WALDORFESZT

Budapest & Zebegény, 06/04 - 06/11

Carolyn, Anna, and I flew from London to Budapest for around €20 each. We were trying to find a WorkAway literally anywhere in Hungary and finally stumbled upon a techno/hippie festival Waldorfeszt located about an hour north from Budapest in a small town called Zebegény. We helped with setting up stands, art installations, and literally clearing a forest for a tent area (my poor arms hurt so much.) The music was such a different kinds of vibe, but it sucks because most of the bands can’t even be searched on the internet (that’s how small and close-knit the festival was.) Waldorfeszt began a couple years ago as a student’s graduation final project from a Waldorf school. Waldorf is a completely different education system that emphasizes practical and artistic skills, rather than the usual public school. It was so interesting learning about this new system and how successful a person’s career can be compared to the normal public education and college degrees.

We spent 4 days preparing for the festival and then they rarely needed our help during the actual festival (the only thing we did during the festival was make sandwiches for backstage, which took a half an hour.) We were given free entry into the festival and during the entirety of our stay we were given free housing and one hot meal per day. When we were preparing for the festival, we were allowed to stay in a cabin but during the festival we were given access to a tent and sleeping bags. One of the days, we took a day trip into Budapest and just walked around. One of the volunteers gave us some bars and cool things to do, so we had dinner and climbed to the top of a castle. We nearly missed the last train back to Zebegény because we were waiting inline for a double cheeseburger at McDonalds lol.

This was the first year they offered the opportunity to WorkAwayers, so we were kinda test subjects for the upcoming years. The main person who organized the connection between WorkAway and the festival was Orsi. She was sooooo cool omg. She was such a free spirit kinda girl and has traveled to so many places. We met a couple more volunteers and two other Workawayers from Germany.