Voyage Of The Odd Essay

I’m on the second leg of my Sweden trip now, arriving in Stockholm by train from Gothenburg yesterday following spending time there exploring the city and the Way Out West music festival.

As things stand currently, I have a bit of a back log in entries I may or may not post in the end, and will leave photos until I get home because the little EeePC is really struggling with the size of them. (I’m only using the very smallest, first gen 700 series)

Gothenburg was an awesome city and I really got the hang of the trams as a means to getting between locations in the center, the hostel and the festival main stages which allowed me to see an act, and get back in town for a museum visit or some such.
The hostel I stayed in – Interpoint YMCA – wasn’t that great though, it did the job but the atmosphere was a little strange, though I can’t put my finger on why, initially I thought it was me, but having settled in to the Hostel here in Stockholm everything is much more how I had hoped, and last night after starting early evening watching the Olympics with some other travellers, we ended up making a swift visit to the supermarket for some beers and progressed to playing cards, flip cup and then trying to head out into a club in town, which turned out to be a bit of a let down as the clubs close early on a Sunday here. Still, we hooked up with a couple of locals who took us to a pub that was open, and after a round of drinks we all headed home via mcdonalds, as again the plan of going to a kebab shop failed when everywhere we looked for them was closed.

More updates will follow as I get into a pattern a bit better, my paper based journal is almost upto date now, finally, so I should get my focus onto my online output soon. Or I’ll end up drinking with who ever arrives in the hostel today could go either way.

Midsummer has been and gone, and it’s Glastonbury weekend and even though I won’t be there this year – mostly due to other Festival commitments, but in part due to Jay-Z headlining – I will be sitting at home watching it on the TV with friends, having some pear cider, cooking falafels for everyone, and of course wearing out Glastonbury Hats. Maybe I’ll go crazy and crack a couple of glow sticks!

While I’m still waiting for my festival season, I have booked my ticket to Thailand in December and will be leaving one way on November the 30th with Qatar Airways, to arrive in Bangkok on the 1st of December, so if anyone is in that neck of the woods and fancies a Singha on Khaosan Road let me know. It’s a day earlier then I planned, but means I don’t have a 8 hour stop over in Doha, so worth it.

Further to my travel plans I have decided to sell my Canon DSLR, since I’m focusing on writing a lot more these days, I figure the £400 or so I can get for the camera are much more useful then the camera would be. It’s a shame, but when I got the DSLR the plan was to learn to drive, and travel around locally to take shots, maybe getting a bicycle as well, but that’s all out the window now and I could last a month on that money.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year (I’ll finish my Thailand updates later in the week) I have a pretty healthy set of destinations in the line up for the rest of 2008 and beyond:

July: Suffolk, England – For Latitude Festival
August: Amsterdam, Holland – For A Friend’s Stag Do
October/November: Helsinki, Finland – To Visit My Sister While She’s Studying There
December onwards: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam etc. – Traveling South East Asia for Six Months

I’d really like to go to a music festival in Europe too, so there are too options on the cards currently:

July: Open’er Festial in Poland. (Friends are going)
August: Way Out West Festival in Gothenburg, Sweden. (Sigur Rós are playing)

Given that Sigur Rós are my all time favorite group it’s likely to come out on top, they are playing at Latitude as well, but I’d leap at the chance to see them twice.

Over the course of the last week, three different people have mentioned music festivals around Europe they’ve been too, all of which make for great ideas to add to my list of must see destinations. After all, I love music festivals and spend my summers at various festivals in the UK either with a group of friends, or on occasion on my own just mixing with the crowd.

The idea of getting out to various festivals abroad is something I’ve been playing with for a while, so it fits neatly in with my long term travel plans.  So my map has been updated to reflect the new destinations. (more…)