For those of you that don't know my dear sweet husband Matt, I will let you in on a little secret! He procrastinates- a lot. We printed out tickets and directions to 8 hours away on the way out the door, procrastinates. Due to not doing our research, and because most informational places for this festival in particular are in German, we went into it not knowing what to expect. Thinking that by leaving at 1am the night before, and the first band not being able to play until 1:30pm that day, we would be there early right? Wrong. There were already 2 event sized parking lots completely full, and since we were camping, walking a long way with 5 days of stuff (tent, cooler, sleeping bags, food, water, etc.) did not seem ideal. Half because of Matt's riskiness, and half because we couldn't understand all the street signs in Austria, we found suitable parking a half mile away.
We got through security at a sluggish pace of an hour, but had the chance to soak in the scenery and people watch. The craziest thing I about waiting in line was the mass amounts of alcohol came with almost ever group. Since there was absolutely no glass allowed inside of the gates, we witnessed people bringing in pallets of beer. Cases upon cases- carted with dolly's, held by multiple arms, on a makeshift wagon, or in baby strollers (without babies of course!). Also noted, everyone who was camping the first day had some kind of professional rucksack perfectly carrying all of their stuff, while we had multiple duffel bags, and multiple trips.
Let me just tell you all right now, that this place was dirty. Maybe living in Germany the past 8 months has babied me into expecting everything to be tidy, but this place was gross by even San Francisco standards. You can't tell in the photo above because this is when everyone was settling in, but later that day it was a hot mess, literally. Austria was 90's or above every day we were there, and with the smell and the litter, not such a happy place.
Our first day we got to explore around the site, find showers, cross cool floating bridges, and see all the vendors. It wasn't as hot the first day, so weather was pretty manageable with some help by the river that separated the campers from the festival grounds. We took note that everyone pretty much starts drinking as soon as they can, and make a mockery of everything around them. Surprisingly, I only saw a handful of people on drugs, but about 80 percent of everyone was drunk or happily on their way there. Between the alcohol, the rowdy music, and everyone being new- people were jerks. They took other people's beer, made fun of people who didn't speak German, poured buckets of water on people crossing the bridge, and were having the time of their lives. The morning after our first night there, someone stole our really awesome camping chair. As I look back, I'm just glad it wasn't our camera, which we immediately put in the car and is why our pictures are awful (they're from an old point and shoot).
By the second day of our stay, I decided that people are generally rude there. It could be the cultural differences, or the language barrier, or whatever other reason, but when people steal your chair, that's just rude. After our chair was stolen, our neighbors (to the right of our tent if you're looking at the picture above), tried to take our water! I was flabbergasted. You can even see it in the picture, super close to our front door and everything! Luckily, Matt demanded it back and they gave- still unacceptable though. By the third morning I was extremely skeptical of this adventure into Austria.
I guess third time is the charm, because that third day was so fun for us. We listened to some bands who I've never heard of and they freaking rocked, so much that I was smiling and dancing by the end of it. When we got back to our tent, it helped that our neighbors on the left were really friendly with Matt and felt bad for us that our chair was stolen, which was nice because at that point I thought everyone was heartless.
Day four, we decided that we would call it quits after the XX played their set, which was the perfect ending to a not-so-perfect vacation. We saw Bloc Party that day, which was special and moderately romantic because they sang our first "song" we had as a couple. The lead singer was also pretty hilarious, generally making a fool of himself because like us, he couldn't speak German and was taking cues from the crowd. An hour after Bloc Party played, the XX blew our socks off, and since there weren't screens, we got close enough to see them too! At one point during their time slot, the crowd sang Romy (lead singer), Happy Birthday because she shared it with us that day. :)
Here are some photos from my not-so-great camera of our time there:
Day One!
The Black Keys
More Black Keys
So much fun!
The river, notice the grass along the bank, and how many beer cans there are :(
Cooling off, sitting on the magic floating bridge!
Because it wouldn't be a festival without a hookah bar???
So good looking. hahah
Why wouldn't they sell hats that ate your head?!
Took this picture because the food ones reminded me of Nikki. <3
Crowded.
Gavin Rossdale
Bush!
The Jezabels!
Meeting the Jezabels
They were super nice! (Other half of the Jezabels)
Bloc Party
Zipfer was the only beer sold there, but look how many people!!
Crowd for Bloc Party
Rollin deep for Bloc Party!
:) He's so cute.
The last of the sun, last of Bloc Party
Waiting for the XX
Setting the stage for The XX
So much awesome.
Their music was so good live!
At some later date or time, I will be posting videos of the bands we loved!!! <3
