wrap up

well its a little more than a week since i got back and i thaught i would put some propper reviews out and cap this blog properly

1) Garden Festival - Zadar Croatia

Wow is all i can say - Gail and Eddy you have done a fantastic job, the musical lineup was mostly mediocre (baring soil and pimp & Crazy P from this) mid level DJs playing non challenging music at best easy listening - but you know what - it doesent matter - the music wasnt what it was about - it was the sun, the beach, the beach bar, the people and most of all the VIBE. a friendlier bunch of peeps i couldnt ever ask to meet, everyone who was there was lovley!

the temperature was a even 35 every day - the skys were cloudless, the water was azure.

the accomodation was excelent seconds away from the main festival site, the basement of a little house, with a lovley little old lady who ran it - all in all excelent - this is an event which will be talked about for years after.

2) Exit festival - Novisad Serbia

you know what it was OK, not great - line up was good - but a lot of lackluster performances - Beasty Boys - your getting Geriatric, Lauren Hill your mediocre, Snoop Dogg - dull, Basement Jaxx - not your best and ive seen you regularly since the early days of brixton hill. Prodigy were the only mainstream highlight but the crowd was insane and intense.

Site - pretty novel but the festival suffered from being nocturnal, it would have worked so much better if there was some of it during daylight hours.

hotel putnik - served it purpose relativley close to the festival site - about 15mins before the killer hill clime to get onto the site, stupidly 70s, hessian wallpaper - you know what - it was OK!

Resteraunt - Archiv - gets 10 points - lovley little place around the corner from putnik - great food, and the terrace has wifi stolen from a local hotel.

3)into romania - 30 hr trip, 2hr bus to belgrade then 4hr wait in belgrade for train - train from belgrade to tiamasora, then a night train from Tiamasora to Cluj - Most surprised by Romania - stunningly beautiful, great people good vibe, also great to see my parents who i havent seen for ages, they seem to have relaxed into the romanian vibe pretty well with dad doing his usual things, and mum back into her artistic endevours.

3 day roadtrip during the romanian heatwave taking in the Carpathian Mountains and the cities of Sibiu (European city of the year) Brasov (Dracula country) Sinaia (very pretty ‘alpine village’ and ski centre) and Sigisouara, old citadel.


all in all 100% different from my 'normal life' but most required

and finaly home - have a minor flood - seems to be A/C related - am sorting now

Manic rush across frankfurt airport, as there was 40mins between landing from Bucharest and take off of Qatar airways flight 28 halfway across the airport, ran across the airport and grabbed boarding pass at the gate, with about 5 mins to spare, brutally efficient boarding practice back of the plane rows 30-44 first no exceptions, a 6 hr flight with time change effect.

Well as i sit here in Bucharest airport and reflect on my trip – its been fantastic, 3 weeks of eastern European beauty, from the beaches of Croatia, music festivals of Serbia, and the plains and mountains & castles of Romania, its been great,

i feel i must write more about my trip around Romania as i haven't blogged since getting to Romania and my parents place – dad took me on a trip around the cultural highlights of central romania, including Brasov, and into the mountains, as well as the European city of culture, and the birthplace of vlad the impaler (the closest thing that there is to Dracula)

stunning as you can see from the photos.

Flight one is now complete, from Cluj to Bucharest – then the flight im about to take takes me to frankfurt where i get a connecting flight to Doha on a Qatar airways flight.

romania

am nw in cluj with my fols - there happy here - im pretty drunk - i blame them

Well as i write this im in nomans land between serbia and romania, on posibly the oldest train in existence, it looks like the last time it had a refit- was sometime during the early era of Tito, with a toilet that Stalin may have used – no problems it has whisked me from Belgrade to the border fairly easily and with no stress, i have a Formica lined cabin to myself, which i availed myself of earlier for a little snooze, and i would be really comfortable if i wasn't melting into my leatheret seat at the rate of gallons per hour – its hot today maybe 37 and there is of course no A/C, i have a connection to make via Timisoara to get to Cluj at around 10pm tonight which delivers me into Cluj at about 5.30am!

