What my friend thought

My friend Espen said I could post up his write-up of the time, which is thankfully a lot shorter than mine! He came from Norway and we met up in San Francisco, before going to Reno together.

What a fucking time, easily the most stressful, emotional, and absolutely best time of my life. Moods have been up and down but definitely a strong 90% up.

I had a bit of a nervous breakdown in regards to planning, travelling from Norway, not knowing quite what to expect and avoiding the heavy planning for quite some time, but our unofficial slogan of "everything is going to be fine (it already is)" really came true, which was quite the relief. Though I wish the weather would've been rougher because we properly prepared for harsher conditions, and had to throw a lot of planned stuff for that away. It's a shame so much gets wasted at BM, but that's how it goes when you build a city without existing infrastructure for a week.

I've been absolutely elated at times, deeply moved at the Temple, at times extremely angry at myself for not "having enough fun" and participating enough, then overcoming that again and having a great time. Next year (and yes I definitely have to go back) I'm going to sort myself out so I can gift and give more in general, just because it's so much fun I have a shitload of ideas for fun projects as well.

I've thrown so much money at this thing and it's all been worth it, if you're coming from abroad then just fucking do it, it'll be hell going back and forth but the experience itself is so worth it, and there is no way you can even fathom what it's all about until you've been there (at least that's my experience).

A small collection of random awesome playa moments:

* Meeting a guy handing out food, turns out it's one of the tuna guys and there is only a tiny bit left, but holy fuck that was the tastiest tuna ever.
* Walking around in a whiteout, only to have a guy on a bike stop up next to me and mix me a big drink with ice cubes and everything.
* One of us thinking I had lost the last pack of smokes, random guy overhearing the conversation and giving us a whole pack. Then we discover we actually do have the pack, so we naturally gift a bunch of cigarettes to anyone who wanted one.
* "Spinny lights LED thing" that you get into, having a lot of fun just encouraging people to get in and spinning it for them.
* Coming back late in the night only to find the people in the camp in a big cuddle puddle, spend the rest of the night looking at the amazing stars and making retarded in-jokes.
* Our camp was playing The Beatles and similar stuff in the morning and a naked guy comes up and starts dancing and spinning and having the best time ever.
* Biking along and having a guy running after me so he could give me a beer
* Freezing and heading into a tent where a band was having a great jam session, then having a guy in an astronaut outfit give me an unprompted but quite appreciated hand massage.

Getting back to civilization was weird but satisfying, I had a bath and then a shower because goddamn that water was the filthiest shit I've ever seen Also almost ate myself sick on enormous portions in a Reno casino, then having a hotel room party with everyone and ordering champagne from room service with my norwegian friend answering the door dressed as a giant banana.

I'm back in Norway and it's raining and my apartment is empty, but luckily I'm still feeling excellent, just had to remember things a bit (which can be hard with so much going on constantly)

I agree with "it's not a vacation, it's an adventure" in that it has ups and downs and is difficult, but that is also what makes it special. Since there are no norwegian burners that I know of I'll be heading out to the London Decomp in October to hang out with everyone, and I have to say I'm really looking forward to that as well.

All in all, if you're hesitant about going to BM then just do it, thanks so much to Nancy for talking me into it. I feel like this is what I'm going to be doing for a long long time now. Feels like BM has changed my life quite a bit for the better, though it feels cringingely hippieish to say this back in the "real world" :P True though.