PHAT 1 REPORT By Kure/RNO It was a chilly autumn Friday morning when I met Shape/DCS at the train station in Tampere. We bought the tickets and stepped into the train. A couple of hours later we were at Helsinki and met Deeq/RNO and TheHooligan/DCS. We went to eat some pizza before heading to the harbour. The ferry tickets were supposed to pick up no later than 15 mins before the ferry leaves, so we called Tundrah/RNO were he was. "I'm in a tram so I'm on my way", he replied. All the other travellers (Droidi/HJB, Melwyn/HJB, 216/Mfx, Nosfe/Mfx, Lobotomy?, Deadmeat/Mfx and Titti) had arrived, and finally also Tundrah came and he got the ticket right before the ticket sales/info was closed. Our passports were checked and soon we were sitting in a rather cosy "lounge" drinking and talking shit - except Shape who got seasick 1:25 hours later we arrived Tallinn/Estonia and took two taxis to the bus station. Some guys went to prevent the bus not to leave while some were buying tickets - everyone except Shape got return tickets. The bus left 10 minutes later of its schedule. The bus was half full and we crowded the back of the bus. The journey continued and we kept talking crap and drinking a little bit. Reading Hirmu magazines was also good entertainment. A couple of hours later we arrived Pärnu and had a short break, so THG, Nosfe and I went to a nearby store to buy some drinks and snacks. A bit later we arrived the border of Latvia / Estonia. A strict female toll official checked the passports, took them with her and leftus wondering what'll happen to them now. Luckily after a small break we got them back and kept going towards Riga. At some point during the bus ride TheHooligan got a phonecall from his russian girlfriend that she is pregnant and he is going to be a father!! That was something we made jokes about the whole weekend. (note: next week the 2nd test showed that she' not pregnant.) We also got an unfortunate message from Raver/DCS^PHT that he was robbed and lost his money and passport. Tough luck! In the evening after the sun had went down and long&exhausting trip, we finally made it to Riga bus station. Raver with his friends were waiting for us there. We took a local bus as the party was located some kilometers away, bought some booze from a gas station and went to the party place which was on the 5th floor of some kind of industrial building. Phat1 was very different ind of party compared to all the others I've been to as there were no tables nor computers (except for organizers'), or much party people either. I guess there were more Finns than other people at Friday evening. We left our baggage and, with Raver as our guide, walked to another gas station to buy booze&food. Most of us went to a store to buy meat and then back to the party. Or more likely to the river bank where we had our grill. At some point we heard a *splash* and as we turned around, we saw Droidi in the water. He had went for urea leak and thought that there were some steps to the river.. We got another good laugh of the little incident. The evening and night continued by drinking, barbequeing and chatting with other party people. In the morning some of us went to a "restaurant" on the ground floor for a breakfast. The older woman working there spoke only latvian, so she had put all the food options to plates so we just pointed out what we wanted to eat. Quite smart woman, eh. The food was reasonable priced but it didn't have any spices at all. Some said food was okay, though... Some of us spent the day in center of Riga and some in and near the party place. Nothing special happened, I suppose. Droidi noticed that half of his bus ticket was ruined due to his little swimming trip yesterday. Shape managed to get a return ticket. Later Nosfe, Deadmeat, Shape and Lobotomy sliced and 'prepared' some kilograms of meat and 3 kg's o fish. So we went back to the river bank where some local people were fishing. But we didn't care about them and set up the grill. One by one they left the place leaving it completely for us. Later we went back to the party place where house/tekno/etc. was played by several dj's and Amiga demos were shown (on a monitor, there was no big screen!). A music compo with eight entries was held which was the only one I 'saw' as I went to sleep. I doubt there was any other compos that night. A few hours later we had to wake up. Raver showed us the bus stop and soon we were at the bus station waiting our bus to leave As only half of Droidi's bus ticket was in good condition he had to pay another 200 EEK to travel with the rest of us. Nosfe puked in the bus which was full, must have made a good impression to the local people. Two elks ran right in front of the bus which woke us up. Luckily the bus didn't hit them. Some hours later we reached Tallinn, went to eat some cheap pizza, bought 'souveniers' (=booze), hung around a while andtook a ferry back to Helsinki. Check out the Phat1 slideshow by RNO which was released late 2001!