Month: March 2014

Go Hardwell or Go Home!

/ Caitlin / Leave a comment

After nearly a week of touring Sweden and Norway, it was time to fly to Brussels for the main event. Just getting out of Norway was an adventure in itself, but I finally made it! I successfully navigated my way through the streets of Brussels to meet a woman I had never met before who purchased our tickets. I protected that box full of wristbands like my life depended upon it until I made it to our hotel in Antwerp.

 
I couldn’t get ready fast enough on the first day of the festival and after what seemed like hours on the shuttle, we finally arrived. I almost didn’t know what to do with myself I was so excited! Walking into Tomorrowland was like entering an alternate reality. It was exactly how I imagined it would be but it also felt completely new. No words can fully describe the emotional response each and every one of us had upon entering.
 
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My friends and I made our way to the mainstage and found our spot where we remained for the rest of the weekend. There was a group of Swedes nearby and a couple of the guys came up to us and we all started chatting. I remember this one guy in particular, Christopher, with a CH and not a K. He had Go Hardwell or Go Home written on his arm and he was so excited for his set later that day. Time was not a real entity at Tomorrowland, so I have no idea how long he and I talked. Before my friends and I went to get dinner, Christopher gave me his name and I recorded it in the notes on my phone so I could find him on Facebook later. I told him we would come back to the same spot as soon as we were done eating. When we returned, the Swedes were gone. I never saw him again.
 
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The rest of the weekend was a surreal, almost magical, experience and it ended too soon. I hardly wanted to go to Paris and continue the trip. How could anything ever top the weekend I just had? Tomorrowland was everything I thought it would be and so much more. 
 
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While we met a lot of people from all over the world, I never forgot about that group of Swedes, especially the one who loved Hardwell so much. Little did I know, I would see Christopher again. Five months after first meeting at Tomorrowland, we were in a relationship.
 
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Tomorrowland or Bust!

/ Caitlin / 1 Comment

Until last summer, I had never traveled outside of North America. Now, I’m only days away from a one way flight to Copenhagen. How could I, only 8 months after returning from Europe, be moving there? Simple. I fell in love.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? A few months after I moved to Minneapolis in 2011, a college friend of mine who was living in Spain posted a video on my Facebook wall urging my roommate and I to come to a music festival in Europe the following summer. This was the first I had ever even heard of Tomorrowland, an electronic music festival in Belgium. In all honesty, I didn’t even watch the video but that didn’t stop me from giving a generic affirmative response. But was I really going to go to another continent for a music festival? Probably not.

Shortly after I moved into my first solo apartment, I found myself unpacking and getting bored watching Super Bowl XLVI. So I scrolled down my wall and found that months old post. I’ll never forget that moment; the first time I watched the Tomorrowland 2011 After Movie. I forgot the rest of the Super Bowl and watched the video again and again. Any free moment I had over the next few weeks was spent watching that after movie. My mind was made up. I would go to this festival and nothing would stand in my way.

TL FB post

I realized pretty early on that the 2012 edition wouldn’t be possible because I couldn’t convince anyone to go in that short of a time period and I had no money. So I set my sights on Tomorrowland 2013. I started saving every dollar and recruiting other people to join me (my mom was not going to let me go to a rave on another continent by myself no matter how independent I am). I began planning an extensive Eurotrip entirely around the festival; 5 countries in 18 days. I had traveled by myself/with friends before, but never to another country so this would be an entirely new experience.

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By Fall 2012, my friend Shannon and a couple of her friends were set to go to Tomorrowland with me while my friend Yun and I were going to travel Europe for the rest of the trip. My flight was booked using airline points (free flight woohoo!!) and I was saving enough money thanks to my elaborate Excel budget sheet. I only had to figure out how to get tickets to the most popular EDM festival in the world that sold out in mere minutes the year before. But I wasn’t worried; I had a plan.

Yun had a good friend living in Amsterdam, Xavier, who was friends with some Belgians. We skyped a couple of times and arranged for some of his friends to register to get the special Belgian-only presale tickets. I also registered and would have a week to figure out a way to get tickets if my Belgian pre-sale plan didn’t work. After hours of being online trying to get tickets, I heard from X that his friend was able to get them!! Almost a year to the day after this all started, I finally had my tickets to Tomorrowland 2013!!

On July 18th, I boarded a plane to Stockholm to begin my long awaited European adventure. I can’t begin to describe the overwhelming emotions when I first climbed the stairs from the tunnelbana to Birger Jarlsgatan. It was quite literally a dream come true.

birger jarlsgatan