Eating a Novelty-Sized Hot Dog in Front of a Pile of Garbage
July 31 - August 2, 2015
We hadn't been living in Berlin long when our friend Michelle first came to visit. While she was in town, she introduced us to a friend she had met traveling named Jesus who had also just moved to Berlin. After she went back to the states, we figured we should give Jesus a call and try to hang out, as friends weren't something we had an abundance of in our new city.
The first time we made plans with Jesus, he ended up canceling them a couple of days before we were supposed to hang out. He told us he had decided to go with some of his coworkers to Woodstock Poland for the weekend. He felt bad about ditching us, and so he invited us to come along. In the communal spirit of the original Woodstock festival, everything about the Polish version was free: There were no tickets, and you could camp anywhere you felt like setting up your tent. We looked at the lineup, chuckled at the strangely eclectic artists they had rounded up, and decided that there was really no good reason not to go. Part of the mentality we were trying to foster since moving to Europe was a "say yes" attitude, so if your newly-acquainted Spanish friend asks you to go to a possibly dodgy free music festival in Poland on a day's notice, you should absolutely go and do it.
Woodstock Poland is held in the town of Kostrzyn, just on the other side of the Polish/German border, and takes around 2 hours to reach by train from Berlin. We met Jesus and his work friends at the station and barely made it aboard our train. With seemingly plenty of time to spare, we ran to the shop to grab road beers, and a human sloth ringing us up at the register made the exchange take minutes instead of moments. We sprinted back to the platform and got on just as the doors closed. The train was packed well past capacity with other festival-goers and their camping gear. We sat next to an extremely intoxicated punk who would eventually be booted off the train in the middle of nowhere for not having a ticket; we'd surprisingly see him somewhat less-drunkenly wandering around the festival later that weekend.
The festival had already been going for a day when we arrived early Friday evening, and in that short time every Porta Potty between the train station and the festival grounds had already been completely destroyed by butts. Some friends of Jesus's friends found us near the outskirts of the festival and guided us through the crowds to the campsite they had already staked out. We were prepared for there to be a lot of people at the festival, but neither of us had any idea what the reality was going to be. We walked with our gear through the entire festival grounds before making it to the camping area on the other side, which was bogglingly packed with tents as far as the eye could see in all directions (stupidly, we never took a picture of it). We continued walking for what must have been 2 km before we finally reached the edge of the tent city, where thankfully our group had found some open space to set up camp.
One thing we noticed as we hiked through the mass of humanity was that there were no bathrooms anywhere in the camping area. Realizing this, we were thankful our spot was nestled against a small wooded area in the otherwise open farmland everyone else had set up in. As every outhouse we encountered over the course of the weekend would invariably be full of putridness, the trees behind our campsite would serve as our bathroom for our entire stay at the festival. To the date of this writing, Kirb has pooped outside in the country of Poland significantly more times than he has in an actual bathroom.
We were happy to be putting our camping gear to use after having lugged it all the way from America, especially having just learned that backpack camping as we know it in the Pacific Northwest is essentially illegal in Germany. Our group was nicely prepared for the festival weekend with a covered canopy to escape from the sun and lots of toys like footballs and Frisbees to play with in the massive open field next to our camp. Always a fan of life's simple pleasures, drinking beers and playing catch in the sunshine at our makeshift campsite was the highlight of the weekend for Kirb.
Our estimation is that there were around a million people at the festival that weekend. Woodstock Poland claims to be the "largest open air festival in Europe," and though we can't find a specific attendance number for 2015 online, they've cleared 750,000 in previous years, so a million doesn't seem implausible. The sheer mob of human bodies was often difficult to wade through, and you got used to not moving anywhere particularly quickly. As you shuffled slowly from place to place you were usually immersed in a giant cloud of dust, which inevitably made its way into every crevice and orifice of your clothing and body. By the end of the weekend we were filthy. The water in the shower that Sunday was a deep brown.
There were lots of food stands set up, and surprisingly the lines were never particularly long. Even more surprising was the price of food: nothing cost more than 3-5 bucks for a filling meal. We got some groceries at the makeshift store they installed on the festival grounds, and a 5-gallon jug of water, a bag full of rolls, salami, and sliced cheese cost less than €3, and those were apparently "inflated festival prices." Tallboys of beer only cost €1, and they'd give you as many as you wanted, unopened in 4-pack plastic packaging. It was not uncommon to see people walking away from the beer lines (which were usually quite long) with as many cans as their arms could carry.
