it's the start of something beautiful..

wed 23rd july 08

the sun finally came out this afternoon so i went for a walk to the park after dinner and saw a really interesting sight. it's called summer dance and there was a whole group of people, all ages and nationalities dancing on a stage in faelleparken to an african band with bongos. they all looked like they were having so much fun..




but this is not where my blog is going to start. it's going to start at what was one of the best weeks of my life. being almost 32 and having such a great life this was obviously a very amazing experience. i'm talking about the roskilde festival of course!!

i had no idea what to expect with 4 days/3 nights at glastonbury and one amazing sunny weekend at splore being my only festival experiences. i had a few options of camps to stay in but chose to stay with lunde and the deadhead skaters because i know them to fun and very chilled guys. they were also great as they went on sat night to wait for the gates to open to claim a primo spot. i woke up sunday morning, finished packing. jumped on the bus to the train station and caught the train all the way to the festival, came into the gates, found lunde and got set up - very easy =) then it was time to start the main roskilde pastime - drinking beer.

it was really amazing the way the festival was so organised. the camping areas were seperated into squares so many camps could face out to a grass path. the camps themselves were amazing creations that some people had planned and worked on all year. one of my favourites being camp hasselhoff where the boys all wore red shorts and white t-shirts and carried the life saving bouys with them everywhere. they also played the baywatch themesong and hasselhoff album over and over to the horror of their neighbours. you can read about some of the other fantastic camps on the roskilde website.

sun 27th june 08
it sure is hard to find time for this blog thing these days..

ok back to roskilde. our camp was chango camp which i was explained was because this was a word some of the guys used when they were living in california. apparently it means monkey. my monkey neighbours were very nice guys to be around and we spent the first 4 days at roskilde having parties, joining parties, visiting other camps of friends around the place and leading a life of pure hedonism =) there was only a small part of the festival area open in the days leading up to the music but this was a fun area as it had gringo's bar.. nice to go and drink some cocktails when one gets sick of beers..

the weather soon got lovely and scorching hot. lucky there was a swimming lake and lots of nice sand to lie on for a change from grass & dirt.

i discovered i had girls staying close to me in what i thought was pretty much an all guy area. anna and gemma are from england and were a lot of fun to hang around with. on thursday the concert area opened up and it was great to have an area where everyone would hang out. we rushed over just after 5 to watch the first band. then i also saw bullet for my valentine and radiohead, not bad way to spend the evening. the next day was a full day of concerts, there was the usual carry on around camp until we headed over to see kate nash, then it was a lovely sunny time at the orange stage for gnarls barkley before the girls wanted to see the 'fit' kings of leon. we also managed to fit in the very loud grinderman and a really nice concert by the streets.

saturday was so hot we started the day with bloody marys and a swim in the lake. on the way back i bumped into phi and anna-sofie on there way to gringos to celebrate their friend's birthday and proceeded to make my way through their very yummy cocktail list. i think i tried everything with tequila in it and sang the tequila song all the way back to camp. i made it to jose gonzalez to hear his last song then went with phillip & andy the germans and daniel to listen to an interesting german band called the notwist. after that it was off to hear the legend, neil young. he totally lived up to his legend status and played a fantastic concert. his last song went on for about 20 minutes and as he played so long i missed meeting up with the girls and somehow ended up at the front of the stage for chemical brothers. their graphics and lighting was amazing and a great way to end another dream day.

sunday meant the only nz band was playing and i eagerly went to the cosmopol to meet alex and see the black seeds. they didn't disappoint and i saw a lot of nz flags in the dancing crowd. it was very strange to leave this happy dancing show and come out to the loud aggressiveness of slayer playing on the orange stage but it was time to meet up with the gang again and head over to the odean stage for cat power. we discovered a fantastic cocktail bar there and was a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon before heading for a boogy at hot chip. it started raining sunday night just before jay-z was going to play and we had a fun time walking back to camp in the rain. sunday was a great day i had packed up all my stuff to leave as chango camp was gone but was having way to much fun and stayed with anna & gemma in their tent. not that anna slept as she stayed up all night with bjorn and when i woke up at 7:30 the next morning they had found a croquet set and were playing croquet and drinking beer =)

monday was very interesting, a lot of people had left on sunday night and left a lot of stuff behind. we hung around for a bit and then headed back for copenhagen.
it really was a dream week and as i woke up to go to work on tuesday my mind and my heart was still at the festival. if only everyday could be about hanging with your friends, meeting new people, music, parties.. i now very much look forward to next years, as long as it doesn't rain!!
you can check out all my roskilde festival photos here.

The time has sure gone by very fast since then. It was a short week at work and then a workmates birthday party on the saturday night. On Sunday i dragged myself out of bed to meet nat at Christiania where these crazy people from Amsterdam had brought their buses and costumes and music and set up a festival for a week. It sure is a great way to spend a Sunday around the fire watching all the hippies dancing =) www.christianiaskulturforening.dk

As they were only going to be there a week i also went on the next Wednesday to meet with alex and see some more of the crazyness. And then the next thing it’s the weekend again and it was party time again in the park down the road from me. Sat was nice hanging with Kirsten and dancing a bit in the rain then Sunday it cleared up the music was more chilled. Yet again another lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon with good company, beers and djs.

Then this week the people started to talk about sun and it finally happened on Wednesday evening. Just in time for bjorn’s birthday on Thursday and a great afternoon spent in kings garden playing games and drinking beers and hanging out with good friends.

By Friday i was pretty tired after a busy week at work but of course Friday bar happened and a lot of fun was had. An Australian colleague told me about the aussie against nz rugby game on Saturday and at midday we were both just slightly hung over but watching the rugby at the boat bar in nyhavn. I was soon joined by Julie and nina and it was a very pleasant afternoon spent on the boat.