Magpie wrote:

Yeah, I was going to ask you as well, and then I remembered you'll move soon.

As for prices, well, I can spend a lot more than I'm willing to spend... 'cause, you know, every cent I don't spend is a cent closer to my future garden...
I don't really know what "reasonably priced" would be for a hotel... I've only stayed in hotels twice in my life, once when I was about five, and once on a business trip, so I've no idea what that cost, either.
If you'll check with the hotel and let me know what it'd cost, that would be great.

Sent you a pm!

Tried to reply, but your inbox is full!! Too much chatting, lady!! So here's my pm:

Fab! I've changed it.... so there's no way back now, as I think the 3-person room will be gone soon.... and this will be soooo much more fun than being somewhere on your own!!! It's breakfast included as well... and they do a good brekkie!!

Happy happy dance!!

Hugs!

So we do the two rooms and go back and forth to the festival with the four of us!!

Hey, are you guys staying in the same hotel we did last year?  They DO do a very nice breakfast spread.  And had nice big showers too.

cyan wrote:

Hey, are you guys staying in the same hotel we did last year?  They DO do a very nice breakfast spread.  And had nice big showers too.

Yep staying there again and doing the twice-daily "boat-ride".... hahaha

Well I'm pretty sure I haven't cancelled my day off on Thursday (as I originally thought CF would start on Thursday). And of course I love your taking pictures and chattering Latin! And in the evening I have to show you my mini-garden of course! So just let me know where you'd like to go on Thursday (or if you want to just relax at my place) and I'll come and pick you up and we'll go together. The project lead will want me present on Monday though, but I can start a little later, meaning I'll kick you out at a quarter to eight in the morning. (And can even give you a lift to the station, as I'll be going there too.)

I can't quite convince myself that this is only a couple of days away! I think my brain still is somewhere in Italy!

I still haven't had any time to think about what to do on Thursday. Though the biking you mentioned in the Mint, Sahi, sounds nice - I'm definitely not fed up with biking now, just with hills/mountains, and I doubt we'd encounter any of those!
If we do that, it will probably be better if I come to Assendelft, right?

Haven't decided what I'll do on Monday, either, but if I don't come up with anything else in the few remaining days, I'll just go look at the botanical garden in Amsterdam again, and wander around the town a bit.


I was planning to make myself a new dress this year, but never got around to it. But my mother gave me her Dirndl dress that doesn't fit her any more, and since I never wear it, I figured I might as well wear it to Castlefest for a day or two.

Also, have I mentioned I'm so proud of myself for how I got rid of Manu's ticket? By the time I knew she definitely wasn't coming, you two had already got your tickets, and I was kicking myself for buying them so early - but how was I to know she'd get a new boyfriend and go on holiday with him, right at the beginning of August? So I posted on the Vana events forum that I had a ticket to give away, and since I didn't get any replies in the international section, I scraped together my little bit of Dutch and posted in the Dutch forum. And ended up writing several e-mails in Dutch - so proud of myself for not saying, "Can we please go on talking in English?", but instead forcing myself to try, and reminding myself that I'm perfectly allowed to make mistakes. So at Castlefest, I will then have to find the person I sent the spare ticket to, since part of my payment for it consists of a book, so I can practise my Dutch by reading (after all, that's how I learned most of my English.)

Heheh, oops! Sorry I wasn't online last night. I found your message and sent you a message back to your phone.

I can't wait!

Back home. We had a great time. Pictures will follow later. Right now my head is still in Faery.

I keep meaning to post here, but I kind of lacked the motivation up to now. Didn't realize until today, when goofing around with my best friend made me feel a lot better, that I was still feeling down about it being over.
The first wave of it hit me in the car, on the way back to Sahi's place on Sunday evening. That was more the sadness about Castlefest being over.
The second wave came on Wednesday, when I was back at work - the sadness about the Smarchmoot being over. I rarely feel lonely, but I did that day! I've hardly ever had a workday that dragged by so slowly, that felt so boring, with no-one to talk to and goof around with...

Anyway. I usually keep a diary when I'm travelling, but I didn't bother this time, so this is just random moments I remember, and I can't promise they're in chronological order.

… the train from Munich turning out to be the same kind of old rattletrap as I’d travelled to and from Italy just before – they usually have newer trains on that line, in which the seats are arranged differently, so the seat numbers didn’t match up, and they’d actually taped a piece of paper over the seat numbers and written the numbers that I and some other people had reservations for on that. So I spent a rather uncomfortable night with little sleep there – but at least I got some sleep – after all, I’d had plenty of practise from the Italy trip.

… cycling to the farm with Sahi and realizing that without hills, I have so totally no sense of direction.

… falling asleep in my chair repeatedly before I joined Sahi in making flowers, and then cutting and cutting and cutting felt until my finger fell asleep (and I think it still hasn’t entirely woken up, I still have a numb spot – no idea what I did to it).

… standing in a ridiculously long line before we got our bracelets and could go in.

… walking away from the first Omnia concert, and thinking that it’s really sad if the sound check is the best part of it.

… Libra going back and forth about whether to buy a dress that cost about as much as my entire trip.

… ending the first day with some Eastern European-ish music, which I generally enjoy, but finding that German lyrics just throw me off… my mind is much too focused on languages!

… watching a vampire-toothed Ronald McDonald doing the macarena to that music.

… watching a guy nearly faint after being put in a corset, and Sahi and Libra showing their Cyan-made costumes off to one of the corset makers/sellers – you got lots of compliments, Cyan!

… Rain. Seriously crazy rain. Sheltering in a tent, and watching water being pushed off the roof – hearing people yell as they were hit by that water. Watching people just continue dancing in the downpour. Realizing, when the rain stopped, that the paths were just flooded, and there was no getting around the puddles, and just taking off my shoes. Jumping in puddles with Libra. Returning to a wet cloak but a miraculously dry bag that still contained dry shawls and a pair of wonderful warm socks, and deciding I should just knit lots of socks to sell next year. And other rainy-day plans: a bubble-wrap cloak and the Magic Pink Pony Rubber Boots of Protection.

…the rain starting again, and the meadow in front of the stage turning into a sea of umbrellas and rain ponchos in a matter of seconds. Deciding to leave early, because Omnia probably wouldn’t be good again, and the wicker boar – which I still think looked more like a fish – probably wouldn’t burn anyway (and it indeed didn’t, we heard the next day.) Going back to the hotel to play games instead.

… memorizing/writing down wonderfully crazy quotes:
“Maybe we should sacrifice some babies [to the weather gods].” – “Maybe we should sacrifice some Omnia.”
“That really says a lot about these festivals… I can’t even remember if somebody threatened me with a knife.”

… walking away from Omnia on Sunday as well, and going dancing instead. Spontaneously making up our own dance.

… deciding we should just organize our own festival and get the bands we like.

… saying good bye to Libra and returning to Sahi’s place, and feeling really, really down, but continuing to make plans for a festival of our very own, and continuing to do that all evening and in the morning. And then having to say good bye to Sahi as well, and going to Amsterdam, where I first had to help a group of German kids with the luggage lockers, and discovered I really can’t speak standard German any more. Just doesn’t work. I have to speak my Austrian dialect, and if they can’t understand me, bad luck.

… finding my way to the botanical garden again and discovering I’m an idiot who left her spare batteries in the other bag, in the luggage locker, and thus not able to take as many pictures as I would have liked. Wandering around Amsterdam, and finding my way to the flower market again, which was a bad, bad, BAD thing as I seem to have utterly lost my self control in the last few years, and the sentence “I have no room for this” no longer seems to mean anything to me. Wandering around still more, and enjoying being in a town where I can just blend in, where no-one can tell I’m not a local as long as I don’t talk – really a relief after Italy, where my friend and I always stood out (luckily, she is blonder than me, so she had all the guys following her around, and they left me alone). Eventually wandering back to the train station and stocking up on food and drink, and waiting and waiting… and finally the train arrived, and finally, it was a new one, with a comfortable seat in which I could actually sleep quite well (even if I woke up with my legs hurting quite a bit because of how curled up I slept). Leaving Amsterdam late, and arriving in Munich even later, so that I missed my connection and eventually arrived back in Linz two hours late. And then right into doing laundry, and more laundry, and yet more laundry. I managed to do all that could be machine-washed in that one day, and today I’ve finally finished all the hand-wash stuff. So I guess Castlefest is really and truly over now.

I should just combine all those over-ambitious after-Castlefest plans. Buy an old farm, open my own plant nursery there, where I can work in medieval clothing if I want to, and grow stuff I can sell on fairs – herbs (I’ve actually seen that – at CF, too, but that was a pathetic selection compared to what I’ve seen here sometimes), maybe dyeing plants, and “historically correct” vegetables (it really bothers me, walking into a medieval camp, knowing how obsessed some re-enactors are with being “authentic”, and then seeing… tomatoes.) … and then have a small festival on the farm every year. Sounds totally do-able, right?
Oh, and this is the band I said I’d need to invite – more because I think they’re funny than because I think the music is so great. This one is my favourite, though you’ll have to know (Austrian) German to understand it. And the video is really shaky in the beginning, because I was sitting on the ground and then realized I needed to get up to be able to film Milla “torturing” some men (don’t worry, she knows both of the guys she hits, so it’s not like she’s attacking random strangers – probably happens sometimes, though.)

Magpie wrote:

Oh, and pictures!

I loveeeeee the pictures!!! Can I has them??? Love the ones with the flower-kids and the ones with me and Sahi dancing oh and the puddle ones as well!!!!

*makes a note to read the replies and watch the pictures here later*

Awesome pictures!