09-01-2016, 02:31 PM
Saturday Aug 20
Saturday was going to be our ninth day of work in Budapest. I know I was feeling a little ragged. I had actually called for a day off on Wednesday, but people kept agreeing to do interviews, so our schedule was full. I didn’t want to put off anyone until later. For me, it was best to get the interviews out of the way.
Which left Saturday as our first sort of day of rest. Except for one little caveat. August 20th was St. Istvan’s day. It is probably the biggest holiday on the Hungarian National calendar, sort of a cross between the 4th of July and Christmas. But mostly 4th of July. It celebrates the day a thousand years ago when St. Istvan converted the country to Catholicism. The Hungarians point to the date as the birth of Hungary.
If I was going to capture the essence of Budapest and Hungary that would be the day to film around the city. The day off will be pushed to Sunday.
I was also getting itchy to see some of the city. I had been here over a week and all I had seen were people’s offices, hotel rooms, and living rooms. I had yet to explore the city proper, camera in hand.
The schedule for the day was going to be packed. I wanted to take the drone out for some shots of the Danube and the bridges. Dawn was not the best time to shoot since I would be shooting into the sun, but it was the quietest time of day. I didn’t want a lot of interference.I would be shooting at dawn.
Next, I was going to the Folk Fair up at the Buda Castle to get some color shots. One of the big events of the day was the mass at St. Istvan’s Cathedral where they paraded the hand of the Saint in front of the crowd. This was important because there is historical footage showing the same ceremony with the Royal Guard, of which Piller was a member.
To finish the day, there were going to be Fireworks over the Danube. There were supposed to be giant crowds all along the banks, so I needed to get there early.
I mentioned my plans to HK and he said he wanted to tag along after I had finished the morning Drone work.
My day off was set with at least 12 hours of work.
For the trip, I did bring along the drone. But I brought it in it’s hard case rather than the stealth backpack. I had to go with the hard case so I could put the drone in the hold of the plane. This meant when I was walking the streets of Budapest, I was lugging around this big black case. All I kept thinking was I must look like a mad bomber with that case.
I started the day using my new best friend, the M2 train to get me to Batthyany Ter. I was really blowing the bank today by buying a 24 hour pass. It was going to cost to almost 6$ to use the trains, buses, and light rail for an entire day. Screw it. I’m on a feature.
Naturally, I was early. I spent thirty minutes prowling the Danube bank waiting for the sun to come up enough to light some buildings. It didn’t help that there was some low lying fog occluding the sun. I wasn’t alone on the concrete walk. Another photographer had set up a tripod and his camera about twenty feet from where I waited with my ominous black case. If he was shooting time lapses of the parliament building, he was going to be a bit cranky when the drone started flying through his shots.
Eventually, the sun cooperated and there was enough light to shoot. Yes, the sun was right behind Parliament, but it would just have to do. I spent twenty minutes flying up and down the Danube between the Margaret and the Chain Bridges. I was lucky to chase a barge as it made it’s way towards the Chain Bridge. I was really happy with my mornings work.
Sure, but why not push it? I grabbed my case and walked the path towards the Chain Bridge looking for a wide area from which to do another launch. I made it through the tunnel under the Chain Bridge to the other side, where, much to my delight I found they were closing the streets for the day’s festivities. It wasn’t perfect but there was enough room on the path for me to get the drone into the sky.
After I got the propellers on and fired up the remote, I kept getting an error message saying there was too much electrical interference. I couldn’t get a signal from the satellites. As I looked around it quickly became clear why I couldn’t get a signal. Right behind me were the overhead power cables for the light rail system. The light rail might not be running, that doesn’t mean they turned the power off to the cables.
I moved from the path down to this grassy area right below one of the lions on the west end of the Chain Bridge. I had to launch quick because I thought I saw two guys in security vests above me on the bridge. Just act like you belong and everything will be okay.
I launched from the wet grass and flew the drone the length of the bridge. I was on the south side of the bridge so the bridge itself was getting lit by the rising sun. Perfect. I didn’t want to spend too much time flying it around since, well there were two security guards above me watching what I was doing. Okay, maybe I showed off a little bit by hovering opposite them and taking their picture. Maybe just a bit.
But I did not fly the drone directly over the bridge. I always kept it to one side. One of the rules of Drone flying is not to fly over traffic so as not distract motorists. I would hate to be the cause of any accidents. Plus, I don’t think I could outrun the security guards.
Guess what? There was no traffic on the bridge that day. The bridge was closed to vehicular traffic. I found this out when I made my way around to cross the bridge back into Pest.
It had been closed for the folk festival and St. Istvan Day celebrations. Which meant I could fly the drone directly over the bridge. All I needed to do was find a launch spot. I stopped in the middle of the bridge, which was at that time even empty of people, to take a selfie.
As I crossed the bridge, I noticed a guy with what looked just like my Drone backpack. I cursed him for his stealthiness as I lugged the big black case.
