The summer is crazy...

I had two weeks of vacation and then started working again on Monday this week. On Tuesday I was like "oh, I've been working the whole week... I need a weekend". I've been writing a report on my findings and experiments so yesterday I thought I'd just work at home since what I really had to do was organize my articles and that was just using an internet database thing. The only problem was that I ended up sleeping way too late and then to top that off, the internet in my apartment didn't work till noon. But in the end I did get some of the organizing done and I finished it all today. Writing the theoretical part to my report should now be a whole lot easier. But that's it about work.

I feel like my vacation just swooshed by. It was sort of too busy I guess. I didn't even have time to get bored and start cleaning my apartment. That was what I was supposed to do. I did have like two day by myself with the bnd being abroad but I had just time enough to get bored but not start cleaning. That's sort of a shame since I haven't vacuumed in ages and my window is totally covered with dead fruit flies.

I did visit Ilosaarirock. It was great. It rained on the Saturday but that stopped at around seven pm and it did not rain at all after that. The funny thing is that the sun started shining like minutes after I spotted an ex. Weird and totally unrelated, I'm sure. Kind of funny though. And I did what one is supposed to do when seeing an ex - I walked right at him and smiled. He was on the phone so I didn't even say anything. I was walking hand-in-hand with the bnd towards the reggae stage. So but there weren't really any band I wanted to see badly at the festival but I have to say that it was organized really well. There were enough toilets and places to get water. The food on offer was quite nice. There was enough area to lounge around on the grass and the atmosphere was really nice all in all even though it rained. The only thing I did miss a bit were chairs or benches. There weren't any anywhere, even the beer areas did not have any seating. It was more annoying when it was raining and there was nowhere to sit but I guess I sort of got used to the idea in the end.

The other festival I visited was Qstock in Oulu. I went there just to see my all time favorite band the Manic Street Preachers so I only bought a ticket for one day. The bnd was with me and we spent the night in a nice hotel so it wasn't very much like a traditional festival visit really. But the Manics played a great set that I watched and sang along to in the very front in my Manics t-shirt. It was great even though I did get smashed and mushed against the fence and it was really crowded. Luckily the bnd was behind me protecting me from the worst, I'm sure. They sang all the songs I wanted to hear but I kind of still think they did a better show at Provinssirock in 1999. Of course that was the very first time I saw them and so on but I think they could have interacted with the audience more. I mean, no need to throw a guitar in to the audience like in -99 but a bit of something. They didn't even bring t-shirts. But still it was great and I'll go see them again when they come to Finland again some day.

Since I advertised the greatness of the organization of Ilosaari I do have to point out a few things that were not right at Qstock. The difference was huge. Firstly there was like no middle fence in the front of the main stage that would have stopped some of the movement of the crowd and in addition the bouncers in the front of the stage seemed sort of new at the job. There was like two young women there and then this one guy who sort of looked more like he had been to a rock concert before since he figured that this one girl had to be lifted from the audience since she apparently had a dislocated elbow or something. Then there was this old guy who was apparently their boss and he figured like in the middle of the set that people had to take their bags to the other side of the fence into the audience. Now had they said that in the beginning it would not have been such a problem but there was like totally no room to put a bag anywhere since there was hardly room for the people. And to top this all off they did not have a water hose in the front. At least in Provinssirock there has been a water hose in the front that can be used for crowd control and to give water to the thirsty people in the front since it was summer and it gets really warm in a crown. But no. People even asked about it but the bouncers were like "no special treatment to people in the front". Uh oh and there was one other stupid organizational aspect that was sort of nonfunctional. They had a 50 cent deposit on beer cans in the beer areas. For one they did not inform people about it. I only heard about it from people in the vicinity that were collecting peoples' cans. I did not spot one sign about the fact. And then when the queues got long there was no point in going back for a mere 50 cents. To top this off, apparently they ran out of change. I mean the areas were fenced off and from experience I can say that at Ilosaari there were no problems with the cans since there were these eager volunteer teens collecting them. At Qstock there were just people collecting the cups one got with some drinks. And from experience I know that a deposit on a cup or such is not a good idea at a festival. One year at Provinssirock I witnessed some fights almost breaking out over the cups. Oh and to top this all off there were not enough bathrooms at the festival. And I mean not nearly enough. Amazingly they apparently had more than last year. Luckily, I had no reason to attend the festival last year.

But yeah, there is a wedding coming up this weekend. My little sister's. I've really been looking forward to it. It should be a really nice party. I hope my sister is not all stressed out about organizing it. I'm taking the bnd with me and he's really eager to go too. He hasn't like ever been to a wedding, which I think is sort of weird but then again not everyone has as big a family as I do. I've got a really lovely dress that had to be made a bit smaller but now it looks great even though I might not be able to breath deeply while wearing it. But it isn't at all stretchy so that's how it sort of has to be. The bnd has a tie to match the color of my dress so we should be a lovely couple. I'm even having my hair done at a hairdressers so it should look great (or at least look the same the whole day). Oh and I get to see my new goddaughter tomorrow. So loads of thing to look forward to. right now I think it is about time to head home for some cleaning and packing.