The “excess” of the night before leaves one of us broken on the Sunday – me. I say excess in speech marks as the only excess was staying up until the early hours of the morning and, by the age I am, you would have thought I’d be able to manage it. I attribute it to a delayed response to standing around in the rain watching Korn on Friday (I am of course blaming the rain, not Korn) and decide that the best thing for it is to spend most of the day sleeping.
It’s somewhat muted for our final full day in Novi Sad. When finally up and about, we spend the last day as a group of five playing cards and listening to more Spotify in our charming little flat – why can’t every holiday be like this?
We decide to have a homemade dinner in for once; though the kitchen is fully equipped, we find the local supermarket less so. Sure, they have plenty of pasta, but what about sauce? Unused to the sauce-in-a-sachet that they seem to stock plenty of, we decide to play it safe with some passata and hope that chucking in some herbs will make it tasty. Our dinner turns out to taste like…pasta with a slightly tasteless tomato sauce. Could be worse though, eh?
We also decide to sample some of the home-made grappa left in the fridge (we were told by the owner of the flat to help ourselves) – boy, is it strong but it seems to be a perfect cold remedy.
On Exit Festival Day 4 for its final night, getting there just in time for the Prodigy. Once again, a giant crowd awaits them eagerly and we try to push through towards the front for a better view, yet still find ourselves way out from the stage. The Prodigy rack up their hits and small mosh pits start forming all over the place; it proves a little too much for me, so I retire to the back of the crowd with some burek pastries for comfort. The Prodigy only play for an hour in any case, disappointing some but probably coming as a relief to those not quite used to moshing.
Replenished after the burek, we head over to the Silent Disco again – so much fun last time, we had to give it another go and say our goodbyes to “legendary” DJ OD.
It’s only at this late stage in the Festival – right before we leave the final night – that we discover some sort of hidden area, to the right of the Fusion stage, where other drinks are sold (brand beers, cocktails) and cafes and bars are located. It is right by the clock tower of the Petrovaradin Fortress… If only we’d known about it before – must keep it in mind for next year!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes our story of the Exit Festival and Novi Sad. Overall, the Festival itself was a fantastic experience and a much bigger event that we anticipated. Novi Sad was also a very pleasant city to visit; will we be back for another year? You know what – I think we just might be.
But ON we must travel…to Croatia. Read what we go up to next in our Croatia Travelogue 2009.