Dance Valley 2005

On Friday last week I flew out to Amsterdam with Ainsley to go to Dance Valley the Festival. I really had absolutely no idea what to expect at all, being that its an event in a completely different country and also as we were camping for both days of the festival. Really wasn't sure if that was a wise decision or not seeing as both Ainsley and I have been given the nickname 'princess' by our respective groups of friends.

As it turned out the weather was pretty awful and the whole weekend I was the muddiest and the dirtiest that I have likely ever been. I was also incredibly tired and I hurt literally everywhere! But it was out of this world, I had a great time and its by far the best festival I've ever been too. So well organised and so bloody huge! So here is a run down of what I got up to!

Picked up on Friday morning by minicab at 3.30am - barely human at this stage - dropped at Liverpool St and caught the express to Stansted airport. Realised that we weren't overly prepared for the weekend being that neither of us had even thought to bring a pillow for the tent. Nor a heavy jacket. But seriously its August how bad can the weather possibly be!?
We arrived in Amsterdam at about 9am. We then had a great time sorting ourselves out and travelling through Amsterdam to central station and watching the sky turning slowly greyer and greyer. Went and had some lunch by which point it had started to rain. Spent the better part of an hour reassuring each other that the rain would stop just in time for us to be able to put the tent up!
Caught a shuttle bus to the festival site for about 2pm. By this point it is positively raining and by the time we had trekked through the muddy grass to the front gates it was torrential rain. Whilst we queued however they had a DJ playing which made me feel a little better and they had people giving out ponchos, which scored serious points with me! However by the time we got in we were both very drowned little kittens! However we registered, trudged through what can only be described as a mud pit and put up our tent. Now serious points also go to Ainsley and myself who managed to put up our tent in about 15 minutes in the torrential rain with no fuss, we didn't have to ask for any help and we didn't even use a hammer or any sort of banging device (that's how wet the ground was). I was extremely proud, we didn't even get the inside of the tent wet in the process!!

Then we had to devise a way of getting dry and staying dry so we got into clean clothes and put aside our ruined jeans and trainers. Then we came up with possibly the best invention ever and a total lifesaver for us - plastic booties! We took blue plastic bin liners, ripped them up, wrapped them around our feet and tied them in place with hair bands. Sure it sounds basic and we looked fairly stupid but it kept our feet dry and warm and made it possible to schlep through the mud all weekend. Also wearing binliners on your feet attracts a lot of attention. Granted not always the right sort of attention, but it sure made for some interesting conversations, and confirmed what we already knew, guys will use ANYTHING as an opening line. My favorite comment that resulted from one of our many "hey - nice shoes" chats was this gem:
"Guess what? My fish licks!" *said whilst pointing to a plastic 'finding nemo' fish hanging round his neck*

The festival itself was just amazing, the best event I have been to easily and so so huge, we thought the Friday was pretty big and then on the Saturday they opened up about four more tents. They had so much cool stuff, massive tents, huge displays, fire engines, real fire everywhere, bubbles, great music, they had a tent which showed movies all the time, and all night cafe, a cyber tent, market stalls, hammocks and sofas so so so many tents and my all time favorite was that on the Saturday when Ferry Corsten was onstage they had a helicopter fly over the mainstage and drop loads and loads of flowers all over the crowds, it was just so so cool. It would have taken me back to my hippy roots if I had any (and no JennP I don't think spending too much time at the hip-e club counts as 'hippy roots')

Also the atmosphere was really good and the people really friendly. The Dutch are much more like Aussies at these types of events and it was a very confortable vibe. The normal wierdos were present though (refer to fish comment - why would you even wear a plastic fish on a necklace??) However it was quite disconcerting when everyone kept speaking in Dutch. Half the time I couldn't decide if I didn't understand them because of the noise, the alcohol or the fact that they weren't speaking English. So I practiced my nodding and smiling some more. Also it makes you realise that a mashed person in Amsterdam in exactly the same as a mashed person anywhere else.

All in all I thoroughly enjoyed myself even though I was very very dirty and I couldn't run around like usual because you literally had to trudge everywhere in the mud. Oooooh and I very nearly did a head dive into the mud on the last night but I very sensibly saved myself by throwing my body at a strange angle at hurting my back quite badly! The tent survived all three days which I thought was a miracle, but we couldn't be arsed to take it back down so we left it sitting in the field, where it will probably still be standing.

If you want to check out the line up and photos of the day go to:

www.Dancevalley.com

I haven't taken any pictures because I am lazy and crap and have no camera (please refer to episode whereby Rachel RAN IT OVER)

Also on the way home on the bus I was serenaded by some very drunk London boys who sang the Neighbours and Home and Away theme tunes to me all the way home. They even threw in some Kylie and Jason songs, I was very disturbed that they knew all the words, but it was a funny end to a great weekend!