At this point I was jacked up with excitement and felt I could do no wrong. My middle name was hubris. I asked one of the security guards if I could launch my drone from the center of the traffic circle. What could it hurt since all the roads around me were closed to traffic? He said no. Actually, I don’t know what he said, since he didn’t speak a lick of Englsh.
I climbed down the stairs off the bridge and found a clear spot away from trees opposite a small restaurant. Two of the cleaners stopped to watch me unpack the drone and put on the propellers. One of the propellers didn’t seem to want to go on, but I eventually got it to spin on.
I can’t tell you how excited I was for this flight. One of the shots I wanted to recreate was from above the east tower looking back towards the bridge. There is a similar shot in the archives from 1945 when the bridge had been destroyed by the Germans to keep the Russians from crossing. Now, I was going to put my drone in almost the same spot with the repaired bridge shot. I was the king of the world.
What’s the opposite of hubris? Nemesis? Yeah, he wasn’t far away.
Because I was in King Stud mode I gave a thumbs up to the restaurant workers as I started the engines of the drone. They whirred to life. I pushed up on the throttle. I like fast launches because I want to the drone in the air away from dangerous things.
It was about seven feet from the ground when I found out why the one propeller didn’t feel like it was going on properly. Simply, for some reason, it wasn’t on properly. At seven feet in the air, one of the propellers spun away from the drone, leaving only three propellers still attached.
I watched aghast as the drone spun erratically and plummeted to the ground, where it did it’s terrible flop around dance in front of me. The propellers eventually ground to a halt. I don’t know what stopped the engines.
I imagined I could feel the disgusted eye roll from the restaurant workers as I failed so spectacularly in front of them. I rushed to the drone to see how much damage there was all the while trying to act invisible. I could find no sign of the spun off propeller.
According to my remote control, the drone was now experiencing a significant calibration problem. The camera below the drone was also only hanging by two of it’s four rubber connectors. Other than that, it didn’t look all that bad. Fingers crossed.
I put on one of my spare propellers. I set the internal computer to start doing a recalibration. I sat there and stared for ten minutes while the little status bar grew more complete. I finally got the message the recalibration was complete. Please fly. Please fly. Please fly.
It balked but it went up. Unfortunately, not was all right in drone world. I couldn’t control the camera on one of it’s axis. Plus, the camera shook like it had palsy. I tried a few shots but I could see on the monitor the frame constantly shaking. Crap and damn. I brought the baby in for a landing.
While I did, the guy with the stealth drone back pack showed up. He told me he did indeed have a drone and wondered if I knew the rules about flying it in Hungary. I said I thought it was okay. He walked away but stopped after a few steps on the stairs. He bent down to pick something up. He turned back to me and offered me back my missing propeller.
Sigh. I wandered over to the Metro station near Parliament called Kossuth. And wouldn’t you know it, the festivities had already started. Huge cloths in Hungarian Colors were draped over the front facade of the building. A marching band played. Soldiers on horseback lined one side of the forecourt. The place was full of pageantry early on a Saturday morning. Something you might want to capture for a documentary.
My big camera was back in the hotel. I was carrying a broken drone in a case that made me look like a bomber. I did have my cel phone. Those pictures should be great.
Realizing there wasn’t a lot of point in me hanging around sans camera, I slunk back to the underground. Yes, a breeze did blow back my hair.
I switched gear at the Hotel Nemzeti from broken drone to Nikon D750. I also was going to tote my Manfrotto tripod around for the video shots. Well, HK was going to carry the tripod when it was not in use.
Our first stop was back at Parliament. I was going to find the shots I missed on my walk over from the Chain Bridge. I shot some footage of former Prime Minister Imre Nagy on his bridge. I filmed Ronald Reagan striding towards the American Embassy. Yes, Budapest has a Reagan statue.
Earlier I had shot with my cel phone a dog at the base of the statue thanking the soviets for all the work they had done in Hungary. It stands right outside the American Embassy. There was also this nice monument for the Nazi occupiers. It is surrounded by a protest which asks the question “Why do we have a monument for the Nazis”? Okay, it’s not for the Nazis, but it does put into light that Hungary had nothing to do with the death of almost a million Hungarian Jews.
We stopped in St. Istvan’s cathedral to see the Saints Hand in a box. I stood out because I was carrying the big tripod with me. I also brain froze and couldn’t figure out why all my pictures were coming out so dark. Turn up your ISO, idiot.
One of the church wardens came up to me while I was filming the box with a guard standing next to it. The guard and the box was at the front of the church while I was at the back. The support person wanted me to take my tripod out of his church. He also wanted me to remove my hat, which I had taken off but put back on when I was setting up the camera.
He also wanted to know if perhaps I was making a video in his church. Um, er, no? I quickly departed before the lightening bolt struck me down for my lies. I did get a nice shot of the man in the feathered hat who held a pike standing next to the St’ Istvan’s hands box.
