Wednesday was the day when Beckham, Ronaldinho, Seedorf, Kaka and the other heroes in AC Milan entered Puskas Ferenc Stadium, facing a team made up by players from the Hungarian league. The match started with a shocking goal from the Hungarian team, but as the match ended it looked as we all expected; Milan won 5-2. Below you can see a video showing all the goals and the biggest chances from the match!
Video summary
Budapest Fashion Week(end) is starting today and will last until Sunday. The event will take place in VAM Center, in the seventh district of Budapest. Tickets can be bought from TicketPro. Among the designers names such as Le Corset, Kenguru, EXP and Réka Orosz can be found, and also quite some new international designers will show up as well.
Saturday evening there will be an after party for those fed up with fashion and fancy dresses.
There is a constant fight between Prague and Budapest; which city should the tourist visit? In 2008 Prague had almost 5,000,000 tourists coming to visit the city. Hungary had a total amount of 10,000,000 tourists coming in 2008. London alone has around 27,000,000 per year. Quite some numbers! But the real fight is not between Budapest and London, but between Budapest and Prague. As the cities are located quite near to oneanother, some people decide to combine the two cities, while other feels as if they have to decide… Budapest or Prague!
I need to decide – Budapest or Prague?
Last week I visited Prague and I had quite high expectations. As a guide in Budapest I know the city, the buildings, the history and love the city. Could Prague compete? Yes it could. This should be an objective article, so I will try to keep it that way.
What I liked better in Prague!
In Prague the center felt much more compact and concentrated. It was not only one shopping street (as Vaci Utca in Budapest), but if you went into a sidestreet from the shopping street you could still find beautiful shopping streets, romantic sidewalks, outdoor cafes and restaurants. Of course we visited a shopping center, and it was a great experience to walk into Palladium, which from the outside looks as an oldfashioned building, but on the inside a very modern shoppingcenter (just like WestEnd in Budapest). But what I enjoyed the most was the really nice and compact inner city, and also the feeling that you will probably find something interested in the sidestreets as well. In that inner area of the city there was not much cars (big plus). The walk towards the castlearea can also be done in such circumstances! Enjoyable!
What I like better in Budapest!
There are a lot of things to say, but the view from the Pestside towards the Danube where you can see the Gellert Hill, the Castle, the Fishermens Bastion and so is to me much more enjoyable than the panorama in Prague. The panorama given from the Gellert Hill is as well outstanding! The bridges of Budapest is nicer as well (in my oppinion), though I have to say that the Charles Bridge in Prague is a nice piece of art. Of course this might vary (due to the fact that I did not eat in the best places in Prague), but I do prefer the restaurants in Budapest compared to those in Prague. Especially the principle of taken payed for placing bread or ketchup at your table (even though you do not eat of it or ask for it) feels a little bit strange.
This article could last forever, but I have to end it here. So, the decision is yours, but if you come to Budapest, join us on a guided tour, and fall in love with Budapest as well!
– To see the result and the goals from the game, go here –
Ronaldinho, David Beckham and other celebrities will come to Budapest in these days, and Wednesday they will play against a Hungarian team set together by players from the top league in Hungary. The tickets can be bought for around 5000 Forints, and the most expensive tickets are around 18,000 Forints. The match will start 19:00.
AC Milan – Hungarian Soccer team
Puskás Ferenc Stadium
April 22, 19:00
Tickets can be bought from: www.jegyelado.hu
Last week we had the joy of arranging a giant pub crawl in Budapest (more than 80 people). A group of dutch students visited the city, and we needed for guides to lead the different groups around in the pubs of Budapest. It was a great experience, and the guests got to taste Palinka, Unicum, beer, wine and whatever they wanted. This is a quite new service on our list of tours we offer, but if you would like to experience one of these, check out our pub crawl page, and if it sounds interesting, send us an email!
Other interesting services:
– Guided tour in Budapest
– Helicopter tour Budapest
– Airport transfer and guided tour (extremely popular)
As some might know we help our guests reserve tables in Budapest restaurants. This is a free service we offer, and more and more people use this help. In March we helped quite a lot of people, and the three most popular restaurants based on our amount of table reservations were the following:
1) Sir Lancelot
2) Mátyás Pince
3) Trófea Grill
In April it seems as if the list might change a bit, but there are still many days left in this month, so time will show!
Many of the international people in Budapest are curious about what it is like to make the driving license in Budapest. They look for english speaking teachers, but that is not really what this article is about.
