She Loves London

Category: Travels

Reports from outside of London.

  • An Illustrated Summary Of My Weekend At Lollapalooza Festival in Berlin

    An Illustrated Summary Of My Weekend At Lollapalooza Festival in Berlin

    As we established a few months ago, advance planning isn’t really my thing.

    But there are limits to this rule, and perhaps deciding to go to a music festival in another country a week before it happens is one of them.

    It’s a good idea right up until you realise airlines are complete bastards and will happily charge you triple the amount you’d normally spend on flights, and that most of the decent places to stay are already booked.

    Which is why we spent a lot of time researching our options and carefully weighing up the pros and cons.

    But at least we weren’t paying for the tickets.

    Work had given me a couple of VIP passes for free, plus £200 towards getting there, which sounds well good until you consider it was 7 days until the festival and flights were £200… each.

    But luckily Ryanair took this extortionate fare hike into consideration by delaying our flight for an hour and a half, giving us ample time to mainline Prosecco in Stansted Airport Wetherspoons and allowing us to really get into the festival mood before we arrived.

    And anyway, sod it, we were off to Berlin. A city where Even if it’s 1am by the time you land and the next train isn’t for another hour, forcing you to spend what you’re fairly sure is an entirely made up taxi fare getting to your Airbnb so the host can go to sleep, the bars will still be open by the time you’ve dumped your bags, said hello and met the cat.

    On which note, meet our host, aka the world’s most perfect cat:

    The next afternoon we woke up early, ready for the day ahead.

    lol, just kidding.

    We woke up at some point on Saturday afternoon feeling like death because we stayed out til 5am, and it was also raining, and a bit chilly.

    So after a slow start and a lunch that saved me from eating my own hand, we went to Ostkreuz bahnhof to make the half hour S-bahn journey out to Hoppegarten, the racecourse-turned-festival site to the east of Berlin.

    When we arrived, there were a couple of things I noticed straight away.

    The first thing was that Germans take instructions very seriously.

    And by this I mean there were frankly admirable levels of dedication shown to one particular item they’d listed on the website:

    Because let me tell you, when you haven’t seen a drawstring sack bag since the Nike ones were big in 1998, it’s really quite something to suddenly see several thousand in one weekend.

    I mean, there were a lot of drawstring bags.

    So many that I would frequently just stop and look around me and say “I can’t believe it, look!”: because where, apart from JD Sports, GAP or the Apple Store, do you even get a drawstring bag in the year of our lord 2017?

    Ask the people of Lollapalooza, because trust me. They know.

    And even though it was raining a bit, the other thing I noticed was the absence of a muddy, peaty, welly-sucking, soupy pit of ground-churned bog.

    Because with this not being a summer festival in the UK, it was completely normal to experience being able to walk across a festival, in the rain, without getting stuck.

    It was… strange.

    And anyway, by the time we’d had a few beers in the (sheltered) VIP area and slathered our faces in a sparkly hangover disguise, aka glitter, the sun was almost – almost – coming out.

    Then the Vaccines were on, so off we went to the Alternative Stage.

    And apologies if you’re here to read about the music, because during this set I was distracted by the only person in the entire festival who’d inexplicably come dressed as Princess Jasmine.

    It was a proud moment: not only because one of my fellow Brits was repping in stellar fashion, but also because his really IDGAF attitude succeeded in making every jeans-and-trainer clad man in that field feel slightly uncomfortable.

    And that’s good enough for me.

    Be the Princess Jasmine you want to see in the world

    After that we went over to Perry’s Stage.

    We nicknamed this stage my Spirit Animal Tent even though it wasn’t a tent, but a techno / dance / raving / very good vibes stage where there were no queues for the bar because most of the people were on drugs.

    Then, fuelled by copious amounts of beer, we spent the rest of the evening alternating between there and a structure which was essentially thousands of glittery plastic strips waving about the wind.

    Naturally, being all sparkly natural light and soft, it was full of people staring at digital reflections of their own face.

    So after a minute of standing outside taking the piss, in we went.

    Stand out acts for the rest of the night included Two Door Cinema Club and Galantis, and also this couple who, in honour of seeing EDM producer and DJ Marshmello, had placed a white bucket on their kid’s head.

    Marshmello didn’t turn up.

    Awkward. But for everyone who wasn’t leading around a child wearing a bucket helmet, Boyz Noize made for a truly excellent night.

    But I’m not going to lie.

