This gradual spiralling descent was interrupted and ultimately broken by our company event to Kiruna. The company flew everyone, including partners, on an all expenses weekend trip to Kiruna, the northernmost city in Sweden and situated within the Arctic circle. The company had hired some event organisers to plan the weekend with events. I mean, what can you do with a few hundred people on a frozen river? Well quite a lot, it turns out. We flew up on the Friday morning and spent the afternoon in groups building fortifications for the ensuing snowball tournament. The evening consisted of a fantastic meal at the hotel's restaurant (did I mention we were staying at a ice hotel?) and inevitably ended horribly in the Absolut Ice Bar. I think I need to emphasise the ice hotel bit - it's exactly what it says. The whole thing is built out of ice and compacted snow. There are only curtains in the doorways for privacy, but since it's -5 degrees inside you don't need it that much. It's cunningly lit with LEDs and holes in the ceiling let in natural light. Additionally, it gets rebuilt each year from scratch by construction crews and teams of artists which come from all around the globe to work on it. And the work is amazing.
So anyway, this Absolut Ice bar is built completely out of ice. The bar, the tables, the benches, even the glasses are made of ice. It's cold in there, but fortunately there's plenty to keep the cockles of yer heart warm. The drinks are sweet, cold, and hit you like a silent sledgehammer. I'm normally a relatively controlled drinker, but these drinks sneak up on you like a windshield on a bug. So I was awoken the next morning by the 'wake-up' guy and a hot berry drink. Where was I? How did I get there? Why did my head ache so? No answers - although Moni had a few for me. And the guys at breakfast. And a bunch of other guys I'd never met before. Apparently I told the Sheep joke at least twice ("hey, that's the sheep joke guy!") and was eventually dragged to my sleeping bag by a less than jovial Moni who was even less jovial when I asked her if she'd be pissed off with me if I vomited. She answered in the affirmative so I didn't. On the bright side if I'd had've popped it've been all frozen by the morning - an addition to the hotel by a particularly gifted artist.
Don't think I've ever experienced quite that hard a hangover before, and it lasted the whole day. Didn't even consider going away at any point. Pulled myself up out of my sleeping bag. My boot laces were frozen stiff, which is just the sort of added difficulty you need at that moment. To my utter salvation there was a delicious selection of the fattiest fried breakfast foods I could have thought off. Bacon, sausages, eggs, baked beans, toast... just what a poor man needs in that condition.
The Saturday was spent doing activities. The really awesome ones were dog sledding and driving snow mobiles. (Incredibly, the woman I was paired with managed to prang our snowmobile into the parked one in front of it. That's what brakes are for, luv.) The other notable event was the song recording, where we huddled in a warm hut with some professional recording equipment and sang our own rendition of 'I Will Survive'. Such fun. Least interesting was ice fishing, apparently. Regardless, it was a hard day, and my rest in the nice warm 'regular hotel' with hot shower and fluffy bedding was a blessing.
Sunday was a bit of a chill-out day before climbing aboard our plane and heading back home. And that was the company event. A great way farewell the winter. Back to Zürich, work and routine.
The routine lasted for several months in fact, and then there was the break up of my relationship with Moni. It was a difficult time, but it eventually passed. Moni and I still see each other regularly, play DnD in the same group and maintain contact.
July brought about a birthday party in Grindelwald, the Gurten music festival in Bern, and an insane bike crossing of the Grosse Scheideck involving 1500m of vertical climb, which I accomplished on the Hog. My beer was earned that day.
The major event of August was without question the Sziget music festival in Budapest. My mate Andy and I started in Vienna, crashed a few nights there at Petzi's new flat. She'd received the keys the day we arrived, so thanks to her generosity we had a big empty flat to ourselves for three or four days before the painter came. It's a bit out of Vienna but is wonderfully quiet, and not worrying about waking people up when stumbling in at 4am is a definite luxury. Navigating there's a bit tough though - I played navi for a taxi driver using his map on one night. We got there, eventually.
Hundert Wasserhaus, and riding clumsy rented city bikes.
Chilling in a park, and Apple Strudle in Bretzl Gwolb.
We found hosts in Budapest for the weekend! A lovely family with two kids took us in over the weekend, so just as Vienna was getting historic we took the three or four hour train ride (35 euros) to Budapest. We cooked them dinner one night, played guitar and talked a lot about Hungarian artists and musicians. It was a wonderful interlude before the storm to come, and I think they really enjoyed our company too. Hooray for Couchsurfing! A brief exploratory excursion of the city for a day and it was time to head on to Sziget.
And then we were there on Óbudai-sziget ("Old-Buda Island") on the Danube, bang smack in the middle of Budapest. But to any of the 382,000 people in attendance simply Sziget will do. Getting in on the Monday meant we were able to find a primo camping spot. The ensuing week was simple, undiluted craziness. There were around ten individually themed stages, and another ten or so event locations. There's no way we could hope to have seen everything, so we picked our way through the event schedule and meandered from stage to stage to see the best acts. Sometimes the decisions were painful but I was never disappointed. Andy and I both had a sick day which rendered us useless for around 24 hours. The cause may have been any or a combination of the following: alcohol, smoking, diet, heat, dehydration, sleep deficiency, over partying, hygiene, or as-yet medically unproven factors. We don't know which, but once our respective 24 hours were up all was well again and party time resumed. A typical day consisted of being woken up by a continual thunderous, pounding roar from the Headbanger's Hall. Down the street to the nice pizza lady for a slice, then to the espresso girl. Shower if the queues weren't too long, brush teeth and go for a mindless meander around the camp. Then it was time to grab the camping stools and assemble by the Blues Bar for the first beer of the day. The rest of the day divided between making friends, catching acts, eating (maybe crêpes for variation) and drinking. Add occasional events of notable craziness (such as playing in mud, being struck by the gods themselves or being sent on one's way by Neanderthal torch-swinging bouncers) and the day swiftly becomes action packed. The bottom line is that it was a hullova great festival, and I've got every intention of going back. Long live Sziget!
