hello...
well it seems i have somehow managed to find myself
back in berlin. im staying with my new found friend
franzi (she's the greatest!) and now have to recover
after a HUGE 4 days at roskilde and work out where im
going and how to get there. but ill press rewind on
the jumbo and tate travel video. so the three of us
made it to prague eventually after tate got his visa
on his birthday without being arrested, which was strange
considering all the drugs and alcohol in his body. i
think he said something about sitting in a room where
alot of ppl around him were drinking alcohol and smoking
dope and thats how it got into his system. anyway for
his 21st birthday i guess the best present he got was
his visa.
made it to prague and got hasselled by some czechs to
stay at their hostels. being the wise travellers that
we are we ended up picking the worst hostel in the entirety
of prague. make that the entirety of the world. cooper
was also nowhere to be seen after i sent him an email
telling him to meet us at the train station at around
7pm (cooper took that to mean we would arrive an hour
either side of 7 so he claims he couldnt be bothered
turning up). our hostel, which was elegantly named the
travellers hostel, consisted of 50 beds in an old disused
gym. top accommodation if u enjoyed the company (and
the smell....)
went out into town that nite to have some drinks for
tates bday. prague being the best city in the world
for so many reasons. its cheap (and im broke so there
i was less broke), its beautiful in its architecture
and culture and is almost untouched by capitalism (i
say almost though....) anyway went for dinner in the
old town square which was pretty sweet and ate like
royalty for probably the first and last time on our
travels. then made our way to an awesome little czech
pub near the main bridge where we were served by some
thoroughly drunk bartenders. in fact everyone was pretty
much off their rocker. i insisted on shouting tate beers
all nite considering it was his 21st but when we both
realised it worked out to be about 60 cents a beer we
didnt really care who shouted and that was prolly the
reason why everyone in the pub was so drunk. after discussing
the fact that we were going to open our little czech
pub in sydney (complete with czech ppl working there)
we decided to go home. just before going to bed i heard
a trickling water sound and opened my eyes to see some
weird urinating all over the locker next to his bed.
after a good 30 seconds of emptying his overstocked
bladder he calmly zipped up and climbed back into bed.
i just lay there on my wooden dwarf-like bed and wondered
what the heck was happening....
in the early morning we got out of there as fast as
three backpackers escaping a seedy hostel could go (not
that fast at 8am). climbed mount everest (pretty much)
to get to this place called the clown and bard which
was quite good. met up with cooper (who had gone quite
mental after no sleep and was talking gibberish) and
got some rest. the next few days involved pretty much
everyone drinking absenth (methylated spirits passing
as alcohol), taking alot of photos, walking around alot,
living like millionaires, playing chess and having fun.
beck met up with a friend of hers from holland and we
didnt see that much of cooper. having the extra person
added to our threesome was so good as our trio had turned
into a warped isosceles triangle (disfigured and mangled).
some other good memories of prague involve tate going
to the bathroom to have a shower. at the time i thought
he was taking a fairly long time to have one. i mean
all that hair cant take that long to dry. he came back,
possibly 30 minutes later, to tell me he'd forgotten
his towel and had to dry himself down with the toilet
paper. pretty classy...
another would have to be tate's extra sensory perception.
as you may know he is pretty short sighted. but as we
would walk around prague it was pretty amazing how he
couldnt read a street sign or see a building 5 metres
away but he could spot a good looking girl about 100
metres away and describe in great detail what she was
wearing and why she was so hot. as they say in seinfeld:
'spottin racoons'.....
got up the morning of the 27th at the ridiculous hour
of 5 to start making our way to roskilde. left cooper
in berlin and beck on the train as tate and i caught
the trusty safflebussen again to copenhagen. met up
with swedish beck and anjelica and toby and the rest
around 1 in the morning and got to sleep in our 2 man
tent (with 4 ppl in it). it was pretty smelly. tate
claimed one morning he was so claustrophobic he was
going to explode....
ROSKILDE FESTIVAL 2001
DAY 1
having no money i planned to spend 100 kr over the 4days.
wondering at this stage whether it was going to happen
(100kr is 25 bucks) didnt see much and the main performer
was WYCLEF JEAN who i was hanging out to see. he totally
rocked and was one of the best over the four days. he
has an amaying diversity and went from 'no woman no
cry' to perfect gentleman, some old fugees songs, it
doesnt matter, some old skool hip hop and some true
to form rock n roll. the highlight was the guitar playing
behind the back of the head i think....
DAY 2
saw a really good danish band called WYNONA who are
abit like beth orton and cowboy junkies. and then wandered
over to the swedish pop 'sensation' hakan hellstrom.
the major disappointment was the cancellation of jurassic
5 who would have been a highlight. BECK was also moved
from his slot to before nick cave so we went and saw
him and he lived up to being the king of cool. performed
some slow stuff, some funk, the hits....missed where
its at and devils haircut to get to the front of nick
cave. NICK CAVE was sensational. i passed out from too
much excitement like a lovesick girl.... (joke) he played
as i sat sadly by her side, 15 ft, their first birthday
party song, do u love me, henry lee, the weeping song,
red right hand and a whole lot more. the atmosphere
was probably the best i saw at roskilde and everyone
was singing along to all the songs which created such
a huge vibe. the bad seeds were sensational and the
performance of warren ellis was a standout. after nick
cave i went alone to neil young and crazy horse and
was also blown away there. he played at the main stage
and was captivating and it was easy to see why he is
so respected and loved in the music world. unfortunately
i ran out of film and couldnt take any photos of him.
i also realised i had used 100 speed film inside for
nick cave so it might not come out which would be a
major disappointment.