HK and I made our way through Budapest to the Chain Bridge. When I had crossed it earlier, it had been empty. Now, two hours later, it was packed with pedestrians.
My goal on the Buda side was to take pictures of the funicular that climbed up the side of the hill to the castle. Our path took us up some really steep stairs to the bridges that crossed the funicular’s path. I shot video. HK rested in the shade.
I couldn’t make it clear to HK that once we had our wrist bands for the folk festival, we could pass through the gates freely. I knew of a couple nice restaurants on the top of the hill we could have eaten at and then come back to the festival. He wasn’t buying it.
We ended up dining at the only restaurant in view. which turned out to be expensive. Although they did make me the first fresh iced tea I had had since arriving in Budapest.
The Folk Festival was about food. Lots of food. Big food. Everything was cooked in these giant skillets that were a yard across. There were crafts going on, but nothing snagged my interest. I did manage to film a nice man doing a bull whip set. This paid off later when the same man recognized me and stopped his group so I could do another video shot.
HK and I wandered the castle grounds amongst the booths. We grew tired and decided it was time to go. Unfortunately, I kept finding things to film. As we left the castle grounds, the bread parade with everybody in their peasant clothes was just starting. I had to film that. Then they were grouped around St. Matthias Church, so I stopped in there for a few quick shots.
At some point, HK grew tired of carrying the tripod, so I took it from him and carried it down the hill back to the metro station. HK seemed to be a bit impressed that I could navigate unerringly back to the metro stop. Well, I had done the same walk earlier in the week and the street we hiked down did have the same name as the metro station.
The original plan was for HK to come back out with me for the mass and the fireworks. But the morning walk had tired him out and he was now opting to do one of the two afternoon itineraries. Since he had seen fireworks before, HK was just going to go with me to the open air mass in order to see St. Istvan’s hand.
Except by the time it was time to leave for the Basilica, HK had lost all interest in doing the mass, as well. Maybe not lost interest as lost energy. Either way, I was going solo. Since I had dawdled so much on the trip back to the hotel, I only hung out there for an hour before heading back to the Blaha Lutz.
The forecourt and all the surrounding streets around the Basilica were packed with people. Earlier I had watched them set up the cordons in the forecourt. Now I got to see they had cordoned off large areas for ticketed personnel only.
I walked through the masses looking for any spot to set up. I finally ended up in the street on the other side of the courtyard from the Basillica. The people looked really tiny near the altar on the opposite ends of the square.
I broke out the tripod about five people away from the fenced off area. I hoped that they would parade the chest around the fenced off area and I would kind of get a peak at the chest close up. There was one guy in the crowd being very nice to me. He stood out of my and made sure I had room for the sticks. I stood between him and his wife for all intents and purposes.
It was going to be a nightmare. The guy two people in front of me was tall and blocked about 50 percent of the altar when I took a picture. I was just going to have to deal. Plus, I had about an hour to stand there before things even got going.
As time passed, the crowd shifted. I edged my way closer and closer to the waist high cordon. Then for reasons known only to himself and his girlfriend, the tall guy in front of me departed. It was a clear shot to the stage 300 yards away. I was surrounded by little muslim girls who barely came up to my shoulder. This was going to be perfect.
There was more shifting. I was at the cordon. The only thing blocking me now was the local police woman and she kept moving. I now had a great spot. I was now the jerk blocking everybody behind me. At least I wasn’t holding up my cel phone to block even more of the sight lines.
Except the gate I was set up against had to swing open to allow for the parade at the end of the mass. The security guards came over and started motioning that we had to move to the side. This meant the people to the side of me had to lose their great spots as I pushed back into them. Some days it pays to be big.
The parade out seemed to last forever as every parish in Hungary got a chance to parade out of the square. But the cask with the hand finally made it by me. I got some nice close up shots. Success for the day. Now I just had to find a way out of the mob scene.
Nobody was moving. They all stood near the fence. I didn’t know what was going on, but I saw a gap in the crowd and pushed my way out. I was ready to find some food and get ready to see some fireworks.
As I bent over to put the tripod away, I noticed one of the folk groups that had been in the parade was standing near me. They had others behind them. It dawned on me that the groups hadn’t just left, they had made a big circle through the streets and now they were coming back. And I had abandoned my spot at the railing. So, crap.
Then I noticed that no one was monitoring the entrance to the ticketed area which was now largely empty. The people in the ticketed areas had left with the parade out. I quickly snuck into that area and was once again up against the fence for when the parade came back.
Sure, enough back came the army guys holding the cask aloft. The angle was a little weird for the second pass, but at least I have two chances for film success. I did bemoan these scruffy guys that cut between me and the parade. I shut up my boos when I realized they were the undercover cops charged with protecting the cask.
It all ended and I went to find dinner. There wasn’t enough time to go back to the hotel, so I found a restaurant nearby called the Strudel House for dinner. I spent most of the dinner crumpled in my chair watching the Olympics on TV. Two hours of standing after six hours of walking around will do that to you. Dinner was delicious and yes I had strudel at the Strudel house. It was quite tasty.
