Sudoeste TMN" or "Meo Sudoeste", how it's called since last year, is the portuguese music festival I fell in love with ever since I went for the first time in 2011. Located in South Portugal, this festival is the best getaway place with your friends.I have no idea how the idea came to us, but on August 2011 we had our backpacks full and got on a 4h drive to the festival. It's safe to say it were the best 10 days for the four of us!
To tell you the truth, I've been really nostalgic this past couple of this about this Festival, since at this time of the year, ever since 2011, It was Sudoeste time. Well, sadly, not this year...
Going to a music festival away from your home with your friends is an amazing experience of freedom, and that's kinda what I'm missing right now. You know that feeling that you're totally isolated from the world for almost 2 weeks and nothing else matters besides you and that moment? I miss that...a lot!
The first time going to the festival in 2011, I had the best feeling EVER! I've always been an impatient person and I like people to give me my space and don't bother me every single minute, and going to the Festival gave me what I was looking for at the time. I got my really heavy backpack and got to experience 10 days of pure friendship and an amazing couple of days.
Going to a music festival away from your home with your friends is an amazing experience of freedom, and that's kinda what I'm missing right now. You know that feeling that you're totally isolated from the world for almost 2 weeks and nothing else matters besides you and that moment? I miss that...a lot!
The first time going to the festival in 2011, I had the best feeling EVER! I've always been an impatient person and I like people to give me my space and don't bother me every single minute, and going to the Festival gave me what I was looking for at the time. I got my really heavy backpack and got to experience 10 days of pure friendship and an amazing couple of days.
Of course it wasn't all perfection. NOT AT ALL!!
Being spoiled as I was, and being a city girl, sleeping at a tent - or not being able to sleep at all - where interesting things to experience, to say the least. Let's just say that starting a day with a gigantic cricket on top of your head while you're having breakfast is NOT fun! And waking up to crazy people screaming who made it their mission to not let you sleep the entire festival is a crappy thing as well. But isn't that what makes it all fun? The craziness that surrounds you, making you feel like you're probably on another planet?!
Being spoiled as I was, and being a city girl, sleeping at a tent - or not being able to sleep at all - where interesting things to experience, to say the least. Let's just say that starting a day with a gigantic cricket on top of your head while you're having breakfast is NOT fun! And waking up to crazy people screaming who made it their mission to not let you sleep the entire festival is a crappy thing as well. But isn't that what makes it all fun? The craziness that surrounds you, making you feel like you're probably on another planet?!
Was I talking about freedom? Well the best thing of all - please don't get me wrong, but this is the truth - was the fact that I had a schedule to talk to my parents. Yep, that's right! Before I went I scheduled with my parents an time of the day that they could call me. Seriously, being 19 an having this kind of control felt awesome!
So this is how my days went at the festival - not just during the first year, but on all three of them: waking up incredibly early with some crazy person screaming or kicking my tent, always thankful for that. Breakfast was always something amazing like milk that could totally be ruined, had on a dirty bowl - sorry, I just want to eat and I'm not going to wash this now because I'm way too sleepy! And after breakfast we had the incredible mission impossible of peeing in the morning...Seriously no one can ever get used to watching toilets field with pee and poop everywhere (That's just wrong!!!).
Once everyone was ready it was beach time! Beach sounds amazing right? Well...if only it wasn't 9km away from the campsite. Try catching a bus that only comes every half and hour with hundreds of other people trying to get to the beach as well...yes, the bus thing never really worked with us. Let's just say I did what my parents always told me not to: talk to strangers, get in their cars, and trust they would get me to the beach alive. Met some WEIRD people like this...but also met a lot of incredibly nice and cool people the same way.
Once everyone was ready it was beach time! Beach sounds amazing right? Well...if only it wasn't 9km away from the campsite. Try catching a bus that only comes every half and hour with hundreds of other people trying to get to the beach as well...yes, the bus thing never really worked with us. Let's just say I did what my parents always told me not to: talk to strangers, get in their cars, and trust they would get me to the beach alive. Met some WEIRD people like this...but also met a lot of incredibly nice and cool people the same way.
Since the Festival place had its "doors" closed until the beginning of the concerts around 7pm, our days were always spent at the beach. So the beach meant time to rest and recharge batteries for the night coming. The environment at the Zambujeira do Mar beach this time of the year, all because of the festival, is pretty chaotic, and you can barely move with so many people there, but it's also amazing that even with such lack of sleep people can still be in such a great mood and always ready to party a little more.
Around 7pm it was time to get back to camp - meaning getting a ride with strangers again - still, no regrets; had a blast with these little adventures -, and getting ready for another night. Showering in a dozens of strangers in their bikinis in really cold water and surrounded by bees was another experience to remember. Sorry..still can't get used to the bees thing - I'm the kind of person who will cry when bees are around (not proud of this...but any fear is legitimate)
And now the BEST part of a summer festival...THE FOOD!! What? I'm obviously joking...
