Europe day 12 and 13

--day 12
Internetted this morning, on the road to holland now. Only a 2hr drive
or so. Lots of horses and cows here. Had a monster from the the waffle
place from yesterday. Twas delicious. Davey from maudlin and his
parents really took care of us these past few days. If I had the
capacity to learn all these languages, I'd move to Belgium. People
here speak german, Dutch, French, and some eve Spanish or portougese.
Respect.

Pigs, cows, and horses, oh my! Passing a ton of animal farms while
travelling through holland. Some interesting smells too.

Arrived in leowarden (at least, I think that's how it's spelled) and
it is exactly how I'd imagine a Dutch town. Feel like I'm in a dream.
First thing the city of ships dudes did was go to a hashbar and smoked
up, I had a cup of coffee and watched them. Wandered around a bit,
beautiful city, lots of bikes. The bicycles have their own road on the
streets. Lots of very attractive women...as every city so far in
Europe. Getting food, dropping bags off at where we're sleeping, then
playing. The bar is playing awesome European ska, it's incredible.

Tasty spaghetti dinner. We got some awsome pizza from next door too.
We were getting taken l where we were going to sleep. It was upstairs
of a bar around the corner. As we walk in our feet stick to the floor,
and I still get. Weird vibe as we head upstairs. Once we get to the
top, the hostess opens the door and it's this gigantic luxury
apartment-type deal (I'll take pictures). Came back and started
getting stared at by the cute bartender and this cute girl she was
talking to...maybe I'll dig up the guts to one or the other. It's more
likely I'll talk to the other girl cause female bartenders I think
brush guys off cause everyone hits on them. Who knows. Waiting for the
show to start.

People and place were great, but no one really showed up.

greatest night ever. Met a dude that played WoW, went to the place
we're staying (which is a two story dance club pounding away all
night) and Eric [from city of ships] tried to do laundry and blew the
fuse to the whole floor. The bartender said he can only reset the
breaker if he resets the whole building, so he can't do it till after
people stop partying...which from the sound of it, sounds like never.
Onto tilberg tomorrow.

--day 13
All of a sudden woke up and missed my mom and dad. I guess
homesickness is settling in. Only a couple shows left. Part of me
doesn't want to go home, the other part wants desperately to. Tilberg
is supposed to be an amazing show, then we part ways with city of
ships and head to gdansk with blindead to play with sepultura, haha.

Got to tilburg. A lot more commercial place than leowarden. Fun
looking place though. There's a festival type thing going on. We
stopped at this place called 'karnak' after wandering around for food
for a bit. The place looks good. Armine and I just ot a margarita,
which is (which I first learned in Australia) just plain old cheese
pizza. Venue is huge. Apparently disturbed is playing here tomorrow
night, coalesce after that. Feels good to be able to be playing in
such a big-name place.

Dressing room here is crazy, the placeis rediculously hot though. The
dressingroom has showers, so I'm gonna go take a cold one.

Europe day 11 (cont)

--day 11 (cont)
Went out to the bars to hang out. People got crazy. The craziest part
was that a guy from work at home was at the same bar, in the same
city, in the same country in Belgium I was at tonight. It really blew
my mind.

Onto holland tomorrow. Dave's gonna feel like crap. I think this is
the most he's had to drink all tour. Once again, nothing to report
back from the bar situation. I'm too chicken to make a move, though,
granted, pretty much every girl was there with a boyfriend.

Flickr ftw

I'm gonna be posting all my pictures to flickr (though I may still post a few to twitpic just to quickly put them on twitter). The link is in the left menu bar, but here it is quickly for now:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lafingputz

enjoy.

Europe day 10 and 11

--day 10
Show was pretty bad but whatever. As much as it interferes with tour,
I'm seriously craving some female companionship right now. The show
today is at some sort of festival. People are saying it'll be good,
but I'm questionable. At least we'll be able to play more than one
song, I would hope.

Walked around the city center for a bit. Had some coffee. Came back
and had more coffe, oj, and an apple.

