I don’t think there has ever been a time in my life I needed a decent pair of wellies more than I did this past weekend at Wacken Open Air in Germany (this coming from a girl who grew up on the countryside surrounded by cows and horses). Wacken is a very small town, north of Hamburg, that once a year experiences a run of long haired men from all over Europe to attend the biggest open air event for heavy metal music. Not a metal-head myself, I have always wanted to go there to see if all the rumors about braided beards, kilts, mead and hog’s heads were true, so it was a no brainer when my dear friend Christine, who is attending 40 festivals this year, asked if I would join her for those 2 days of extraordinary metal madness.
Even though my friends warned me, the festival would be really dirty and smelly, I actually couldn’t imagine it to be that bad. But then, right after picking up our tent and taking our initial walk to the festival grounds, we were caught by a thunderstorm that turned the whole area into mud wrestling heaven.
We didn’t have to wait long until we spotted the first group of people, all covered in mud. We followed their path to one of the stages where the German Punk Rock band “Broilers” started to play their second song and a group of people enjoyed themselves in a huge puddle. Watching the scene, I was glad that nobody decided to spontaneously show me some love with a big muddy hug but to my great amusement Christine wasn’t so lucky…
…someone grabbed her to just throw her right into the mixture of soil, beer, water and grass. We didn’t expect to blend in that quickly…
Throughout the whole weekend, rain only stoped for a minutes of sun every once and so often, not a lot of fun I tell you. But the people at Wacken really made me enjoy my time there. Everyone was friendly and very open so I got to know more people here than at any of the other festivals I’ve attended in the past. They told us about their lives, their passion, about festival wristbands older than us, asked about our taste in music, other festivals we’ve been to and even invited us to a Burlesque show.
It did not take long for me to forget all about my role of being the underdog with my purple raincoat and my rainbow wellies. All that didn’t really matter anymore and at some point I even liked some of the music… kind of. We drank mead and “Wackenblood”, watched Highland Games, tried to buy a metal shirt (no festival shirts smaller than XXXL available after the the first day…), head-banged, saw the Scorpions in a thunderstorm and I even wore my shirt for two days in a row. Cultural assimilation complete.
As I said, I couldn’t have survived this weekend, having the time of my life, without my beautiful wellies. Although they aren’t necessarily heavy metal style, rain boots really were the only means of transportation on the whole ground. So this is the time to thank Havaianas for giving me this beautiful boots and to even GIVE AWAY an all new nice and shiny pair (in your size) to you!
How to win?
Simply leave a comment (with your email address in the required field) with one or two sentences on why you need those beauties in your life!
This post was written by Nina Hüpen-Bestendonk, who has a funny name even for Germans; she is a wicked go-getter and creative freelance designer, photographer and blogger.
She has an eye for beauty and even finds it in ugly apartment blogs. Her weekly photo chronicle “My week in pictures” has already become a classic among urban Berliners. Find out more at smaracuja.de.
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