folk dance festival

i went to a folk dancing festival. it was entertaining but a bit long for my taste. (9pm-1am)

before the dancing started, all the participants lined up on stage:

there were more than they thought, i guess... look at the purple people in the photo above and then in the photo below. man, it must have been hot up there.
this bright purple lady below is the israeli ambassador to hungary (Aliza Bin-Noun), the middle lady is the mayor(ess) of Nyiregyhaza (Judit Csabai) and her husband. i chatted them up during intermission since they were sitting behind me. ambassador lady spoke on the stage for a few minutes in hungarian and i immediately loved her because i love all people who learn hungarian as a foreign language. we spoke in hunglish for a few minutes before taking this picture (i cut myself out of it so you know it must have been bad!)

loved the costumesaw, sweet hungarians dancing around wine bottles...

these people were fantastic!

cutesy

the whole time i was utterly distracted by the "decorations" on the stage. i commented on them to my coworkers (who invited me) and we laughed it up. in fact, whenever i almost started to fall asleep (you know, during the third and fourth hour) i just looked at the stage and started chuckling again. come on, seriously? who hung them!?

so sad.