Leading up to the Fireworks display, I had been asking everyone where was the best place to watch the Fireworks. In my opinion, I was thinking if I stood on the Margaret Bridge and shot south towards the Chain Bridge, I would get a pretty good view. But I’m always up for local knowledge. I asked at the hotel. They hem and hawed and didn’t really come up with good suggestions. They seemed to think anything I wanted to do would probably be good.
Xenia the translator, who I had given the weekend off, sent me an email asking me if I wanted her to arrange a place from which to view the fireworks. A private place would have been awesome, but I didn’t get an answer back from her before it was time to go see the Fireworks. Oddly, every time I asked Xenia about St. Istvan’s day, she seemed non-plussed by the whole affair, as if it wasn’t a big deal.
Earlier in the day, when HK and I were just departing St. Istvan’s Basilica, we bumped into a man from Connecticut. He seemed ticked off about the crowds and the ongoing celebration. He complained that he had timed his tour poorly to be in Budapest during this event. Idiot! I can’t think of a better time to be in Budapest. The whole town was celebrating. There were going to be fireworks. There was fresh bread. Never trust a person from Connecticut.
I came up the escalator at the Batthany Ter station to find huge crowds of people lining the river walk. There was a parapet along the walk and every inch of it had someone sitting on it. I chose this point thinking that the Chain Bridge area would be crowded. Here, I could maybe get some fireworks over parliament building shots. First, I just needed to find an unobstructed view.
Two people on bicycles had blocked off a good long stretch of the parapet with their bikes. I asked them if they wouldn’t mind if I set up the tripod and camera at the end of one of their bikes. They didn’t seem to mind. There was a family on my right and the bike people on the left. In front of me, parliament glowed from the sodium lights. I seemed to have lucked into a good spot.
It took a few minutes, but I eventually determined the couple on the bikes were dear. At least the man was deaf. His girlfriend seemed to talk.
About ten minutes before 9pm firework start, a group of six young adults showed up behind us. They too were on the hunt for a good spot but obviously had come to the party late. Well, they decided that the best place for them was on the parapet in front of the deaf cyclists.
The YA’s made motions to the couple about moving in front of them. I don’t think the couple knew what they were agreeing to but next thing you know, they were sliding along the parapet completely blocking the couples view. I think they were too embarrassed to speak up for themselves and just let it happen.
Then the YA sliders decided they should get in front of me too, since I was standing next to the parapet rather than sitting on it. Yeah, no. Don’t try and block the cranky photographer.
I put my hand out to stop them and told them to move back. They looked at me puzzled. But maybe something in my eye caused them to retreat. Soon, they had left the parapet completely and were standing behind me.
One of the YA guys came up to me to tell me that he didn’t think it was right that those two got to block such a big section of the parapet. I told him it wasn’t right for him to be an asshole and take advantage of the two deaf people. It didn’t matter what they were doing, the deaf couple had arrived first. The YA retreated amidst grumbling.
A few minutes later the fireworks started. It took me a millisecond to realize I had camped out in the wrong spot. All the fireworks were going off from the Chain Bridge and Gellert mountain. None would emanate from the Parliament building. People with cel phones held above their heads blocked my view almost completely. Best of all the YA kids made it a mission to be in the spot between me and the fireworks.
I did get a few videos of the fireworks, but a lot of it was the back of peoples heads. It would be clear for a second and then someone would raise their cel phone into my shot. I guess no good deed does go unpunished.
The Fireworks went on for quite some time. I’m sure my dogs would have hated it had they been in the vicinity. It was nice to have the moon rise over Parliament while I had my camera there.
Now, I had been on all my feet all day and it was time to take the train home. I walked backed to the Batthany Ter station, an idea that had occurred to many many many other people. The police had blocked off all the entrances to the station bar one. I guess they wanted to make sure everyone had their ticket to get home.
It looked like it was going to take a long time to get through that queue. I opted to go to the nearby Margaret Bridge and catch the light rail home instead. The light rail stopped right in front of the hotel Nemzeti.
By the time I got to the stop in the middle of the Margaret Bridge, I realized those trains weren’t running yet. Street sweepers were driving along the tracks blasting the tracks with water. There were are also crowds of drunks walking along the tracks the police were dealing with.
As I walked the bridge I did notice one thing. I should have stood on the Margaret bridge for the fireworks. It would have been awesome. Next time. I’m still kicking myself over that decision.
I kept walking. Or limping. At this point, my heel was on fire. I made way to the Kossuth station at Parliament were the crowds had thinned enough for me to gain entry. The train back to the hotel was packed, but it was only three stops.
When I walked in the door to the hotel, the wifi in my phone kicked on allowing me to receive messages. There was a note from Xenia saying she didn’t know what I wanted to do for the evening and the fireworks. She suggested I go to the Margaret Bridge.