    There were some issues getting home because apparently getting several thousand people back into the city via one train line which only runs once an hour after 12:39am is what some would call an absolute heaving ballache, and what festival organisers would call “challenging”. We spent at least an hour packed in a packed crowd outside the station waiting for helicopter rescue, or more ambitiously, a train.

    But we got home in the end, and this being Berlin it’s never too late to – if you’ll allow me to go all Time Out – “soak up the cold war vibes” of a dark, candlelit bar and rehash the moment you were one stampede away from death by post-festival crush just an hour before over 3 Euro beers.

    Ah, change for a fiver. Ah, 3 euro beer.

    The next day was Sunday, and Lollapalooza day 2 beckoned.

    At least it did, once we’d dragged ourselves up and out of bed by the frankly heroic time of 1pm.

    We arrived to find yesterday’s ponchos and rain jackets had been left at home. Belongings were safely stowed in drawstring bags. There was a determination to make the most of the day ahead in the air.

    Also, the sun was shining.

    This was going to be a good day.

    We’d gone for a couple of drinks in Friedrichshain the night before, which is German for “stayed out drinking beer until 5am again”, so we were feeling a little bit slow, a little bit… a little bit…tired.

    But somehow, I don’t think we were the only ones.

    The first act we saw were the very excellent Metronomy.

    Then it was time for London Grammar.

    Which I was totally going to take a photo of, but then I got mildly distracted by this Octopus balloon.

     And then finally, it was time.

    Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins came on just in time for sunset.

    The Foo Fighters had arrived.

     

    All in all, it was an excellent weekend.

    We rounded the night off with a strobe-happy wonder-show from the xx, and had three hours sleep before going to airport at 5am on Monday morning and flying home. And for some of us, straight to work. Because if you’re not going to plan ahead, you might as well suffer the consequences.

    Same time next year? Yeah. I reckon so.



  • A Complete Guide to the Best Animals I Saw in the Galapagos

    A Complete Guide to the Best Animals I Saw in the Galapagos

    In April I went to the Galapagos Islands.

    If you watch Planet Earth on the BBC you’ll know it as the place where David Attenborough, aka the Animal King aka Captain Nature aka Chief Inspector of Wildlife spends our licence fee, something I am actually more than ok with.

    If you’re not familiar, they’re basically an isolated group of volcanic islands about 1000km off the coast of Ecuador where Darwin rocked up and was like holy cow, this place is nuts, I need to write a book.

    The next thing you need to know is that it’s the coolest place in the world you could ever ever go, even better than France. And the other thing you need to know is that there isn’t a single animal species in the Galapagos who gives a shit about you.

    This is kind of hard to swallow when you get there because you’ve essentially saved up three month’s rent to go, so a little bit of recognition for your efforts would have been nice.

    But it’s also a good thing because it means in the Galapagos, animals are the boss. They’re top of the food chain; the kings and queens. They are protected, and you humans, quite frankly, are not. You’re not even on their radar. You’re just there to fund their long, evolutionary life. If anything, if animals in the Galapagos learnt to use cameras, which given the weird stuff I saw, wouldn’t be an impossibility, they’d be taking photos of you.

    Anyway, I saw loads of animals on my trip, and although I don’t discriminate because officially they were all very good, here’s a non-scientific guide to my favourites.

    1. This sealion who was basically me on a hangover

    Swap the bench for a sofa and the similarities are astounding.

    2. The Marine Iguanas who were well aware it was a shared path

    But, being the only species of their type on the entire planet, they also really don’t care that you want to get by.

    3. The blue-footed boobie who’s looking pretty pleased with himself

    Although to be fair, if you were called a “boobie” and those were your feet, this would probably be your face too.

    4. This Giant Tortoise who’s half the size of a tree

    ..and older than your entire family. It’s a long, slow life, and this guy has Seen. Some. Things.

    5. The Frigatebird who knows the way to a woman’s heart

    And it’s through his massive inflated red chest pouch, obviously.

    6. The Galapagos Penguin who just wants to know what you’re up to, really

    And is flagrantly ignoring the two metre rule in order to find out.

    7. The short eared owl who looks smug because no one’s trying to kill him.

    In case you were wondering, this is the face of a usually nocturnal bird who’s evolved to do daylight because he’s got no natural predators. The bones of his prey were scattered opposite on a rock. Be polite.

