Being the thrifty couple that we are, Henry and I scored free tickets to last weekend's 4 day Skive Music Festival. Well technically, the tickets weren't actually free. We did have to volunteer 12 hours worth of our mad kitchen skills at the campground food service tent in exchange for the goods. Was it worth it? Read on to find out.
When Henry first approached me with this idea, I was a tad hesitant. Foreign volunteering sounded rather stressful. but he assured me that I could just work in the kitchen area, and wouldn't have to speak much Danish. He also assured me we would be working one day shift and one evening shift. Funny how all of a sudden that evening shift had magically turned into an all night shift the day before it happened. I suspect somebody told a little fib to get me to agree to foreign volunteering. Very sneaky Henry!
We arrived at the food tent at 11pm for our first shift. It was pure mayhem under that red and white striped canvas. Dozens of rowdy drunk people were staggering at the counter waiting to be served. The music was pumping out crazy techno at a decibel level hardly fit for human ears. The volunteers, all sporting their filthy white Hancock t-shirts, were scrambling around the tent whipping up french hotdogs, buckets of fries, ginormous durums, skinke pizza (that's ham pizza in Danish, I just like using the word skinke), pasta with meat sauce, and nachos smothered in processed melted cheese, faster than you can say "drunk people are loud and hungry."
Basically, every single unhealthy form of snack imaginable that would appeal to a drunk person was served in masses from under that tent. And I, as a volunteer, was entitled to eat anything my stomach desired, free of charge. What had I gotten myself into?
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| Some of the action from the volunteer tent. |
By the way, for those of you who don't know what a French Hotdog is, it is what the Danish refer to as a super long, thin wiener shoved down a circular bun with only one open end. The sauces, usually French dressing-a mayo type condiment, and/or ketchup, are squirted into the opening before the hot dog is slid into place.
That entire description sounds just plain naughty, but there is really no other way to describe it. I'm not sure what's naughtier though, my description of how the French hotdog is made, or the picture of it below. You decide.
They put me to work at the durum station. Durum, which is actually a type of wheat, is essentially the Middle Eastern version of a fajita. It was a fairly simple task. First step, take a tortilla out of the warmer then load it with lettuce, a huge scoop of the hot and spicy chicken mix, squirt on some creme fraiche dressing, and wrap it up. Wrapping was the hardest part. It took me approximately 17 durums to get the hang of it. After that, I quickly became a durum master.
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| Three kinds of durum. via |
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| This is my serious durum wrapping face. |
Aside from mastering the skill of durum wrapping, I also learned some things of value during my foreign volunteering experience.
1. Teenage boys are more scared of being in a kitchen than accidentally impregnating their dates on prom night.
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| This picture is a lie. via |
Our second shift in the food tent involved working mostly with a bunch of teenage boys. I'm not sure if all teenage boys behave the way these guys did, but if they do, the world just became a much scarier place. They moved at the pace of snails, sat down and watched the rest of us work the majority of the time, had to be asked more than once to do even the smallest, most obvious of tasks, and they had no clue how to so much as even open an oven door! Clearly these boys do not feed themselves at home, or they would have starved to death long before now. Just to prove my point, here are two conversations I was lucky enough to have with the boy they put on pizza duty:
Conversation #1
Pizza Boy- standing in front of the pizza oven, staring into the depths of it with a blank expression on his face. "How do I open this?" he asks me nervously.
Me- acting out the motion of opening an oven while answering, "You just have to pull down on the door handle."
Pizza Boy- "Oh. Right," he responds, in the most lackluster voice imaginable.
Conversation #2
Pizza Boy- again, standing in front of the pizza oven, this time watching a pizza nearly burn. "I think it's done," he says to no one in particular, but it must have been me because he said it in English. Then he walks away from the oven.
Me- taking the pizza out of the oven for him, "It needs to come out now, it is definitely done," I point out.
Boy- "But there is no room in there," he says, completely monotone, pointing to the pizza warmer up front where the cooked slices sit, waiting for someone ravenous party animal to eat them.