Drive wasn't bad. This place is like new jersey. The show is a big
fest. It's kinda hoakey, but it was fun. Weirdness with drum stuff
tonight too, but whatever. Sleeping at one of the other bands
vocalists house, his mom also made us a rediculously delicious dinner
with fish and potatoes.

Day off tomorrow. Matt, wife, and possibly Armine are going to
Amsterdam. Too expensive for me right now, I'll wait till we pass by
on our way to the Netherlands, and hit up the world Capitol of sin,
hiyo!

--day 11
Slept pretty good. Andrew (the photographer that came with us) had to
go to the hospital cause he said hhis lung collapsed. Day of relaxing
otherwise.

Andrew had to get some sort of surgery for his lung. We'll have to
figure out how to pick him up on monday when he's released from the
hospital.

At the beach. It's beautiful. Water is warm, babes are hot (and some
topless), and [Belgian] waffles are f**king delicious. Waiting for a
food place to open recommended by our host for awesome fries.

Got the most delicious burger and fries I've ever had. There was some
kind of crazy sauce on it that was spicy and incredible. Wish I had
taken a picture of it now. I got a 'medium' fries, but the plate was
huge. Eric and Andrew (from city of ships) got the 'super' which was
gigantic. Unfortunately, none of us finihed our portion of fries,
cause they were just too filling, but still amazing. Multiple types of
dipping sauces too.

We're back at the house and near everyone is in a food coma. I just
took a shower, even though it was a cold shower, i had to go sit
outside (where I'm writing this) to cool off. The relaxing day
continues. I think the plan for tonight is to go for a European dance
party, and I'm gonna hit on girls in a Scottish accent. Should be rad.

Side note: so many people ride bikes here in Belgium it's crazy. Only
thought of this as like...4 cute girls rode by on bikes consecutively.
Zing!

Europe day 8 and 9

--day 8
Long ride to Leipzig. Not much of interest on the way so far other
than we were pulled over by what I guess was border patrol coming into
germany. Checked our passports, asked a few questions about why we
were here, and he was interested in our bands and such. His final
question was "you don't have any drugs with you do you?" all at the
same time we all say 'no' excitedly, cause none of us actually do. He
laughed a bit and we went on out way.

Long boring drive to Leipzig. Venue was really tiny. Felt awesome,
like playing in a basement in Philly. One of daniel's (drummer from
city if ships) cymbals is broken. I feel bad, but we both beat in it
equally. Either we'll just have to live with it till Rosetta goes
home, he buys a new cymbal (cause I don't have the money for it) or
the drummer from blindead let's us use his...which I doubt.

On to Belgium tomorrow. Should be a good time...except for the long @$
$ drive. More boredom expected.

--day 9
So, not only was the drive to Belgium torturingly long, but the van
broke. It didn't break 'down' though. There was a weird gas type
smell, and a clicking sound under my foot, but we attributed the smell
to the factories we passed along the way. Turns out something broke in
the van, and was spraying gasoline out the back all over the trailer.
It smelled horrid. The venue was hard I find, there was some sort of
carnival going on blocking the way to the entrance. Best of all, we
arrived late, city of ships has to go on immedietly, and the 2nd van
(carrying Armine and the entirety of blindead) has yet to arrive.

The 2nd van showed up, but with limited time I spare. I'm hoping
blindead doesn't play a full set, because I think either there's one
more band before is, or we are playing next. Either way, we'll
probably only be able to play for a very short bit.

Looks like we're not playing at all. Hands down, worst show so far
this tour. Waiting for the van to get fixed after this I guess.

So we got to play one song. Quite unsatisfying. Squatting on some wifi
in the middle if the sidewalk in Belgium, kickass. 'nother show in
Belgium tomorrow by the beach, w00t!

Europe, day 6 (cont) and 7

--day 6 (cont)
Got spoiled in Budapest with a buffet dinner. Food was delicious. Was
Hungarian pasta and turkey in some sort of tomato sauce, plus lettuce
in salt and vinigar. Apparently the sound guy here is the 'american'
type of sound guy, and thinks we're too loud. Working out the problem
now.