Saturday was going to be our ninth day of work in Budapest. I know I was feeling a little ragged. I had actually called for a day off on Wednesday, but people kept agreeing to do interviews, so our schedule was full. I didn’t want to put off anyone until later. For me, it was best to get the interviews out of the way.
Which left Saturday as our first sort of day of rest. Except for one little caveat. August 20th was St. Istvan’s day. It is probably the biggest holiday on the Hungarian National calendar, sort of a cross between the 4th of July and Christmas. But mostly 4th of July. It celebrates the day a thousand years ago when St. Istvan converted the country to Catholicism. The Hungarians point to the date as the birth of Hungary.
If I was going to capture the essence of Budapest and Hungary that would be the day to film around the city. The day off will be pushed to Sunday.
I was also getting itchy to see some of the city. I had been here over a week and all I had seen were people’s offices, hotel rooms, and living rooms. I had yet to explore the city proper, camera in hand.
The schedule for the day was going to be packed. I wanted to take the drone out for some shots of the Danube and the bridges. Dawn was not the best time to shoot since I would be shooting into the sun, but it was the quietest time of day. I didn’t want a lot of interference.I would be shooting at dawn.
Next, I was going to the Folk Fair up at the Buda Castle to get some color shots. One of the big events of the day was the mass at St. Istvan’s Cathedral where they paraded the hand of the Saint in front of the crowd. This was important because there is historical footage showing the same ceremony with the Royal Guard, of which Piller was a member.
To finish the day, there were going to be Fireworks over the Danube. There were supposed to be giant crowds all along the banks, so I needed to get there early.
I mentioned my plans to HK and he said he wanted to tag along after I had finished the morning Drone work.
My day off was set with at least 12 hours of work.
For the trip, I did bring along the drone. But I brought it in it’s hard case rather than the stealth backpack. I had to go with the hard case so I could put the drone in the hold of the plane. This meant when I was walking the streets of Budapest, I was lugging around this big black case. All I kept thinking was I must look like a mad bomber with that case.
I started the day using my new best friend, the M2 train to get me to Batthyany Ter. I was really blowing the bank today by buying a 24 hour pass. It was going to cost to almost 6$ to use the trains, buses, and light rail for an entire day. Screw it. I’m on a feature.
Naturally, I was early. I spent thirty minutes prowling the Danube bank waiting for the sun to come up enough to light some buildings. It didn’t help that there was some low lying fog occluding the sun. I wasn’t alone on the concrete walk. Another photographer had set up a tripod and his camera about twenty feet from where I waited with my ominous black case. If he was shooting time lapses of the parliament building, he was going to be a bit cranky when the drone started flying through his shots.
Eventually, the sun cooperated and there was enough light to shoot. Yes, the sun was right behind Parliament, but it would just have to do. I spent twenty minutes flying up and down the Danube between the Margaret and the Chain Bridges. I was lucky to chase a barge as it made it’s way towards the Chain Bridge. I was really happy with my mornings work.
Sure, but why not push it? I grabbed my case and walked the path towards the Chain Bridge looking for a wide area from which to do another launch. I made it through the tunnel under the Chain Bridge to the other side, where, much to my delight I found they were closing the streets for the day’s festivities. It wasn’t perfect but there was enough room on the path for me to get the drone into the sky.
After I got the propellers on and fired up the remote, I kept getting an error message saying there was too much electrical interference. I couldn’t get a signal from the satellites. As I looked around it quickly became clear why I couldn’t get a signal. Right behind me were the overhead power cables for the light rail system. The light rail might not be running, that doesn’t mean they turned the power off to the cables.
I moved from the path down to this grassy area right below one of the lions on the west end of the Chain Bridge. I had to launch quick because I thought I saw two guys in security vests above me on the bridge. Just act like you belong and everything will be okay.
I launched from the wet grass and flew the drone the length of the bridge. I was on the south side of the bridge so the bridge itself was getting lit by the rising sun. Perfect. I didn’t want to spend too much time flying it around since, well there were two security guards above me watching what I was doing. Okay, maybe I showed off a little bit by hovering opposite them and taking their picture. Maybe just a bit.
But I did not fly the drone directly over the bridge. I always kept it to one side. One of the rules of Drone flying is not to fly over traffic so as not distract motorists. I would hate to be the cause of any accidents. Plus, I don’t think I could outrun the security guards.
Guess what? There was no traffic on the bridge that day. The bridge was closed to vehicular traffic. I found this out when I made my way around to cross the bridge back into Pest.
It had been closed for the folk festival and St. Istvan Day celebrations. Which meant I could fly the drone directly over the bridge. All I needed to do was find a launch spot. I stopped in the middle of the bridge, which was at that time even empty of people, to take a selfie.
As I crossed the bridge, I noticed a guy with what looked just like my Drone backpack. I cursed him for his stealthiness as I lugged the big black case.
