Way Out West

Johanna and me the first day of the festival

The weekend in Goteborg and the Way Out West festival was great! A little exhausting, but very very fun. It was my first multi-day music festival and it was very interesting; it's a bit overwhelming to see a large number of one's favorite bands all at the same time. Along with overwhelming, it's also quite exhausting to be standing basically all day, all weekend, minus a few drink breaks which does not exactly help with the exhausted feeling. But, hey, I'm young and in freaking Sweden -- the exhaustion can go by the wayside.


Goteborg


We arrived in Goteborg on Thursday evening and took a walk and got some food before going to our Hostel, which was located pretty conveniently between the city center and the park of the festival- about a 15 minute walk from the latter. A cool thing about the Way Out West festival in particular is that during the day you have pass to the concert itself, and during the night you can get into clubs where some of the less-known bands are playing into the wee hours of the morning. The not as cool thing about that though is that while the festival had thousands of people, the clubs can only fit a few hundred, making for lots of queues.

the crowd during one of the performances

Now on to the music itself; I'll summarize my favorites in show.
-Beirut is my favorite band, so of course I enjoyed seeing them. In all honestly, they weren't as good as I was expecting, however at this performance there were only 5 band members, and in videos I've seen of them usually there's more, so that probably makes a difference. They were definitely still good, but I think it would be better to see them in a smaller, more intimate venue, not a festival.
-Swedish pop sensation Robyn was fantastic! A lot of her songs I recognized from the US, so that was good. She's a lot of fun and her stage presence is both very Swedish and very impressive, making for a great performance.
-Anthony and the Johnsons was incredibly beautiful. He sang with the Goteborg symphony orchestra, making for a very emotional performance.
-Patrick Wolf also had a really good stage presence. I have some of his music and have always thought it was okay but never listened to it too much, but the music was even better live (a sign of a good musician!). I think I'll enjoy his music much more now after seeing him live.
-Vampire Weekend was a surprisingly good show; I love their music but have heard that lately they haven't been that great live, so my expectations were low. I think that they were actually my favorite of the festival; they were great fun and I would definitely like to see them again in concert.
-I had never heard of Amadou & Mariam before, but we went to their show and it was reggae music, which I really like if it is good, and they were fantastic!
-Asher Roth, what some call the new Eminem (aka not particularly my taste of music- rap) was actually a great show and he put on an impressive performance.
-Lily Allen was also a great performance. Similar to Patrick Wolf, I knew of her but didn't feel much about her music, but I thought she was great live and think I will enjoy her music much more now.

Johanna, Alex and me having a break from the music

All in all, the weekend was great. I think that I prefer concerts to festivals, mostly due to the intimacy of the venues where the bands that I like usually play, but the festival was great fun and I met a lot of really cool people. The larger group of people we were with consisted of about 12 or so people, making for a very fun atmosphere for the weekend!

Arrival in Sweeeeden

I'm exhausted, but my goal was to stay up until 9 pm Sweden time, and I am forty minutes from that, so soon I will get some rest. I am sipping on some chamomile tea, planning the weekend in Goteborg with Johanna. Her dad cooked us dinner and it was fantastic! First we had asparagus with some freshly grated cheese on it and salmon that is not "smoked" but very similar- not cooked, smokey tasting, but her father said it wasn't exactly smoked, so I'm not sure what to call it but you get the idea. It was very delicious. Main course was a salad with tomato, mushrooms, artichoke, and yellow peppers, with rice and very thinly sliced beef, two pieces together with cheese and Italian ham in between. For dessert I think we are having ice cream.
Tonight was a very lovely welcome to Sweden and I am ready to get a good night of sleep and take off to Goteborg tomorrow morning.

Björked

Wed Aug 12, 6:25 AM in Iceland
I’m now in Reykjavik, awaiting my flight to Stockholm. The flight from Boston was ok; I didn’t get much sleep on it, and there was a woman behind my who forgot that touch screens are in fact attached to someone else’s chair and therefore should be lightly touched, not repeatedly punched, and also my movies weren’t working, but I got some reading done and it went by reasonably fast. The flight from Boston to Iceland was only about 5 hours long, which is not bad at all.
The flight landed in Reykjavik at 11:40 PM their time. It is now 6:30 AM. Needless to say, I’m kinda sleepy. However, a large part of my eight hour long layover was spent sleeping, so I can’t complain. The airport here is beautiful but reasonably small and when I took a brief walk at about 4 AM time here, there were only 5 other passengers in the terminal awaiting morning flights like me, it was a bit eery. However, to add a little pizzaz to that, the security here patrols the airport on foot-powered scooters, which made my smile each time one went whooshing past.


My dinner consisted of an Icelandic Viking beer and their famous skyr.is yogurt, which is incredibly delicious and even has this clever little fold-up plastic spoon attached to it. How practical!