Some girl came up to the merch table confessing her love for our band
and cried as she gave Armine a hug.

So yea, the show was...rediculous. I'll dive right into it...Armine
got propositioned by a girl to have sex with him, but I'll get back to
that.

People went nuts when we played. I had stage lights shining on me
blocking most of my view of the crowd, but I'm told that people were
swaying, jumping over each other, and pretty much going crazy the
whole time we played. There were people once again asking or
autographs, and some people almost bleeding their heart out saying
they loved is and we were their favorite band ever, like that girl
that cries as she hugged Armine.

Okay, once we were done the show, Armine was socializing, and we sat
down and signed auographs, which was crazy in and of itself, but there
was this one girl that kept inching herself closer and closer to him.
Finally when he got up to start packing up, she popped up and started
admiring him really closely. I walked away for literally a second, and
then everyone was whispering about that girl hitting on him, and
(Armine told me this) she was 'heavy petting' and rubbing her chest
against his hand. Apparently she got really intense, but Armine held
to something 'rock stars' don't usually have, morals. Meaning, he
didn't take advantage of this horribly drunk girl, almost literally
throwing her vagina at him. Best part is, she has a boyfriend, and he
hit on matt's wife.

At the hostel now, no wifi. I'll have better luck tomorrow in the city
where apparently, there's wifi everywhere.

--day 7
Awesome breakfast at the hostel kitchen. Pretty girls eating at the
same time as me, obviously I'm too chicken to talk to them even if my
intentions are strictly conversational. Spiderman 3 was playing on the
television in the cafeteria, but even dubbed in Hungarian, it's still
a really bad movie.

Armine, matt and wife went out to see the sites. I'm gonna sleep more,
and maybe take a shower. On to Vienna today. We meet up with matt's
sister and friend. I'm stoked.

Budapest sidenote: this hostel is the first time this tour that I
haven't had to use sandpaper toilet paper. Very happy about this.

Stuck at the hostel bored. Matt, wife, and Armine went out to see the
sites. I didn't feel like wandering today. Good thing too, cause it
started raining a bit after they left. I'd love to go back to the
venue to get wifi, but I'll just wait for somewhere else. I'm assuming
the venue or hostel in Vienna will have wifi, so till then, i'll just
write my notes.

Sat out on the couch near the front door of the hostel for a bit
reading some Budapest literature. Some group was clearing out of their
rooms. Thy were all girls, all (at least what it sounded like from
their language) Swedish, and all gorgeous as all hell.

Waiting outside a grocerey store in Budapest. Apparently the blindead
dudes wanted to get wine, or something.

Starting to realize it's no big deal to drive Mercedes here. It's
like, the Volvo or ford of the EU. We're touring in a Mercedes, haha.

First bad weather of tour. Got a rainstorm on the way to Vienna.

Got stoked for a second when we arrived to the venue cause there was a
big outdoor part, but remembered it was raining. Then we went inside
and the venue was still pretty big, pretty cool. Sound checking now,
then...fooood.

Food was awesome. I love Vienna food. Show soon.

Tried to connect to the wifi, but it failed, maybe tomorrow.

Show was okay. Unusual personal problems made the show weird (at least
for me) but people still enjoyed it all the same. On to Leipzig,
Germany today.

Europe Day 5 and 6, plus pictures!

All photos for this tour (up till this post) can be found here.

--day 5
We're at a local Czech restaurant and about to eat this fried cheese dish with fries. I'll take pictures. It's gonna be epic. Carbonated water is all the rage here. I hate it, but I get it whenever I ask for 'soda' but I think I have to ask for 'voda', not sure though.

Fried cheese is goooood. Authentic Czech dish, picture coming soon.

Stopped at a truckstop and had a cornetto. Now I know why Simon Pegg loves them in his movies so much.

At the venue in Brno. Some creepy guy answered the door, they're waiting for some type of cabinet (maybe musical, or part of the stage) before we can load in and soundcheck.

