August 20th in Budapest: This past weekend we headed into the city for their big holiday celebrations. August 20th is basically the big holiday of the summer and it was a day packed with air races, fireworks and many other suprises! Benni and Christina spent a couple extra days with us after the outreach before heading back to Germany so together with them we headed to the river to what we heard was going to be a air show. Well an air show it was, it was actually an air race, ya i had never heard of this before either but it was one of the crazier things I have ever seen in my life.
They had a track with pylons set up on the river that they had to go through, and when I say through I mean it. They were flying maybe 15 feet off the water and if they went above the cones they were penalized. oh ya and did I mentoin the start and finish line was under a bridge, they had 12 meters of clearence from bridge to water, thats like going under the #2 Road bridge back home. Some of the guys got penalized for going too close to the water (1.5 meters). Every time they went under the bridge we all cringed because it looked way too close. Well you'll see on the video but obviously it doesn't quite do it justice, as we took them on our digital camera, if you wanna see some better videos check it out on redbullairrace.com.
The same evening they had a big fireworks show, kinda like symphony of fire, but they shoot the fireworks off of 3 bridges and one off the hills in the city. So we thought what better place to watch some fireworks then from the walls of a castle. Seemed like a good idea to us, well along with 2 million other people in the city, we got trapped in the storm of the year here. 10 minutes into the show all of a sudden a huge wind swept through the city which sent us all sprinting for cover. we hid along with a couple hundred other people under a archway but the wind and rain was so strong that we all got completely drenched. We felt like we were in some medival war, cowering under the castle wall with fireworks going off all around. Quite the dramatic evening. After about 20 minutes of this we said alright lets just start walking since we are soaked anyways. The castle also had a folk festival going at the time and the stands for this were all ripped to shreads from the storm, but all the people were still just standing there half in shock half protecting their stuff. As we made our way through the city were realized just how bad it was. One out door cafe had tables all around outside still with food and drinks on the tables, but all the people were jammed undercover and a couple of the tables had been smashed by fallen tree limbs. Aparently the subways had to be shut down because so many people were crowding into the stations for protection that people were being forced onto the tracks and 5 people died when a tree came down and through them into the river. We realized that the castle may have been the best place to be since it protected us from the worst of the wind. But needless to say it was an adventure not soon to be forgotten!
25.8.06
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7 comments:
Oh my goodness! What adventures you are having. We are positively BORING in comparison!
PS. about the video...could understand the announcer AT ALL????
we could understand a couple of words...but not much!
I'm not even sure that Maverick would attempt such stunts. Even WITH a wingman.
... mmmmm, barrel roll .....
... air races are popular in the southern United States. But I believe the planes are mainly privatly owned & operated, and run races with volunteers and an honour system.
I love to read your blog and just finally figured out how to comment. I'm extremely tech. challenged!!! and can admit it!! You are often on my heart and in my prayers, blessings to you today, Aunt herta
hey guys! the old blog wasnt working for me so i started a new one, hopefully we can keep in touch through this silly machine! we are thinking about you two and i am praying for you guys. hey so joben and i are moving to alberta and we are going to be staying SO close to where mark and bonnie lived and they are going to be living in abbotsford! arg! hope you two are well! have a good day.
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