Mai 1 Weekend - Mamaia

Probably the biggest and most celebrated party weekend in Romania takes place on the days surrounding May 1st. It's epicentre, Mamaia, is a hotel studded seaside strip stretching a couple of km in length and tightly flanked by a huge lake and the black sea. At night, it's backbone, a brightly lit dual carriage-way, carries an endless procession of posers and club-kids in Beemers, Audis and finely tuned Dacias to the packed out clubs. The posers (Caveli, Versace, Boteanu) join the clueless (fake Caveli, fake Mango) by sitting at reserved, overpriced tables. The club kids and emo-ravers kick bottles and double punch the sky on the dancefloor. It's a kind of Dolce&Gabana - Vodka RedBull - EmoHoodie - EuroTrash cocktail, and it works! It's the unifying hedonistic attitude everyone brings to the party that really makes it gel together. This weekend we celebrate the end of the oppressive winter and a welcoming of the summer months.

The music is predominantly of the minimal house/techno variety, that Romania has adopted and nurtured for the last couple of years, with a bit of Sasha and Lee Burridge thrown in for good measure. We ended up in the Sunwaves tent every night with the RPR boys, Luciano, Marco Corola and the like.

We stayed at Hotel Comandor. It was pretty good. The rooms were small but the staff were friendly and the location was spot on. It proudly stated on the flood lit canopy that it had 4 stars, but that's a Romanian 4 stars and in their currency 1 million Lei is about 30 Euros... so you know, it's not quite as much as you'd expect :)

Unfortunately Mamaia, as it's a summer resort, isn't officially open for business, so apart from the clubs, there ain't much else around in the the way of creature comforts and amenities. Decent food was one, but in the three years i've been coming here, that slowly improved. The most frustrating still is the lack of f**cking cash machines! I don't know if they magically fall out of the sky when the summer sun comes out, but when it's pissing it down with rain, and you're trudging around in 6 inch deep puddles they run for cover. It's a new season, so the hotel staff and workers are none the wiser. Even the taxi drivers, who could normally find you a brothel in a remote Orthodox, Transylvanian farming village at 5.30 in the morning, shrugged. After an eternity we were driven to one only to find it sat in the middle of the pavement, unplugged and devoid of life and money. Finally, cold, wet and decidedly less enthusiastic than we were a few hours earlier, we stumbled upon the one and only magical money spewing machine in Mamaia, at the justifyably 5 star Mamaia Hotel.

Did I mention the rain? Well, partying on the beach isn't quite the same in the rain, but after staying up all night the barage of laser lights and the constant jostling on the dancefloor make way for the open natural surroundings of the beach, and even though it's raining no-one seems that bothered. In fact most people looked completely oblivious to anything and were quite happy just being swept along to the pounding music and doing that dance i've only seen in Romania. It's a kind of lazy, self-contented euphoric gesture of a dance, where they punch the sky in short, jerky movements, sort of like lifting a dumb bell then dropping it down six inches then lifting it up repeatedly. If you're getting into it, you can look skywards with your eyes closed and sway a bit, or if you're really getting into it you can look down at your stomping feet and maybe try the one-armed version.

Each year I come away having had a great time, whether it be the music I heard, the company i kept or the friends I made, and this year was no different... here comes the sun :)