Monthly Archives: July 2009

Disaster Strikes in the Republic

Down I Go went to the Czech Republic to play a festival called Mighty Sounds. It was a Ska-punk festival, but we were playing anyway. Basically everything that could go wrong, went wrong, well almost. We played OK.

We flew out at 3am on Saturday morning, to play at 11pm that night, then fly back at 11am the following morning, so not much time for sleep. After a nightmare of working out how to get to the airport and buying non-refundable tickets for all the options we opted to get a lift with the Display Team (they were playing as well, and we’re sharing their drummer at the moment)

Then we got there and the weather was shit, the organizers took us to the hotel for some kip, then they were 5 hours late in picking us up. We were starving at this point, only Alan had the foresight to get some money out, and we’d spent practically all of it on a packet of crisps and a bottle of pear juice each.

Then we got to the festival and it was mud hell. They gave us bin liners to tie around our shoes. It was like walking around in diarrhea. Then after Pete promised us unlimited sausages and beer, they gave us one meal ticket (for prison food) and 2 beer tickets. It couldn’t get any better.

We tried to look for a rope to make into nooses but there was nothing that looked adequate enough. Retrospectively speaking I could have used a guitar lead, but I wasn’t in the best state of mind at the time.

Then eventually we played, then some other band played then the Display Team played, and then we were off. Or no, we weren’t there was delays with the shuttle coaches, so we were waiting an hour and a half in the rain until 4am for a bus to take us to the hotel for an hours’ sleep before the plane. And of course the bus for the plane was hideously late so that we only just made it to the airport on time.

Mighty Sounds 2010? Put me down!

Blue Caves

We took a trip from Cres island (in Croatia) to a secluded beach, with some underwater caves you can swim in.

We swam 30m down the side of a rocky outcrop of land, into what looked like a naturally formed underground carpark (if the ceiling was only half a metre up and the ground was water that is). Deeper in, it got darker, but there was a guy with a torch guiding us.

We got into a very dark big cave, which had a line of sunlight tinted blue at the far end, appearing to come from under the water.

There were maybe 30 people in here. Them the guide took us into a smaller cave. It was pretty cramped and to get there we had to squeeze through a narrow gap just wider than your head.

Once you were in there, you had to either grab a handhold on the rocks of the ceiling or just tread water to stay afloat.

We went back into the big cave, and our eyes had by now adjusted to the dark so you could see everything, just from the light coming in from under the water. There were bats on the ceiling.

Then we left through the entrance tunnel, where the water appeared to glow neon blue due to the adjustment of our eyes. It looked artificial like blue gatorade. That colour was something you can’t really take a picture of, you have to experience it.

Then we had barbecued sardines on the boat, which was delicious, with homemade wine (it had all that sediment in the bottom), but it was really light and chilled. yum.

Escape (to Croatia)

Managed to evade the authorities and sneak under the radar into Croatia for a week. The weather’s awesome, it’s scorching, we’re on a “party boat” moored to the dock of a town called Rijeka waiting to get on a catamaran to an island called Losinj or something like that. We thought it would be a good idea to just arrive there and find somewhere to stay but it’ll be really late when we get there. We’ll see.

Croatia’s sort of Slavic/Eastern European, but it’s also Mediterranean, really close to Italy, so people seem pretty relaxed. The way they speak is like czech with an italian accent.

It’s been ages since I last had a real holiday!! ESCAPE!!! Pics on my return.