This article was originally published in issue #13. Photography by Giel van der Leest & Kerwin Groot, words by Alexander Lexis.

Falus: A week of fun and failure in Budapest

As you might know, the Dutch weather isn’t exactly the best for skating all year ‘round. Summer can treat us pretty well, but the rest of the seasons are hit or miss. Thus, we decided it would a good idea to catch some sun last spring and head a bit south to visit Budapest, Hungary for a week of classic skate trip vibes. 

Everyone loves the idea of a good skate trip, but when it comes down to it who’s really coming along? Start a whatsapp group of 25 guys for the trip, and usually about 4 or 5 guys actually end up on going. Imagine our hype when 11 guys were down for this one! Especially since some legends like Kerwin ‘KerryBerry’ Groot and Vincent ‘Iron’ Smeets were coming along. By the way, did you know Kerwin took some of the pics you’re seeing on these pages? Pretty sick. He also likes rice, is very nice, and knows how to put that pussy on ice.

Let me get something clear, we are not your average gang of rebel skate teens. Most of us hailing from Utrecht, we are old fucks as far as skateboarding’s concerned. With the entire crew in their late 20s and early 30s, excuses for not going these days range from ‘Can’t get time off from work’ to ‘I have kids who will die if I leave them alone for an hour.’ After weeding out all of the responsible adults, the remaining eleven turned out to be a great crew of guys who are down to clown around, have a bunch of beers, and most importantly at our age, get eight hours of sleep each night.

Another one of the many benefits of being on a skate trip with a couple of old fucks like us is being able to get decent food. No Mcdonalds, Burger King or scraping together cash to get some kebab here. While taking a trip to Hungary, we took culinary side trips to all corners of the globe. Mexican, Italian or Indian food, you name it, Budapest has it and does it well, so no diarrhea all week! An accomplishment worth noting in itself for your average skate trip.

One thing that did still fit in the image of a classic skate trip was almost getting kicked out of our apartment on the first night. Starting the trip off pretty nice. Also going to the bath house that gave some people foot fungus. Wait, what else did we do again? Oh yeah, we went skating! Or at least, what’s left of skating at our age. Sad old men, still rolling around on our boards, Hungarian people of the same age giving us the stink eye as we cruise by their offices. One of the best parts of skating still, just being able to piss off people who don’t skate by showing them how much fun you’re having with practically nothing.. 

What’s nice on a trip with this many guys our age is that everyone’s enjoying themselves, even when only 3 of 4 guys can actually still manage to throw together a somewhat decent line, or jump off a set of stairs without dislocating their pelvis. This gives the rest of the squad more time to get beers, film, take photos and generally just fuck around. Great!

What’s not that nice about a crew this big is that not everyone is able to find a Lime scooter all the time. Yeah, did I mention we rode around the city on Lime scooters all the time? It was pretty cool. I hate everyone who uses one of those stupid things, except when it’s one of my friends and we’ve had a couple of beers. That shit is just so much fun! Especially Giel (van der Leest) was suspiciously good at shredding the Lime. Have you ever seen someone who’s really good at playing Mario Kart Double Dash? They never go straight, just drift sideways the entire time. That was pretty much what Giel’s Lime skills were like for the entire trip, inspiring the rest of us to do the same. 
Yeah, we burnt some rubber, YYEWWW! As Giel would yell to randoms on the streets who could barely avoid us:

WE ARE LIMERS!

Oh yeah, Giel also took some of the pics in this report, just so you know he can do it all.

As far as skating goes, the spots were super good! Budapest has been a hot spot for skating for a long time, so we didn’t have a lot of issues finding spots that even our old bones could handle. Of course, there’s always someone on the trip who has to ruin the old man vibes by actually being really good at skating and getting sick clips. Thanks Jesse (Voerman), thanks Dennis (van der Klugt). I know Jelle (Jonker) wants his name to be on that list, so I’m not including it.

Unfortunately, both photographers had to go back home after a couple of days to do some responsible shit. Therefore, I included some pictures from our Whatsapp group to fill up the article some more, no idea if Sander will use them since there’s probably no skating in any of them. Thanks for the good time guys, looking forward to the next one!