Fun In the Sun

Many apologies for this late post, there are good reasons I promise! Please keep a look out for my Skrillex post this week.

Mainstay tent and a Mojito ...

My friends and I had been very excited to go to this event for a while. I thought it would make a great weekend special for the newspaper and I had some ideas about featuring it in an article before the event as well as a follow up afterwards. Unfortunately I had a really hard time getting hold of the organisers.

 To be fair I did not try get hold of the owner, which I probably should have done. My problems started months before the event. I e-mailed one of the FITS organisers for media accreditation so that I could cover the event. I got a reply almost immediately (I was offering free publicity after all) asking for my details – all standard procedure. I filled out an accreditation form that day aaaaaaand ... nothing! For months I got no response. I sent several e-mails, made many phone calls and still no reply – until two days before the event! I got an e-mail asking me if I would like to cover the event. So that was when I got to be a snooty, stuck-up journalist. I wrote back: “Due to the untimely nature of your reply, media24 will not be covering this event.” BIGGEST POWER TRIP EVER! Plus at that stage I had already organised a ticket and decided not to work but to relax and have some fun.

My friend and I drove in convoy following some male friends of ours who, in turn, had invited some friends of theirs along. I am still not sure who these interlopers were, but what I do know is that we spent most of the drive trying to lose them. To no avail.

I was thrilled to be asked for my ID at the gate. At 25 this does not happen very often. My thrill soon turned to panic as my bags were searched and my stash of vitamins, Omega tablets, headache pills, sleeping tablets, antihistamines and some other energy tablets were discovered. The guard just kept saying “oooh sisi” and “ ooooh eh eh” with a smug grin on her face, but as soon as I said she could keep them her smile vanished and she let us go.

We stole our neighbours glasses and instantly became more intelligent

By this time the interlopers had caught up with us and there was nothing to do but set up camp near them. Actually the strangers weren’t too bad. Two of the girls were actually quite nice. I realised though that we had nothing in common when they asked me what school I went to. Looking around I realised that apart from a handful of us grownups at the festival, and of course the drug dealers parked nearby (so much for the drug search), most of these kids were, well, kids.

And then I saw it, one of our new ‘buddies’ hopped out of the car ... wait let me paint you a picture.  We were surrounded by gym bunnies. Everyone was tanned, gorgeous and juiced up. When out of the interlopers’ car jumps this man: tall, skinny legs, but really round at the same time. If he was a woman I would say that he was ‘apple shaped’. He was really tall and skinny with a boep. He had on silky pants, ankle socks and basketball shoes. There was the absence of a shirt and ... his hair was just literally his crowning glory. This man had the most hideous orange mullet. Seriously short around the sides and base of the neck, longish curly fringe and normal -length on his crown completed with a long ratty tail at the back! It is not appropriate for me to judge, but I could not help but stare. In fact he completely killed the conversation. We all just looked at him – mouths hanging open for at least a minute whilst we absorbed this creature. Astonishingly he seemed to be unaware of his appearance and announced his name in the thickest Afrikaans accent you have ever heard. Koos I think it was, he slurred a bit as he said he was from thprings (Springs). Ah, that explained everything. We could now move on with our lives.

Actually I admire Koos, he is a true individual and at the end of the day, quite a funny guy.

Beach dam, best part of Fun in the Sun.

We managed to find a nice spot in the Mainstay tent, almost untouched by all the children; it seemed to house all the adults of the festival. Mainstay had brought in beach sand and bean bags and recreated a beautiful beach bar at the edge of the murky Hazelmere dam. There we stayed for most of the festival.

The music was good and the crowd seemed to be really enjoying themselves.

I think my concerns lie with the food. I am governed by my stomach. The food was so shit I actually would rather have not eaten. There was the usual looking lean-to which sold worse rolls and hamburgers, you know the kind. But the meat smelled like fish, the bread was stale and please tell me, how do you fuck up a bag of chips?  My friend woke up in the morning with the worst hangover of his life and he still did not want to eat the food.

White gold.

Furthermore: toilet paper. I am a woman so I always bring my own, but you know how boys are. They can’t enjoy any event or any location before they have taken a massive dump at said location; I guess it is a kind of primordial marking of territory or something. My friend partook in this ritual but when he was done, no TP! (Silly boy should have looked first.) To make matters worse he was not able to flush and the next person to use the loo was a prominent client of his who had to shake his hand and then enter the abomination!

I realise at an event where there are thousands of people there are going to be disgusting toilets. I can live with that. But basic ablution facilities are a right.

Picture perfect ...

Ok complaining over. Apart from the fact that I did not get the story I wanted I actually had fun and I got to spend a work-free weekend with my friends. All in all, not a bad way to spend the weekend – I will probably go to the next FITS in September. Hopefully I can write a story for the event then. Love you.

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