An update of sorts!
So life...
I think I left off in a mad panic about having no money and everything being a complete mess and not going to Wacken. Well at the moment things are better, I still have no money and we did go to Wacken and it was ok. Im not going to write about how amazingly awesome the festival was because to me it was just a festival, you were still camping in a shitty field with a load of drunken idiots who seem to lose all sense of modesty/decency as soon as they walked through those festival gates (infact when I walked through the festival gates I cried :P). But it was ok, mainly because Ben was there to make it ok, and it wasnt so disasterously bad, the facilities were 'clean' (but not nearly enough of them - the bush had to serve a fair few times), the 'drunken idiots' were generally amusing and friendly (apart from the idiots with the trip wire), and the whole thing was probably better organised than most of the festivals I've been too (apart from that fact that the arena is far too small, the WET tent is a bad idea as you practically have to cross a swamp to get to it on the last day, and the frisking is just plain annoying!). So all in all I had a 'good' time!
I was going to write a large detailed review on my experiences of Wacken as people do on here, but Im not sure if I'll get around to doing it now. Too much time has passed and I have a whole load of other things to sort through now and if you were there then you already have your own experiences of it, and if you werent then maybe you better go to find out, if you are so interested :P ! All in all I can say we had our own share of random shennanigans which were very trying at timesincluding our tent blowing away (and being saved by someone who we were never able to identify) and then flooding, and then losing most of our clothes to the rain, the mile hike to the arena, the awesome metal market (which I would have never had enough money for), the floating Jager bar which we never got to go on, the pretty mead tent which provided many delicious nightly beverages, the most excitied guy I've ever seen watching a band, the medieval section as a whole (very novel), the mud, the swollen face (after waking up and not realising it was me), the delicious noms (stuffed cheese and mushroom peppers on the last night) and of course the bands! Now I came to Wacken knowing about 3 of the bands on the bill (I dont count Lacuna Coil and In Flames as I have unfortunatly had to see them far too many times for my liking) , but I came with an open mind, and while it has not got me listening to music in the house or having a massive album downloading session as soon as I got back, at least I will be familiar with a lot more of the music Ben puts on! Bands I was most impressed with were Heaven and Hell, Amon Amarth, Korpikalanni and I even found myself jigging about to Schandmaul and enjoying the doomy style of Cathedral.
I suppose the only other major problem we encountered (apart from out tent flooding and blowing away) was getting home. We had bought what we thought was a return ticket for the shuttle busses to and from Hamburg Airport on the day we arrived. Turns out it wasnt a return. It also turns out there were not spaces left on the bus back to Hamburg Airport. I wasnt very happy that morning. I think it was a combination of being tired and fed up of being in a field and the fact that we had no definite plans for getting back home, and no money. As soon as we were told our ticket was invalid and there was no room on the bus, that was it, I couldnt take anymore, I burst into tears. This, however, seemed to do the trick, the shuttle bus operators took pity on me and promised they would get us back home. They promised to get us on a later bus but I wasnt really listening properly becuase I was so upset so in the end they put us on the bus to Hamburg Centre (that was due to depart as soon as) and gave us instructions on how to get to the airport from there. We didnt have any money so they guy settled for a £20 note which actually made the trip cheaper as otherwise it would have been 16 Euros each. However even on the bus I couldnt relax after waking up to find we were stuck in a massive jam on the major road to Hamburg that we ended up sitting in for nealry 2 hours. We were actually in danger of missing our flight although we set out 6 and a half hours prior to flying. I had my mum on standby but lucky the bus FINALLY turned off and made a speedy entry into Hamburg. Then the trains. This was equally a nightmare and with no-one to ask, ended up with a lot of running up and down steep flights of stairs with very heavy overloaded bags. But we made it! Just in time for check in. There was a small dispute with Eastjet and its seating arrangements but other than that WE WERE FINALLY ON OUR WAY HOME! I slept most of the way back and was glad when I was able to finally crawl into bed... and I even got a tan! So how about that!
Recently things have mainly involved tidying and the occaisional leaving of the flat to meet up with people and so on. I feel the flat is really starting to come along. Most of the stuff is away and I finally have my own study/office type room to set up my computer in. There is still a few things that need homes but I'm sure I'll get round to hopefully sorting that soon and most of the the stuff that was broken has finally been repaired including having a new shower fitted (swish)! The only things that are really bugging me are my dissertation, my elective placement which I am praying will be organised and all ok by the time I get to go on them. Oh and money, but theres a surprise. My car is yet again proving very expensive, its passed its MOT after the handbrake was fixed and the tracking road was replaced (which now means it can turn corners properly without making that noise), but then had to go in for more work as the water pipe was split (which I knew but no-one wanted to believe me). Also not one of the mechnics I had been to see notice the fact that my rear wheel bearing was about to fall off, despite me telling them that theres a really weird load noise on the back of my car that gets a lot worse if you drive over 50mph. Thankfully thats now been sorted. Now it just has to go back to have its head gasket fixed.... AGAIN! So yeah no money for me, especially as Dominoes and the Midland have cut my shifts becuase of 'the recession' (blah blah blah), but at least the Dominoes on Stenson Road has been asking for me quite a bit, so hopefully my shifts will pick up! Oh yeah and I'm going to Greece for a week with Ben on Wednesday! I'm pretty excited, Im going on holiday, and I'll hopefully find that much desired beach to spend most of my time on :)
(Im tired I cant be arsed to spell check, sorry if there are any mistakes!)
