Gratitude

Ok, it's been almost a week. There's a good reason, though.

Well, I dunno what happened on Wednesday. Maybe I was busy, wrapping things up at ESCS. Thursday I was for sure.

Thursday night Paula and I drove to Belchatow and slept at her parents' for the night. Friday morning we drove to the Heineken Open'er festival in Gdynia. We set up the tent and checked the place out. Bought some shirts. Saw most of The Roots' show. Saturday we foraged for food, had digestive and poop issues and saw the entire Groove Armada and Beastie Boys' shows. GA was good. Beastie Boys' ...well even if it sucked it would have been great, and it was fuckin' awesome which means it was mind-wreckingly amazing. I have never been to a better concert. We caught a tiny bit of the Muse after getting food/drinks.

In between a lot of that it rained on and off which turned the already infirm-in-the-face-of-60,000-people grounds into basically a big mud hole. That is not so very bad when you are just walking around and a bit drunk. This is, however, far more of a concern if you drove there and want to leave sometime before the next festival in 2008. Sunday morning I was already a bit worried so we asked people at the info kiosk about getting out. They basically said "good luck." I walked around the grounds - there were now several places people could get out because some industrious fans had dismantled parts of the gates/walls, but still difficult. Finally I saw a free opening and fairly good lines, so I immediately went for it. We drove through most of the mess very quickly and in 2nd gear - the only way to drive through mud in a FWD car - and made it to the edge of the grounds but not in a "legal" area. We packed up our stuff and got out early, sadly missing the 2nd/last Beastie Boys show (instrumental). We did see their main show though, obviously.

We didn't take our cameras since we didn't think they'd be allowed in. Of course, security was tight but not that tight nor that vigilant. So, here are some photos other people took of the festival. There are photos on the festival web site but it's all in flash so it's impossible to link to them.

Sunday we drove back, listening to The Mix-Up by the Beastie Boys three or four times. It's quite good, really. We stopped in Belchatow again to shower and eat some of Paula's parents' food and then continued on our way. We finally got home around 1am, today, Monday.

It was expensive and tiring but very worth it. We'll consider going again next year if there are decent artists lined up.