3 days, four stages, many, many hours spent standing on the driver's paddock of the Nürburgring waiting for the acts you want to see and kinda wishing you either hadn't paid a hundred and fifty euros to feel this dirty and tired, or had at least brought a deckchair. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Biggest Summer Music Festival in Continental Europe, Rock am Ring.

It was good, certainly a good opportunity to tick the metallica, offspring and rage against the machine boxes all at once. i also saw the verve, quasi for my mum, who i'm sure would have loved to see them live (they were actually really good, and i maintain worth being barely able to stand in the single digit temperature and wind and creepy Eiffel Mountains mist at one in the am after fighting the offspring mosh and shouting along with james hetfield and carrying women and all kinds of things that are not conducive to wanting to stand, or even be awake, in any temperature or weather of any kind) and a few bands who i would not go to their alone concerts or who might never make it to australia, like hot chip in the one group and die toten hosen or fettes brot (think german beastie boys) in the other. plus there's always a certain potential to discover something new, like zox, whose album i may hunt down. and just the experience/adventure aspect. sure it mightn't rule at the time, but how many people can say from personal experience that yes, no matter how loudly he whiteyraps about himself and what a cowboy he is over the music from songs by everyone from metallica through zz top to lynrd skynrd, it is not only possible but advisable to fall asleep (while en) during a "performance" by Kid Rock.
Twice.

The friends of my cousin Shauna's who we "stayed" with (see photos) were also a generally amusing bunch of natives. At the end of the weekend i felt (well obviously primarily dirty, but also) satisfied with this last adventure before hanging up my travelling pen for a while. The week after returning I began doing the paperwork to buy a vanishingly small lean-to in an unremarkable village in the german state of Hessen, thus marking the end of my addressless wanderings for the time being. And so this journal also comes to a close. Thank you, and goodnight.