It could happen that when you follow your dreams you end up on a rainy street somewhere in the city you´ve never thought you would visit. And even it doesn´t make sense at all, you´re in the right place in the right time. You´re exactly where you should be. And there´s no place in the whole world you would like to be more. Because in that moment it´s for sure everything is all right, just like that. Everything is the way it should be.
But let´s take it from the very begining. It´s summer or maybe autumn 2010 and I decided to go to Peace & Love festival to Borlänge. The city where it all started. Their hometown. It was just a joke, an idea, nothing really serious...because honestly...Peace & Love is pretty expensive trip for someone like me from my geographical area.
Anyway the closer was the Peace & Love date, the most obvious it was that it´s gonna happen. Or at least that I will try to realize it. It was like not having another choice. It was like duty to go and see Mando Diao playing in their hometown. To see that city... Just go down the same streets where they used to go, see the same things, touch the buildings, however crazy it might sound. I simply had to do it. Even if that meant to spend hell lot of money and even more energy.
Most of all, more than the money, patience and organization skills I needed something very special. Something I usually have lack of. Courage.
I didn´t receive exactly enthusiastic reaction when I told my best friend about my plans. Fortunately as always I began organizing it and my soulmate felt more and more excited about it. That´s how we walk.
Talking about Courage...let me explain. Sweden is pretty far away from the place I live and concerning the fact I´m too scared to fly to undergo two hours in plane I´d rather spend 25 hours in the bus. Then there was the money thing. If I didn´t have my friend I could have just cried while watching livestreams from P&L (not that there were any...). So indebted and crazy. Actually not very people could understand why we wanted to go somewhere to Sweden when we saw this band just month ago in Berlin. Inexplicable but understandable...if you know Mando Diao.
So here we are, finally with tickets, even though it took about month to resolve the problem with buying it. I tried about four different credit cards, on every single of them (borrowed from my family) P&L took away the amount of money that costs the tickets and then... nothing. No ticket, no money. It was quite scary. After few days the money would be returned, but those few days was days full of permanent fear, what if not? (It wasn´t my money after all.)
The journey, the accommodation, paying the accommodation (yes, me in the bank looked like I was trying to do a bank robbery), paying another accommodation and another...and the last one. Train from Borlänge that was full by the day we finally set together to resolve everything. So another accommodation in Borlänge, another train. It was a lot things that had to be done before leaving. One day you´re doing your school exam you mustn´t fail and another you´re facing Borlänge. On the road towards your dreams. Towards the unknown. As always with Mando Diao.
Brno, Prague, Berlin and Malmö. Changing to another bus to Jönköping where the driver watches very suspicious our tickets. Of course there is a great cooperation between Czech Bohemian lines and Swedish Swebus company (ironically meant of course).
After 27 hours on the road we´re finally in Stockholm. The serie of coincidences begins. In the hostel we met a receptionist who after hearing what the purpouse of our journey is declaimed that he´s actually from Borlänge and he was one of the first guys that started Peace & Love festival. Then he told us some facts about the festival and gave us the number in case of emergency. The world IS small.
Night in the hostel is horrible. Imagine sleeping in the coffin, or better in the tomb IN the coffin. What´s the point of double-decked beds where the ceiling is practically just few centimetres from the upper bed?
Next morning we´re leaving from the Centralen to Borlänge. When my feet touch the ground for the very first time it´s like a moment of magic. Yes, this is it. The Clean Town from which you want to get away. And I´m here voluntarily. Imagining the moment when someone would travel hours and hours just to see my hometown, exactly the same type of the city as Borlänge. How funny. I´d like to be as strong as Gustaf was. To get away. And then to come back with hate and passion. Then to be able to love that place.
We do a nice sightseeing tour through the city in effort to find the main gate where the tickets are exchanged to strips, with our pretty heavy bags is everything but fun. We give up and wait for our lift. We have accommodation 13 kilometres from Borlänge in a house of some Swedish people we had never met. Now I can say, it was amazing. Nothing but special. Having your own room and bathroom, garden AND a pool. Swimming in Dalarna, just few kilometres from Borlänge. In the woods. Even I was quite scared at first...you never know who you can meet, especially when you are me. For our good it turned to be all right. As one man says everytime I need it: Don´t think twice it´s all right. (Thank you Bob Dylan again...)
We did it. We are really here. After all, it happened. And when I´m standing before Carl Norén at Borlänge square listening to his songs I realize that now the Courage turned into Hope. And that it´s Hope I need now and that I can find it, of all the places in the world, right here.
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