We have never seen so many people so drunk in one place as we did at Woodstock Poland. Every 50 yards or so you'd find someone passed out face-down in the dirt off the path. Any section of grass one might sleep on, no matter how small, always had a tent pitched on it, even on major walking thoroughfares. Yet for as many completely wasted people as there were, we didn't witness a single act of aggression the entire weekend. Apparently, drunk Polish people just want to high-five and hug, not beat each other senseless. Our group contemplated over it and all agreed that if a festival like this were held in the US, UK, or Australia, there would undoubtedly be fatalities. So we've got to hand it to the Poles – they get remarkably drunk, but they are remarkably good-tempered drunks.
The Hare Krishnas seemed to control an entire section of the festival. They were offering "Food for Peace," where you could pay as much as you were able for a meal (with a suggested donation of around €2). They were preparing vegetarian bean and lentil dishes in giant vats stirred by men in green jumpsuits, which were served over rice with some chips and a spongy raisin wad for dessert. Interestingly, Hare Krishnas never sample the food they are cooking, as they believe it must be offered to Krishna first. They also believe that food absorbs the consciousness and emotions of the cook, which is one of the reasons Krishna monks don't eat out at restaurants. Their Food for Peace tasted strongly of good intentions, and we applaud their efforts to sustainably feed such a massive crowd of hungry festival-goers.
The acts on the main stage that Saturday were a ridiculous l-2-3 lineup that would probably never fly as a cohesive bill at any festival that wasn't free. The first band of the evening time slot was Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society, a formulaic hard rock band from America for people who don't like to be surprised by anything whatsoever in their music. Following the innocuous metal was "Mr. Boombastic" himself, Shaggy, there to pacify the party vibes of the festival crowd with some feel-good reggae and R&B. Shaggy has had several huge hits, and he's been at it for decades now, so it was surprising just how awful his live set was. His DJ would hard-cut out of every song to yell "Get your hands up!" or "SCREEEAAM!!!" and wouldn't even bother cross fading or transitioning between songs, which almost always ended early and abruptly. The set was jarring and awkward to the point of bewilderment. The final act on the main stage was blue-collar Irish punks Flogging Molly, who sang their upbeat drinking songs with admirable gusto. Still, we had our fill of the music and the main stage crowds after only a few of their songs.
Honestly, we didn't come to Woodstock Poland to listen to the music. We came for the experience; for the people watching. By Saturday night the festival grounds were trashed. There were piles of garbage everywhere you looked, scattered underfoot by the throng of drunks. Kirb noticed someone eating the largest hot dog he had ever seen. It was literally an entire baguette with hot dog bits sticking out on either end. It was ludicrous. He had to have it. He had to know what eating that thing was like. We walked along the food stands until Kirb found the novelty-size hot dog vendor and bought his own, which turned out to be two separate, very long wieners inside one giant bun. It cost €3 and was probably enough food for 3 people. Though it didn't taste particularly good, he was pleased to know that such a thing existed, and ate it contentedly in front of mountain of garbage. When he couldn't possibly eat any more, its remains became part of the ever-growing pile.
The train station was a complete mess the next morning. There were far more people trying to leave the festival than there were trains to carry them, so the waits were long, with people laying aimlessly all around the platforms on top of their gear. Eventually we got on a train towards Berlin, but it stopped after an hour or so in a small town and everyone was asked to disembark. We had no idea what the announcements in German were saying, but the native German speakers seemed equally confused about what was happening. Without warning, while everyone was standing on the platform, they opened the doors to the front train car and people mobbed to get inside. We stayed behind apprehensively by the back car, not sure what to do. Suddenly, the train cars detached from each other and the front car began to lurch forward without us, inexplicably leaving half of its riders stranded at an empty station in the middle of nowhere.
No one could explain to us what was happening. 50 yards or so up the tracks, another car from the train before ours had also been abandoned, though its riders weren't even left at a proper platform. People from that train car slowly began to emerge and make their way cautiously down the tracks to the station, none of them having any idea why their train car had been detached and left behind. People started calling for cabs, and slowly they began to show up, but there weren't nearly enough cars for all the people who wanted them. After sitting around the station for several hours waiting for another train, we eventually made our way into a cab that charged €25 to drive us to the nearest S-Bahn train that could take us back into Berlin (the train from Poland had only cost €7). Our 2-hour trip home ended up taking over 7 hours, serving as an interminable finale to an already exhausting weekend.
Our "say yes" attitude resulted in a truly unique travel experience, that much cannot be denied. There's little chance we'll be returning to future installments of Woodstock Poland, but we're glad we experienced the one we did. The novelty-sized hot dog didn't taste all that great, but it is etched firmly in our memories.