Simon The Meerkat - Travel Blog: September 2014

August saw us off abroad for the third time this year! Susan is now considering signing up for Air Miles as we've become quite the frequent flyers! This trip was extra special because Tom would be coming too, AND we were going to a music festival!
When Susan visited Hungary in 2012 (I wasn't invited :( ) she fell in love with Budapest and kept saying how much she wanted to return. Well, the Sziget festival happens every August for 7 days on the Island of Freedom (aka Óbudai-sziget), in the middle of the Danube! Susan first heard about it in 2012, arriving in Budapest just afterwards, so the city was still buzzing with festival fever. Last year, she remembered about it too late and couldn't afford the tickets, even though it was a really good line up. So when she visited Oban for New Years, she spoke to her parents about Tom's 21st Birthday in February. After some discussion, flights and tickets were paid for and holidays were booked off work. The line up looked good, but still had lots of gaps which would be filled over the year.

Ready to leave!

Anyway, eventually, it was time! Tom drove down to Wales in his new car, picked us up them we drove to Gatewick. The flight was exciting, passing over a pretty big storm which made some nervous flyers a little hysterical. We landed and headed into Budapest to stay with our CS host George. No sooner had we arrived, he took Susan and Tom for a night out at the Ruin Pubs of Budapest. I was disappointed not to tag along, but spent the evening admiring George's photographs - he's a freelance photographer and has travelled the world taking photos of people and places.
The next day, we caught the train to the festival. The queue was HUGE and Susan and Tom had to wait ages to get their wristbands (not issued to animals). Then we made our way across the bridge and joined another queue for bag searching. Thankfully, we Brits know how to queue, but it was rather dull for me, crammed in the bottom of the bag next to a cold water bottle. Eventually, we made it through, picked up our tents and went off to find our campsite. Susan and Tom had agreed to pay a little extra to stay in the French campsite, which sold itself for having extra security and showers. Personally, I would have preferred to have stayed with everyone else, roughing it around the island, but as I didn't get a say, I stayed schtum.

This camping malarkey is
quite fun!

View from our camp.

Susan has previously camped on a number of occasions, and Tom has attended a few UK festivals, so they both knew the best place to camp would be uphill slightly. Unfortunately, it was uphill a lot, but it soon felt like home once Tom had the Saltire flag flying from the Pine trees. We were overlooking the World Village Stage and the French bar area, which I did want to question, but they both seemed eager to set up camp and go exploring, so I left them to it.

What followed was seven days of FUN! We saw...The 1975, Blink 182, Queens of the Stone Age, Deadmau5, Jake Bugg, Imagine Dragons, Placebo, Skrillex, Palma Violets, Tom Thum, Cee Lo Green, Manic Street Preachers, Korn, Bastille, Lily Allen, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, Bombay Bicycle Club, Punnany Massif, Madness, The Prodigy, The Kooks, Outkast, Calvin Harris. There were "Aliens", Balls, Bubbles, Confetti, Dragons, Fireworks, Flags, Glow Sticks, Lasers, Powder, Serpentines. We spent time learning festival traditions, Hungarian traditions, watching circus shows and street performers and trying food from all around the world too!

Dan Reynolds (Imagine Dragons)
takes to Centre Stage

Look at those crowds!

Susan was swooning at this point! (Imagine Dragons)

I think I might be famous!

Percussionist lead singers are cool!
(Imagine Dragons)

Rocking and Raving!

Flag Party

Couldn't help myself!

Woop! Bastille take to the stage!

Mr Cee Lo Green - I was so close!

Tom helping me to blow bubbles at
the Bubble Party

Those Welsh Boyos!
The ManicStreet Preachers

Found this funky recycled art of
Nyan Cat

My favourites - MADNESS!

Big Boi smiled at me!
(Outkast)

Watching The Kooks on the screen

Hey Ya was a hit with the crowds!
(Outkast)

Apologies for the bad writing!

I even managed to find some time to help Susan write her postcards!
The week ended all too soon, but we still had a couple of days to spend in Budapest before flying home.

The must see sights are the Castle on the Buda side of the river, and Heroes Square and City Park on the Pest side of the river. The Castle Hill area has fantastic views over Budapest, with many impressive buildings including the Castle, Parliament, Mathias Church and the Fishermen's Bastion. Unfortunately Heroes Square is not safe for Meerkats, but it looked very impressive from what I glimpsed out the bag.

Susan and Tom spent a morning relaxing at the Széchenyi Baths, and I was disappointed to not get a chance to to take a dip - they have a no animals policy. After they were both turned into prunes, we crossed the road for a visit to Budapest Zoo. Unfortunately, Susan's camera died so the only photo of our day can be seen below of me making some new friends!