Jammin' to Tiesto with Groundskeeper Willie

I wasn't planning on going to Scotland. But I'm here now.

The one thing I wanted to do when I got to Europe was go to a Tiësto concert. Tiësto is one of my favorite electronica musicians from the Netherlands.

I got online and found that he was playing in Scotland around the same time I was planning on being in Ireland. It wasn't hard to change my plans. I hadn't bought a plane ticket to Ireland yet, so I just bought one to Edinburgh, Scotland instead.

But there was a problem. I realized the day before my flight that the concert was actually in Glasgow, not Edinburgh. I was flying to the wrong city.

But I met up with some awesome people in Edinburgh like Kinga from Hungary and Kate from Germany. And luckily a train ticket to Glasgow wasn't too terribly expensive.

When I arrived in Scotland I was surprised to find that I could barely understand anyone there. I kind of thought that everyone here would sound a little like Groundskeeper Willie from the Simpsons, but that turned out to be false.

In reality the dialect reminds me of the way my family in Eastern Kentucky speak. But such that I have to ask them "I'm sorry?" at least twice before I understand what they are saying.

But sometimes even after three times of them repeating what they said, I still can't understand them and I have to say something like, "I'm sorry, I'm not quite accustomed to the Scottish accent yet and I'm having difficulty understanding you."

They usually just laugh and try to rephrase in a more "universal" way.

Back to the concert. So I bought two VIP tickets. They were expensive. I splurged big time. But Tiësto live in Europe is euphoria.

Two tickets you say? The other one wasn't for William since he's still in Norway with his sister. So I bought two just so that I wouldn't have to go by myself.

To make a long story short, the extra ticket was going to be for the Couch Surfer that hosted me, but since I flew to the wrong city that plan got screwed up.

So I'm sitting there on the day of the concert with two VIP tickets and no one to go with. I was posting on Facebook, Twitter, and all over Couch Surfing looking for anyone who wanted to go.

Luckily about an hour before the concert started a Scottish Couch Surfer named Naill called me up and took me up on the free VIP ticket offer.

The concert was amazing. Tiësto is a beast.

The best way to describe the concert is like a really, really huge Reality Party (the parties I used to go to in college) but with lots of drunken people and only electronica music.

The concert actually really helped me to practice something I've been learning on this trip: perspective.

I really can't stand being around obnoxious drunk people. They make me angry. And there I was in a room the size of a football field shoulder to shoulder with thousands of obnoxious drunk people.

They were dancing like crazy not caring if they plowed into you with their drunken dance. People were throwing their full beer cups into the crowd drenching them with beer. I got hit a couple times. People were constantly stepping on my feet and spilling beer on me. They were screaming in my ear and blowing hideous whistles and horns.

Needless to say, that's not the type of environment I like to be in. In fact, was a hell for me.

But I was determined to not let my environment ruin my Tiësto experience. So I changed the perspective in my mind. I forced myself to not get upset about what was going on around me by trying to look at it from the perspective of the other people around me.

And an amazing thing happened. I had a fantastic time.

Comments