Warning, one more of those NZ stories. If you're reading the notes on my facebook they're automatically streamed and not at correct as my blog. Check out the page: http://isobelll.blogspot.com
I love adventure! So when I was hitching upwards from Wellington on the North Island of New Zealand in February 2009 I asked the driver if they had any idea of where I could stay that night. Any Cool Beaches close by? Waitarere was my answer. Sweet. A couple of hitches later I was at a camp site close by the beach and heard the story about this Forrest - it was suppose to be one of the places they'd filmed Gollum, not that I was to interested in finding the spots. That was not why I travelled New Zealand. (But I must admit that Mount Doom was pretty awesome!).
However my bankcard wouldn't work and the camping site was pretty expensive anyways so I went to the local store to get some cash out. As I asked the guy behind the counter if he knew anywhere where I could crash in my tent for the night without having to pay he look with huge eyes at me like he'd never heard of such a thing. But the lady, with a little daughter, behind me in line spoke up and said "Why don't you come and stay on our lawn?" Sure, sweet!
As we walked off she explained that her neighbour was out of town and I might just as well use his house, a couple of minutes later she said that she had a guest house - that they normally rented out for people on longer vacations - and I might just as well stay in there. Ha!! As we got to her place she quickly put a beer in my hand, said hi to her husband and started making dinner - vegetarian of course! They were really happy to hear my stories and said that they knew someone in Sweden who's stayed with them before.
After dinner me and the lady went to the beach, oh the beautiful beach, and checked out the sunset. Mm. We said our goodnights and I went to drink some tea, yeah! There was tea in my own little cabin with a real bed and shower. As I was writing up my adventures for the day in my Diary which I'd try to keep up to date the house suddenly started shaking. WTF?! I got real scared and ran outside after struggling ot get the door open. No one but me out in that dark night. And after a while it stopped. Shit. Is it gonna start again? Is there a big one coming on? What was the right thing to do? Why hadn't I researched this a bit better before coming to this Earthquake country? After a while I fell asleep, still scared but ok. Nothing, from what I know, got broken. But much later I found out that it had been a 4 on the Richter scale. Shit! Scary stuff!
Next morning I made my way into the Forrest and tried to find Gollum, or his remains. I never did but the Forrest sure was creeping me out. And I came up with the brilliant idea that I'd cross the low bushes that stretched about 400 meter from the Forrest edge to the beach. Couldn't be to hard could it? Guess again! With a narrow undergrowth and some thorns I soon understood why most, clever anyways, people stay out of these bushes. And as always I as way to stubborn to turn back. About an hour later I'd crossed, crawled, slide and climbed my way to the beach with a fair few cuts and bruises. Children, don't try this at home!
The Gollum Forrest
The 400 meters of Bush between the Forrest and the ocean, doesn't look to hard does it?
Me on video in that Forrest talking about whats been going on.
And Finally, The Beach. Doesn't look to impressive on photo but fuck, that thing keep going for miles and miles in each direction and even though the water was less then "yay, lets go swimming - temperature" I walked along the shore for quite a while.
Today's Person: Everyone who invites a total stranger into their home and hearts. I'll be forever thankful for your help!
Fore those of you who read the automatically streamed notes in Facebook, this is my real blog address: http://isobelll.blogspot.com where you can actually see the videos. =)
Getting another cold, having my days again and all at once while I was suppose to be trying out a new job today. I called in sick. Not really being able to swallow. Can't taste anything. Drinking way to little. Watching the Michael Jackson memorial and missing him. I also found my old band T-Shirt. Or I did a couple of weeks ago actually. I was getting ready for that larp that I went to when I needed to have about 10 love letters with me that my character was suppose to have written and I hand no inspiration at all. So I googled old love letters and put on some heartbreaking old music that I used o listen to when I was a teen. Of Course Michael Jackson was a huge part of my lie when I was about 12 (?). And I've never stopped loving his music. So with "Will you be there" in my ears I finally got to write the letters.
There are lots of cool (?) punkers at my place most of the days, mainly cause two of them live here and amongst a lot of other thing they got their love for different band T-Shirts in common. And I didn't wanna be left outside so I found my old band T-Shirt which I've started to use and nightshirt over the last months and put it on. This was about 3 weeks ago. Then I went to the larp, way out in the Forrest without any connection to the outside world. It started at June the 25 where I turned of my cell and the modern world. As soon as the larp ended - the guy my character had written those love letter to - told me that Michael was dead. What? Nah! That can't be true.
