My alarm clock was set at 7 am, so could get ready at ease. Since most of the time, I still need to pack half of my stuff just before I have to leave (and I leave at the most incredible hours), I get stressed a bit and forget a million things. So this time, I set the alarm early enough, so I could take my time. At 7 though, I didn’t feel like getting up yet, so kept snoozing ‘till about 7.45. Packed the rest of the bag and double checked it for essentials: toiletries, poncho, hotel directions (not of my own hotel though ;-) ), camera,… Than took a shower, washed hair, got dressed (it ‘s too bloody hot already and it’s not even 9 am yet!) and got in the car to my parent’s house. They would bring me to the airport. Read the paper there and was flabbergasted with all the deaths of the day before: Farrah Fawcet, Yasmine ( a Belgian female singer) and MJ?! How did it come to this???
At 10am we left… Too early for the flight actually, but I wanted to buy new shoes before I left, so we went to bring that mission to a succesfull end (although succesfull: my feet hurt already) and than hit the road for the airport. There was no-one at check in yet, so that went fast, which brings me to this very moment: typing the start of what I hope will be a entertaining report, while eating a slice of mmmpizza! See you in Manchester!
After a flight with some turbulence, I arrived at the airport safely, had a train into the centre immediately and went straight to the hotel, with a not so heavy bag. Took kind of a detour which basically means I was soaking wet by the time I got there, since it was really hot. Checked in, jumped into the shower and then made my way to the lads’ hotel, not too far away from mine. Didn’t think I’d be lucky, since it was 3pm already, but oh yes, there were still fans outside, so that meant there was still someone!! I had to be very patient, but got rewarded around 4.30, when I saw Howard, Mark and Jason getting in the vans to go to the stadium. That already made my weekend and knowing that I’d be seeing much more of them, made me smile even more.
As they had left, I had the time to do some shopping. And since my brand new shoes were killing my feet (blisters on little toes and on the heels), I decided to go look for some flipflops. I ended up buying something a bit more expensive than flipflops (since I thought cheap ones might give me blisters in between my toes and I didn’t want to wear cheap ones to the show: you can’t run in them properly): birckenstocks… Which gave me blisters as well, on top of my feet…
Bought some presents for my nieces, lost them (forgot them in a store and by the time I realized it was gone ofcourse) and bought them again. Back to the hotel, because I was hot again, took another refreshing shower and decided to go for dinner first and then go to the stadium. I ended up going to the stadium without dinner, since I didn’t feel like going for a meal in a pub where heaps of people were sitting drinking… Arrived at Old Trafford and got surprised: you could see the screens from the metro! So I stood there watching the show from there, enjoying myself and singing and dancing along with the people from the neighbourhood.
During Never Forget, I decided it was time to go and buy my white sweater, but there were no merchandise stalls outside the venue, like in Sunderland. So I asked someone if I could please go in and buy my sweater (and noses for the nieces), since I would be queuing the next day and didn’t want to be sat there with everything. He was as nice as to send one of his men with me, and I could buy it at ease. Thanks again for that Sir! Went back to the centre and the lads’ hotel, hoping to get another glimpse when they would arrive. I wasn’t there for a long time, when they arrived. I didn’t see them arriving, since they took a backdoor and used wives and kids as a decoy… But I felt really honored to see Dawn, Emma, Grace, Emily and Lola. Since I was really tired by this time, I went back to the hotel, took another shower (oh yes, I needed it) and went to bed. It was 1am already!
Saturday 27-06-09I got up around 8 am, got ready and took breakfast. By the time I was ready to start the day, Sofie sent me a message that she had landed and was on the train already. So I picked her up at the station and also picked up my ticket for Sunday’s show at a friend’s hotel.
We checked her in at the hotel as well, dropped the bags and back to the lads’ hotel. We waited and waited and waited and saw Elwood arrive. A bit later we saw Grace, Emily, Lola and Elwood playing on the hotel roof garden and got a glimpse of Howard when he was sat next to Grace at the fence. Most of the fans were stood right in front of the hotel door, so this little glimpse of Howard and seeing the kids looking at us from the fence, was a little special, since there were only a few fans who realized they were up there.
I saw Mike Stevens leave the hotel and got all my courage together and asked for a picture. He was so friendly to answer ‘Ofcourse I wouldn’t mind!’. Shame the picture didn’t come out as I had hoped. We both look a bit stupid on it!
Jason had already left early and around 2.45 the others followed: Mark held Elwood in his arms and got in a van, while Grace came on her own and Howard carried a shy (or tired) Lola (he had a shirt on with her name on the back) in. Gary got in the van with Howard and the girls. We got lucky again, since we had to meet Tracy, Sarah, Lisa and Jasmin at 3…
So we met up with the girls for lunch in a pub called The Old Monkey… Food wasn’t the best, but we had food! Around 4 we left for the stadium and stood next to the most left lights and camera stands. Not the best spots, but could have been worse. At 6 Gary Go was announced, the music started but he didn’t come on stage and the music stopped again… About 15 minutes later, we got informed by a message on the screens that Lady Gaga wouldn’t be performing and so that Gary Go would come on at 7.05. Boo Lady Gaga!
By the time Gary Go had finished the rain started to pour down on us! Lucky my new poncho is a great one and I stayed dry this time. Only the feet in the new sandals were soaking, but that was nothing! I got worried a bit that TT would cancel on us if the rain wouldn’t stop, but luckily the girl from production eased my mind by saying ‘I don’t see why they’d not come on’!
So finally at around 8.30 they came on and the party could begin all over again!!! And as expected, once again it was unbelievable, undescribable, amazing! Again we could tell they were enjoying themselves as much as we were and I loved the fact that there was much more interaction with the audience this time.
