GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL: PART ONE -- GETTING THERE

 This year I attended Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England. I made the decision to (attempt) to buy a ticket to the festival last October, when I was suffering through Year 12, desperate to escape on a gap year, explore England and be surrounded by music. Surprisingly, I was successful in scoring a ticket, cooped up in my bed at 4am scrambling to enter in all my details as quickly as possible, with an English practice sac the next day... priorities, right?. Obviously, as an Australian I had no idea how intense/amazing it is to actually get a ticket to Glasto - like seriously, people from the UK set up numerous computers, iPads, iPhones and go at it to try and score themselves a ticket. I managed to get my ticket in the first minute (!!!!) - however, in my flustered state I managed to book myself on the 8am coach from London on the Wednesday. This meant that I'd be at the festival for the full 5 days - 2 days before the bands even started playing... actually worked out really well and I do recommend going the full 5 days because it gives you time to get your bearings, explore as much as you can and rest a little bit before the intensity of the next 3 days.

Come this June, off I went alone to the biggest festival in the world, by myself. I spendt a few days in London with one of my friends first in order to adjust to the time zone difference and attempt to get over my shitty cold. I spent the Wednesday from 8am until roughly 2pm at the front of the bus next to this old(ish) man as this couple asked me to move from my seat 'um, because you're by yourself, would you sit up the front and let us sit here together?'. We stopped briefly in Reading at a servo .. aka me eating Burger King in the grass by myself surrounded by groups of friends, me silently praying that'd I make SOME friends over the next 5 days.

I arrived at Glastonbury around 2, walked through the gates and found myself at the beginning of the ginormous (seriously, it's fucking huge) field/s. I began to doubt my decision to do this thing by myself ... this sprawling site was already dotted with thousands of tents and crazy amounts of people milling around. I set off to try and find my tent that'd booked, already set up for me (so worth it). With my hiking backpack (half the size of me), my backpack, sleeping bag, sleeping mat and hat in my arms - unaware of how insanely huge this site was, I began to walk through the middle of the site, only to begin to freak out as I started sweating in the HEAT ... caught me entirely off guard as I was expecting cold, rainy, muddy conditions. Having a minor breakdown, I walked over to some volunteer staff and asked them where Worthy View was (where I was camping). They were very surprised and unsure of what I was talking about, only to look at the map and gasp as they discovered how far I'd already walked and how much further there was to go. Luckily, they helped me carry my stuff the rest of the way...  however, not up the next 3 hills. Once I arrived at the top a lady who was very puzzled said to me 'you do know there was a free shuttle up here from the bus drop off?' I WALKED 3 HOURS ACROSS ALL THESE FIELDS WHEN THERE WAS A BUS THAT WOULD'VE TAKEN HALF AN HOUR. DEAD.

Once I'd recovered from my extensive walk I decided to wander down into 'The Park' and get myself some dinner, then venture up onto the hills to watch the sunset over the site. While sitting on this hill I managed to meet some very lovely English people who took me under their wing and hung out with me over the 5 days. We went and had some drinks and partied a lil, then I made the trek back up to my tent.