My breakfast is now consisting of another skyr.is yogurt and an apple. Most people know that Iceland is much cheaper than it used to be due to the severe collapse of their banking system and therefore economy, but I got my dinner- one beer, one yogurt, and one water, for $5! Not bad at all, even better than I was expecting.
The sun came out here at around 5 am and the landscape is barren from the view here, but very intriguing. I am very much looking forward to my return to Iceland.



Also, as you can see in this entry I uploaded my first picture to my blog. I will definitely be adding more photos with future entries!

Off to Europe!

Tuesday Aug 11, 1:45 PM
I’m sitting in Boston Logan airport, waiting for my flight to Iceland. I have a lot of mixed feelings at the moment. Excitement, of course, but I’m feeling a bit nervous, both about the travels and the beginning of school in London, and also a bit unnerved at how fast time goes. This summer has been great, but it has gone by amazingly fast considering I haven’t really done much. As I’m getting older things seem to be beautifully falling into place- really enjoyed undergrad at DePaul, got in to my dream graduate school, I am living abroad for a year, etc. Basically I’m exactly where I envisioned myself at this stage in life, but the fact that this stage is here already is a bit overwhelming. But, I really feel deep down that what I am doing with this year is exactly the right thing for me, so I will enjoy and relax during my month and a half of travels and visiting friends, and then hit the ground with my feet running at LSE. For now, I am signing off and will likely do my next entry during my gruelingly long eight-hour layover in Iceland.

Getting ready for departure

My visa arrived yesterday! Hallelujah! So much stress for that little piece of paper attached to my passport, but it is definitely a relief to have it in time for my planned departure.

Anyone who knows me reasonably well should know that I love to shop and really like clothes. So, to pack for a year in London with quite limited space is not an easy the task for me. I also need to divide that into two parts: packing for my month of travels and then packing the large suitcase which will be meeting me in mid September. I thought that packing for Belgium was difficult, and that was only 4 months! But, I suppose with a little discipline and a lot of picking favorites I will narrow down my wardrobe.

The first stop on my travels is Sweden. I will be arriving there early in the day on August 12 and will then be spending that day with Johanna at her family's home, in a small town between Stockholm and Linkoping. Thursday morning a group of us are driving to Gothenburg (on Sweden's west coast) for the Way Out West music festival. If you want to check out the artists playing, here's the link: http://www.wayoutwest.se/english

My favorite band, Beirut, is playing! I haven't seen them live yet, so I am very excited for this! This will also be my first multi-day music festival, so it should be an interesting experience.

The rest of my time in Sweden I will be hoping around from place to place. I will tell more about this when the time comes! For now, lots to do before I go.

The commencement of my year abroad

In exactly one week I will hopefully be flying over the Atlantic, approaching Iceland for my 8 hour layover on the way to Sweden. I'm sure that those 8 hours are going to be a bit rough, however I will be a happy camper if I am actually there; the processing of obtaining my UK visa (which requires my passport being with the UK consulate) in time for my departure has been a laborious and highly stressful task. I am sitting here awaiting my fate- my visa is currently at the embassy, hopefully being processed. I should find out first thing tomorrow morning.
Due to the quarter system at De Paul, graduation was not until June 14, and my degree did not get officially conferred until July 11. I had a conditional offer from LSE, on condition that I graduate and with a GPA of at least 3.5/4, and because of this my visa could not begin to get processed because all of the things the UK consulate needs that depended on me having an unconditional offer: official acceptance letter; visa letter; transcript; and most irksomely, proof of funds. When I booked my ticket to Sweden to depart the US on August 11 little did I think about the process of obtaining all these forms, getting them processed, dealing with [often idiotic] people, etc. etc. etc., and doing this in about five weeks, especially when they recommend sending in the visa application 6 weeks before departure. Due to me only having obtained all the various documentation a few days ago, I used an expediting service that expedites the passport in one day. So, fingers crossed, I will wake up to a nice little message from the expediters that my visa will be arriving tomorrow. My gracious and very patient mom, who has been more than helpful in this situation, has two bottles of champagne being chilled for celebration if/when I get the visa by this Tuesday.
Where a problem could arise with the visa is proof of funds. This was the last, and most annoying, piece of the puzzle. I won't go in to much detail about this here because it is complicated enough to keep me typing about it for the next 3 and a half hours, but let's just say that I did pretty much everything I was supposed to and when I was supposed to, but some things got delayed because some people basically did not scroll down the screen far enough and therefore did not approve certain things. Don't worry, LSE will soon be approving this loan (this year is putting me in a frightening amount of student loan debt, but it's okay because I am confident that my educational investment at LSE will have many many returns), but let's just say that I had to pull some tricks to show proof of funds. As of right now, it looks like the tricks have been successful, but I won't know for sure until that visa is in my hand.