part always fills me with hope, that todays situation may change. Getting integrated into the culture (which must not mean, that they have adopted to the majorities culture, it can be that both cultures have changed to find a compromis).

Getting to the core of the post... The above situation is definitely not unique in Europe, or the world. At this point another TED presentation came in my mind, presented by the finance minister of Afghanistan, talking about the creating of a healthy economical system in a country where the basic conditions are missing. He asked the people in the audience to leave the clean world they are living in and start to think out solutions in a surronding, which works according to different rules. I think that the same principle should apply in this case to, as in many other. The people should stop looking at the situation in their won perspective and open up and be able to change if needed, not just wanting to change something...

But the will to change needs to be on both sides!

Curiosities - A man's life

I wanted to start a small section with curiosities on websites, which are interested in one way or the other.

This is a site, where you learn about a persons life through photos he had taken every day of his life till he did from 1979 to 1997.
Blog referring to the site:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/15131

The site. It takes a pretty while till the photos are downloaded, but interesting anyway...
http://addresszero.com/pod-html/

I'm always was interested in peoples life, mainly those, who cold change or add a new habit in their lives. Gives me a hope, that people can change, when they are motivated enough...

And for those Slovak people with paranoia (in Slovak): ako to bezi s verejnym sutazom...