Sziget: Second impressions

Guest blog by chargé d’affaires Theresa Bubbear

Day 2 of Sziget brought a surprising number of double events. For the second consecutive day Hungary won two Olympic gold medals – congratulations to Danuta Kozák and Éva Risztov. I gave my second speech in Hungarian and two media interviews. We dodged two American footballers, sat two people on one huge chair, and had two crosses painted on our legs.

The crosses were part of a water fight against a Norwegian Embassy team, with whom we are jointly sponsoring the Transparency International tent at the Festival.

We have worked closely with TI on a number of anti-corruption projects, including a design competition and a seminar on the UK Bribery Act last year. We love their creative and fun approach to publicising a very serious message and are delighted to be part of the Big Splash (Time to Wake Up) campaign. I spoke at a press conference with Noémi Alexa, Director of TI Hungary, who has received an honorary MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her work, the Norwegian Ambassador, and Károly Gerendai, Managing Director of the Sziget Festival – and then the fight began.

The aim was to use water pistols to wash the crosses off the legs of the other team, although we all ended up soaked from head to toe. It was a friendly fight, though, and it seemed fair that the audience declared it a draw – a gold medal for Norway and another for Team GB.

Our second stop of the day was the US Embassy tent, where Levi and I had a go at the quiz based on a tour of US cities. As we have both studied in the US we did pretty well on that, and Levi also did extremely well on a difficult quiz about this year’s Presidential election. I had a chat with the US Ambassador, who was also visiting the Festival, and stayed as far away as possible from two giant American footballers who were charging up and down a very small strip of grass.

From the US we returned to Hungary with a visit to the Hungarikum village. I had an unsuccessful go at a game of skittles using a soft ball which had lost all its momentum by the time it reached the pins. Levi and I shared a giant chair for a brief rest before he and Lajos dressed up as giant Unicum bottles for a fight.

We also spotted the two British “bobbies” who are visiting this year’s Festival and, like hundreds of other Festival-goers, had our photos taken wearing their very distinctive helmets. We’ll have more time to spend with them on day 3, which also brings a wheelchair challenge, money, and another speech in Hungarian. The island is filling up and the atmosphere is fantastic. The weekend promises to be second to none.