Let me tell you about this whole adventure that happened to me last weekend.

It was a long Friday morning in which I woke up without having much sleep again. I’m kidding, this is not how we will start…
So, I woke up, I mumbled, I packed and I went away for my next adventure. Namely “Moga fest /2018/” /translated as “I can fest 2018”/. My second visit of Etropole and the fest itself. I was fortunate enough to even find transportation, Dido and the Trotara foundation of course. Really, we are all so tired of nasty barely moving buses. If I have to entirely honest our vehicle was not much better, old and a little bit broken minivan, full of luggage. BUT, to travel with friends and even a foreigner calling himself Nathan was definitely cool.

So we drove off, the adventure began!

10 minutes later in the car by the music of „Izkaz” I was full of excitement and impatience, I was hoping that it will be like the last-year fest… so it was. It was GREAT!

Everything started when we arrived, supposedly. In the biggest heat, at lunch time, at least there were free spots for tents /a nice man were even politely asked to move away his tent so that he can free up the perfect space for my hammock/. So we positioned ourselves, whomever wherever we could. In the meanwhile more and more people were coming. As expected, the bad luck caught me. Within 10 minutes I was able to lose my phone /we found it/ and the consecutive knife in the toilet. The day passed pretty fast, we built up a TRAP pavilion, all of us took some beers and what not. And then we waited breathless for the arrival of “Neshto cvetno” at the stage.

Last arrangements aaaand ready, steady, GOOOO! They got out and set everything on fire. I’m not going to get into the details for the groups.

They finished their set, I can note that they personally greeted me with the anthem of Trotoara – “Ianska”, so to say complete happiness.

Plastic Bo. showed up, they performed new and old songs and eternal hits like “Stavri gleda dinozavri”. One song before that I was able to twist my ankle super stupidly. Till the end of the concert it was insane. Close to the end but not last The top stoppers were also great with their show. For the finale, the organizers had chosen Merudia, the perfect end of the night.

“23:30 By the fire after-party”, this year they had taken care of setting fires at selected spots because of safety concerns. As you can imagine: fire, guitars, music in general, alcohol is pouring, barbeque is being made. And the best thing, we had a bagpipe player. I got nuts when he started playing. The spirit was beyond words. I remember that at that point I went away to our camp where I spent most of my time with a great semi-Plovdiv company. That’s how we finished the first day/night.

DAY 2

I couldn’t visit most of the prepared activities because of the damned twisted ankle. BUT instead of that, as the first one to wake up of some short sleep, I managed to prepare pretty big amount of pancakes on a small gas hot plate in the especially prepared for this occasion pan. I hope that at least most of the people were happy because of that. I really got a lot of admirations for my enthusiasm.

As almost every year we had the plan to cook free BEAN STEW in a huge pan. There were some rumors for 180 liters but eventually it was 100 /fortunately/. We were in the town with a friend and we were trying to bind my leg with 2 spoons and some bandage, don’t ask how and why. Then one of the organizers showed up – Ican. Eventually we settled on the bean stew recipe and the needed ingredients. In the meanwhile Trotoara foundation created benches and tables out of special wooden material under some acoustic sounds and the voice of great young performers who, with a little bit of not telling the exact truth, I can say are juniors from TRAP. Everybody with a little bit of creativity and willingness joined but unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to paint everything.

When I eventually managed to get myself to the fest zone, limping, I got into the vegetables cutting for the dish on top of the just constructed /upside down/ by Nathan table. I said in the beginning that the bad luck became my friend back then so guess what – I managed to cut myself super ugly, while cutting carrot. The bad thing about making the bean stew was that a lot of people were helping with the cutting, with the mixing, with everything. So I won’t be mentioning the other activities because, as I said, I didn’t participate. But I know from first hand that they were pretty interesting.

Expectedly, the second part of the music preparation started. The weather, so far fabulous, decided to give chance only to the young people from Dumbfound, the only harder format for the fest and Jeremy?, before the rain started pouring and ended the performance. In the meanwhile everyone started running around /including myself/ to collect whatever they had, to cover equipment, by the way the sound was amazing, kudos to the dudes from Stroeja.

Even the sky pouring on top of us didn’t affect our great spirit. Together with friends, we sat down in the middle of the meadow, sharing beer and rakiya with healing goal in mind. I was barefoot and I witnessed /not for the first time/ the COMPLETELY NAKED Rado running under the sounds of about a hundred people yelling “Rado, Rado is running naked”. Most of the guests were disgusted, for us it was super idiotic, we were even enjoying his courage. The rain stopped. The concert continued with FON, recently formed group, after them we had Der Hunds, one more time, great end of the night.

As I said earlier, I won’t go into the details about the groups’ performance. Everyone was great and kudos to all the day 2 performers for not giving up because of the rain. All bands proved that the Bulgarian underground is really cool and at a very high level. They were unique by themselves. WE, the public, didn’t stop entertaining and jumping, at least the ones that could, the yelling of “more” proved that.

Тhe party continued till dawn. Even with the obstacles, even with everything. The after-party was by the fire again, this time we had a trumpeter. Everyone sang whatever they could, as much as they could. Because of the delay of the scene, the after party began later. And I, again, didn’t stay long there. This time I had a better excuse than “I decided to wonder around”, I found two motorcyclists. “Tactfully” they were encouraged to drive me around. For about 2 hours we didn’t get off the motors. When we got back, the party was still running at full speed. With every passing year I convince myself how immortal people could be, especially when talking about drinking alcohol. And for the end, I can’t miss this special type of idiots who, every year, at night time, play the same song over and over again /a playlist, including 2 songs actually/ with big speakers in the middle of the main camp. Because of that, ladies and gentlemen, I recommend the second camping zone, it’s true that it is a bit further away from the party but this is actually a good thing when you really want to relax /bonus: you have better options for positioning yourselves/.

“Cleaning the meadow and water war”, I was amazed how many times less the garbage was this time.

*To the organizers: next time, please, put bins everywhere, especially around the toilets, there were some dumb asses that had thrown away a full bag with empty cans in one of the toilets.
I will skip telling you how I made breakfast for most of the people and how I burnt myself badly and I will move on. Surprisingly big amount of people participated in the cleaning. When we took off everything was sorted and ready for freight. As for the water wars: I think that the adults had enough fun last night with the rain so we left that little pleasure for the kids.

What to say more, it was a great adventure is / was / will be! Etropole is a unique mountain city. I have almost no remarks for anything. If you seek some entertainment, relax and summer adventures, this is your festival. I am sorry for publishing this article so late. When something finishes, the everyday routine swallows us, again and again. They asked me: “ok, how do you remember everything?”. Well, it’s easy. It’s always an unforgettable event, full of emotions and yes…

That was it from me!

HERE ARE THE PHOTOS FROM THE FESTIVAL!