PLAI Festival in Romania

I got a lazy writer, but not because I am lazy in general, no! Rather the opposite is true and I have no time for blogging because I am going to Romania for example! The PLAI Festival was going down in Timişoara the 6th time if I remember correctly. We – actually footbag-vienna – were invited to do a Footbag Workshop there and of course we utilized the opportunity to visit Romania (for me the first time of my life) and so we threw ourselves into a car riding down the Danube, hitting Budapest and Szeged before turning left to Timişoara.

First thing to tell the astonished audience: The car wasn’t stolen and we came back home with all of our 4 tires plus radio! So much to prejudices…

So this journey once more showed me how awesome and wonderful a country can be. Maybe I am just always visiting the right places – first of it was Timişoara, Main Square, to stop my prelude and get further on with the story. We got there on Thursday night, just parking the car and then hitting the town, guided by
Mara: Is one of the nicest girls in Romania I guess and she was our host for 4 days, supplying us breakfast, a nice room, mattresses and also went out with us almost everyday, without thinking for the consequences, that the next day comes, and that we could sleep, however, she had to get up early as one of the festival organizers. Nevertheless, she just doesn’t stay nice and awesome on its own, because she is a twin and doubled the action with her twin-sister, which – I guess – is the second nicest girl in Romania then. Did I mention she plays Footbag?

So our stay was really comfortable, we had to fight to get out of bed to the festival location, which was located a bit out-of-town in a museum village with millions of volunteers taking care for everything you could wish of. One of these volunteers, Gabi, supported us with extraordinary knowledge of traditional alcoholic beverages and one of the best eastern-english accents ever heard. He introduced us to his house wine which tasted like olives mixed with grape-juice and also explained us the difference between Tuica and Palinka.

On Friday we hold a Footbag show in front of the main stage to promote our workshops on Saturday and Sunday. I really enjoyed this part, because I rocked – seriously, I had a really good feeling on stage and somehow could spread my happiness across to the audience. I don’t want to debase the others, just want to say thanks to the festival for giving me such a good feeling.
Saturday was mainly workshop. So many people tried to hack the sack, incredible. We were amazed and we hope for a growing footbag scene in little vienna (a.k.a Timişoara).

The festival offered a great show for people with an unusual taste for music. There was only one real stage, which was surrounded by the visitors, who had only one desire: The music shouldn’t stop, no matter which kind of music, it should just go on, otherwise silence will break through the night and we would go and drink Gabi’s tasty wine in the more than comfortable chill-out zone, or swing on a wooden beam fixed with a rope to a tree. So to list some of the acts: There was Christoph Pepe Auer, an amazing Indian drummer (whose best instrument was a metal-bucket filled with water) who didn’t really get that beat-boxing can be far better than just singing the “ragadaga”, and an Portuguese singer, whose interpretation of Johnny Cash was killing me!

Sunday was our last day, with a couple of hours workshop, a really nice (obviously) and emotional good-bye and a more than fast return to Vienna.

Vielen Dank Rumänien und hoffentlich geht sich nächstes Jahr das Plai Festival auch wieder aus! – as more like half of the people we met could speak perfect German – incredible…

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