The Laundry Party and Døgnvill

Here's another update to my continuing series on the strange but fun happenings in Tromsø, Norway. This is another multiple day summary post, because I'm lazy like that.

I'm going to breeze over Monday-Thursday because they were on the whole uneventful. On Wednesday I had my first lecture in Sustainable Energy. The course isn't anywhere near as interesting as I had hoped but I guess that's how it goes. It's much more about theoretical energy physics rather than personal research projects like I had hoped.

Things really got started on Friday when I had my first volunteer shift at the Døgnvill music festival. The tickets were crazy expensive so I volunteered to get in for free. I ended up working the cotton candy and popcorn booth, it was sticky, salty, and sweet! I had a lot of fun though and the girls that I worked with were all really nice. It was just girls in our group so we started calling ourselves The Sugar Babes.

On Friday the music was calmer and the whole mood was more family oriented. Alexander Rybak, the 2009 winner of the Eurovision song contest opened the event and he was a big hit with all the girls. He even walked past our tent and we all screamed when he gave us that charming smile of his.

After my shift I headed out with one of the Sugar Babes named Rose. She was really friendly and invited me back to her place for some red wine. She wanted me to come out on the town with her but I ended up heading back to Ørndalen for the infamous Laundry Party instead since I'd already promised friends that I'd be there.

The Laundry Party is basically a party held in our common house which also doubles as the laundry house. It was a pretty decent party, everyone was there and I hung out with Josh, Grace, Adam, Jamie, Amanda and many more. I also acquired a stalker, a Norwegian guy who I always seem to meet when he's had way too much to drink. Actually, it's sad, but I've never met this guy when he was sober. On Friday he polished off an entire bottle of vodka on his own and then he followed different girls around, leaning right up in their faces and talking. He even got me pinned up against a wall at one point. Thank goodness for male friends who can help you out in a pinch! I left the laundry party around 2 AM before the police showed up to tell people to quiet down.

On Saturday I worked the late shift at Døgnvill from 6 PM until midnight. Out of all the bands I heard I liked Katzenjammer and Dumdum Boys the best. The headliner was, shock and surprise, Snoop Dog! I'm no Snoop Dog fan but it was kind of surreal and definitely worth it to hear him play at a festival in northern Norway.

After my shift ended and I got all the cotton candy out of my hair I headed downtown to the festival after party at Driv. They had three bands playing and a DJ on the bottom floor. I met a guy in line who started talking to me in Norwegian, then in English when I couldn't make out his dialect. His name was Knut and he spoke excellent English and was really friendly so I decided to hang out with him for a while. I was planning on hanging with my friends but I couldn't find them anywhere so I stayed with Knut instead.

We danced a bit and got some drinks and listened to an excellent cover band called Kissing Miss Lissy. They played songs by Deep Purple, Kiss, and other similar bands. Driv closed at 3AM and I headed out with Knut to an after-party-after-party at his cousins house. Turned out that the cousin went to bed before we got there so Knut offered to walk me home instead. The last bus back to Ørndalen left at 3:30 and the next one wasn't until 7:30. I warned Knut about the hike back to my place (it's 11 km!) but he came along like a gentleman and walked me all the way home. It gave us the chance to talk and by the time we got back we were exhausted but knew eachother a lot better. He ended up taking a taxi back to his hotel. He lives outside the city but comes to Tromsø on the weekends. We exchanged numbers so we'll have to see what happens!

Damn this has been such a fantastic weekend so far and it isn't even over yet! I should go get some more sleep but I think it's going to be almost impossible at this point. *big grin*