Friday, August 29, 2008

Exit Part 3- Out of the Exit, into Dubrovnik


So, my plans of keeping you all entertained with nightly installments of the Exit Music Festival in Serbia have fallen through, not least of all because of our limited internet access here (they don't have the internet at Moone, only cheese, and a man). Anyway, I will instead give some picture highlights of the end of exit, and our couple of days in Dubrovnik, and in the process attempt to throw the light of written (or typed) word across it, to illuminate the story. Although currently failing dismally, I will try to refrain from getting carried away here, but I'm doing night shift drying grain, so the usual veneer of sanity is more thin than ever.

The whole festival pretty much involved a whole lot of time on the ground, whether voluntarily or otherwise. This was the case when a can of local beer we bought did not open properly. It took nearly 20 minutes of finger risking hacking to open the can up, but we eventually found that instead of a can of tasty, tasty beer, we had received a can of water, with the "prize" of 200 kuna, which may sound fantastic, but is actually about the price a can of beer. The thing was we had to get the token out of the can, post it off, and quietly await the arrival of our cheque in the mail. Clearly the only thing to do was open another can.





We ended up witnessing many sunrises...

This one was taken by a few middle aged pommy blokes who were at the festival to check out a few bands they could book for their small pub back home. They were pretty keen on the Presets, but realised they were probably going to need a bigger chequebook for that one.
Ted, Jess and myself had spent the night sitting around talking, and this is just before going down for a dance to 2 many djs. It got fairly sweaty and dusty in the early morning, summer sun.






And The Hives were certainly worth a mention, which Jess and I danced and sang our hearts out to for a couple of hours. As singer Pelle Almqvist told us all- "our children's, children's, children will remember, when the Hive's first played in Serbia!"- Quite the showman.






All in all Exit was awsome fun, and we were lucky enough to share it with a great crew. Unfortunately the bus trip down to Croatia was somewhat more notorious, with a 10 hour drive becoming a 16 hour struggle for survival, as myself, Jess, and 40 odd whinging poms (yes cliche, but if the shoe fits) battled hunger, a 90 year-old bus driver and a severe lack of organisation through Bosnia and Hertzogovnia. Yes, a little scary, but it all came through in the end. Just a word to the wise, avoid Eurfest tours if you're ever heading to Exit- profanities could not describe how p*ssed off I was upon our 4am arrival in Dubrovnik.

Take that Eurfest tours.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

It's time for a little update!

Sorry it's been sooooooo long since our last update, we haven't even finished telling you about the shenanigans at Exit, but I thought I'd let you in on some updated stuff and we can go back and tell you some details later...

We've set up in Ireland in a town called Moone, living in a big, old, vine covered former coach house, it was pretty run down when we got it but a few days of flat out cleaning and shutting some doors to rooms that are just horrible has done the trick!

And we've been working on a farm in the area, I'm in the weigh bridge and Jeremy and Tom are doing the farm-y stuff (driving tractors, fixing stuff, running the dryers - all the fun stuff!). It has been a weird season with heaps of inclement rain (more than usual, if it can be believed!), the threat of clouds are always there...
Thus, we have plenty of time to fit in the odd Guinness at Clancy's in Athy...
I even had the chance to pop over to London for a weekend with Hamish...So the first 3 weeks in Ireland have been wicked - if wet!

Just to give you a quick summary of our trip before Ireland, we had a ball in Croatia after Serbia and the Exit music festival, we worked very hard on our thong tans...Went sight seeing in Dubrovnik...
And mainly spent our time diving, relaxing on the rocky beaches and drinking 1/2l beers for $1.50 in Vela Luka... bargain!
There will be more details soon my friends, I just didn't want you thinking that we'd fallen off the edge of the world! We miss you all xx