I decided to skip the last day of exit – 7 days and nights of dancing in the past 12days have worn me out, decided that my bed was the best option after sleaping in till 4pm, popped out for dinner then watched before sunrise – beautiful film – just watched the sequal today – sadly not as good – but still worth checking out if you get the chance.

well i stayed up all night partied till dawn, felt great, now feel less than sub-human

well the beasty boys were a little bland, not as good as i rembered them a few years ago, left about 10 songs, but im pleased i left when i did, on the way back discovered a fantastic rock/punk band that sounded like they were streight out of 1978, full of energy and vibarancy - i will admit it i feel slightly dirty bouncing around to punk but it was soo good - there called peter & the test tube babys - so refreshing so humerous and just what i needed after a slightly flat and stodgy peppers gig!

well im sat on the vip terrace over looking the danube listening to some beautiful sounds, who seem to be doing for heavy metal what acoustek did for ambience!

exit day 1 cont.

Had breakfast/lunch at a place around the corner, caught up with some other british journalists based out of Prague chatted about festivals, had a beer in the sun, talked politics, i remember the war the first war, the atrocity's, The EU is a hot potato here, there is resentment over romania's acceptance into the European family and Croatia's place in the line, but there are other major issues here from crime to privatisation.

What i hadnt realised is the difficulty that young people have trying to travel, i know im lucky with two passports that allow me very easy access to the vast majority of the western world, but the youth here cant travel to Europe without tedious levels of visa application etc. with that comes the burden of proof of wealth. Is it punitive that Europe still punishes Serbia over the 'missing' war criminals of the Balkan wars over ten years ago? If so it is punishing the wrong people, the youth arguably the future of this region have little connection to the crimes of the past.

Back to the festival, its big, there must have been 60,000 in front of the prodigy i couldnt get within a 1000 yards of the stage, i gave up in the end, and retired to a stage with a view over the Danube.

The site of the festival isnt that big, and tbh the numbers of people are around the size of Glastonbury, its just the intensity of the crowds and the vigour they're going for it. I have to face it im old now, jumping up and down to the prodigy isn't my thing, esp if i have to fight 50,000 for the right to do it, maybe im just tired and cranky?

Going to head out and find some brunch and wifi – am posting from same place i posted from yesterday.

the balkans to get easier access to europe!

http://needvisa.net

exit festival

Exit festival day0,

the site is huge but is totally different from what i expected, it is full of small stages and 2 large ones, i was encouraged to find many smaller stages including latino & world music stages.

Novisad seems geared up for the event, but the population seems surprised by the amount of brits. As is typical u headed to the irish pub – lots of diddly diddly music – but at least they had Murphys red & there is a rather intoxicating local dark brew that im becoming fond of, there were 2 girls in their mid 20s from Manchester their second year at the event, who are heading to budapest next year

Im still confused as to timings of the events, but the headliners include the read hot chillis, the prodigy, snoop dog, & lauren hill.

Novisad seems to be a strange mix of 18th century architecture & 70s communist architecture – the communist architecture seems to be crumbling badly, the hotel putnic seems to be of the same ilk, smoked glass and a 'classic' interior, Hessian wallpaper, badly worn – its a shame – with some tlc this place could be great – strangely i dont seem to have any curtains either – must talk to reception tomorrow.

Any number of a thousand venues tonight were blairing out beats on the evening of day zero. Enticing customers with cheap beer and food, enticing the young festival crowd in, on this the first un-official day of the festival event the local arts festival putting on an event for local b-boys and girls on its steps, the young crowd seem to mingle easily with novisads traditional residents on its classical cobbled streets

now in novisad at the hotel putinc - a model 1970's comunist hotel - nice and retro!

at zagreb autobusni station, about to get the bus to novisad, hotel central gets my thumbs up 50 euros, in the center of town smack nexto the train station about 1km from the bus station, very clean, free wifi, breakfast included. comfy bed, asleep by 10pm.

Monday evening: Andy & karen gave me a lift to zadar where i caught the bus to Zagreb – 4.5hrs – slept most of the journey, have checked into the hotel centrale, opp the train station not far from the bus station where i catch my grewling 9hr bus to novi sad tomorrow, im going ot to find something to eat and somewhere i can get online check my emails etc from you lot.