Some weeks ago a friend of mine made his second try to get his driving license in Budapest. The first did not succeed and the reason was a mistake he made during the driving. The second time he failed as well, but he received no real explanation. Though, afterwards the teacher pulled him aside and told him that it would only work if he payed, around 20,000 Ft. As I heard about it I was quite shocked. Since then I forgot about it all.
Today I met the wife of my friend, and she happily told me that the boy got his driving license today. I asked if he payed… and yes he did! Congratulations!
I heard about this in cities outside Budapest, but I did not really know that this existed in Budapest. When I made my driving license I used Csigavér and there were absolutely no problems. The teacher was great, and we did not have to give any money except from what was the actual cost for the driving lessons and for the exam. I failed once, but that had nothing to do with money; for the first time in my life I did not recognize a red lamp… Suddenly my teacher stepped on the brake, and I understood that I had failed. But the second time everything was perfect, and since then I have my driving license!
Car rental in Budapest
The Sziget Festival is approaching and the list of artists coming are frequently updated with new names. We are updating our Sziget festival page as well, and today we added the following artists to the list of artists and band featured at the festival:
Armin van Buuren, Backyard Babies, Birdy Nam Nam, Blasted Mechanism, Bloc Party, Calexico, Coldcut, De Staat, Die Toten Hosen, Disco Ensemble, Donots, Expatriate, Fatboy Slim, Figli Di Madre Ignota, Guajiro Mirabal, Haydamaky, Jesus Ramos, Klaxons, Manuel Galbán, Matatu, Miloopa, Pendulum, Placebo, Ska-P, Snow Patrol, So Kalmery, Speed Caravan, Squarepusher, Tankcsapda, The Offspring, The Prodigy, The Ting Tings,Tiken Jah Fakoly.
I am just sitting in front of my computer (April 2, 2009), and then suddenly it seems like if something is happening. My google toolbar is starting to give values I have not seen before. In the last weeks I have been working some on a page called WorldConcerts.org and it deals with concerts around the world. Suddenly some minutes ago I saw that it had a toolbar value of 2 (yesterday it had nothing).
At the same time all the Budapest guide pages have remained the same values, except from the fact that the Dutch fact seems to have gone from page rank 3 to nothing (grey value). The same happened with the Hungarian page earlier, but then it received its page rank 3 value back within some days. So, maybe that is what will happen now as well.
It seems as if this Budapest Guide (the english one) is stuck on page rank 4, if nothing changes within the coming hours and days. That is nice as well, but it would be really cool to continue the walk upwards on the page ranking rank!
I just wrote a text yesterday about learning Hungarian and private teachers in Budapest, and of course that has not received any value yet. But, if you should be interested, the page can be found here, and another page we recommend if you are looking for private Hungarian teacher, can be found here.
George Benson is coming to Budapest in 2009, and he will perform in Papp Laszlo Budapest Sportarena. The concert will be held July 22, 19:30.
George Benson Budapest
Papp Laszlo Budapest Sportarena
July 22, 19:30
Tickets available from Eventim
Concerts and events in Budapest
About George Benson (Source: Eventim)
Appreciated as both musician and performer by millions, George Benson has always had the duel personae of expert improviser and vibrant entertainer. He has always placed his keenly discerning art in the service of a rousing good time. Rounding out his singular approach with sly, seductive rhythm and blues, he’s earned himself an impeccable reputation as one of music’s most enterprising and engaging stars.
Few might have predicted that striking level of stardom some forty years ago, when Benson was a fledgling guitarist working the corner pubs of his native Pittsburgh. That’s where his yen to please a crowd was born. “I was an entertainer first,” he says proudly “As a kid I sang, danced and played the ukelele in a nightclub. As my career has progressed, I’ve had the pleasure of playing with the baddest jazz cats on the planet. But that doesn’t change my desire to entertain folks. That’s really who I am.”
It was Wes Montgomery, one of jazz’s most creative players, who came across Benson early on; the vet complimented the young guitarist, urging him to continue his already impressive work. In the early 1960s, Benson apprenticed with organist Brother Jack McDuff; he found the organist’s gritty swing a fertile ground for the sly, confident and adventurous guitar lines which earned him an early rep as a master.
“Jack turned me on to a lot of stuff,” muses Benson. “A lot of the jazz tunes we played together were danceable, and that furthered my understanding of what people wanted. When jazz was danceable, it was king. The intellectual stuff that came later on – Charlie Parker and all that – turned toward a brainier sound. That was good, and I dug it. But I really like when people kick up their heels and go crazy.”
