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Today is the big day - Day 1 of Lollapalooza and to say I am excited is a huge understatement. I was up super early organizing everything we needed including tickets, clothes, some food and money. After we had everything organized Heli and I headed to the bus stop and caught the 60 which would take us all the way to the Hippodrome where the festival was being held. Unfortunately the traffic was horrendous today and the bus ride took nearlly two and a half hours - this was also due to the fact that 100,000 people were descending on San Isidro for the festival. When we finally arrived we met up with two friends - Milena and Beto, had something to eat and then made out way to the end of the line at the entrance. The line was almost a kilometer long and we stood waiting for another hour - showing how ridiculously badly organized this festival already appears to be. From looking around at the crowd it's quite obvious the crowd here is very different to the typical festival crowd in Australia. People here are big, tall, short, strange and not worried at all about fashion or appearance. When we eventually got to the entrance they searched us and took and food or water we had and then ushered us to the gate and here is where we had a problem. When I handed over my ticket for them to scan there was a problem - both with mine and with Milenas ticket (she had purchased them for us). After 10 long minutes of not knowing what the hell was going on we were finally told that the tickets were fake and they were taking them from us - what the hell this can not be. What the hell to do now, Heli and Beto were already in and when we talked to each other they slipped me their already used ticket; I then preceded to another entry point and tried my luck - the barcode was scanned and beeped saying the ticket had already been used - I did a confused look and pleaded and unbelievably they allowed me through, however Milena they did not allow through. Eventually Milena also got through the first gate and we thought we were ok - only to find the next gate we all needed to present tickets for our rust bands. Luckily Beto had a spare ticket he was holding for a friend and was able to give it to me but Milena still didn't have a ticket. Once again with a little luck she was able to explain her story to the girls handing out the wrist bands and amazingly they were able to let her in. So two hours after we arrived we were finally in and ready for the festival - the actually grounds were huge and we had to walk over a kilometer just to get to where all the stages were set up. As this is an American festival they had everything imaginable from kids areas/rides, giant beach balls, signs, 50 different food and drink stands, kiosks, Chillout zones, VIP areas, bars and 4 stages - the size of it was unexplainable. We worked out a point to meet at every hour just incase anyone got lost or wanted to go off on their own. We went and watched Cage the Elephant an American punk rock band and they were incredible with a real stage presence and had the crowd going crazy. Unfortunately we didn't have a list of what bands were playing where so we spent a lot of time wondering around trying to work out a plan. The festival was about 5 times the size of ones we have back in Australia and to be honest I was a little worried about loosing everyone. The music and bands got better and better and I got to see a few old favorites and sing along to classic rock songs. The Argentinians got really into the music and literally sing along to all the songs and also when the bands finish the Argentinians chant a local song to thank the artists. The people are very united here and you feel very safe among the people, there was no fighting and hardly any security guards, you could purchase alcohol but literally no one was drinking and 100s of families were at the event with their young children. One of my favorite hip hop singers played at 8pm and I managed to convince everyone to come join me and it was incredible and we were able to get very close to the stage. The bands and music got better and better and hearing NiN for the first time was a real treat - the last two hours of the festival seemed to disappear as we were all having so much fun dancing around and singing along.When the last band finished at 11:30 we headed to the meeting point and met up with everyone and then with the masses slowly exited the venue. There were literally thousands of people on the streets waiting for buses and taxis and it did not look good for us. We walked to one bus stop and waited along with 200 people only to find every bus going past was full. It wasn't so bad as we were all still on a high from such a great day and all the great music. At 1am we walked to another stop where there were less people but still all the buses coming passed were full. It came to 3:30am and we still had not seen any hope of catching a bus and so we agreed to catch a taxi. Now to catch a taxi should be easy but it was far from easy and it took another 1.5 hours and putting our name down at a taxi stand and waiting for 50 other people in front of us. We eventually got back to Heli's at 5am and were all hungry and tired; we threw together a quick breakfast before everyone passed out.
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