Just returned from Roskilde (long!, part 1)

[mir...@inter.nl.net]

Evert Arckens <earc...@info.vub.ac.be> wrote:

>Hi,

>(I can finally access the alt.music.festivals newsgroup at my university
>too. ;-))

>I'm just back from the Roskilde festival. It was great! ;-)
>If you guys are interested in a review, I can post one in a few days.
>But first I'm going to Torhout and Werchter.

>Groetjes,
>Evert.
>(Mirella, reeds uitgeslapen? ;-)

[roughly translated: Mirella, did you have enough sleep after Roskilde?]

Yes, although i started working two days after our return, while ofcourse after
a festival you need to be free for at least a week ;)

I read the Glastonbury Diary, and I'm really sorry English is not my native
language, so i could write something like that. But I won't let that stop me
from writing my Roskilde review here in my 'best' English ;)...
Please don't complain if i use too much details in my story. The main reason for
writing it, is for myself: to remember it later.

HISTORY

In 1994 I heard there was going to be a second Woodstock festival, and i made
plans to cross the ocean(s) to be there. I even found people who wanted to join
me, and rumors were Pearl Jam would play there. Unfortunately things changed, so
we couldn't go to Woodstock II. And Pearl Jam didn't play after all, so it
wasn't the end of the world. In return, i said yes to somebody who asked me if i
wanted to come to the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. The other festival i only
knew by it's legendary name.
Roskilde 1995 was perfect, so i decided I wanted to go there every year, for the
rest of my life. 1996 was perfect again, and both years we had good weather and
great bands, and just hearing the word 'Denmark' makes me happy since then.

1997

Unfortunately this year, none of my friends had time or money to join me. Evert
and his friend Kris from Belgium had tickets as well, and they asked me how i
planned to get there. In 1995 i went by car, and in 1996 we rented a small bus.
This year i decided to go by bus, since that was the cheapest option after
hitchhiking.

So Saturday the 21st of June we met at the Central Station of Rotterdam,
Holland, and after a while the three of us and our luggage were in a very luxury
Eurolines bus, with tables and everything... We waved goodbye to my father
(there's a P&K place there for cars: park and kiss), and we were on our way to
Denmark :) That was around 8:15 pm.

Traveling

Well, after only 20 minutes or less, we stopped in Den Haag, and a group of
young people who also went to Roskilde joined us there. One of them told us he
didn't have a ticket for the festival yet.
After that, we stopped in Amsterdam again, where we (and our luggage) had to
exchange our bus for a less luxury one, who was already filled with people...
When we were about to leave, we (from Rotterdam and Den Haag) had to go out
again, to show our tickets and our passports. Really stupid, since they already
had copies of everything.
Finally, back in the bus, I ended up next to a boy (Bret Kizis or something -
Lithuanian background) from Melbourne, Australia, a pilot who was traveling
Europe with Eurolines, before moving to the USA. A few Danish girls he met in
London, bought a Roskilde ticket for him. We saw a very bad movie with Eddy
Murphy (The Mad Professor), and Groningen was the last stop in the Netherlands.
In Germany, we stopped at a restaurant, and also in Hamburg, where a few people
left the bus (i think).
At the border with Denmark, German custom people made us wait for an hour or
more: we had to get all our luggage out of the bus so they could search it:
somewhere inside, with the doors closed and a dog to help them. One of the boys
from Den Haag was extremely happy: he hadn't taken hard drugs with him, like he
planned earlier that day. They even unpacked somebody's complete tent, and left
it there like that. This was a weird trip, with not much luck so far. In the
cold (i even gave the customs my sweater) i looked at the moon, and i think it
was full.
On the boat to Denmark i tried some expensive stuff for my face in the tax-free
shop, and it really made me feel fresh like the bottle said ;). In the ladies
toilet room i met a girl and one of the boys from Den Haag. Funny people. After
the boat trip, back in the bus, the Danish custums wanted to see our passports.
One woman had a letter, saying her passport was stolen. Then, the boy from the
toilet had to leave the bus and get his luggage out. The bus left without him.
His friends told us he didn't have a passport. We stopped two more times, once
when our driver got out, and a other man drove the last part to Kopenhagen, and
once in a Danish village.

Kopenhagen

Around 11 in the morning, we arrived in the city of Kopenhagen (Dutch spelling).
Evert had to help me carrying my luggage, because i brought too much for me. We
found a hostel for the first night, and spent the rest of the day in the city:
First to Christiania, a little 'hippy-community' with many people, most
tourists, just sitting around and enjoying the sun. Perfect start for a
festival-week. There was a whole 'street' where you could buy softdrugs, and
also bars, a little market, more 'work-shops' and we saw the houses people lived
in: lots of flowers, graffity, dogs, children. and a beautifully coloured very
big parrot. No cats. When we wanted to buy a drink, there was a creepy man from
Malta, who was a bit too social: he tried to hold my hand, and wanted us to stay
with him. I decided it was better to leave that table, so we sat down for a
while on a 'hill', looking at a island in the water, without a drink. Listening
to some people speaking English next to us. And looking at the many different
people walking by. When it started to rain we went inside one of the bars, and
later, we went back to our hostel.
We spent the evening eating a pizza in a restaurant with the sign 'make pizza,
not war', and 1967 in the name, looking at the shops, seeing people make oil
paintings of surrealistic planet landscapes to sell, and we had a long walk to
see the statue of that little mermaid that used to seduce sailors before they
drowned. It was beautiful weather again, and the gardens and the fountains, and
the harbour, made it feel like a real holiday. One part even reminded me of
Venetia: restaurants and many people outside, in the sun.
I slept very tight, to find out later it had been a busy night in the 'ladies
only' room of the hostel my bed was in. Vanessa, also from Melbourne, in a bed
on the opposite of my bed, complained to me there had been a party, with girls
having boys in their beds, and lots of noise. She hadn't slept all night. When i
returned from the shower, i found one of the boys from the hostel looking at
them in surprise: boys and girls, all very much asleep in the beds next to me.
We had a lot of breakfast, thinking it could well be one of our last decent
ones. There was a group of people with T-shirts of Celine Dion (? I believe),
following her around. They'd just been to Amsterdam. After breakfast we walked
to the station and bought a ticket for the train to Roskilde.
That was Monday morning.

I'll continue this 'diary' later this or next week, since i haven't even
reached the point were Roskilde starts...

groetjes,

Mirella :)