At this point I was jacked up with excitement and felt I could do no wrong. My middle name was hubris. I asked one of the security guards if I could launch my drone from the center of the traffic circle. What could it hurt since all the roads around me were closed to traffic? He said no. Actually, I don’t know what he said, since he didn’t speak a lick of Englsh.
I climbed down the stairs off the bridge and found a clear spot away from trees opposite a small restaurant. Two of the cleaners stopped to watch me unpack the drone and put on the propellers. One of the propellers didn’t seem to want to go on, but I eventually got it to spin on.
I can’t tell you how excited I was for this flight. One of the shots I wanted to recreate was from above the east tower looking back towards the bridge. There is a similar shot in the archives from 1945 when the bridge had been destroyed by the Germans to keep the Russians from crossing. Now, I was going to put my drone in almost the same spot with the repaired bridge shot. I was the king of the world.
What’s the opposite of hubris? Nemesis? Yeah, he wasn’t far away.
Because I was in King Stud mode I gave a thumbs up to the restaurant workers as I started the engines of the drone. They whirred to life. I pushed up on the throttle. I like fast launches because I want to the drone in the air away from dangerous things.
It was about seven feet from the ground when I found out why the one propeller didn’t feel like it was going on properly. Simply, for some reason, it wasn’t on properly. At seven feet in the air, one of the propellers spun away from the drone, leaving only three propellers still attached.
I watched aghast as the drone spun erratically and plummeted to the ground, where it did it’s terrible flop around dance in front of me. The propellers eventually ground to a halt. I don’t know what stopped the engines.
I imagined I could feel the disgusted eye roll from the restaurant workers as I failed so spectacularly in front of them. I rushed to the drone to see how much damage there was all the while trying to act invisible. I could find no sign of the spun off propeller.
According to my remote control, the drone was now experiencing a significant calibration problem. The camera below the drone was also only hanging by two of it’s four rubber connectors. Other than that, it didn’t look all that bad. Fingers crossed.
I put on one of my spare propellers. I set the internal computer to start doing a recalibration. I sat there and stared for ten minutes while the little status bar grew more complete. I finally got the message the recalibration was complete. Please fly. Please fly. Please fly.
It balked but it went up. Unfortunately, not was all right in drone world. I couldn’t control the camera on one of it’s axis. Plus, the camera shook like it had palsy. I tried a few shots but I could see on the monitor the frame constantly shaking. Crap and damn. I brought the baby in for a landing.
While I did, the guy with the stealth drone back pack showed up. He told me he did indeed have a drone and wondered if I knew the rules about flying it in Hungary. I said I thought it was okay. He walked away but stopped after a few steps on the stairs. He bent down to pick something up. He turned back to me and offered me back my missing propeller.
Sigh. I wandered over to the Metro station near Parliament called Kossuth. And wouldn’t you know it, the festivities had already started. Huge cloths in Hungarian Colors were draped over the front facade of the building. A marching band played. Soldiers on horseback lined one side of the forecourt. The place was full of pageantry early on a Saturday morning. Something you might want to capture for a documentary.
My big camera was back in the hotel. I was carrying a broken drone in a case that made me look like a bomber. I did have my cel phone. Those pictures should be great.
Realizing there wasn’t a lot of point in me hanging around sans camera, I slunk back to the underground. Yes, a breeze did blow back my hair.
I switched gear at the Hotel Nemzeti from broken drone to Nikon D750. I also was going to tote my Manfrotto tripod around for the video shots. Well, HK was going to carry the tripod when it was not in use.
Our first stop was back at Parliament. I was going to find the shots I missed on my walk over from the Chain Bridge. I shot some footage of former Prime Minister Imre Nagy on his bridge. I filmed Ronald Reagan striding towards the American Embassy. Yes, Budapest has a Reagan statue.
Earlier I had shot with my cel phone a dog at the base of the statue thanking the soviets for all the work they had done in Hungary. It stands right outside the American Embassy. There was also this nice monument for the Nazi occupiers. It is surrounded by a protest which asks the question “Why do we have a monument for the Nazis”? Okay, it’s not for the Nazis, but it does put into light that Hungary had nothing to do with the death of almost a million Hungarian Jews.
We stopped in St. Istvan’s cathedral to see the Saints Hand in a box. I stood out because I was carrying the big tripod with me. I also brain froze and couldn’t figure out why all my pictures were coming out so dark. Turn up your ISO, idiot.
One of the church wardens came up to me while I was filming the box with a guard standing next to it. The guard and the box was at the front of the church while I was at the back. The support person wanted me to take my tripod out of his church. He also wanted me to remove my hat, which I had taken off but put back on when I was setting up the camera.
He also wanted to know if perhaps I was making a video in his church. Um, er, no? I quickly departed before the lightening bolt struck me down for my lies. I did get a nice shot of the man in the feathered hat who held a pike standing next to the St’ Istvan’s hands box.
