At last I'm starting this little project: The report on the Elektrijada 2004. Getting this done could seem as a easy thing, but if you have been there, you probably know how often black holes erase our memories.
This was my first Elektrijada, and it was great. Some people with more experience told me that the previous year's was better, but, anyway, this Elektrijada was wonderful. Maybe a little bit messy with people spread through several hotels, houses so that it was difficult to get coordinated for parties and other activities.
Ok... let's start with Elektrijada itself... As I wrote in the book for signatures in the "Lady of the rocks" church, the best definition of Elektrijada is "Borrachera de amistad" (Friendship's Drunkenness). This is because you feel so much friendship, people just wanting to have fun with friends, that it is really great.
As it always is, the main character in the Elektrijada was this nice, cool and funny molecule:
Ethanol, C2H5OH, CH3-CH2OH or more commonly known, Alcohol. If you look at the animated image, you will notice that it looks like a puppy. Maybe that is why it is such a funny little molecule.
The quantities of it ingested were so high that Igalo's authorities restricted water from the third day. Some people told me that was due to restrictions and problems with Croatia, but we all know what the real reason was.
The third day people had already substituted all the boring H2O in blood with
the funnier alcohol. Water can be very dangerous for our health in this
situation, so medical authorities recommended to restric the water supply, in
order to avoid people drunk with water and the disturbs associated with them.
That wasn't the only problem the Igalo's authorities had to deal with. The last day, the concentration of alcohol vapour in the air was so high, that smoking and making fire was prohibited because of the danger of explosions.
The origin of that amount of alcohol vapour is still unknown, but a dense cloud covered all Igalo, and later surprisingly got divided and each part flew in different directions: Ljubljana, Banja Luka, Belgrade... The scientist are still investigating this rare and highly unusual phenomenon...
As always, travelling for Spaniards is special. Why do it the simple way, if you can do it in the hard way? This time, just a week before Elektrijada I still wasn't sure whther I'd be able to go. I was waiting for the result of an instance I'd posted in order to get rid of the last subject I had left to finish my career.
On Tuesday I finally got the affirmative response, and started planing the
journey at top speed. I wrote to people in Banja Luka and Belgrade asking for free
board. In Banja Luka there were some free places left, but the flights were totally
prohibitive, over 900 EUR. So finally I booked a flight to Belgrade without
knowing what was going to happen, if I would have to sleep under a bridge
or what. :)
Actually I travelled with the Belgrade people to Igalo, and there I was hosted by the Banja Luka people. Thanks to both of them!!!.
After being very happy, this time taking a direct flight to Belgrade in stead of flying to Venice and then spending way too many hours on a train (read the Congress Report to know what that is like) I was informed that the bus from Belgrade to Igalo took something like 15-16 hours... Ouch!
My flight departure was at 6:30am, so I had to be at the airport at 5:00-5:30. Clearly that means a non-sleeping night, because I was not going to go to bed early and wake up at 4:00-4:30. No Way.
So I spent some time finishing up some work before leaving, packing up my luggage, and later I joined a party at a friend's house around 1am (most of them were too drunk to remember I was there XD) and finally I returned home at 3am, to take a shower and go to the airport.
The flight wasn't interesting at all. It was too early to buy newspapers, so I had to read those stupid magazines and brocuhres flight companies put on planes.
The worst part was the 4 hours and a half I had to wait in the airport at Milano. I
tried to go to the city, but I lost the first train, and waiting to the next
and the travel itself was going to take too long leaving me with only 1 hour or
so of free time at
Milano. Too expensive and dangerous for only one hour of visit. So I went to a
book shop and I had already selected some books in English as candidates to
be bought when I saw a section with books in Spanish!. Yuhuuu!. I bought one that seemed
interesting and I almost read half of it during the wait.
Already in Belgrade, we went with the other guests to have dinner at a typical and old restaurant. When we were almost full of eating nice cheeses and other things, they told us that those were only the starters. We were really worried, wondering if they were trying to fatten us in order to eat us up later.
Afterwards we went to the Welcome Party, with free drinks for all and had a lot of fun
there as the photos show. We ended up totally drunk. You have to get
used to that phrase "We ended up absolutely drunk" and other variations of it,
because it is going to appear repeatedly throughout this report. XD
I didn't sleep the night before I started my travel, or during the
actual journey, and we finished the
Welcome Party very late, so that I was in so
much need of sleep that I missed all the morning visits. Hehehe, sorry folks! The only
thing I'm sorry about was not getting to meet the Linux guru at Belgrade's University... I
know... I'm crazy.
So I joined the others for the meal, in the "VIP" room of a restaurant, and
later we went to have some coffee whilst waiting for our departure time.