Me- "Well, the pizza would have burned if we left it in the oven any longer."
Boy- "Oh. Right," he says again, with the enthusiasm of a sloth.
Seriously, I think I lost a few brain cells just from standing in the same vicinity as these boys.
2. Drunk people are idiots.
Being sober around thousands of ridiculous drunk people is far from what I would call having a good time. This fully explains why whenever we were not working in the volunteer kitchen, we had to consume our fair share of alcoholic beverages just to cope with being in their presence. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em right?
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| Yup, that idiot is me, drinking straight from the beer jug. I forgot the cups. |
Seriously though, drunk people truly are idiots. They yell and scream and sing off key. They wear cow costumes, adult onesies (see below) and angry birds on their heads, even though it is not even close to Halloween. The majority dance worse than Elaine from Seinfeld, whether there is music playing or not. They spit hockers everywhere, pee on the food tent, throw full cups of beer into crowds of people, and don't even get me started on the condition they leave the porter potties- or pissoirs as they call them in Denmark.
Staying awake all night long to serve these incoherent humans food just about put me over the edge. But it was definitely worth the free ticket that allowed me to behave like one of them on my time off.
3. Sweatsuit jumpsuits are absolutely the most heinous things on earth.
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| I don't normally take pics of random people to make fun of them on my blog. For the onesie, I made an exception. |
These absolutely foolish, unflattering, shockingly expensive adult onesies were everywhere at the festival. I thought it was a joke at first. Or at the very least a ploy to stay warm in the practically sub zero June temperatures. It turns out I was wrong. People seriously wear them because they are supposedly trendy. And believe it or not, they pay a lot of money for them! Some onesies can cost upwards of $200!
I have never been more dumbfounded in my life than I was watching hundreds of actual human beings strut their stuff around the festival grounds in these ridiculous sweatsuits. And it you are thinking it was only ladies wearing them, you better think again. I saw just as many guys sporting a onesie as I did girls. And it equally as stupid, if not more so. Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, or at least for the sake of the eyesight of us anti-onesie human beings, do NOT ever in your life, after that age of 3, even think about putting a onesie on your body!
4. Henry is a master chef
I always knew that Henry was a good cook. He just doesn't do it anywhere near enough. Watching him actually being capable of cooking several delectable dishes for masses of drunk people, has restored in me a new hope for our culinary future together. Now that I have seen you in action Henry, my expectations of you in the kitchen have completely changed. Are you scared? You should be.
As you can see, I learned some valuable lessons from underneath the volunteer tent. Outside the tent though was just as educational. It was on the actual festival grounds where I witnessed some other fairly fascinating creations.
1. The Pissoir
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| I made Henry pee in one for photographic purposes. |
Attached to end of the porter-potty type bathrooms, which were surprisingly clean and included a toilet that actually flushed, hand sanitizer and a mirror, were little trenches for men who enjoy peeing out in the open, while surrounded by thousands of people.
2. Clever Beer Holders
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| A beer carrier for 5? Genius! |
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| A pitcher of beer in a jug with a cover and handle? Why is this the 1st time I've met one? |
3. Shameless Means of Product Promotion
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| This shower was perched right smack in the middle of the festival grounds. |
Leave it to Axe, the company who capitalizes on a man's one track mind, to come up with a portable public shower that involves wearing teeny tiny underpants while sexy Danish girls scrub your body with Axe body wash and giant sponges.
4. Penis Signage and An Enchanted Forest.
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| The walkway leading up to the Enchanted Forest |
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| A band playing in the forest and plenty of tented bars. Note the penis sign on the left. |
As if the massive square footage of the festival grounds wasn't enough, they even created a staircase and bridge leading up into what I like to call the enchanted forest. In the forest was a third stage, several bars, and in case you couldn't find the pissoir amongst the trees, all you had to do was look for arrows in the forms of penises to point you in the right direction.
Have you ever volunteered in a foreign country?