Seriously, anyone ever goes to a festival and comes back with their stomach happy and saying they ate really well and are totally not starving? I don't! For the three years I went, I came back crazy about my meals during those days. I'm kind of a weirdo and I don't like many - MANY - things and this makes my life hard every time I go somewhere I need to cut on food expenses. I love food ok? Really, I love eating and people who know me even make fun of me and the fact that I actually smile when I see food I'm going to eat. I'm like a little baby, happy around food and once I see my bed. But back to the food at the festival, so not cool eating sausages for 10 days in a row...Let's just say that after I came back, I didn't eat sausages for a full year, and couldn't even ear about them. This is what a music festival does to you!! Makes you crazy, that's all.
Seriously, anyone ever goes to a festival and comes back with their stomach happy and saying they ate really well and are totally not starving? I don't! For the three years I went, I came back crazy about my meals during those days. I'm kind of a weirdo and I don't like many - MANY - things and this makes my life hard every time I go somewhere I need to cut on food expenses. I love food ok? Really, I love eating and people who know me even make fun of me and the fact that I actually smile when I see food I'm going to eat. I'm like a little baby, happy around food and once I see my bed. But back to the food at the festival, so not cool eating sausages for 10 days in a row...Let's just say that after I came back, I didn't eat sausages for a full year, and couldn't even ear about them. This is what a music festival does to you!! Makes you crazy, that's all.
Going to a music festival is also crying every once in a while, because not everything goes as planned, and shit happens. Or maybe it's just because I'm a crying baby. You pick! It's crying because you just went on a ridiculous roller coaster and thought you were going to die, or because you lost your cell, or money, or because your little stove got stolen while you were at the beach, or when you twist your ankle while happily running through the field during a concert - yep, happened on the second year I went -, or just crying because you REALLY ALMOST DIED in the badass ocean and all you want is to go home - also happened on the last day of the festival during my first year there. Meaning, going to a music festival is about living, is about getting all the good and the bad, it's about enjoying every second of a short life and getting the most out of the freedom given to you.
I'm writing this post and looking at these photos and all I wanted was to be at the festival right now!!! Please? Nop...not going to happen. Maybe next year?
Going to a music festival with your friends, like I said in the beginning, is AMAZING, but it will also feel like you went to a desert island and all you're doing everyday are survival tactics! Really, you can be as much of a city person as you want, but from the moment you need to build that tent and realize you'll have to sleep inside that thing, everything has to change, and you better not mess it up, or you'll sleep outside for sure - and you'll even get to the point where you'll sleep outside because you don't care about anything anymore and sleeping outside with your friends and lots of crazy people around you is way more fun. You'll become a hole new you: you can shower as much as you want, you'll always - I do mean always - be dirty, you won't recognize your hair and will eventually forget about the idea of trying to make it look good. You won't mind if you went to the beach and didn't shower. Fuck shower, tonight I just wanna go dance and have fun! You'll even get the superpower of falling asleep with a concert happening 20 meters from you, or with people yelling right by your side. You will get used to seeing a spider way too close to you, but actually not even care, or walking across a field with crickets jumping all around you and you'll just keep on walking like that's just normal. Basically, you'll find weird things normal, and you'll forget all about your daily needs in the city, because for those two weeks, that's your new life, and those become your concerns to survive, to live. You'll pay attention to what really matters in life, and you'll realize that you really don't need that much to be happy.
Going to a music festival with your friends, like I said in the beginning, is AMAZING, but it will also feel like you went to a desert island and all you're doing everyday are survival tactics! Really, you can be as much of a city person as you want, but from the moment you need to build that tent and realize you'll have to sleep inside that thing, everything has to change, and you better not mess it up, or you'll sleep outside for sure - and you'll even get to the point where you'll sleep outside because you don't care about anything anymore and sleeping outside with your friends and lots of crazy people around you is way more fun. You'll become a hole new you: you can shower as much as you want, you'll always - I do mean always - be dirty, you won't recognize your hair and will eventually forget about the idea of trying to make it look good. You won't mind if you went to the beach and didn't shower. Fuck shower, tonight I just wanna go dance and have fun! You'll even get the superpower of falling asleep with a concert happening 20 meters from you, or with people yelling right by your side. You will get used to seeing a spider way too close to you, but actually not even care, or walking across a field with crickets jumping all around you and you'll just keep on walking like that's just normal. Basically, you'll find weird things normal, and you'll forget all about your daily needs in the city, because for those two weeks, that's your new life, and those become your concerns to survive, to live. You'll pay attention to what really matters in life, and you'll realize that you really don't need that much to be happy.
Have I talked about friends? A million times right? Well, It's not enough when I talk about how much I love my girls and how they are the ones who make every trip special and get me stories to tell. Experiencing a music festival with my bestfriends was awesome - because they are awesome as well -, and if waking up with your friends feet in your face isn't true friendship, I don't know what is!