30 DAY SONG CHALLENGE: Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to

Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to


I was using this "Song Challenge" as a way to get over the writer's block I have been suffering from over the last year or so (hence the sparse blog). Since I wish nothing more than to have a soundtrack for my life, these topics typically inspire me pretty easily. I'm always assigning music to stories and vice versa. However, I'm the singer in a band. I literally know all the words to at least a hundred songs...most of which have no other significance than, "that is a song the band plays."


So it took me a while, but I finally remembered a good story to tell about a song I know all the words to. We will venture back across the pond for this one.  


After Vienna (see Day 6) I boarded a train for Budapest.  I had heard that it was a cheap city with some cool shit to check out, and my pocket book was reeling from London, Paris and Interlaken so I figured I'd hole up there for a while, grab a massage or two from their world famous Turkish Baths and recuperate. As with most things in life, going in with low expectations led to a fanfuckingtastic time!


I got ripped off by a cab driver immediately upon arriving in the city, but their currency being such shit, he barely took me for $10!  When I got to my hostel thinking I had gotten the deal of the century on the cab, I found out that $10 got me FOUR nights in a shared room...I was already loving Budapest.  I got settled in and met two of my 4 roommates (Anti, a Swedish DJ  and James, an English Med Student). We decided to go out and grab a couple of beers and wait for the other two roomies (Emily and Audra, two Canadian post-grads).  


We went into the first pub that we saw and to my (very pleasant) surprise, beer was only a quarter!  I bought the first round...look at me Mr. Moneybags!!!  I could feel the travel gods shining down upon me.  This was my just reward for powering through in Vienna.  


It was Anti's 26th birthday (which seemed ancient to me at the time...not so much now) so when the girls arrived, we decided to go for a "nice dinner."  I know you are tired of hearing about how cheap everything was, but no shit, white table cloth, 4 star, gourmet meal...less than $10 per person...with booze too!  I was so full from my bacon wrapped filet with potato pasta and cream sauce that I didn't think I was going to make it out.  Anti would have non of that though.


We left the restaurant (where we left a 100% gratuity...they chased after us thanking us...it was weird) and headed for a University bar around the corner.  Beer was even cheaper there...shots were taken...the night starts to get a little fuzzy.


Anti and I spotted a foozeball table.  We went over and asked the large group of twenty somethings if we could get on line for the next game.  They quickly pegged me for an American and started giving me shit about how there was no way I could beat them in a game, blah, blah, blah...I had dealt with this before...not a big deal.  I simply told them we would see.


And boy did they show me. It turns out they don't have pool tables in most bars like we do over here. They have foozeball. It's their bar sport of choice and damn if they were gonna let a yank come and walk all over them. I played like 10 games in a row, each one getting my ass handed to me by a different Hungarian. But I'm stubborn and I wasn't leaving without at least one win.  Probably an hour passed, maybe more. Anti and James took the girls home, I was all alone in this random bar in Budapest at midnight when it finally happened...I won! 9-7 after a couple of ties. At first I was scared, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at me, then at the guy I beat.  I wondered if I had thrown down some sort of proverbial gauntlet or something. Then, defeated player, Dimitri, laughed and the rest of the crowd started lambasting him. It was all in good fun.  He said that he must buy me a drink, but none of that pussy American shit...I had to drink Unicum.


Now for those of you who have never been to Hungary, Unicum is like what jager would be like if you pissed in the bottle first, then drank it hot.  It supposedly was used for medicinal purposes back in the day and was said to ward off the common cold.  All I know is that it tasted like shit and hit my cerebral cortex like a ton of bricks.  I was feeling no pain when Dimitri suggested we go on a bar crawl and see the city.  Of course I said yes...what kind of story would this be if I just went home...


Into a cab we went.  All 11 of us. There, I learned two interesting Hungarian facts.  First, Buda and Pest used to be two cities separated by the Danube (they have since merged). I was staying on the Pest side of the river, but apparently the cool shit goes on on the Buda side.  Second, the kids still speak Esparanto which is basically "New Speak" from 1984. They apparently get extra points on their version of the ACT for being multilingual and it only takes like 6 weeks to learn the whole language.  Wikipedia and the Hungarian kids had a little different interpretations...to them it was the official language that the Kremlin used to keep all it's eastern bloc member countries in line. They used it to communicate with the cab drivers who were all from other countries (turns out even shithole countries still put immigrants to work driving cabs). 


We head to Buda and start hitting up the pubs. Now there were girls in the group. Zophia, a Hungarian English teacher, was captivated by the first real live southern boy she had met. When everyone found out I was from Alabama, I got a lot of "are you related to Forrest Gumps." At some point, someone bought a whole bottle of Unicum and we passed it back and fourth. It was around this time that I crawled on top of a massive wooden bar all "Coyote Ugly" style and led the group (and other unsuspecting patrons) in a rousing rendition of "Sweet Home Alabama." Not only did I know all the words, but they did too! It was amazing.





I woke up the next morning with a raging hangover in Zophia's bed. She was frantically trying to wake me up...apparently she had to be somewhere.  She shoved two train tickets in my hand as she pushed me out the door into the garish light of day. I struggled with my shoes and shirt and had walked at least a block before I was put back together. My watch said 9am. I found a subway and headed back home. Men and women dressed for work gave me the "sunday stare" as I stood there listlessly, reeking of booze and trying not to vomit.  


I finally made it back to the hostel and Anti and I went and got massages at the Turkish Baths...it was just as refreshing as I had hoped.  That night I showed them the glory of Unicum and we had another rager...no more "Sweet Home" though.