Part Two!

Okay! I made it through my day. My to-do list was of an impressive length today, but as soon as this entry is posted, that will leave only one more thing to do, which is something I can accomplish before bed. :)

So, where was I? The end of the Mumford & Sons concert. After that, C and I decided to skip the headlining band "Die Ärzte" to keep the beautiful mood we had from Mumford & Sons. We went back to the campsite and went to bed DRY - a big difference from the first night!

Each of the morning's there, C and I happened to be up earlier than the rest of the folks we were with, probably because we went to bed a bit earlier. Each morning, we went and sat around the tiny camping-cooker that a friend of her's brought and we boiled some water and made instant coffee. We had individual sealed packets of coffee cream that we poured in and feasted on a breakfast of apples and bread with peanut butter, the provisions we brought for ourselves.  (True, we did bring other food, but it didn't usually end up being eaten with breakfast) And honestly, one of my favorite parts of the trip were those mornings. Still slightly goosebumpy from the fresh and crisp morning air, watching steam hiss out of the kettle while we sat on our picnic blanket and played a round of Cribbage and felt the sun becoming warmer and warmer.

On the second day, the first band we were interested in played later in the day, so we decided to go for a walk in the woods in the morning. This also turned out to be one of the best parts of the weekend. If you've ever been camping, you know that if it's unbearably hot out in the sun, the LAST thing you should do is seek respite in your tent. Since we were in desperate need of shade, the woods were heavenly. And, after hours of thousands of people and loud music and garbage and chaos, it was perfect serenity between the trees. I haven't spent that much time in southern Germany, but I am looking forward to doing so in the future. The rolling hills and vegetation so different to Mainz and to my hometown combined with the sweet air and silence made it hard to leave the woods. We walked for about an hour and took another walk later in the day, unable to keep ourselves from the trees! On the path we saw not only a black slug easily the length and thickness of my middle finger (apparently this is normal in Germany - I'm used to slugs being little and yellow and maybe the size of the last-knuckle-to-my-fingernail on my middle finger!) but also a massive snail who had staunchly set itself in the middle of the path and was eating a leaf. We watched it for a good minute and a half and a miniscule section of the leaf passed into its mouth. We walked on for fifteen minutes, turned around and found it in the same place on the way back, not visibly any further in its meal. It was so adorable and I don't know why!

After the visit to the complete opposite of a music festival, we returned to the festival itself. That afternoon, I went with a group of people to hear a newly popular German band called Kraftklub. C was going to join us momentarily, but she first went with another person to catch the last ten minutes of a concert by a guy named Frank Turner. I unfortunately missed the end of his show but have since then heard a bunch of his songs on youtube and they will definitely make it to the next radio broadcast. Kraftklub was fun to dance to, and we certainly did do some of that - but outside the tent that surrounded the stage, because they actually had to stop people from going in since it was getting way too crowded inside!

After that, we heard the beginning of the concert given by The Shins, a rather well-known group. They were enjoyable and clearly tight as a musical group, but not that entertaining from a concert standpoint. I wasn't dissapointed or anything - I just know that I like The Shins for background music while drinking a glass of wine or while cleaning off my desk, but they aren't entertaining enough for me to have listening to them as a single activity.

After that, we went and found Bat for Lashes. I knew two songs from this band. They were on the same stage in the tent that had been overfilled earlier in the day, but five minutes before the concert started, we walked in and were able to stroll up into the fourth row of listeners standing there. They are not well known, as this may indicate, but my goodness, they should be! The tent filled up quite a bit after they started and as soon as the first song began, I was addicted to the music. The band is made up of a lead singer, a bassist, a drummer, and an everything-else guy, who does things like piano, harpsichord and many electronic sounds, etc. You notice in this description that there is no guitar player, almost unheard of in most of today's popular music. But the space between the ethereal vocals of the lead singer and the heart-pounding bass that is left with the absence of the guitar is intoxicating. I found the performance so much more powerful live than on the cd songs that I have, which is hard to pull off. This band will, of course, be on my next radio broadcast. I still get goosebumps when I think about their performance.

After that, we strolled around, saw a bit of the Spain-France football game (Someone needs to just beat Spain already. I'm sick of their winning everything!) and then briefly attended The Cure, a very well known band. I was at that time reaching the end of my rope when it came to loud music and crowds. It's not like I never like loud music and crowds. It's like french fries -- yes, you want them. In fact, you want them often. But after you have them, after a while, you just want to stop eating. It's very suddenly just too much.  Exactly that was happening to me at that time, but everyone I was with was very kind and in similar moods, so we turned in a bit earlier.

Then, the next morning, C and I did a fantastically quick and professional dismantling of our tent and got on the road early -- too early, in fact. Our schedule had us leaving two hours before the first scheduled shuttle bus was to run, which we didn't know. But that led to more games of Cribbage and fun conversations about the weekend, so no harm done overall.

We made it home and enjoyed the warmth of the bed, the stove, the real coffee. And the week has started and I made it through my Monday. Whew!  Ultimately: the Southside experience was a success!