August 20th
Okay, it is August 20th, which means it is the Day of Sovereignty in Hungary. I keep misinforming the tourists, claiming that it is the Day of Independence, which is totally not true – it is actually the day when the ‘modern’ state of Hungary was founded by King Steven. He picked the Roman Pope instead of the Greek Orthodox church, for which he was granted a crown and sainthood after his death. With German knights, he crushed the ‘pagan’ uprising by the chieftain Koppany, endowed the church with land and privileges, and in general formed a rather typical Christian kingdom.
Hungarians celebrate this event with astonishing fireworks, a really wicked airshow/acrobatic flying world championship over the river, mass at Saint Steven’s basilica OVER THE KING’S MUMMIFIED HAND, getting drunk and meandering through the city suckling on bottles of champagne. No joke about the mummified hand.
The king’s mummified hand (over 1000 years old) is kept in a gold reliquary within the Basilica of Saint Steven. If you give the security guy a dollar’s worth of Forints, he will turn on the lights and you can stare at this skeletor like appendage in eerily blazing, electric glory. The hand is paraded through the city on August 20th, at the head of a procession of priests, nuns and old people in Attilas (which is not just the name of a Hun chieftain, it is also the name of the traditional formal Hungarian suit, kind of high collared and matrixy).
Steve came to Budapest and I took him and his cousins clubbing. I worked with Steve when I was a lawyer in DC. The boys got indescribably trashed. Steve is very impressed by the city and I think he will come back this fall, after I returned from the Estados Unidos.
My neck is killing me or I would ask Chain Smoking Accountant to watch the fireworks with us – I still might, of course, I am just leery of asking her and then bailing after an hour of fun just so I can go home and lie down like a total loser. We will see.
Well, okay, today is August 22nd and I did ask chain smoking accountant and we went and saw the fireworks (well, sort of, we went to the wrong spot on the river and saw very little of it).
Steve and his cousins left for Prague and I am a bit depressed.
Hungarians celebrate this event with astonishing fireworks, a really wicked airshow/acrobatic flying world championship over the river, mass at Saint Steven’s basilica OVER THE KING’S MUMMIFIED HAND, getting drunk and meandering through the city suckling on bottles of champagne. No joke about the mummified hand.
The king’s mummified hand (over 1000 years old) is kept in a gold reliquary within the Basilica of Saint Steven. If you give the security guy a dollar’s worth of Forints, he will turn on the lights and you can stare at this skeletor like appendage in eerily blazing, electric glory. The hand is paraded through the city on August 20th, at the head of a procession of priests, nuns and old people in Attilas (which is not just the name of a Hun chieftain, it is also the name of the traditional formal Hungarian suit, kind of high collared and matrixy).
Steve came to Budapest and I took him and his cousins clubbing. I worked with Steve when I was a lawyer in DC. The boys got indescribably trashed. Steve is very impressed by the city and I think he will come back this fall, after I returned from the Estados Unidos.
My neck is killing me or I would ask Chain Smoking Accountant to watch the fireworks with us – I still might, of course, I am just leery of asking her and then bailing after an hour of fun just so I can go home and lie down like a total loser. We will see.
Well, okay, today is August 22nd and I did ask chain smoking accountant and we went and saw the fireworks (well, sort of, we went to the wrong spot on the river and saw very little of it).
Steve and his cousins left for Prague and I am a bit depressed.
posted by Balázsy András at 10:32 AM
1 Comments:
That hand thing is so surreal. It's kind of cool.
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