Music Tour- Day Six

That morning, I checked my itinerary. It said that we would board the buses at 8am. The noticeboard in the foyer of the hotel said that we would board the buses at 8.20am. At 8.06am, I decided that I would go with what the noticeboard said. It turned out to be 8.20am, but I was late anyway.

We headed off for the markets in Szentendre. Almost as soon as we arrived, a few of us needed to go to the toilet so we set off looking for one. We asked one of the shop owners and he gave us directions, but we missed the turnoff and went too far. We asked another shop owner and they gave us better directions to a different toilet.

After coming out, Diffy decided to leave a tip. She left some coins in a few random currencies. When Jess and Dianna came out, we noticed the horrible truth- we were actually meant to have paid 100HUF! Dianna paid, but neither Jess nor I had change. Jess and I were a bit worried that they would notice that we hadn’t paid. (However, a little later I bought an ice cream and I don’t think I got enough change, so I guess it evened out.)

When we were walking out, we passed by a shop with some massive pencils (roughly 1m long, if I remember correctly) outside. We stopped to have a look. Jonty came by and showed us a special wooden box that required a fairly complex procedure to open. His had his name engraved on it.  The shopkeeper then showed us some of the other boxes he had, and how to open the boxes. He then showed us an even bigger pencil and allowed us to have our photos taken with the pencil.

We met up later on the buses. A few of the boys had bought model gas masks and quite a few people had bought the special boxes. The bus then took us to the Skanzen open-air museum. This museum consisted of rebuilt villages modelling the old architecture in use a few hundred years ago (I think). Each group went to different parts of the open-air museum before returning to the café for lunch. Just before we did so, though, we all found ourselves sitting beneath a tree. A few girls were talking about the manga Alice in the Land of Hearts and they said something about Alice going out with a Mafia guy. Angus overheard, but not knowing that they were talking about manga, said, “WHAT?!”

That night, we had our first overseas concert, at the Italian Cultural Institute in Budapest. I can’t remember everything we played but I know we did play Nessun Dorma (in fact, it was a requirement to play something Italian) and we played Pastime with Good Company in which one of the soloists was unfortunate enough to squeak. Right before Wind Orchestra’s performance, Miss J asked me if I was feeling excited. I said no- I generally try not to have adrenalin pumping through my body wherever I can. (After Canberra Tour, I got very sick of that of that stuff rushing through my body.) Chorale was the last to perform that night. After the performance, we had to prepare for the river cruise that night in the rooms where we had dumped all of our stuff (an idea that nobody liked, but hey, it was better than getting dressed on the stage which was what Mr Hey’s other suggestion was).

While waiting outside the Italian Cultural Institute for the order to move to the buses, Angus started singing a song which I assume he made up.

“Bang, bang, bangitty bang, bang bang bang bang ba-bang bang!”

When asked to shut up, his response was, “It’s a pretty cool song though! How often do you get to hear a song sung only to the word “bang?”

Nora came by and we all greeted her. There was great excitement as she told us that she would be accompanying us on the river cruise!

Once on the bus, Angus diverted his energies into singing the tune of Viva la Musica to the syllables “herp” and “derp,” which in my opinion was far more annoying. At least we didn’t have to sing the “bang” song in Chorale.

When the bus got going, Eva told us some of the things on the menu on the river cruise. One of them was chicken. At being told this, everyone groaned in an almost joking manner- we had been served chicken almost every day, if not every day, since coming to Europe. The meal was a buffet, though, so if people were truly sick of chicken they could easily choose something else.

Towards the end of our meal, we heard random thumping noises from the upper deck. Later on, when we moved up there, we realised what it was: every time we approached a bridge, a bunch of people would move up towards the bow of the boat. When the boat passed beneath, those people would then proceed to stampede down the boat. Meanwhile, I took plenty of pictures of the undersides of these bridges, as well as the amazing views of Budapest at night. Eventually, we all returned to the hotel, exhausted yet happy, to pack for the upcoming journey to London.