Belgium, Italian Flying & Greek Sweat.

So much for the weekly updates.

I'll start with our eurail trip to Belgium. Pretty much trouble free - payed 20 pounds from reading to London, and 25 pounds from London to Belgium and back, as well as all trains in Belgium. Interesting difference in value. Upon arriving in Brussels, we found some other backpacking, black-clad people who knew which trains to take to get to Dessel, the closest town to the festival. On the train there, we met a bunch of swedes who had a little group going, and ended up sharing a cab with them to the festival grounds - the train station at Dessel was full of about 10,000 metalheads, and an hourly bus didn't sound too appealing. In the taxi on the way there, the driver told us that the government dumps all the nuclear waste in that area, and the background of the festival was a big power plant. Metal.
We were a day early to the camp ground, but since we were foreigners we were allowed in. We queued for about 3 hours to get in - they opened everyone's bags and checked for glass bottles. The only thing was, they did not tell anyone this, so slowly the word made it down the queue. Most people had an average of 4 liqueur bottles with them, so the whole lot got drunk very quickly.
Upon entering the camping area, we walked forward and set up, our group setting up a little circle. We had a very good position - we were away from the makeshift roads, and close to the festival area entrance. We spent the rest of the night chatting to the group and (some) got an early night.

First day of the festival, woke up in the bright sunlight. Cooked some tinned ravioli, and then headed over to the festival ground. It was about a kilometer between the two, and so over the next three days we would walk an average of about 10KM a day! The festival ground was very empty still, as the tent area was filling up with locals. We browsed the stalls a little, and then the first bands started. Sabaton was the first band we watched, and an instant favorite. There were 4 stages, one main and 3 marquees. We had a programme and roamed around between the two, munching on over priced food or heading back inbetween sets to cook. Aerosmith was the main event that night, and we wanted to see Therion, which only started at 1 in the morning. It was fucking cold and Aerosmith were crap so I slept at the table while Rob watched the band. They did not play Walk This Way. We nearly fell asleep at Therion out of sheer exhaustion, but the band was brilliant and heavy.

Day Two. Rain was becoming a constant now, and our tent was leaking. The fly sheet had been ripped and was falling apart, and so we managed to find a tarpaulin lying around and draped it over ours. Still a few leaks, we found some bin bags and strapped them to the side of our tent. Pasta in tomato sauce gets old, fast. Watched many great bands, with the highlight of Iron Maiden in the evening. Played a short set, but was awesome to finally see them.

Day Three. Sore and tired, wet and cold. We smelled bad by now. The festival had a pretty good washing area of about 50 sinks, but with 1000 people to a sink you can imagine what they looked like after three days. They were unisex and in Europe, so we had hairy old men scrubbing their balls next to the women, and people 'washing' their faces in the plugged, murky, foamy sinks. Everything at the festival becomes "good enough" - "are we dry?" "dry enough". "Are we clean?" "Clean enough". Toilets were also provided, and for the most part worked very well. For a piss, at least for the guys, anywhere would do. Robert saw a lady walk into a cubicle and come running out about 3 seconds later throwing up all over herself. I'll leave that to explain the conditions of the cubicles. They had a very stupid rule of taking nothing in the way of drinks over to the festival ground, so at the gates into the festival area, there was a 3 m high mound of beer cans. Ozzy Osbourne was the main event for that night, and was a bit of a joke. Amon Amarth played before, and were definitely the best live show in the festival.

I wish I could capture the festival atmosphere. A grey sky, with 40,000 tents. Flags of various armies and countries flying in the strong wind and constant, constant noise. Viking warchants, national anthems, song choruses, random screams of "SLAYER!" and "MAIDEN!", explosions, smoke billowing over the top, and people everywhere.

It was an awesome time. We took the train back with our group and had a short walk through Brussels, which is a wonderful city. We found an Irish pub and spent the rest of the day there, and caught our train back. We had a two hour delay just outside of London because someone smeared themselves over 6 of our carriages, and so we were sitting there. In our carriage there was a very drunk lady who told us every 2 minutes where her son was, and 3 Oxford physicists who kept telling her to shut up. I have not laughed so hard for a long time.

We bought a tent from the Americans in our group, a 6 man from Walmart. We got it for 40 euros, and the equivalent costs about 250 pounds in England, so everyone was happy. We set it up in Rob's garden on our return from Belgium and love it. We hit the town to get some camping gear (proper pots, stools, and lamps), and spent the rest of the day shooting. We got up the next day for out last day before we flew, and upon checking out schedule realised our flight was in 3 hours. A bit of swearing and very quick packing, we were in heathrow, in a 2 hour queue for our Airitalia flight.

Italian flying is not something I enjoy. This guy was taking us on a joy ride - swooping everywhere, and instead of announcing that we were going to land, he did the steepest nose dive I have ever experienced through the clouds, did a hard 90 degree turn and hit the tarmac. We were delayed in our stop over in Milan due to various very Italian discussions going on in the security queue, but eventually boarded our flights to Athens. We arrived in a very nice airport, albeit deserted. After approaching a travel agent, we had a taxi on the way and a 'hotel' booked for 200 euros for 4 nights.
The taxi drive was very surreal - there was not a single car on the brand new road, so our driver never dropped under 120kpm, with all windows open. We arrived at our 'hotel' and were shown to our room. There are 2 bunks in there plus another bed and that's it. No light, plugs, fans, windows or anything. In the room the temperature is definitely not below 40C, so we went to bed and lay their roasting.

Finally we come to today. We are sitting in an Internet cafe now writing this, dreading the walk home. We woke up around 2 in the afternoon, were too hot to move for another hour, had a cold shower and walked around town trying to find a supermarket. We didn't, so had some ice cream and pastry (the only food available around here), and tried to look for an electronics shop that sold a portable fan for the room. No luck.

I can't put up any pictures yet, as they will not allow me. Once we get back to England we will upload lots.
Tomorrow we will look at some day trips around the surrounding Islands and Athens. They are fairly pricey but we figure we down here so we might as well.

We are having a great time, and have managed to laugh at everything that has gone wrong so far. We have met alot of cool people so far, and look forward to the festival here in Greece (METALLICA!!!!!!)

Will update as soon as possible.