Before taking the busses we had to pack all our luggage again. I went with Ruzica, and experienced the most silly packing I have seen in my life. Every stupid little thing was able to take our minds away from the boring task. You can check out just how many silly things people can made when bored.
Later, in the University's parking lot we met huge masses of people
walking around nine buses. So many people!. Incredible! All those students
were waiting to take a bus.
The journey... What can I say about the journey? It was getting dark by then and the party began just seconds after the bus started moving. Some songs, mostly those adorable serbian songs, a lot of different beverages from different countries, etc. Specially remarcable was the "Vodka party vodka" made by Suzi, with, oh surprise, vodka, and some strange sweet powders for children. You first put the powder on your mouth, drink a shot of vodka and shake the mix. The first that swallows the mix loses. Your whole mouth becomes spicy, and later you lose all sensitivity. After doing this several times your mouth becomes so insensible that you can drink brakia as if it was water. Needless to say, we ended up totally drunk.
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Gradually, people started to fall asleep and stoped signing and the darkness covered all.
I woke up very early (I usually wake up with the first rays of light) just on time to see the really nice sights of the mountains as the bus travelled down to the sea side. Clouds below us were covering all the valley and the sun was painting it all a golden sheen.
The rest of the journey was very calm. We crossed the city where the previous Elektrijada had taken place, and took a ferry to cross the bay. In that area the shores are very close, and without the ferry the travel will take 1 hour and a half or more, bordering all the bay.
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The arrival was a little bit messy. Too many people banging around and waiting
for their rooms. I took a shower and went sightseeing, meeting old friends,
having coffees and resting till the dinner. I also met the silly Spanish girl
that came from Germany, Beatriz.
We rest all the day, taking everything easy, Montenegro spirit. We were told several jokes about Montenegro lazy people. The best one: "Do you know the Montenegrian World Record in the 100 metres race? click here to see the solution. Anyway montenegrian dogs were always teaching the lazy spirit, so you never forget it.
The dinner was very funny with Branka and the most-unpronounceable-name for
Spaniards, Snježa (she promised me to send me a complete tutorial on how to
pronounce it in mp3). She had to save some food for some friends who were outside, but
the oil-covered-omelette was not a very suitable dish for that. Anyway,
Snje¸a managed to pack part of the omelette. Check out the pictures! XDDD.
The sun started to set, and everybody was very worried because there was no defined plan for a mega-welcome-party. Fortunately we met some Slovenian guys that had (surprise! surprise!) drinks with them and were busy emptying bottles up on the beach. And they seem to need help (hehehe), so we bought some beer and joined them.
Later the official party started at the Obala Restaurant. It was full of
people, some dancing on top of whatever was higher that ground level. When the music started to
change to serbian super-ultra-turbo-folk some of us moved to the Barons disco, and
danced like crazy till late in the morning ;). Great partyyyy!
The morning was really calm and relaxed. I woke up late, had breakfast slowly. I slept enough to recover from all the partying of the previous day and the tiring and long journey by bus.
After the meal, a group of people got together for a walk to the old part of Igalo and to visit the castle. We had the opportunity of seeing the GREAT red t-shirts "EESTEC United". I ordered mine almost immediately. And we had some group photos taken that look terrible with that t-shirt. Irene, a very well known Spanish girl that was unable to came at the last moment almost died of envy looking at the photos... "And there is an special model for girls, Ouch!". Next time no excuses, Irene, you have to come!
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The town was really nice, after climbing up two steps of a stair we all agreed in taking a break (Montenegro's spirit) and relaxed in a pub ordering some huuuuuge ice-creams and beers. After a time we realized that sitting down we were not going to be able to see anything. Lazy castle, why you don't came to us? So we had to move again and climb a few more stairs. We finally visited the castle, and the oldest and the bigge... er... no... sorry... this time it was the smallest library in Europe XDDD.
The afternoon transcurred slowly, between coffee and coffee, very relaxed, and some rumours started to go round. EESTEC party this night. Etage pub. Wooojooo.
As it always happens, things were really messy. Nobody knew what the exact
plan was, and as I tried to find everyone and arrange a trip to the Etage pub I
was "forced" to taste all the drinks of the people I was
meeting. At the end, I was already drunk and I lost almost everone on the
way. I went to Barons club, were I had was planned to meet with Beatriz and other
people. Nobody there. Returning to Hotel Centar I meet the most crazy, funny
and drunk girls of all the Balkans: Marina and Catherina, that were trying to
walk in a straight line without success. :). They were dressed in a very
colorful way and with flashy earrings, one each one, and told me that they are
going to buy a new pair of earrings to share every night. I joined on the way to the party. During the way we
bought more wine. We were drunk and was very difficult to choose: red or
white wine? let's take one of each. Slowly, with ease and at a leisurely pace,
we walked all the way and finally reached the Etage club.
