Roskilde Diary 2

I barely slept at all during the train ride. I only know that I slept because I woke up when they checked our passports. Zsófi and I got up and went to have coffee in the DB Bord Bistro or whatever it's called on this GD night train. We were told by Uncle Zoli that the Danish countryside was spectacular. Alas, we sat down in the bistro car, drinking coffee and observing the Danish countryside, under the unexplainable stare of a middle aged guy sitting on the other side. We were tired, but excited. We finished coffee and concluded, in the wake of the tradition of el chico casquillo, that Denmark was just like the Netherlands. It was raining. We passed the train station of Sorø. We were to pass it again later as events unfolded.

We got to Copenhagen by 10. It was still raining. ("Akkor még nem sejtettük...") We had coffee and breakfast at the train station. Fred and Rich changed money, too. Fred said, "I have 3 euros...I don't think it will be enough". Zsófi and I bought train tickets. We were about to board the train when Fred decided to stand in line for a hotdog. Luckily, we could still catch the train.

We got off the shuttle bus at the Festival camp. It was raining heavily. As soon as we got off a guy came and asked if he could tag along with us. This is how we met Greg. It was wet and muddy and cold and we felt miserable. We did not have proper shoes. We were then looking for a tent for what seemed to be an eternity. My back hurt because of the luggage and it was raining and our shoes got soaked and our pants wet by this time. And it was only the beginning!

At first the boys set up their tent. It turned out that Fred forgot to take both parts of his tent. Eliot came over and told us (because we were standing on an empty spot next to a woman). He said that Fred took out what he thought was his tent but it was only the inner part which had a net-like part, obviously with holes in it. "Oh there is another part to it?," asked Fred, "I must have not taken it" - Eliot said he could have screamed. "PhD my ass"

Then the boys came and helped us set up our tent. I decided that Fred should sleep in Greg's tent and Rich and Eliot in ours. While Zsófi and I went to put our bags temporarily in Greg's tent, we saw Greg helping Rich and Eliot and Fred lighting a cigarette, walking over to a tent that had a James Bond poster with a cut-out for Bond's head, and he put his head through and smiled at us. We were about to explode but this was the funniest part, now thinking back to it.

Rich took a bottle of whiskey which made us warm a bit. We went to look for wellies and had a bite to eat. It was pouring rain. We were cold and wet all over. Then came 6 and we went inside to see Arcade Fire. They put on a good show, I liked it. At the beginning, people started shouting NO MORE RAIN! (- Eliot shouted I hate Spain). They started with Keep the Car Running which made me really happy. I wished they played Antichrist Television Blues (the "Bruce song") and they did! During the concert, Rich disappeared. After the concert, we met him outside. He was holding hands with a British Swedish girl. They jumped into a pond of water and all of us stepped back, annoyed. (They were drunk, in their defense. And they had wellies!)

Then we started walking and found wellies!!! "It's like my life force just got doubled" Eliot said. Zsófi said, "I'm not going to throw away my shoes" - but the rest of us did. Greg's shoes disappeared in 2 minutes. Rich stayed with the girl. Fred disappeared. We were going around, eating, drinking, and then Greg stopped to watch a concert we were not interested in, I don't even remember what it was, maybe The Killers? I don't know.

We found a big covered tent: Astoria. We could sit down at last and drip. There was a new jazz/funky concert. We danced a bit. I miraculously found the last of Eliot's birthday present in my coat. That made us happy!

Then before midnight, we set out to go to our tent. Then things started to turn from bad to worse. First of all, we could not find the tent. We went in the wrong direction and then had to ask some volunteer people. Then the tent was wet. There was water on the bottom and Zsófi said she wouldn't sleep there. Eliot and I conferred ("what do you want to do?" "I don't know. What do you want to do?") and decided we would go and try to get a room in a hotel. Eliot said we'd have to go to Copenhagen for that.

We waded the mud out to the shuttle bus stop. We couldn't get on any of the buses the crowd was so huge. We had to walk to Roskilde train station. It took like forever. Our feet hurt because we didn't have socks on and we were walking a lot in the new wellies. In the end our feet were bleeding. Anyway we somehow washed up on Roskilde train station.

There was a train right there but we could not get on because it was already full and people were pushing at the doors. It was a nightmare. For the next train we had to wait for an hour.


I'm at the end. This here my rope-