Sziget Festival. A note to all budding relationships - a festival abroad is not a romantic first holiday.
For some reason, even to this day I never know why we thought it was a good idea, my boyfriend and I decided to take our first holiday together to Budapest, for Sziget festival. It seemed like a flawless idea at the time, music we both loved in the sun, romantic strolls through the historical streets of Budapest by day, intimate snuggles in a tent by night. What could go wrong?
We'd made it into a mini travel around Europe trip, as a taster for when we travel the world together some day.
Belgium for one night, Budapest for a week, Prague for four nights and then Dublin for a night.
"Do you feel like we're on holiday yet?" We'd keep asking each other; on route to the airport, in the air, landing in Belgium, arriving at the hotel, sitting outside the hotel drinking Belgium beer and a Belgium waffle from a vending machine. We couldn't feel it yet.
The moment we felt it was getting off the plane in Budapest. The heat hit us like slap in the face, if the hand in which the slap was hitting contained the core from the middle of the Earth. That moment, was the only moment in our entire holiday we'd appreciate the heat. "NOW we're on holiday" - we said. I just want to go back to Yolli and Liam at that time and say, "oh dear youths, do not be happy with this, prepare yourself for a week of struggle and breakdowns, k? Cool." It was at least 40 degrees all week.
The theory of the butterfly effect - I genuinely believe this was the case for our little holiday. At the airport we purchased a large bottle of water- it was sparkling. We hate sparkling water. I stand by if we had bought still water, everything would have been FINE.
We got on the wrong bus that took us all the way to the other side of Budapest, we had to take the suffocating metro to find the festival, arriving 2 hours later than planned. By this point, the heat was consuming us, we hadn't eaten, hadn't drank anything and naively kept thinking we were nearly there. We did reach the festival, that wasn't the issue. The issue was getting into the festival, getting our tents which we bought from the festival, and finding a spot. We queued AN HOUR for our tent, whilst avoiding huge trucks as they decided to get people to queue where the road for all the supplies was. We then had to carry our suitcases, a tent, a "mattress" and a blanket to find a camping spot. Lacking any kind of logic as I always do when I need food (which is a lot) I was insistent we plonked ourselves in the exact spot we did when I decided to give up. This somehow managed to be in the middle of every huge loud group of people in the festival, and right in front of what ended up being named "the vomit/shit/piss tree". So we opened the pop up tent. And just looked at it. We stared. Pretty much at the exact same time, stared at the tent, then at each other, then at our belongings, then back at the tent. This was not going to work. We physically couldn't fit ourselves and our stuff in the tent. We crawled in, laughed hysterically, because if we didn't laugh we'd cry. It marked the first moment we realised - this wasn't a great idea. Refer to the photo below, it was not posed.
The week was hard. We laughed, we cried, we moaned, mostly moaned. Yet we still didn't argue, I see this as a win for our relationship! It wasn't all doom and gloom, the music was amazing, the city was beautiful and the food was divine (and CHEAP!) I would certainly do this festival again, even with my boyfriend, but I am officially at the age where I will admit - I would stay in a hotel.
What I learnt from attending Sziget festival
Do not rent the tent from the festival. Just take one with you.
You cannot buy anything with real money, you have to use a "festicard" which takes fucking ages to queue for. Do this first.
If you're camping for an entire week, make it comfortable, even if you're planning on drinking yourself to sleep every night.
Get the CityPass, it gets you unlimited travel on any service within Budapest, and it saves so much time queueing to buy tickets.. and saves money if you get the wrong bus...
The pass also allows a free entry into a thermal bath. We went to Lukacs Thermal Bath and even though we were desperate to get out of the 40 degree heat, the 40 degree water bath was incredibly relaxing.
The festival doesn't let you take in booze, so pre drink at the "Auchan" supermarket as much as you can, it's super cheap and not a terrible place to chill out for a while. Even if you don't want any food or drink, just go in here for the air conditioning. It's a short walk from the festival.
Have lunch in the city of Budapest as much as you can, it's the same price as the festival but you can find genuinely great food. I discovered so many new tastes I never knew I'd like, such a sweet potato cannelloni and sausage ratatouille.
Find a "resting spot". You have no choice but to wake up in your own sweat at about 8:30am. No one wants to be awake that early, find a spot in the shade where you can take some pillows and just sleep for a few more hours.
The queues for drinks are MUCH smaller if you head to the drink tents that are not by the main stage, takes 2 minutes to walk there and saves a 20 minute waiting queue!
Hat. Wear a hat. I am not fan of hats, but do it.
Plan who you want to see and when you can eat/drink around that. That way you still get drunk and fed without missing any acts!
If there is one thing I wish we did whilst there, it would be man up. Instead of spending hours complaining about how hot we were, I wish we embraced it and had some cocktails in the shade, or spent more time in thermal baths. I had a great time - but never spend your holiday complaining, make the most of a bad situation! You do not want to be this guy (please reference picture below).
