Digital Home of Kristoffer Strom

Wednesday 08th of September 2010

Celebrating my 30th birthday - Going to Silverstone for the F1 race (2005-07-08 -> 2005-07-10)

When my big sister Amy turned 30 me and my sister AC called her up from Sweden and said "hey sis, gratz, sorry we can't be there". And then we boarded the plane and went over there anyway and surprised the hell out of her! When my little sister (technically older, but still tiny) AC turned 30 I unfortunately had to go to Africa when I was working for the state department so her husband Paul told her he'd planned a nice quiet weekend in Glasgow just the two of them cause Amy couldn't make it either due to lack of babysitting. Then we all surprised the hell out of her by showing up anyway and began a 3 days celeration marathon!!

And now it was my turn to turn 30. But how do you surprise the surprised? You can't! They didn't even try! As a matter of fact, around Christmas 2004 we decided that the best idea was probably to plan this as good as possible, order some tickets for the Formula 1 race at Silverstone and just have a blast. So we ordered tickets for me, my bro Jocke, AC, Amy and her husband Paul and come June 2nd... we didn't do anything, because the race wasn't until July! Well actually some of us did go to Dubliners in Stockholm to celebrate it but the real party wasn't until a month after!

On the thursday of July 7th Jocke and AC spent the night in my apartment since that was the most practical place to start from. We watched movies and sat around talking infto the wee hours and then tried getting some sleep. Up early and train + buss to the airport. At the airport we were intercepted by a newscrew that wanted to interview people going to London about their feelings after the terrorist attacks against London. They interviewed my sister who did the best job she could, had they known she was half british I think they could have made it a much better interview. Then it was on the cheapest plane over there to meet up with Amy and Paul at Luton Airport (yes, the one from TV).

When we landed the weather was exactly as predicted. Gray and slight rain. But we were ready for that so no big disappointment there. We were suppose to go down to London for some shopping but because of all the things going on there we decided to skip it and go to Northampton instead. Me, Jocke and Paul found a nice pub to call our HQ while the girls went out shopping. My idea of shopping was buying a new memory card for my camera because the old one broke on the bus to the airport. So we sipped a few beers and just relaxed and enjoyed not having any preassure to do anything at all. When we were all set we moved on to Towcester where we found another pub to have even more beers until we finally made it down to Blakesly. Amy had been calling all around trying to get some kinda of accomodations but just been laughed at all the time. Until she found this family that rents out some rooms for this special weekend and that was just perfect for us! They even drove us to the track (for a fee ofcourse). Me and Jocke were pretty tired since we didn't get much sleep and we don't have the energy AC does so we went to bed while she Amy and Paul went to the local bar.

On the saturday we got up all rested and made our way to the track. It was about a 30 minute drive and another 30 minute walk to get to the track and then... another 30 minute walk to get to our seats. We just made it in time to see the first qualifying. Unfortunately, if you don't have a TV or a laptop with lap times it wasn't that exciting seeing one car after another pass by. But there were plenty of other events going on and after the qualifying we got a table at the improvised food court and enjoyed a sleezy burger with a few beers. The weather was awesome - sunshine and even more sunshine! Noone had expected that so noone had any sunlotion - except AC that is. But that wasn't a problem for me, I just enjoyed it and the entire atmosphere and the GP2 race that was going on right behind us. After that they picked us up again (and bashed their car in the process :( ) and we went back to Towcester to enjoy a night at the pub, something we don't get to do alot of here in sweden. Unfortunately this pub was so overcrowded that we couldn't get any food there so the girls ran to the closest pizzeria and bought some pizzas for us to take back to the pub. We tried some other pubs until we finally got a taxi back to Blakesly. And when we got back there we went to their local pub where we stayed until closing time - and then some! Got pretty late but it was such a blast. At this point we were starting to feel the sunburns and the boiling skin but what tha hell, small price to pay!

On the sunday we got up pretty early and made our way to the track. Naturually there were alot more people there that day so it took a bit more time to get to our seats but the atmosphere was amazing. And the weather was hot with blazing sun! There were some pre-race events going on like the Red Arrows doing their thing. Then the race started and ... unpfortunately it was very hard to keep track of all cars and the positions of everyone when you don't have the luxury of a TV producer cutting to where the action is, and you don't see the pitstops or laptimes. But it was still fun to see but a bit of a disappointment compared to watching it on TV. Afterwards we got back to the foodcourt and had some more terrible burgers and made our way to the infield where the afterparty was gonna be. They had alot of stuff planned and it was alot of fun for everyone... except the ones that weren't prepared for all the sun and started to feel the really, really terrible effects of sunburn. I think Jocke got the worst of it. After the party we made our way back but saw an opportuniy to get on the track so we had to take it and got some nice photos of AC kissing the tarmac and some photos of the pitlane. Unfortunately someone saw it and got us out of there but it was fun while it lasted.

Then it was off to get our stuff and go back into Northampton. We get there at night and had really big trouble trying to find a place to get some food and just kick back! Eventually we found a place that was more like a club than anything else, but they served up a good meal and drinks. They didn't know what Jägermeister was, but I'm not complaining cause one full round with beers, wine and some drinks cost like £15 so they must've been new. When they closed we tried finding somewhere else but that wasn't the easiet thing in the world. We managed to find one place that was open till 2 am but when that closed we gave up and took a taxi back to Luton. Unfortunately our planes weren't departing until 8-9 am in the morning so we had to spend the night there sleeping in all kinds of positions and the sunburn getting even worse. Eventually we got on the plane back to sweden, then bus and train back to my place and then just laid back and enjoyed the memories!!

It was an absolutely amazing weekend that I'll never forget and the perfect way to celebrate myself turning 30! It all went so well, some small stuff wasn't that great (still remember the sunburn!) but I survived!!

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