I turned 30 this year, yeah I know, I’m now that guy that I looked at as an 18 year old thinking, ‘Damn he’s old!’

I wanted to do something fun obvs, so my partner in crime suggested we go to Sweden Rock Festival to celebrate. We’d heard about the festival through a band I liked and we’d just started getting back into the festival scene, so thought why the hell not! It was also part defiance, as all my friends either seem to be getting married or having kids and I still ain’t ready for that drama.

The only headliner announced was Aerosmith (one of my favourite bands) so we went and booked tickets. Only then did we discover that the nearest airport to the Festival was weirdly not in Sweden, but Copenhagen. I smelt an opportunity. I had never traveled to more than one country in a singular trip but this was my chance and I ran with it. You only turn 30 once, so I managed to convince my partner to spend a few days in Denmark before moving over to Sweden – the original plan was then to stay in Sweden and fly direct to London for Guns n Roses but we simply couldn’t afford it.

We had to put a lot of planning into this trip as it was going to be an expensive one. I also get anxious about this kind of stuff, it’s the fear of the unknown that always grabs me by the balls and says, ‘what if this happens,’ ‘what if this goes wrong?’ Well, after a lot of fretting and leaving everything to the last minute, we managed to book flights, accommodation and trains between the countries. Even at 30 I would still prefer if a designated adult could have sorted all that for me… but after stressing about it for no bloody reason we were finally ready!

We saved money by booking a quirky hotel in Copenhagen. We stayed at the Cabinn Metro, the rooms were designed like a mini-cruise ship with a small desk area, toilet / wet room and bunk beds! It’s a bit weird sleeping in bunk beds when you’ve been dating for almost 8 years but then again, we are out of wedlock so God will be happy at least.

The first day we went to the Hard Rock Café, I love it and I’ve been to a bunch of them around Europe, as a Classic Rock fan I love seeing all the memorabilia on the walls and the food is always awesome. This time we both got a great big burger like fat little piggies and rolled out of the restaurant. We then had to faff about getting checked in to the Cabinn Metro because their computer systems were down so I did what every normal person does, and fell asleep on a stool, sat upright, with no back support, like some sort of weird ghost!

Then we did what every soon-to-be 30 year old traveler would do – we had a nap. Don’t you judge me! We had a really early flight and because I spend a lot of my time being sad / anxious I’m literally ALWAYS tired, so it seemed like the best thing to do. Let’s be honest, life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and neither is travelling… sometimes it’s tough on the body, sometimes shit goes wrong too. We were tired and had a full two weeks ahead, so we slept.

We woke up around 8pm and went to a local supermarket to buy supplies. This was weirdly fun and another good way to save money, buy breakfast, buy water – don’t just get everything when you’re out and about because it soon rockets up.

That evening we ended up just buying a supermarket salad for tea (tea is your evening meal in the North of England, or at least it was in my house). We’d already spent money on the big meal at the Hard Rock and we were very full too so why bother spending more eating out!? So, our first day in this exciting travel lifestyle ended with us sat down on our bunk beds to eat a supermarket salad and watching Lucky Number Slevin (oh Lucy Liu) on one of the few English channels we had – living the dream! Oh, and I didn’t even shotgun top bunk 🙁

We had no idea what we would wake up to the next day though.

To be continued…

Paul Day Away