Garden festival monday; another great day, slept till 2 hung out in a cafe with ava, claire, gillian, paula, et al then a boat party from 6pm out round the islands and beyond. As the sun went down. Hit the club from 11.30 Dont want to head out could quite happily spend the next few weeks here.

garden day 3

Well its Monday morning, Sunday was probably one of the best days ive had in a very very long time, everything came together in a very good way,

1my luggage arrived, so now have cloths to wear
2there were all the elements that anyone could want from a halcion day – an afternoon boat party around the Adriatic islands with beautiful friends and great music, a lot of jazz funk and classics from the chill genera – and the sun was out in full force a nice 30 degrees and a nice breeze, winding up at around 8pm

greg wilson and mr scruff playing as the sun went down, then aome beautiful beats in the nightclub till dawn , watched the sun come up over the mountains with Sarah, Karen's friend then headed to bed

still no luggage - now im mad - ive been wearing theese jeans for about 4 days

halycion is the only word i can use - its stunning - beautiful place - beautiful beats - great people, honestly it doesent get much better anywhere - its got my vote will be back next year

anyway im going to shut up and let the photos do the talking!

missing luggage

going to phone split airport now and findout where my stuff is, as realistically i cant survive on tshirts and pants alone

photos from novisad will continously update as i upload

garden festival serbia

garden festival day1

Day one of the festival was a blast, my people are here, apart from the usual possee – wendy, foo fish, rosi, emily, ian, sarah. Gillian and paula are here!!!!! – is so fab its fab.

The village, if i can call it that more of a summer holiday town reminds me of villages on the Mediterranean beautiful cove, beautiful crystal clear sea i think im going to have fun, my people are here, had dinner at a lovely rustic restaurant with the 10 of us then repaired to café moro a local hostillery for beers by the sea, i finally called it quits at 2am,

my current clothing inventory is 1 shirt, 1 pair of trousers, 1 pair of combat boots, 2 pairs of socks, 2 tshirts and a pair of ugly ass flip-flops that i had to buy to get out of the boots. Am going to find a payphone/internet access to try to find out more about my missing baggage. And sort my festival tickets out.

well guess what my rucksack has gon missing somewhere between doha and split! so i have prcicly 2 pants 2 pairs of socks and 2 tshirts to survive in till it turns up ;(

croatia - finaly

blogging from airside of split airport, its a lovley mid 30s- it feels kind of lovley, not the incinaratorial heat im used to, lovley landing over the islands, have the feeling im going to fall in love with croatia.

frankfurt photos

frankfurt airport

Frankfurt airport, one double espresso, one pint of pills, one weissbeir and a bratwurst later it feels ok, def. The best airport en route sofar, agt least they have good food, 6hours here is going to be difficult, have spent two and have done the entire airport.

Frankfurt has a monorail! Very cool – feels however just like gatwick or the DLR in london small plasticy bubble.

Frankfurt airport also has a casino (read one armed bandits rather than baccarat) and a licensed sex shop (think anne summers rather than Soho sex den) anyway its nice to be back in liberal Europe!

Big bummer – no free wifi – why its a common curtsey for the business traveller who needs to do their email etc. in my case i need to blog – live blogging something is hard if there is no net access. I dont need to tell you the rates from tmobile– 4euros for 15 mins!!!!! its ridiculous price gouging.

bahrain airport

a little small and soulless but ok as airports go

Gulf air to bahrain

i have never seen such a clapped out old plane - and i include the flight from moscow to tiblisi here a oldschool tupalov!

Gate #1

after a last minuite gate swap (were nw departing from gate #1) im finaly at the point of no return - here we go!

airport #1 Doha international

well blog post 1 of the trip Doha airport, not much happening, waiting for the gate to open, in this case gate #8

the ubiquitous exit permit aplication

as always the process of doing anything in doha isnt easy - in any normal case you need to apply for an exit permit, fill out a form, take it to your line managers signature - take it to HR for a signature then take it to external affairs for them to stamp it, take it to the airport dept for approval and then get a stamp in the pasport for exit permits.

however this system is changing :- external affairs can now authorise your pasport 'electronicaly' however the dept is not up to speed on how to do this - so guess where my sunday is being spent - yes getting my exit permit!

The start of the adventure.

well the first post of many i hope.

To describe my adventure:3 weeks -

Doha>Bahrain>frankurt>split>Zadar> Garden festival 5days >belgrade>Novisad>Exit festival 4days>Belgrade> Cluj > Carpathian Mountains and the cities of Sibiu, Brasov (Dracula country) Sinaia, Sigisouara & Brassov>Cluj>bratislava> Frankfurt>Bahrain>Doha.

Live blogging all the way baby!