I think I left off in a mad panic about having no money and everything being a complete mess and not going to Wacken. Well at the moment things are better, I still have no money and we did go to Wacken and it was ok. Im not going to write about how amazingly awesome the festival was because to me it was just a festival, you were still camping in a shitty field with a load of drunken idiots who seem to lose all sense of modesty/decency as soon as they walked through those festival gates (infact when I walked through the festival gates I cried :P). But it was ok, mainly because Ben was there to make it ok, and it wasnt so disasterously bad, the facilities were 'clean' (but not nearly enough of them - the bush had to serve a fair few times), the 'drunken idiots' were generally amusing and friendly (apart from the idiots with the trip wire), and the whole thing was probably better organised than most of the festivals I've been too (apart from that fact that the arena is far too small, the WET tent is a bad idea as you practically have to cross a swamp to get to it on the last day, and the frisking is just plain annoying!). So all in all I had a 'good' time!
I was going to write a large detailed review on my experiences of Wacken as people do on here, but Im not sure if I'll get around to doing it now. Too much time has passed and I have a whole load of other things to sort through now and if you were there then you already have your own experiences of it, and if you werent then maybe you better go to find out, if you are so interested :P ! All in all I can say we had our own share of random shennanigans which were very trying at timesincluding our tent blowing away (and being saved by someone who we were never able to identify) and then flooding, and then losing most of our clothes to the rain, the mile hike to the arena, the awesome metal market (which I would have never had enough money for), the floating Jager bar which we never got to go on, the pretty mead tent which provided many delicious nightly beverages, the most excitied guy I've ever seen watching a band, the medieval section as a whole (very novel), the mud, the swollen face (after waking up and not realising it was me), the delicious noms (stuffed cheese and mushroom peppers on the last night) and of course the bands! Now I came to Wacken knowing about 3 of the bands on the bill (I dont count Lacuna Coil and In Flames as I have unfortunatly had to see them far too many times for my liking) , but I came with an open mind, and while it has not got me listening to music in the house or having a massive album downloading session as soon as I got back, at least I will be familiar with a lot more of the music Ben puts on! Bands I was most impressed with were Heaven and Hell, Amon Amarth, Korpikalanni and I even found myself jigging about to Schandmaul and enjoying the doomy style of Cathedral.
I suppose the only other major problem we encountered (apart from out tent flooding and blowing away) was getting home. We had bought what we thought was a return ticket for the shuttle busses to and from Hamburg Airport on the day we arrived. Turns out it wasnt a return. It also turns out there were not spaces left on the bus back to Hamburg Airport. I wasnt very happy that morning. I think it was a combination of being tired and fed up of being in a field and the fact that we had no definite plans for getting back home, and no money. As soon as we were told our ticket was invalid and there was no room on the bus, that was it, I couldnt take anymore, I burst into tears. This, however, seemed to do the trick, the shuttle bus operators took pity on me and promised they would get us back home. They promised to get us on a later bus but I wasnt really listening properly becuase I was so upset so in the end they put us on the bus to Hamburg Centre (that was due to depart as soon as) and gave us instructions on how to get to the airport from there. We didnt have any money so they guy settled for a £20 note which actually made the trip cheaper as otherwise it would have been 16 Euros each. However even on the bus I couldnt relax after waking up to find we were stuck in a massive jam on the major road to Hamburg that we ended up sitting in for nealry 2 hours. We were actually in danger of missing our flight although we set out 6 and a half hours prior to flying. I had my mum on standby but lucky the bus FINALLY turned off and made a speedy entry into Hamburg. Then the trains. This was equally a nightmare and with no-one to ask, ended up with a lot of running up and down steep flights of stairs with very heavy overloaded bags. But we made it! Just in time for check in. There was a small dispute with Eastjet and its seating arrangements but other than that WE WERE FINALLY ON OUR WAY HOME! I slept most of the way back and was glad when I was able to finally crawl into bed... and I even got a tan! So how about that!
Recently things have mainly involved tidying and the occaisional leaving of the flat to meet up with people and so on. I feel the flat is really starting to come along. Most of the stuff is away and I finally have my own study/office type room to set up my computer in. There is still a few things that need homes but I'm sure I'll get round to hopefully sorting that soon and most of the the stuff that was broken has finally been repaired including having a new shower fitted (swish)! The only things that are really bugging me are my dissertation, my elective placement which I am praying will be organised and all ok by the time I get to go on them. Oh and money, but theres a surprise. My car is yet again proving very expensive, its passed its MOT after the handbrake was fixed and the tracking road was replaced (which now means it can turn corners properly without making that noise), but then had to go in for more work as the water pipe was split (which I knew but no-one wanted to believe me). Also not one of the mechnics I had been to see notice the fact that my rear wheel bearing was about to fall off, despite me telling them that theres a really weird load noise on the back of my car that gets a lot worse if you drive over 50mph. Thankfully thats now been sorted. Now it just has to go back to have its head gasket fixed.... AGAIN! So yeah no money for me, especially as Dominoes and the Midland have cut my shifts becuase of 'the recession' (blah blah blah), but at least the Dominoes on Stenson Road has been asking for me quite a bit, so hopefully my shifts will pick up! Oh yeah and I'm going to Greece for a week with Ben on Wednesday! I'm pretty excited, Im going on holiday, and I'll hopefully find that much desired beach to spend most of my time on :)
(Im tired I cant be arsed to spell check, sorry if there are any mistakes!)