It didn't hit me until last night when I watched the Memorial live stream via CNN. Shit, there's the casket. The living room - where I live - was once again filled with the punks playing some video game about killing zombies or rather one was playing it while the rest of the four were glued to the screen in amazement. And later on the homo-erotic boxing game at least made it possible for two of them to play at the same time. Not that I can understand why its so much fun Watching someone Else killing things. But hey, life's got a fair few mysteries left, don't you thing?
So as they were playing I watched the Memorial in my computer corner with headphones and as Michaels brother came on the show singing "Smile" tears stared filling my eyes. He'd touch many of our life's for the last 4 decades and it doesn't even matter if the accusations against him are true or not (but as an old fan I never believed them) I couldn't care less about his private life but I truly loved his music (even though Michael only did a cover on that song once). The evening went on and more and more of the old classics and lots of speeches, often way to long, were streamed into my laptop. It might have been my having a bad cold, getting my period and all of that mess but I truly cried. And as Paris, his 11 year old daughter said "Daddy, I love you" all of us (the fans) cried. So I guess, Thanks Michael for making great music. And even though I really don't believe in God I do hope that you find the rest you so deserved. Come to think about it it somehow already felt like he died lots of years ago, no offence intended. So when the body caved I wasn't surprised. I hope he had at least some happy years at the end. It must have been really hard for him. Ha, so now you know another (big) secret, I'm one of those old MJ fans - might not have been the first guess considering what I'm listening to now days. Or well, I think I've sort of come full circle and can appreciate lots of the old tunes, found my "Hip Hop Nerve" and love the sweet funk again.
Movie of the Day: Revolutionary Road - watched it a second time today, its a real good one! The Characters are well played and feel very realistic. Song of the Day: Depeche Mode - Home When that song came on live at Arvika Festival I finally "understood" Depeche Mode.
The pressure was on! Come on, give me the last day! And you failed? What? I fell asleep to "Anna Ternheim" who's real sweet but way to slow for a festival, didn't even bother going to Jenny Wilson cause I knew it was gonna be sort of the same. Then the third girl started singing with one of those cute voices and I almost went berserk. I would have if I wasn't so tired. Even to tired to go to "Mustasch" and I saw some of "Fleet Foxes" which was really nice but once again way to slow.
Thåström was really nice though, even if he was slow as fuck too.
Thåström on stage, with two left pary flags in the middle of the audience =). Probably most know for his old song, I think in some other group, "Die Mauer". But my favourite one is: "Fan Fan Fan".
After Thåström I went to go see DAF which were supose to be real good, but fuck no! Horrible! It might be that people don't know enough German to understand their lyrics but thas shit? Fuck no! With song like "I want, I want, I want that my heart will pump as long as it can". WTF?? And just as I got there he said something about going "right" politically or I felt like he was saying that jsut after I'd been to Thåström reminding us all how important socialism is. Two thumbs down for DAF - the horrible electro monoton boring band with brainless lyrics.
The end of the Festival for me was with the band "Korn" which I've listened to since I was about 14, not frequently but still. =) They knew how to pull of a show.
I woke up a 8 AM in a boiling tent, with sweet sunshine and a need for a bath. Our camp went to the close by sea and went swimming even though it didn't make a lot of difference - the water was 26 C!! Spent some time with my mum and ad a huge pizza =). As she left I started drinking and the first show of the day was Welle:Erdball. I'd seen them before but this time they were really good, the show was cool and it brought back lots of memories. And in the middle of the show they added lots of pink balloons that went bumping throw the audience - sweet!
Next concrete for me was "Bob Hund" which I've sort of heard on the raido but never really listened to and wow, they were great! Definitely one of my new favourites bands. Happy, jolly with dry Swedish humour and a lot of political messages.
The singer in Bob Hund - he was a real performer! One of their new (?) songs: Folkmusik för folk som inte han bete sig som folk Kinda translated: People's for people that can't behave like people.
Next one up was Depeche Mode!!! Wow, never thought I get to see them live. Just as Bob Hund I hadn't heard to much of them more then their hits but wow, the live show was great.
They really knew how to satisfy an audience. And had some cool things to say aswell. Their most famous song is probably: Personal Jesus
The surprise of the day was Fever Ray who I never heard before but sooooo goood!