    8. This red-footed boobie who’s looking absolutely radiant in blue

    Imagine for one second, a world where all birds had multi-coloured beaks. Actually, imagine if you had this beak. It’s a great beak.

    9. The land iguana who’s completely nailing camouflage

    This season I’ll mostly be matching my food to my clothes in homage to South Plaza’s resident rock-and-flower coloured lizard.

    10. The 3 metre long Galapagos Shark(s) continually circling your boat looking for lunch

    Unfortunately, lunch wasn’t getting in the water that day. Lunch was very much staying on the upper deck.

    11. This pelican who can and will wait all day for a fish

    Patience. Patience. And then, when the time is right: GULP.

    12. And finally, this brown labrador puppy

    Really not sure how this one got onto the beach. Pretty sure there were no dogs allowed.

    To see more photos from my Galapagos trip, go have a look at my travel photo account on Instagram.

    Or subscribe to this blog’s newsletter below so the next time I bang on about it, which will probably be soon, you’ll be all over it, won’t ya? 



  • Here’s What They Do After Work In Switzerland. Sorry In Advance For Ruining Your Day.

    Here’s What They Do After Work In Switzerland. Sorry In Advance For Ruining Your Day.

    One of the best things about working in London is finishing work.

    That’s when everyone looks at each other over their computer screens at 5.20pm with a quizzical expression which roughly translates as: pub? as if going straight home was ever going to be an option.

    Of course you’re not going to go straight home. It’s summer, which means it’s probably raining, and a little bit chilly, so naturally you’re going to drink beer outside the pub until you’re pissed and the sun goes down, then you’ll abandon the pavements and carry on inside.

    This Friday ritual is about as London as its gets.

    And for years it never really occurred to me that it might not happen everywhere else in the world. What do you do after work? I’d ask my emigrated friends. Why wouldn’t you go to the pub? In fact, where are all the pubs? What do you do after work if not proceed, with your colleagues, to the pub?

    Then I went to Bern in Switzerland, where they do not go to the pub.

    And to be honest, I can sort of see why.

    This is Bern. Say hello to Bern.

    Bern is the capital of Switzerland.

    This is something I found out five years ago when my sister moved there. Before that I just assumed the capital was Zurich, much like everyone else. Well, it isn’t. The capital of Switzerland is Bern, which explains the slightly ostentatious bear pit, the volume of traditional hats bobbing around, and the city centre’s unnecessarily giant sized clock.

    I’ve been there a few times at different times of year. In winter, the centre of town after work is pretty much just hoards of people heading towards the main train station with skis.

    But summer: mate. This lot have got it nailed.

    Swiss man and dog nailing summer.

    Like most things in Switzerland, everything in Bern looks like it was custom built to make you jealous.

    And likewise, the Aare is exactly the sort of river you’d want running through your city, in that you won’t find the bones of 13th century sailors, horse-sized rats or dysentery lurking in the depths.

    Even its mildly unsettling fast flow and the vague threat of death-by-grates if you don’t get out in time at the end is mitigated by the fact that you can see the bottom, something even the Serpentine hasn’t been able to offer swimmers since about 1859.

    Londoners: that water colour you’re seeing there is “turquoise blue”

    Bern’s river is so good that people go there after work instead of going to the pub or straight home to annoy their partners, parents, or kids.

    Instead they go to the Aare, strip off, chuck all their clothes into a dry bag, or just leave them by the side for literally no one to steal, and float down at the end of the day.

    And if it’s been a particularly tough afternoon, they’ll hire a flotilla of large inflatable rafts, fill a barrel with booze, assemble their mates and do it that way instead.

    Which is why it’s not at all unusual to see a procession of floating flamingos, sharks, dogs in life jackets, and occasional unicorns whizzing past you while you take selfies and chill.

    But yes, good question:

    what if you don’t want to swim because your WFS (Work From Switzerland) day has left you tired?

    This is Switzerland, so naturally the river banks are also idyllic mini beaches of calm where you can lie down and just, y’know, listen to your neighbour’s bangin’ Jamie xx / Caribou tune selection, put your bottle of wine in the water to chill, and nip in for a gentle paddle or just sit on a rock.

    The whole thing is very much better than the pub.

    Especially if there is also a dog.

    So there you have it, proof that Switzerland is basically wiping the floor with the quality of life you enjoy in London and oh yeah, lol, they’re all paying less tax, too.

    Enjoy your trip to the pub after work on Friday, guys. I know I certainly will!

    (River Thames: your move.)