Archive for August 16th, 2008
Going on holiday
My vacation from the university is coming to an end. And there sure has been some great times.
Roskilde Festival 2008
The first week of my vacation, I spent on the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. I decided to go despite my wet experience last year. Fortunately I was lucky this year. In the morning around 9 am I’d wake up in the tent literally swimming in my own sweat. No matter how wasted I’d feel after a long night out I’d have to rip of my sticky sleeping bag, get up, struggle with my shoes – if I could find them – and eventually fiddle with the zipper desperate to get out. This would save me a few hours to peacefully hang in my chair (if it hadn’t been stolen) with a gentle wind in my hair… Till noon – then there would be absolutely nowhere in the entire area to hide from the burning sun. Gee it was hot.. But I shouldn’t complain. We had a great time. Some of the best concerts I went to would be Radiohead, Band of horses, Veto, Lulu Rouge and Tina Dickow. The programme wasn’t that good but there really is more to come for – the people, the primitiveness, the dimly lit, vivid camps and just the whole atmosphere. Sounds pretty, right?
Moving on. Another great part of my vacation was the caravanette trip to Italy with my family. It was basically the six of us stuffed in the car, 14 squaremetres of space tops, for two weeks. We decided to go south and – to mention the main destinations – ended up in Venice, Lago di Garda, Milano and the mountains in Switzerland. Great trip with a lot of beautiful sights.
On this vacation I also read a couple of books since I had a fair amount of time to kill on the road. I’ve never been much of a book enthusiast but if it’s good I tend to get quite hooked. One thing I like about reading books is that it really gives you time. Time to pause and wonder. Think about certain sentences you’ve just read. Anyway, the books I brought from home was Into the wild by John Krakauer and The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly. I knew Into the wild from the excellent movie by Sean Penn and I really think the story is amazing. So was the book. The Lincoln Lawyer however turned out not to be my cup of tea. Sure, it was clever and all – just not my kind of book. I finished it because I had nothing else to read at the time. Later when we came to Milano – right to the centre of it actually – I found this great, quite charming bookstore. In the basement they had loads of English books. I decided to buy a couple of classics, The Animal Farm by George Orwell and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I finished The Animal Farm quite fast. It was clever, funny, grotesque – depicting the Russian revolution. Huckleberry Finn I’m still reading..
Unfortunately it hasn’t all been music, road tripping and fiction. I’ve also worked. In a week I’ve finished about five weeks in Supergros the Herning department. Like last year when I worked there, it’s been a struggle because I’ve had to get up at 6 am – which I’m not used to – and well, because the work isn’t the most exhilarating. But pushing the moaning aside, I’ve earned some money and that’s really all that counts.
What’s also made the working period a bit tough is the other job I’ve had and still haven’t finished. Among other things my dad imports these different kinds of floor sweepers and scrubbers, and in Denmark it’s required that a danish manual follows stuff you sell. So these are the ones I’ve literally spent hours maybe days translating. It’s really time consuming and a bit stupid. Flipping back and forth between Open Office and my dictionary translating stuff like “when you turn the wheel to the left, the machine goes left”. Whoa!? Really?! Not what I expected… Anyway it has also been a source of income, so it’s not so bad.
Even though I’m slowly getting used to wandering around in Supergros, I’m also looking forward to getting back in school. I feel like I need a break from my so-called vacation. That’s why I’ll soon be “Going on holiday” again.