HK and I made our way through Budapest to the Chain Bridge. When I had crossed it earlier, it had been empty. Now, two hours later, it was packed with pedestrians.
My goal on the Buda side was to take pictures of the funicular that climbed up the side of the hill to the castle. Our path took us up some really steep stairs to the bridges that crossed the funicular’s path. I shot video. HK rested in the shade.
I couldn’t make it clear to HK that once we had our wrist bands for the folk festival, we could pass through the gates freely. I knew of a couple nice restaurants on the top of the hill we could have eaten at and then come back to the festival. He wasn’t buying it.
We ended up dining at the only restaurant in view. which turned out to be expensive. Although they did make me the first fresh iced tea I had had since arriving in Budapest.
The Folk Festival was about food. Lots of food. Big food. Everything was cooked in these giant skillets that were a yard across. There were crafts going on, but nothing snagged my interest. I did manage to film a nice man doing a bull whip set. This paid off later when the same man recognized me and stopped his group so I could do another video shot.
HK and I wandered the castle grounds amongst the booths. We grew tired and decided it was time to go. Unfortunately, I kept finding things to film. As we left the castle grounds, the bread parade with everybody in their peasant clothes was just starting. I had to film that. Then they were grouped around St. Matthias Church, so I stopped in there for a few quick shots.
At some point, HK grew tired of carrying the tripod, so I took it from him and carried it down the hill back to the metro station. HK seemed to be a bit impressed that I could navigate unerringly back to the metro stop. Well, I had done the same walk earlier in the week and the street we hiked down did have the same name as the metro station.
The original plan was for HK to come back out with me for the mass and the fireworks. But the morning walk had tired him out and he was now opting to do one of the two afternoon itineraries. Since he had seen fireworks before, HK was just going to go with me to the open air mass in order to see St. Istvan’s hand.
Except by the time it was time to leave for the Basilica, HK had lost all interest in doing the mass, as well. Maybe not lost interest as lost energy. Either way, I was going solo. Since I had dawdled so much on the trip back to the hotel, I only hung out there for an hour before heading back to the Blaha Lutz.
The forecourt and all the surrounding streets around the Basilica were packed with people. Earlier I had watched them set up the cordons in the forecourt. Now I got to see they had cordoned off large areas for ticketed personnel only.
I walked through the masses looking for any spot to set up. I finally ended up in the street on the other side of the courtyard from the Basillica. The people looked really tiny near the altar on the opposite ends of the square.
I broke out the tripod about five people away from the fenced off area. I hoped that they would parade the chest around the fenced off area and I would kind of get a peak at the chest close up. There was one guy in the crowd being very nice to me. He stood out of my and made sure I had room for the sticks. I stood between him and his wife for all intents and purposes.
It was going to be a nightmare. The guy two people in front of me was tall and blocked about 50 percent of the altar when I took a picture. I was just going to have to deal. Plus, I had about an hour to stand there before things even got going.
As time passed, the crowd shifted. I edged my way closer and closer to the waist high cordon. Then for reasons known only to himself and his girlfriend, the tall guy in front of me departed. It was a clear shot to the stage 300 yards away. I was surrounded by little muslim girls who barely came up to my shoulder. This was going to be perfect.
There was more shifting. I was at the cordon. The only thing blocking me now was the local police woman and she kept moving. I now had a great spot. I was now the jerk blocking everybody behind me. At least I wasn’t holding up my cel phone to block even more of the sight lines.
Except the gate I was set up against had to swing open to allow for the parade at the end of the mass. The security guards came over and started motioning that we had to move to the side. This meant the people to the side of me had to lose their great spots as I pushed back into them. Some days it pays to be big.
The parade out seemed to last forever as every parish in Hungary got a chance to parade out of the square. But the cask with the hand finally made it by me. I got some nice close up shots. Success for the day. Now I just had to find a way out of the mob scene.
Nobody was moving. They all stood near the fence. I didn’t know what was going on, but I saw a gap in the crowd and pushed my way out. I was ready to find some food and get ready to see some fireworks.
As I bent over to put the tripod away, I noticed one of the folk groups that had been in the parade was standing near me. They had others behind them. It dawned on me that the groups hadn’t just left, they had made a big circle through the streets and now they were coming back. And I had abandoned my spot at the railing. So, crap.
Then I noticed that no one was monitoring the entrance to the ticketed area which was now largely empty. The people in the ticketed areas had left with the parade out. I quickly snuck into that area and was once again up against the fence for when the parade came back.
Sure, enough back came the army guys holding the cask aloft. The angle was a little weird for the second pass, but at least I have two chances for film success. I did bemoan these scruffy guys that cut between me and the parade. I shut up my boos when I realized they were the undercover cops charged with protecting the cask.
It all ended and I went to find dinner. There wasn’t enough time to go back to the hotel, so I found a restaurant nearby called the Strudel House for dinner. I spent most of the dinner crumpled in my chair watching the Olympics on TV. Two hours of standing after six hours of walking around will do that to you. Dinner was delicious and yes I had strudel at the Strudel house. It was quite tasty.