DAY 3
by this stage we were getting pretty tired and the tent
was squashy and small (possibly shrinking...). the rubbish,
on the other hand, was getting bigger. tate thought
a shower meant running a small wet wipe all over your
body and i took it to mean pouring cold water on your
hair and hoping it would wash your entire body and give
it a nice soapy smell. day 3 turned out to be pretty
doughy. everyone bought stuff from the stalls and got
free tasty breaks pasta. around 7 we saw MANU CHAO who
was pretty cool. the tent was going off and tate and
i chose to sit outside. i totally missed bob dylan to
get stuff from the tent which wasnt too good but i later
heard he was crap and didnt sing with any passion. then
we made the mistake of going to see OZOMATLI instead
of pj harvey. they were ok but i love pj harvey alot
more than ozomatli. beck loved them though and thought
they were thebest thing at the festival so far. fortunately
we had ROBBIE WILLIAMS to look forward to on the main
stage and he was massive. played a cover of beautiful
day and rollin' by limp bizkit as well as a punk version
of want u back by take that. played alot of his own
like shes the one, angel, millenium, eternity?, rock
dj, kids. it was pouring down with rain though and everyone
was exhausted so i was left to enjoy (and sing along)
all on my own. i think i am going to buy some robbie
when i get back to australia... also becuase it was
pissing down we barred off faithless and stereo mc's.
probably shouldnt have but we were all ready to crash.
so glad that the weird swedes and danes decided to start
yelling at 5am and then piss all over our tent too....
DAY 4
saw a few suprisingly good bands. MODEST MOUSE who are
lo fi and ARAB STRAP, who are scottish, are two that
tate and i listened to whilst half asleep and are definitely
worth looking into. PATTI SMITH (who now looks like
the female version of bob dylan - very scary) rocked
with some of her hits, some spoken word and her rememberance
of the 9 ppl that died here last yr with a cover of
alive by pearl jam. another artist i am going to get
into when i get home.
THE CURE - tate and i waited
from the end of patti smith to get a good spot for the
cure and we were against the fence in the second cordoned
off section which meant an awesome view and lots of
free water. in short they were the best band at roskilde.
not for everyone but for us it was a chance to see one
of our favorite bands again and to be in the awesome
atmosphere that roskilde had generated over the four
days. they played kiss me, deep green sea, open, trust,
just like heaven, without you, a forest, someday maybe,
bloodflowers and alot more. it went for about 2 hours
and was a perfect closing to what had been the best
festival ive ever been to. over the four days some memories
have been the great crowds (so friendly, so into the
music and so cool), the great stalls where u could get
heaps of free stuff, the variety of bands, the relaxing
nature and the ppl dressed in pink ready to give u a
hug´when u came thru the gates. its a pity that nothing
like roskilde could ever ben generated in australia.
i starved on noodles and water, tate managed to not
bog for 4 days (the colon of steel), we all saw different
bands, juggled abit, and found a whole lot of new music
(scandinavian) that we're unlikely to hear about or
get in australia. it was a fantastic experience.
Top 5 favorite bands at ROSKILDE
(a la high fidelity):
1. THE CURE
2. NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS
3. WYCLEF JEAN
4. BECK
5. NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE
after the cure finished we got our stuff and caught
the train back to copenhagen. for the first time pretty
much since ive been away i really wanted to be back
home in my own bed, to not worry about money or food
or where to sleep and to see family and friends and
get away from tate and beck. got to copenhagen train
station and had to wait till 5.30 for the office to
open only to find that the trains for the day were all
pretty much booked out and the next one was at 4pm (so
like 11 hours away). tate left for gothenburg at 6.30am
on the bus and it was all pretty cruisy for him. beck
and i pondered what to do. at this stage i might have
given my right arm for a shower, hot food and a bed.
beck decided to try her luck with a train at around
10am so i dont know what happened or where she is. i
booked a spot on the bus at 2pm so had a few hours to
kill. they were possibly the most boring and uncomfortable
hours of my entire life....
i had no idea how to book a hostel in berlin since i
didnt have enough money for a phone card to call from
denmark and i didnt have any numbers cause id given
my guidebook to cooper when we parted. so i just hoped
and prayed. luckily i met my new best friend franzi
on the bus and when we go off i said i was going to
mehringdamm to try my luck at this hostel. we travelled
part of the way together as it is near where she lives
and she gave me her number in case anything happened.
well i got there and it turns out that berlin is pretty
much booked out. so being ready to cry or go insane,
i called franzi and she told me i could stay at her
place. i dont know what i wouldve done without her and
i think im indebted to her for the rest of my life!
ive just worked out i was probably awake for 40 hours
straight since waking up on day 4 at roskilde.....
hopefully i can get things sorted to leave berlin in
2 days to get to rome. after rome i hope to get to barcelona
and go around the coast. tates got a friend i can stay
with in valencia and im really looking forward to actually
relaxing on the beach. so thats the story up to speed.
its pretty long but i hadnt written for about a week
or so. im hoping to come back home around the 16th of
july but i dont know if itll be possible or not as its
especially hard to change ur flight during peak season.
later, jumbo
E-mail: jasoneugenekim@hotmail.com
Website: Jumbo
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