Without a Traceroute

This weekend there’s a gothic festival here in Utrecht. I’m not sure why they chose to hold a goth fest in a quaint Dutch city. It seems like Transylvania or just about any place in Germany would be a more appropriate venue. On the other hand, the weather is kind of rainy, grey, and depressing here.

I’ve never really seen the point of “goth”, it’s obviously a distinct subculture, but it seems to be centered around nothing more substantial than wearing black and being sad. It’s like emo with pseudo-intellectual overtones. Hell, even punk pretends to be about things other than music and fashion.

Nevertheless, yesterday I was in the Domplein and there was a big goth fair there. Also, I found out that they were having a concert inside the Domkerk, which is an authentic gothic cathedral building, so that seemed appropriate.

The band was a group called Persephone. They were fairly decent, and not what I was expecting. They had two cellos, an upright bass, a percussionist and a redheaded vocalist. The whole performance was pretty overdramatic, with the singer handing out flowers, and dancing around. The lyrics were overwrought goth stuff, “When will my soul stop bleeding…” but musically they were not bad.

Anyway, I took some pictures.

So my bike was stolen. No more bike. =*(

I really enjoyed it for that 18 hours or so. I haven’t decided whether I’ll try to get another one or not. One thing’s for sure, if I do, I’ll get a much better lock and try not to park it anywhere so exposed in the future.