Oslo

This is the lovely greeting I received on our hotel tv in Oslo, Norway. The hotel chain is "Thon," which means Tuna in French, and we were practically on the North Sea, so I thought it might be a tuna themed hotel. It wasn't. Europe 1, Maria 0.
There were, however, many great qualities about Oslo (aside from it being so expensive... 10 dollars a beer at least). The festival we played was only in its second year of existence. The head of a festival looked like a teenager you would see behind the counter at American Apparel, except friendly. Because of their inexperience, they touted us around to and from the airport, paid 2 nights for our awesome hotel (a stone's throw away from the festival), and indulged us with liquor, food, and liquor. We had to share our tent with "Does it offend you, yeah" and they ate all the food. This did offend me, yes.

Oslo is quaint, everyone speaks perfect English, they have great seafood, weird fountains, and everyone is very nice. And the best part is that the sun sets at 12:30 AM. It's strange drinking and being out, and realizing that it is so late. Then the sun comes back up at 2 AM.

Another strange feature is the Stetson's in the middle of downtown. People across the world are starting to dress like mangy cowboys from Austin.

The fashion in Oslo is really top notch. Here's a fancy fellow that I had to photograph so that I could try and mimic the outfit later:



In case anyone needs to know, in Norweigan Ice Age 3 is ISTID 3: Dinosaurener Kommer!

This was our first show, and it was comme ci comme ca. It reminded me of the Simpson's Smashing Pumpkins episode were the teens are swaying methodically, wearing plaid, and want to appear as if they nearly committed suicide that morning. The festival had 3 stages, and they all faced each other. When a band ended on one stage, everyone turned and faced the next stage without having to move. We were playing a DJ set of course, and it was day time, so people sort of just stood there. There were about 15 kids that had a really good time because Sam called for a stage invasion at the end. Erminio, the head alien dancer/technician of space creatures, was wearing a monster head and told one of the kids that ran on stage to pretend like he was being eaten. Erminio chewed on him and then once he was on the ground swallowed his shoe. This show is a lot more theatrical than I had anticipated.