Well yesterday was a challenge: flying, walking with tons of bags, little sleep. As soon as we got here: one of the great things about being in Germany is that it’s not the U.S. What I mean by this is just a subtle attitude change in everything around me. For instance, at the airport, I noticed that all the rolling carts were free and they even had free Coffee that was quite good. You’d never see this in the U.S.; everything has a price in America.
Anyway, after little sleep and no food, we left the hotel looking for food and made a wrong turn. After hiking around what looked like Hamburg’s financial district, we found the Chinese restaurant we were looking for. Since I’m travelling with two Vegans, finding food can be hard, but by this time we were so starving they were talking about getting french fries at McDonald’s. Trying to order Chinese food in German is pretty hard and weird. I would have actually had more luck ordering in Mandarin which I do a little of, but not as much as David knows German. So he told the Waitress “Vegetarian” and they brought us some delicious braised Tofu dish.
Jetlag was rough and playing the show last night was difficult being so tired and achy. It went pretty well considering it was our first show and people were there to see the headlining band “Mesh.” I wish I had gotten footage of the Mesh’s set last night because the audience and venue were a sight to see. With all the fatigue and chaos of the first show, I literally never even thought of it. But I may be becoming a fan of Mesh. They are quite good and really write some great songs.
Last night was the first night sleeping on the tour bus. I was so tired I could have slept on a bicycle, but I notice that if you let the bumps in the road do thier thing, the subtle shaking is like a nice back massage. Anyway, this bus is deluxe: 2 Lounges, video games, DVD, coffee machine, fridge, flat screens, bathroom etc. Here are some pics from Hamburg:
Apparently Jesus has already resurrected in Germany and he is Harrison Ford
In Hamburg they are down with the Norcal thing
Sound Check in Hamburg
Lounge 1 in 'The Bus'
GREAT TO HEAR HOW ITS GOING! Glad you made it safe and sound, and enjoyed your descriptions. I will email your
website to our friends. While in Germany, be sure to get some breakfast including a platter of lox and scrambled eggs. My friend Byron was in the US army there, and said he’d go off base for this, as lox was cheap and plentiful there. Let me know–that is, if your vegan friends will let you! I don’t know if we will be able to use Skype, based on your prior email…even for voice only? Let us know, ok? Love, Dad
So now you can honestly say you partied like a Rock Star… Keep writting the blogs.. now that I am unemployed I have plenty of time to read them… Rock on !!!!
Hello Aaron! Art Emailed me yesterday about your tour. Only 1 thing to say: “Awesome!” That bus is high-class–I don’t have a clue who Mesh is, but they’ve sure lined up lots of venues. In one trip you’re going to as many places as it took Sonya and me decades to get to. I am writing this on Thursday night 11-19 at 11:30 Pacific Time, Friday morning 11-20 your time, probably as you are groggily heading for coffee on the bus or maybe a Swiss breakfast. I hope you had a chance to sample some beer last night in Munich–even Sonya did that there! Strongly recommend you try Weisswurst (a white veal sausage) in Germany if you haven’t already, and see if you can squeeze in a Rijstaffel (sounds like REES-tahful) in Amsterdam. It’s a sort of Indonesian smorgasbord, only it’s all at your table–great for a group of people at lunch or dinner. // I am really glad you are getting to stretch your musical feet and encounter different audiences. Hope you surprise each other!! // Skype is easy to use; Sonya and I have been using it for travel phoning since 2005. Try to make a plain audio-only phone call first. Often the transmission is very good for long periods, but other times it does all kinds of flaky things. Best to see how it is on an audio call before upping the bandwidth for video. If you can, put 10 euros into it via credit card and you can dial the US for 2 cents a minute. I will have my laptop with me in Placerville and will try to reach you before Josh arrives and gets your Dad’s computer to work. // So long for now; hope you read this. I may copy it to your regular Email for good luck. –Lee (P.S.–I haven’t changed my regular Email address; the from00 address above is also real but is disposable if spammers get it.)