Glastonbury 2011

Another year, another Glastonbury!!! And as always, it didn’t disappoint. This year it was a different experience for me but it was still a lot of fun! 🙂 It was the first Glastonbury since 2004 that I didn’t experience on my own. Mary was with me, which meant that camping with a small tent, no showering for 5 days, and toilets shared with other 200,000 people were not even considered as options 🙂 But first things first.

We arrived in London in order to spend two nights at Jim‘s place with him and his wife. Due to a miscommunication though, he was expecting us the week after Glastonbury so he ended up being at the Neo offices in Sweden while we spent time with his better half 🙂 Thanks K! We did end up seeing Jim and K for drinks when we got back from Glastonbury. It’s always a pleasure hanging out with my mate!

We took the bus to Glastonbury. As we were approaching, we started noticing the effects of the rain from the previous days. It was going to be another wet one!

  
Arriving at the Glastonbury site, thinking while playing Scramble (but still losing badly :-), waiting to be picked up.

So… We stayed at a yurt. I was very skeptical at the beginning but, I must admit, that it was much better than camping. It was spacious, clean, and we had to share a toilet only with another couple. That made Mary happy, which meant I was happy too 🙂

   
The yurt (inside, outside, and with its own toilet).

The site even had its own chill-out bar, which was another yurt, larger of course.

The yurt chill-out bar… substantial amounts of alcohol was consumed here 🙂

Yes, Glastonbury was muddy again, especially on Friday and Saturday. Really muddy! Not as bad as the 2007 one but still bad enough so that Mary was often seen making expressions like these:

      
There was a LOT of mud! Usually these fields are covered with grass but we could only see mud 🙁

This Glastonbury festival was all about exploring the site. I wanted Mary to get a feel of the arts, of the vibe, of everything that was happening. So we walked a lot, we went to different tents for comedy, dance, poetry, random performances. I think Mary really enjoyed the modern dance performances we saw. There is always something for everyone.

     
Performances at various stages/tents… Random drums, young kids doing circus (they were great), weird trio performing Mozart and Vivaldi, the Black Eagles were great as always, the theater/dance/acrobatics group Mimbre was amazing, drinks at the “Fluffy Rock Caf ” 🙂

And of course there were the random “street” performers and acts.

    
A very small sample of the random “street” acts. Of note is the twister game, apparently only a small portion of the larger board that was deployed the previous day.

We also experienced the food at the various stands with various degrees of success, at least for Mary.

    

Mary enjoying a Mediterranean wrap, which of course was my choice but since she didn’t like hers… 🙂

The yurt company also provided breakfast and dinner, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Saturday’s pork roast… mmm!

Of course, it wouldn’t be Glastonbury without good music. This time I stayed away from the mosh pit (as I said, a different Glastonbury experience 🙂 It was still a lot of fun! We saw U2 in the rain, Coldplay, Elbow (they were fantastic!!!), Paul Simon, Dan McLean, Queens of the Stone Age, and more. Not so many bands as other times.

      

“Pyramid” and “Other Stage” stages.

When the sun came out on Sunday, Glastonbury felt completely different. The paths dried out making it much easier to move around.

    

Sunday was a gorgeous day. We even met with Carole Goble and Dave De Roure, my usual partners in crime at each Glastonbury.

Mary was a great sport. It was her first festival experience of such scale and in such conditions but she handled it great. I was very proud of her 🙂 Not every moment was filled with smiles but we both managed to maintain our cool and make Glastonbury a really memorable experience.

         
Mary at Glastonbury

 

And then it was time to go…

  
The aftermath at the Pyramid stage (so much rubbish :-(. Mary was exhausted as we waited for the bus. She was full of energy the following day, discovering how addictive Angry Birds can be on the iPad during our flight back to Seattle.

 

Definitely another memorable Glastonbury. Too bad there isn’t going to be one next year. We are going to be there in 2013 though!!!