People around me loved the show as well, and unbelievable but true: they liked my screaming (well that’s what they said, maybe they were just being polite! Hahaha).After the show, it took us ages to get on the metro and our feet hurt so much we couldn’t walk properly. But we got to the hotel at last and took a long hot shower before we went to bed and took off to dreamland.
Sunday 28-06-09
Alarm clock was set for 8am, but we woke up at (!) 7.15… Finally got ready around 8 after all, went to have breakfast and straight to the stadium, to start queuing. It was boiling hot and we got sat behind let’s say about 60 people so far. We sat there, I took another little nap (it did me good) and around 3 people got more nervous… A lot of queuers that were behind us ended up before us, which made us upset and after a bit of pulling and a warning of security, at 3.45 we were let in… Unfortunately the scanner didn’t work properly and we got held up for a few precious minutes. It seemed we had to run really far, so there was not space at the front rows anymore, since the other gates had opened the same time…gggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! I held a place at the B-stage, while Sofie ran to the other side to see if she could find us a better spot. She did, so I went there. We were about 5 or 6 rows from the front, but we knew we could do better once people started standing up. I ended up at the 3 row during The Script (who were really good, although I only knew 1 song) and got to 2nd during TT!
By the time TT was on, my feet were killing me (as the days before), but as soon as they came on and the spectacle started again, I forgot all about my feet again and just danced, sang, screamed and enjoyed myself!Two highlights: 1-Mike Stevens who spotted me (I think) and send me a kiddiewinks. 2-Jason who finally put his red and white pants down, after a Howard told him he couldn’t let 50 000 begging people down and Gary (or was it Mark)saying they wouldn’t play the song with him unless he stripped… So finally he gave in!
As per usual the songs were brilliant, the guys were enthusiastic, the crowd went wild.
After the show we were supposed to meet Tamara and Tine (with Alex and Nathalie) at the disabled area, but we found them at their seats… Exchanged our thoughts about the night and took the bus back to the centre.
Sofie and I were really hungry and grabbed a quick meal at McDonalds to take to our room. We had to eat our fries with ketchup since the very friendly lady at the counter told us more than once ‘We don’t do mayo!’… That would become the joke of the evening and the next day!
After a long shower, we went to bed for another quite short night…
Monday 29-06-09
Early morning again for a shower and breakfast. Today we would go to the lads’ hotel again, hoping to catch another glimpse! We arrived at the hotel around 10 am and there were only 5 other fans there. We hoped it would stay that way, but knew better ofcourse! After a while, more and more fans showed up…
The first paparazzi arrived shortly after us and asked if TT was still in. He wasn’t too happy with my answer ‘No they are gone, so you go as well!’… When I was sat on the border of the footpath, he felt the urge to park his car right in front of me, telling me he’d give me a picture when I told him to move because he was blocking my view and there were a lot of other free spaces. Guess he was annoyed by me!
We showed enough patience and once again we got rewarded for it: We saw Grace, Lola, Emily and Elwood playing on the roof (and Howard trying to hide behind a little wall whilst talking to Grace at the fence -- we were one of the few lucky ones who noticed them all on the roof) after Elwood arrived with his nanny (we guess). There was a filmcrew there and when they left, things started to move: James and Paul got everything ready to get the lads out…
Gary had left in a van – Howard made some time for the fans signing and having his picture taken. I didn’t want to stand in the crowd, so took a nice position next to the van, so I could see them through the window of the van getting in.
After this half of TT came out, we had seen the band leave: had a little conversation with Mr. Mike Stevens about our picture from the other day while he signed my ticket – he asked me to put the picture on FB anyway, since he likes to have them all. Then Jamie and Lee came out as well, also took the necessary pictures with them, asked their autographs on my ticket and had a nice chat with them as well. When we informed weather Milton was still here, Mike pointed out that he was arriving and said ‘Run!’ to us as in a joke… Milton was happy to sign and pose as well and said that Gary plays the ‘Love – Babe- Nobody Else-medley’ randomly. They had to leave and out came the dancers: Ciaran was our next victim: I really like his dancing and acting for some strange reason, so asked him to sign as well. He was rather surprised: ‘What? Me?’
By the time the dancers had left as well (they had to carry their own luggage and walk around the corner with it), it was time for the last TT members to leave: Emma got in the van first, the one I was stood next to ( I stood next to the van furthest away, not thinking they would get in this one) and left the door open for Mark (carrying Elwood) to get in… The paparazzi that annoyed me in the morning had struggled his way next to me and ignored me completely when I told him not to take any pictures of the kids, so I took revenge and held my hand in front of his lens! Asshole!
Jason kept us waiting even longer, but finally checked out as well. He made time for the fans as well, but from where I was stood (next to the van again, looking through the window (thanks Dutch fans for giving me that example), he didn’t look to amused by the pushing.. He signed a lot of things and made heaps of pics, but didn’t really smile a lot… I felt a bit bad at that moment, but at the same time so happy I was that fortunate to have seen them all again!
When they had all left, Sofie and I went for a lunch and a quick shop, before I had to go back to the hotel to get my bags and make my way to the airport. Sofie stayed to do some more shopping.
Took a taxi, said a last goodbye to this wonderful town and got on a train to the airport, where the check in clerk said he recognized me from last time, although I was pretty sure my bags were checked in by a lady last time… And than at the gate, he called me Nath… Strange!!!
Had a nice sleep on the way back and landed in Brussels after a calm flight… I’m back home and I don’t particularly like it… Fast forward to London please!!!