In the bathroom Marina stole my camera and took some photos of Catherina in the bathroom. Arggg... silly girlssssssss!. This party was totally crazy. After drinking all kinds of beverages before coming, wine whilst getting there, and a lot of beer, palinkovac, Brakia, wine, tequila... in the Etage club I ended up veeeeeery drunk. In fact there was a point of injunction, drinking tequilas with Beatriz and Milenko. From that point I can't remmember anything till the very end of the party. I don't remember too well getting back to the Hotel, I can only remember about 5 seconds of it. ;)
The tequilas' thing was really funny. We ordered several rounds of tequila; in the last round Milenko and me paid our own tequilas, but the barman charged Beatriz for all three of them. We explained the mistake to the barman, asking for a refund. Instead of giving back the money, he simply filled again all three glasses. Double tequilas!!! Ouch!!! Too much alcohol.
But I was not the only one drunk that night. I was told a story about that night: a Sloveninan guy fell down the stairs and got to the bottom bouncing on his ass on every step; at the bottom two peaople who have asked to remain anonymous were laughing at him. He asked them not to tell anyone about it, and he would invite them to beer. They got their free beer. The next days they were going around with the joke of "finding the drunk Slovenian guy and make him invite you again". XDDD
Another story about that night: Marina, in the return trip to the Hotel, meet a poor policeman, and started asking him to measure her alcohol level in blood. The policeman refused, firstly arguing that he didn't have the alcoholimeter, later saying that he had to arrest her in order to be able to make her take the test. She answered quickly "Yes, pleeease, arrest me!". At the end the poor policeman had to at least guess the alcohol level. He said 0.7 and Marina was very angry with him, because she was offended with such a low level.
After soooooo maaaaany drinks the previous night, the morning was relaxing. I wake up late, with, fortunately, no hangover whatsoever, and went to have a huge coffee with some great friends at the border of the bay. Greeeeatttt...
At the beginning of the afternoon I finally went to see some of the sports. Yes, some people play sports in the Elektrijada. Unbelievable ;). I took some photos to be able to show that I was really at the Elektrijada, and it was not just an urban myth.
Whilst looking at the matches, alcohol started to flow again, with afternoon parties taking place all along the hotels and places.
The official party that night was planed on the Bolivar Club, again in the old part of Igalo. That meant that it was far away, so we decided to make a pre-party to drink and gather enough energy to reach the Bolivar Club.
The pre-party was at the Ruzica, Marija and Dragana's flat... that was going to be the meeting place for pre-parties for the following days. At the end, we reached the official party very late, nearly at 1am, but ready to dance and have fun.
After the party... After partyyyyyy! We went to the Igalo Hotel, were the Slovenian guys had a huge amplifier and loudspeakers, and, of course, DJ Borut was there, so we had a great party till the sun came up and joined our dancing.
As you can see, this was the parties day! Afternoon parties, pre-party, party and after-party!
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The morning was awful... After going to bed at 7am totally drunk imagine waking up at 9am to go on a trip. Anyway, I woke up because I had already missed the trip to Dubrovnik the previous day, and I wanted to visit that town, which people had told me was great.
The journey was very short... err... I fell asleep before the doors of the bus closed, woke up to show my passport to a funny policeman in the Croatian border, and wake up when Dubrovnik came in sight through the windows of the bus. A very short journey ;)
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Dubrovnik itself was very beautifull. It is a nice town by the sea, completely surrounded by a huge wall and it's really well conserved. It reminded me of a similar city in Portugal, also surrounded by a wall that I liked a lot, but they have their differences.
At the end I joined the vodka master Suzi's group, who were drinking vodka with apple juice after every 10 stair's steps. Under the sun, so early, drinking again... Ouch... After walking around the entire wall we ate some food in a nice place, with a door covered with money notes from different countries. Nice.
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I sleep again during the back-travel, maybe a little bit more, and I got back to Igalo having rested enough to last the rest of the day.
Again we decided to make a pre-party before joining the rest of people. You know, the official party was going to take place in the Bolivar Club again, and we needed to gather up our energy again ;). It was a completely crazy pre-party, with another vodka party, and even a brakia party... ouch... brakia with that powder hurts! By this point of the Elektrijada a lot of people were addicted to my photo camera so you will probably get bored with the amount of pictures taken that night. I removed at least the unfocused and repeated ones ;)
At the party, I meet the astounding pair: Marina & Catherina. This time they were not
wearing funny earrings, but... ok... just look at the photo. XDDD. After dancing
a lot and the compulsory after-party we went to bed around 6am.
Ouch...
the second straight day that we had to wake up very
early, this time at 9am to attend the boat trip. Only a few hours of
sleep, but after several coffees in the morning we managed to feel ok and
ready for the trip.
Several boats came to take us. We managed to get into the big one, which had music and more space. It was a miracle that none of the other boats sank because of overload. XDDD.