Leading up to the Fireworks display, I had been asking everyone where was the best place to watch the Fireworks. In my opinion, I was thinking if I stood on the Margaret Bridge and shot south towards the Chain Bridge, I would get a pretty good view. But I’m always up for local knowledge. I asked at the hotel. They hem and hawed and didn’t really come up with good suggestions. They seemed to think anything I wanted to do would probably be good.
Xenia the translator, who I had given the weekend off, sent me an email asking me if I wanted her to arrange a place from which to view the fireworks. A private place would have been awesome, but I didn’t get an answer back from her before it was time to go see the Fireworks. Oddly, every time I asked Xenia about St. Istvan’s day, she seemed non-plussed by the whole affair, as if it wasn’t a big deal.
Earlier in the day, when HK and I were just departing St. Istvan’s Basilica, we bumped into a man from Connecticut. He seemed ticked off about the crowds and the ongoing celebration. He complained that he had timed his tour poorly to be in Budapest during this event. Idiot! I can’t think of a better time to be in Budapest. The whole town was celebrating. There were going to be fireworks. There was fresh bread. Never trust a person from Connecticut.
I came up the escalator at the Batthany Ter station to find huge crowds of people lining the river walk. There was a parapet along the walk and every inch of it had someone sitting on it. I chose this point thinking that the Chain Bridge area would be crowded. Here, I could maybe get some fireworks over parliament building shots. First, I just needed to find an unobstructed view.
Two people on bicycles had blocked off a good long stretch of the parapet with their bikes. I asked them if they wouldn’t mind if I set up the tripod and camera at the end of one of their bikes. They didn’t seem to mind. There was a family on my right and the bike people on the left. In front of me, parliament glowed from the sodium lights. I seemed to have lucked into a good spot.
It took a few minutes, but I eventually determined the couple on the bikes were dear. At least the man was deaf. His girlfriend seemed to talk.
About ten minutes before 9pm firework start, a group of six young adults showed up behind us. They too were on the hunt for a good spot but obviously had come to the party late. Well, they decided that the best place for them was on the parapet in front of the deaf cyclists.
The YA’s made motions to the couple about moving in front of them. I don’t think the couple knew what they were agreeing to but next thing you know, they were sliding along the parapet completely blocking the couples view. I think they were too embarrassed to speak up for themselves and just let it happen.
Then the YA sliders decided they should get in front of me too, since I was standing next to the parapet rather than sitting on it. Yeah, no. Don’t try and block the cranky photographer.
I put my hand out to stop them and told them to move back. They looked at me puzzled. But maybe something in my eye caused them to retreat. Soon, they had left the parapet completely and were standing behind me.
One of the YA guys came up to me to tell me that he didn’t think it was right that those two got to block such a big section of the parapet. I told him it wasn’t right for him to be an asshole and take advantage of the two deaf people. It didn’t matter what they were doing, the deaf couple had arrived first. The YA retreated amidst grumbling.
A few minutes later the fireworks started. It took me a millisecond to realize I had camped out in the wrong spot. All the fireworks were going off from the Chain Bridge and Gellert mountain. None would emanate from the Parliament building. People with cel phones held above their heads blocked my view almost completely. Best of all the YA kids made it a mission to be in the spot between me and the fireworks.
I did get a few videos of the fireworks, but a lot of it was the back of peoples heads. It would be clear for a second and then someone would raise their cel phone into my shot. I guess no good deed does go unpunished.
The Fireworks went on for quite some time. I’m sure my dogs would have hated it had they been in the vicinity. It was nice to have the moon rise over Parliament while I had my camera there.
Now, I had been on all my feet all day and it was time to take the train home. I walked backed to the Batthany Ter station, an idea that had occurred to many many many other people. The police had blocked off all the entrances to the station bar one. I guess they wanted to make sure everyone had their ticket to get home.
It looked like it was going to take a long time to get through that queue. I opted to go to the nearby Margaret Bridge and catch the light rail home instead. The light rail stopped right in front of the hotel Nemzeti.
By the time I got to the stop in the middle of the Margaret Bridge, I realized those trains weren’t running yet. Street sweepers were driving along the tracks blasting the tracks with water. There were are also crowds of drunks walking along the tracks the police were dealing with.
As I walked the bridge I did notice one thing. I should have stood on the Margaret bridge for the fireworks. It would have been awesome. Next time. I’m still kicking myself over that decision.
I kept walking. Or limping. At this point, my heel was on fire. I made way to the Kossuth station at Parliament were the crowds had thinned enough for me to gain entry. The train back to the hotel was packed, but it was only three stops.
When I walked in the door to the hotel, the wifi in my phone kicked on allowing me to receive messages. There was a note from Xenia saying she didn’t know what I wanted to do for the evening and the fireworks. She suggested I go to the Margaret Bridge.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm