Hello Pilton! Another year, another job, doing stills photography for the official Glastonbury Website, and I loved every minute of it! A bit different this year though mind you, decided to get my friend a backstage ticket to come along with me (6 years I have been at the festival on my own) and I was lucky enough to get one for him. Great camping, great music, great friend and a brilliant time.
My biggest problem with the festival is the same every year, it gets a bit much for you sometimes, when you have been out all night and day working / playing / drinking you need a respite and if your out with everyone it’s hard to find a place to relax, at least with a hospitality ticket you can retreat to a nice bar, have a cider and enjoy the sunshine.
The weather was great, the music was fantastic (especially Pendulum on the Other stage), all the installation were as funky and fresh as they were last year, especially Shangra La, what a place – I was thinking they should turn it into its own festival but we all remember what happened to Lost Vagueness
Most of my photos made it onto the site with my own captions, it was fun and I got a lot of use out of the new D40 – thank god! All of my ‘good’ photos are available on my flickr page.
Crazy, that’s about the only way to sum the place up (for the 3rd time), I love it, I want to live there and that is all there is to it. Suffered the usual jetlag on the way there but managed to keep myself up until the early hours of the next day so didn’t suffer to bad – to be fair jumping into a 37 degree pool in the morning will wake you up!
The best thing about being back (apart from a huge workload) is the fact that I got a few days off to go and explore. I made it up to Area 51 in Nevada, the Valley of Fire, the Hoover Dam (Major Boring), Death Valley in California and even made it up to the Grand Canyon in Arizona passing through Williams and Flagstaff – god knows how far I drove but I loved every minute of it. The worst part of the trip, dropping my new Nikon D40 having just arrived at the Grand Canyon – God Damn It! Bad news especially seeing as how I needed the camera the day after I returned to the UK for Glastonbury Festival – solution: Went to Best Buy and brought another one – Whew!
Did a ton of HDR work whilst I was over there, you can check out my photos on my Flickr page. And my Mount Charleston photos on here.
Before I went to Rio I spent ages searching the net, trying to find out if it was safe and what precautions to take – you know what – Rio is as safe as any other major city in the world (maybe), just keep your eyes and ears open and there are no problems. Don’t walk down Copacabana at 4am drunk, because your just asking for trouble!!
I stayed 2 blocks off the beach at the Copacabana Resedencia Hotel, great place. 3 minutes to the beach. Copacabana leads onto Ipanema (but it’s a long walk!), then onto Leblon. Ipanema beach is much nicer than Copacabana with a ton of police and friendly people. Leblon is the ‘rich’ area of Rio so expect to pay a bit more, same goes for Ipanema.
Tips:
Rio De Janeiro is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, beautiful weather, fantastic beaches surrounded by the natural beauty of the mountains, friendly people, great food and a lively night life. Just go, let your hair down and have a great time.
So I’ve had like about 4 hours sleep, didn’t get to my hotel until gone 1am and couldn’t sleep in the heat. I really wish I had learnt some Portuguese before I came here – life would be so much easier.
So down for Breakfast (that’s all I’m saying about it), met up with Frank and off down the sun soaked street for a short stroll to my new office for the next few weeks. Met the team – great guys and gals. Everyone is so friendly over here, I mean – I’ve never felt so welcome anywhere I’ve been, it’s a different way of interacting with people lots of eye contact and no real concept of personal space, with patting and hand shaking – a very touchy feeling (in a good way) bunch of people.
Manic day – all 12 hours of it working, back to the hotel for a picture of the most beautiful orange sunset I have ever seen. Shower and then off to a restaurant called ‘Temple’, for some Pinga (Cachaca) in a Caipirinha which is so good it’s unreal especially mixed with Kiwi. The best steak I have eaten in a long while topped with proper sundered toms and dressing, added to a little risotto - great evening, good company, good Brazilian music and just a relaxing thing to do.
Madness – that just about sums it up. Got to Schipol early…. why bother, took me 2 minutes to find departures and check my baggage in, they are so goddam efficient over here – great stuff, in departures by 6:45am…. whoops, a bit early – but better to be early than late!
12 Hours of fun filled frivolities on the plane (so glad I paid extra for an exit seat), had so much space to myself, lovely service, had about 11 vodkas in a vain attempt to sleep – no chance, just felt like I had a hangover when I landed in Sao Paulo.
Customs: Brasilia this way, Foreigners that way – huge lines, slow customs took me an hour just to get into the airport. Found my ‘guides’ and away we went for the 300km drive to Bauru. Stopped as the ‘Best Petrol Station’ in all of south America on my way for something like a burrito, but was so tired I thought I was going to be sick.
It’s hot, like 27 hot, which is crazy (but this is the start of the Brazilian summer) with 83% humidity, walk outside and you either melt or are soaked in seconds either by profuse perspiration or the crazy rainstorms.
Off to my bed for rest and sleep and up early tomorrow. Come on.
So I was up at the tender time of 4am this morning, out of the Sheraton by 4:20am and into my waiting taxing to start my trip, starting of course with Terminal 4. Jesus, how much snow, didn’t even occur to me on the slippery taxi ride that the snow may interfere with flights etc, etc – If I had thought about it I probably would have stayed at the Hotel and flown tomorrow!
Anyway, flight is supposed to take off at 6:30am, 6:15am come and goes with no boarding information, I can already feel it, I’m going to have a bad day. So at 6:29am they announce gate 11 for boarding, a mad scramble ensues and the plane is full in a matter of minutes – most people were traveling early to catch connecting flights to either Sao Paulo or Cape Town. 4 and half fucking hours I sat in that plan still attached to the terminal. 11am rolls around and we’ve left, no sooner than we are in the air and drinking our vodka’s, and the pilot announces that we are starting our descent – I forget that it is only 45mins to Schipol.
Land at 1pm ish (don’t forget to add the hour for the Netherlands), totally missed my flight to Brazil. Have to find a transfer desk, the ‘computer’ (and if by computer, they mean worthless piece of shit, then I mean computer) booked me another fight for tomorrow, but with all the wrong seats – I did not get up at 4am on Sunday to checkin with great seats to have them taken away from me now. After a lengthly argument, KLM gave me a better seat for tomorrows flight, and like €10 for food, €10 phone credit and a €50 discount for my next flight (yeah, right).
So about to leave the Airport and I haven’t even grabbed my baggage yet, I don’t hold out much hope for it as I figure they will hold it until tomorrow (I was right) – 2 and a half hours later and I finally have my bag. Went to the Sheraton to book a room (figuring it would be similarly priced to the UK), not a Fucking chance £220 for 1 night, just for the privilege of being able to walk for 5 minutes, tried the Hilton £190 for 1 night and finally the Mariott £150 for 1 night – Jesus H Christ, what is the world coming to – eventually found the Best Western about 10 minutes away (by shuttle), settled there instead for a comfortable €97 a night (god knows what that translates into, £87.94 as it turns out).
So to sum it all up, I’ve had a shit day and it’s taken me well over 12 hours to travel a couple hundred miles. Tomorrow (providing my god damn plane actually takes off) I will spend another 12 hours in the air, followed by another 4 in a car on my way to Bauru.
Moral of the story – next time – direct flights.