The travel was reeeeeeally nice, very relaxing, with the wind blowing in our faces and a warm sun heating up our skin. The music was also very appropiate, makeing us feel like the most fortunate people in the world.
The boats sailed trough the bay, and carried us to a pair of islands in the
middle of the river. In each island there was a church. And one of the islands
is artificial, made by throwing stones into the water stone by stone, year after
year. The church in the artificial island is called Lady of Škrpjela and
not only does it have a mobile-ized priest, but it also has a nice museum with a lot
of cool things.
For the return trip, some people went back directly, to attend to the final
matches of the championship, whilst others stayed a little bit longer to visit a town
near the churches, and returned slowly. One of the boats was really really
slow... It run out of fuel, and people had to wait for another boat to
pick them up. Fuuuunnyyyy! XDDD
After several days planning how to make sangria, we finally managed to get
support from the Belgrade people (as everybody know, they are addicts to
sangria) and I went to the sports fields to pick people up. I could take some
action photos of sports, and for first time I played one sport: "Beer
feeding" hehehe.
Imagine carrying about 20 kilos of bottles and other stuff for a 10 minute walk... what we had to suffer to transport all that wine and some other drinks from the shop to the apartment of the people from Belgrade. :) But the sangria was worth the effort!!! We drunk some shorts to celebrate such an incredible feat and Dragana's birthday. Happy birthday! That night she drunk all the alcohol that found its way to a 10 metre radius from her, and ended up like a zombie in the morning, with very inflamable alcohol vapours surrounding her. ;)
We mixed the main ingredients of the sangria resting for a while and left the final mixing with the rest of the ingredients till later, at the final place where we were going to drink the sangria, so that it would be easier to transport the big plastic can without danger. Some slovenian guys with a car took all the things, we don't know how, but the ingredients ended up at the pub of where the farewell party was going to take place later.
Meanwhile we had dinner and joined everyone else to see the silly palm cross which the Slovenians organized, it is going to become the official sport in the next Olympic Games for sure! It was really funny.
Moving all the people to the pub was reeeeally difficult. Everybody was drinking, a lot of the sports guys were making up on the drinking time they'd lost the previous days... Anyway, I don't know how people finally started moving, and we reached the pub.
I mixed the first big can of sangria, and people started drinking. Soon it
became clear that we were going to have problems with the owners of the
pub, because loud music was not allowed... And... you know, a farewell party
without music to dance to is not a farewell party. So when the first sangria was
emptied (quite soon, believe me) we moved on to the biggest, greatest and olde...
er.. sorry... it was the emotion, couldn't help myself... To the greatest after party you could
ever imagine, right in front of the Igalo's Hotel, with the music coming from
the Slovenians' room.
Borut told me that the Slovenians' bus driver was an international policeman, and
convinced the local police to let us have fun and loud music without problems.
Greeeat!
I mixed the second sangria can, and the party started. The atmosphere at the beginning was a little bit stopped, but it quickly went into "increscendo" till the morning, with all the people dancing like crazy outside, with the firsts lights of day.
Ouch... the second day in a row that we had to wake up very early.
I went to bed at 7am, but woke up early to say good by to everyone. It was very sad, and in sad moments you are not in the mood to take photos.
The buses to Belgrade left around 6pm, so after saying goodbye we still had time to go for a walk, try some tipical fish from this part of the country and prepare some food for the travel.
The trip by bus was awful. All the night travelling, too tired to sleep, so tired that all your body hurts and sitting down is very unconfortable. At least Belgrade's volleyball team did a lot of stupid things, so the rest of us could laugh at them. First they "occupied" the EESTEC bus after crossing the Bay (they looked like children), and didn't want to go back to their bus. Finally they agreed to return after getting some sweets as a reward, but the sweets were "Menthol" in reference to their "Mental" level, and they didn't realize what the joke with the name was till much later. A lot of jokes and laughs started after taht, for example giving them other types of sweets and let them try tu figure out a non-nexisting word-play behind those gift for hours. XDDD. To make everything worst, the sports team painted one of the buses, but they made a mistake, and the bus they ended up painting was their own! Incredible. XDDD
Finally we arrived in the morning at Belgrade, totally exhausted after the long journey, but alive. The guests went to the students' dormitory at the center of Belgrade, and after taking a shower, we felt much better. The hours were spent in drinking coffee, downloading all the photos from my camera, reading mail, eating and buying things. Early on the afternoon I had to leave to the airport (while the other guests remained there one more night).
That was the end of my first but not last Elektrijada. Very sad. I would keep going on parties like those with all EESTEC people for years. I really liked the Elektrijada spirit. Friendship's Drunkenness. I hope to meet you again next year in the next Elektrijada!!!
Thanks for your interest! I hope you found this history nice :)