Montgomery had called one of his best records Boss Guitar. Benson had both the conviction and chops to nip at his hero’s heels; his 1964 debut was released as The New Boss Guitar. It lived up to its title. Benson’s tone was juicy, and his blues solos sparkled with a carefully honed logic. A jaunty funk and swing aesthetic prevailed. By the time legendary talent scout John Hammond signed Benson to Columbia, the guitarist’s name was bubbling throughout the industry. His work for the label proved Hammond’s hunch to be on-target: brains and flash were in perfect synch.
“I’d sat down with a great blind pianist from San Francisco name Freddy Gambrel,” recalls Benson. “He turned me onto some wonderful ways to get in and out of chord changes and weld harmonies together. Of course I still wanted to be like Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt, and Hank Garland – my heroes. I’ve always liked the hot guitar guys.”
Playing the combination won Benson access to all sorts of arenas. His work was boundless: in the late ’60s he sat in on heady Miles Davis sessions, and also put a personal spin on the tunes from the Beatles’ Abbey Road. Hooking up with the CTI label in 1970, he was united with many of jazz’s finest instrumentalists, including Stanley Turrentine, Ron Carter, and Freddie Hubbard. His visibility and prestige grew even further. Classic albums, such as Beyond the Blue Horizon, abounded. But after a while different ideas began to flow from Benson’s muse. And the environment didn’t seem right for growth.
“I’d been screaming about my guitar sound for years, and they didn’t want to hear about it. I wanted to use my band in the studio, just get comfortable and test out some stuff. But it was like pulling teeth. The first time I tried to sing along with my guitar, everybody in the studio booed. They all said that it wouldn’t work. When I got with Tommy LiPuma all that changed. He said ‘Sure, let’s go with some vocals, see where we get.’ And you know what happened after that.” What happened was Breezin’, the first jazz record to attain platinum sales. The 1976 blockbuster, his first in a long association with Warner Bros. Records, brought the instrumental title track to jazz radio. And Benson’s soulful update of Leon Russell’s “This Masquerade,” which featured the guitarist scatting along with his solo break, was a pop smash. He followed up with a sultry version of “On Broadway,” and the irresistible “Give Me The Night,” which thrilled many a dancer. Benson was a superstar.
Some old fans were miffed about this new pop success. “I guess that’s the biggest crime I’ve made as far as jazz lovers go,” offers Benson. “They don’t always like to see you play for the general public. They want to be catered to. But I’ve tried that approach and it doesn’t work for me. Nobody can stay one way for 30 years. I’ve always tried to let my experience show itself. You learn, you change. The door opened and I walked through it.” Throughout the 1980s Warner Bros. and LiPuma followed their smash success with several terrific Benson records. Individually, they blended grooves and guitar work, proving that R&B was a natural part of Benson’s profile. Collectively, they cemented his global renowned. The guitarist has won eight Grammies, played around the world, and thrilled many crowds with his playing.
In the mid-’90s Benson followed LiPuma to the GRP label. Their association had proven artistically and commercially fertile; both wanted to sustain it. Together they cut the 1996 gem That’s Right. It offered a modern version of contemporary jazz that reminded its listeners Benson was one of the genre’s forefathers. These days Benson’s interests are many. He’s often spotted out at Manhattan jazz clubs, checking the action of fledgling guitarists. The most impressive of the lot are sometimes invited back to Benson HQ for jam sessions and stylistic powwows. The guitarist is resolute about keeping the sparkle in his playing.
“The younger cats awaken something in me from the early days. I love listening and playing with guys like Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove, and Christian McBride. When they tell me I’ve still got the chops, I feel great.” Benson’s latest GRP disc is Standing Together. It not only assures that his chops are sharper than ever, but suggests that his studio savvy is continuing to grow. This time around, he uses elements of hip hop and Caribbean rhythms to keep his personalized R&B on the edgy side.
“I’m not against ear candy,” he chuckles, “but I like mine to be significant, not just noises in the record. Some of those backing tracks on the new record are cool. They give me little tidbits of sound to bounce my guitar lines off of.” Said like a open-minded creative type, which is exactly who Benson is. Unfazed by the constrictions of predictability, he’s built a career on sniffing out what people enjoy hearing, and what he enjoys playing. “I had to break a couple rules along the way,” he reflects. “There was an unwritten law: be cool, don’t get too raunchy. But jazz was once hanging-out music. And the easiest way to involve people is by getting ’em tapping their feet. When they’re tapping a bit, they’ll go your way. That’s when I can float any kind of jazz line into the music. Once the audience knows I respect them, they let me be whatever I want to be. I hope – no, I firmly believe – that will always be the case.”