Fever Ray had a real cool laser show.
This is a video of the concert but if you rather wanna hear a good version of the song, look further down.
So I went to the Arvika Festival and - of course - had a blast. Not as I thought it would be but real good anyways. I stayed clear from almost all the flirting and concentrated on the music and my camp.
I was lucky enough to drive a small bus from Stockholm to Arvika which was great, only problem was that even though a guy knew that we were going the wrong way didn't say anything. So we made a D-tour that took about 2 ? hours? Gah! But once we got there everything was sweet. The bus was used as Depeche Modes transportation the following day =). But I didn't drive it.
So the Acts? Wow! They were great!
The Festival stated of with having a huge hug with my mum, drinking champagne and going to see one of my favourite bands "Detektivbyrån". Yay!
Mum and me outside my "new" tent I got for 75 kr at an odd shop so that I didn't have to bring my good one along.
Second band of the day was "Röyksopp" a Norwegian electronic duo (?) which are pretty good but I was more in the mood for beer with Mum so I listened with half an ear and concentrated on my beer. Cause Nine Inch Nails were gonna come on stage soon. We'd bought some, which we otherwise never do, band t-shirts and had "NIN" written over out chests.
Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor again. He's a one man band who makes all the music and under the name of "Nine Inch Nails" tours with a band to preform his music.
Neither me or Mum could get anything else in our heads or hearts after that show so we went talking for a bit and on towards a good nights sleep. At my camp sight there were lots of people everywhere partying just like it should be on a festival and just as I was gonna crawl inside my sleeping bag some people placed a HUGE stereo outside my tent and started to dance frenetically to some sort of house. I thought I might have troubles sleeping or try to talk to them to move the that thing and their party somewhere else but hey, I can sleep throw anything. It just meant that I dreamt about dancing. =)
Me as Mother Tyra at the larp, Kalle Lanzt is the fabulous photographer!
I'm promising to report back later but the status right now is that I've come home from Tueonelas Port which was a larp, loved and hated it at the same time and am going - ridiculously early - to the Arvika festival tomorrow morning to see Nine Inch Nails, Depeache Mode and Korn amongst others. And NIN with my Mummy!! So I'm coming back to ya about everything later on, as soon as I'm back in town.=)
Addictions: Travel + Hitch hiking, tea, art, dance, larp, play, cartwheels, my cell phone, music, the road, computers n' internet
Politics: Green-Veggie-Queer-Anarchist-Socialist
Loves: Animals&Nature, dark chocolate, warm hands, Urban Exploration, hitch-hiking, demonstarting, creating stuff/art, dancing, runnin' through the grass bare feet, adventures
Hates: to freeze, winter, autumn, losing control, my conscience, Falling in Love
Scared of: insects, the dark, Pennywise the Clown, Losing control, deep water, meat, freedom of will and not having freedom of will, the entrapment of a "relationship" (I'm a Relationship Anarchist), capitalism
Massive Attack, Queen, AFI, Takida, CombiChrist, Björk, Coheed & Cambria, Lacuna Coil, Deine Lakain, Bush, Pink, Rammstein+Tatu-kombo, Juli, Covenant, VNV Nation, Soulfly, Nine Inch Nails, System of a Down, Silbermond, K-pist, Tool, Stabbing Westward, Within Temptation, Smashing Pumkins, The Used, Skillet, Architecture in Helsinki, Säkert!, Detektivbyrån, Fall out boy, Kate Nash, Freak Kitchen, Hello Saferide, Gwen Stefani, Eskalator, GoGol Bordello, Muse, Fall out boy, Shout Out Louds, Antony and the Johnsons, Blink 182, Rage agains the machine, Skunk Anansie, Arcade Fire, Silverchair, Kent, Dntl, Kora, Minuit, Sidewalk, Ladi 6, Lykke Li, Lamb, Lama, Stay Ali, Dubstep+Drum&bass, Mint Royal, Sigur Rós, Fat Freddy's Drop, Katchafire, The Black Seeds, Sidewalk, Joel&Joakim... and much more.
The Gollum Forrest
The 400 meters of Bush between the Forrest and the ocean,
And Finally, The Beach. Doesn't look to impressive on photo but fuck, that thing keep going for miles and miles in each direction and even though the water was less then "yay, lets go swimming - temperature" I walked along the shore for quite a while.
