festival fun

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Its been a pretty hectic few days since the last blog. Friday saw us head from Prague and the posh hotel with the seventies theme back to Germany and a field in the middle of nowhere for the Highfield's festival. The drizzle when we stopped at the supermarket wasn't the greatest sign but the many exciting things in the shop took my mind off it. Sadly the fact they don't take visa wasn't apparent until after they'd rung all the shopping through. Cue a run to the cash point and an embarrassed shuffle at the checkout. We found the festival eventually, parked the van and got settled in. Having been twice before, we knew what to expect ( lots of Germans, a strange drinking game and lots of noise). We headed to the arena via the wristband place to meet Alex and Rebecca the only other English people there who we persuaded to join us for the weekend. This is a German festival for German people. No English. Just Germans. Twenty thousand of them. Lots of germans. The first night was fantastic. Much drinking, talking to (and kissing, Ash!!!!!!!) a group of German lads and some dancing to Frank Turner, qotsa and getting wet feet in a puddle. The following day was spent napping and watching Friends before heading back for day two. This was what Ash had been waiting for; Blink 182. Today it rained. Quite a lot. Fortunately mostly at the time when we were back at the van playing heads up (new best phone game) So we wrapped up warm, headed back through the Beirut that is the campsite and waited. A few bands passed and we sampled the best ever German festival cuisine, the handbrot. All festivals need these. All lives need these. Bread, fresh baked, cheese, ham and a bit of sour cream. I'm starting a handbrot business when I'm back. More random Germans with phenomenal English and a few bands later and finally at midnight, Blink were on. Ash cried, it all got messy and we headed back, finally to bed..

Sunday at Highfield's ends earlier and is a bit less mad. The campsite is still like Beirut, there are still a very lot of drunk Germans but the headliners are on before midnight, yay! More handbrot, more rain and more bands from Latin ska to Macklemore and we were done. We said bye to Alex and Rebecca who were doing the festival posh staying in the new hotel at the site and left for bed. Next morning, it rained. A lot. Fortunately getting there late meant that although we were furthest from the stadium,we were closest to the gate to leave. So we headed off to Hanover for the traditional ' I couldn't get any less clean so I'm going to stand under a shower for an hour and sleep all day in a hotel bed' . The hotel was perfect for that. We arrived, had a burger king, checked in at two, showered and lay down on the bed to watch friends. Until midnight. Then we went to sleep. It dawned on me that we walked less than fifty steps the whole day. This is bad.

Checking out, our plan was to drive two and a half hours to a campsite in the south Netherlands. It would seem that Tuesdays are not the 'let's not go according to plan days'. First off thirty miles in we got stuck. Proper stuck. In traffic. So we found a detour and ...got stuck. And it rained a lot. And Jason's wipers stopped working. And it rained. And we were stuck. And Ash had a bit of a moment. So we found the golden arches of joy and stopped for some life affirming bad food.

The bad food did us good. Ash cheered up, Jason's wipers started working and the traffic cleared. All was well. Until.........we found the campsite and at just before six figured all would be fine to check in. It was shut. Not only shut but it appeared that no one was there. It was an actual ghost campsite. Simon the sat nav found us a plan b but it too was ....shut. The general area of Overijssel was...shut. Great. So the only option that didn't involve visiting all the great closed campsites of the south Netherlands (this clearly needs a whole holiday all of it's own.....), we booked a hotel in Amsterdam a couple of hours away and headed there a day early. We chose a hotel near the airport. On paper this is because its a bit cheaper and has reliably flat outside car parking. In truth its because Ash likes to look at planes landing and taking off!

A swim and a sandwich and the first few episodes of season four of friends and its time for bed.

Things I've learnt

Germans walk like they drive

Handbrots are the actual best food in the history of all foods

All people need to install ' heads up' on their phones and play it always

Standing on your own in a field of drunk Germans will get you a hug from a very bearded man

Lots of places in Germany don't take visa, neither do lots of places in the Netherlands.

Even the efficient German road system has accidents which close roads

MacDonald's contains something that makes van wipers start working again

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