Friday morning, August 2, I mistakenly thought I would have to get into the fest as soon as it opened, so I didn't do much else in the city besides get breakfast. But where I ate breakfast was pretty memorable. Romania has to be one of the last places on Earth I ever expected to find a Hawaiian restaurant serving Poke bowls, but there just happened to be one on the way from the hostel to the festival. It's called Sisters Poke. I can't at all remember what I ate there, but it was delicious and I'll recommend it. Remember it if you happen to find yourself in Cluj.
Never seen "vibe" verbed before.
Honestly this was probably the least memorable day, for me. There weren't a whole lot of artists playing I was that interested in, and plus I got there way too early and ended up whiling away the day walking back and forth from one end of the festival to the other, occasionally stopping for a drink (water, beer, coffee, or booze), occasionally stopping at a stage. During this time I quickly noticed how this fest was divided into two halves. The first, which you walk into when you enter the festival, is kinda like Electric Forest with all the trees around and art installations and such. The stages there don’t get too crowded and there’s plenty of room to move. The other half is more flashy and commercial and is all on concrete; the Main Stage is in a massive soccer stadium and the Galaxy Stage is in a huge arena next door. It feels more like a carnival than anything else, and it also reminds me of what I've heard about EDC Vegas. And about that beer...
It seems like every festival has what I call a house beer, one or two brands of beer that you find at every beer stand, and if you want anything else you have to go to the one place that has a big selection (if such a place even exists). At Electric Forest it was Bells Oberon. At Lightning in a Bottle it was New Belgium Fat Tire. At Austin City Limits it was Miller Lite and Lone Star. At Tomorrowland it was Jupiler. And here at Untold, it was Ursus (Latin for "bear"). It wasn't bad, just a totally unremarkable, standard lager that was easy to get bored with after gulping down two or three. There was one bar that served up a special "unfiltered" Ursus, but I didn't notice a difference. Unfortunately there was no specialty bar serving anything else.
But I did like the cups they served up the Unfiltered in...
I did stop back at the Nostalgia stage a few times when I recognized some of the retro music they were playing. My favorite moment there was when Brandy's "Sitting Up In My Room" was on.
Every now and then, in the arty, foresty half of Untold, one might see some serious body art.
Jody Wisternoff serving up a pretty good trance set at the Fortune stage.
Finally Armin van Buurin at the Main stage. Like at Tomorrowland, the crowd was huge and oppressively dense so I didn't stay very long.
Like I said, this was the least memorable day for me. It wasn't until the next day that this festival and vacation got really good.
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