The folks with the cimbalom

After a hard day at work, sitting around with my eyes become bleary, and watching an American guy get excited about systems on an online training video, I was, unsurprisingly, looking forward to a change of pace, and some Hungarian folk music.

Before I left, my new Brit friend, Phil, and his wife Judit, came round to drop off the old computer monitor they'd promised. Along for the ride was a tiny little pup that Judit called Shitty. The monitor was a godsend, and has revolutionised my life: I am eternally grateful. While they were there, Judit also checked over the contract for my internet, with pessimistic sucking in of air. It seems I could have been a tad screwed over. They're going to do their best to help me though. And Judit and her sister are meeting me for coffee on Saturday, and taking me round the huge food market by the Danube.

I called Sally, who gave me some directions to the pub where they perform folk music weekly. It was a little place, reached by a kind of garden gate in the wall, on a street near Njugati station. The band were playing in a converted beer cellar, and it had a terrific 1940s feel to it. They were a four-piece (though a slightly random guy, my friends call the King because of his outstanding moustache, was singing along occasionally), and this included the cimbalom. It's a traditional Hungarian instrument, in shape like a harpsichord, but in fact more like a xylophone with strings instead of blocks. With some inexpensive wine in me, it was a most enjoyable evening, and I'll probably end up there again some time.