This place is kinda creepy looking, but it could be fun. It's right near a university, and we're only about 500m from the hotel we're staying at, so sleepytime can commence quicker than usual. Food i here, w00t!

Matt's sister and friend arrived, but turns out there's no room for them in the van or hostel. I guess they'll figure out something. Meanwhile, the fuse for the power on stage blew twice during blindead's set. I really hope we (city of ship and rosetta) have better luck.

No such luck. Power went out during our 3rd and 4th songs. We were able to finish the 3rd, but not the 4th. People were bummed, as was I. Again...lots of beautiful women here.

Still waiting to see how Matt's sister and friend situation is gonna work out.

We've been put up in an actual hotel. Pampered much? Still no wifi though. Hung out for a bit. TV only had 3 channels, all in Czech. One was a porn advertising that was amusing to watch for a moment, but then just got weird. Anyway, Budapest next.

--day 6
Good sleep in a nice bed. Alarm on my iPhone woke Andrew (from city of ships) and I up. Sounded like the fire alarm. Free breakfast at the place next door, yay!

Enjoying the company of Matt's sister and her friend, esp. her friend. Apparently the tour manager, Mojo (pronounced mouyo) had all the tour money (for gas and stuff, not our personal merch money) stolen last night. Le'sigh. On our way to Budapest today. Heading out soon I hope.

On the road to Budapest. I'm actually saving money by not being able to change my American money over to present currency. I've used my card a couple times, but most places here don't take it. Still thinking about Matt's sister's friend. Probably a bad idea torturing myself like that. I think we're meeting up with them again in Vienna. 4hr drive to Budapest, gonna try and get some sleep.

In Slovakia now, but keep seeing signs for Bratislava, and it makes me giggle because of the movie EuroTrip.

I'm getting used to this carbonated water thing. It's weird, but I'll suck it up for the rest of tour, hell, maybe I'll start to actually like it.

Arrived in Budapest. Really awesome sites. The wifi isn't working on my iPhone, but is connecting on my laptop, go figure.

They setup a giant buffet for us here. There's a huge lounge room for bands. More pampering much?

Europe day 3 and 4

Someone stole my sandwich from the hostel fridge last night, and some
dude threatened me with what I think was bitchslap in a language I
didn't understand. He mimed the slap.

Armine got stopped at the airport security in Prague cause he had a
picket knife in his bag that even he didn't know about. Funny, cause
the US and Frankfurt airport security didn't catch that. Way to go.
Suck it got confiscated though. On our way to Athens to play one show
though. How awesome is that?! Gonna take a s**t load of pictures. I
still have pictures I need to upload from my regular camera next time
I can get reliable wifi on my laptop.

SkyEurope to Athens is making us pay €2.50 for a bottle of water...I hope
there are cups for sink water in the bathroom, causeu throat is
staring to get really dry...

...no cups in the bathroom. The real bummer is, I was just gonna cup
the water into my mouth, but accidently hit the stewardess call
button, and had that uncomfortable situation where I had to explain I
hit the wrong button not knowing if she spoke English. Good times.

Beautiful flying into Athens.

Stuck In rushhour traffic on the highway in Athens on the way to the
venue. Only with rosetta.

Motorbikes everywhere, it's kinda crazy. I mean everywhere. There is 1
motorbike for every 6 cars.

Baggage checkers wrecked matts pedal board again. Gotta love airport
security. Musical instruments = bomb?

On the bright side, the promoter for the show got matt his head that
he needs to actually play the show. The house kit for the club is a
piece of crap, and the cymbals on it when we arrived had chunks
missing from them, luckily I've been informed we're getting actual
playable cymbals for the show.

Got cymbals. They're okay. I've already told myself that this show is
awesome by the simple fact that we were flown in on the promoters dime
(or relevant currency) and we're in Athens, Greece. Yikes! We walked
up to see the acropolis. Long @$$ walk, I had to rest a bit once near
the top, but my gosh was it beautiful. I'll have pictures up asap.
Now, show time. No matter what the turnout, or money made, this was an
amazing show. We fly back to Prague tonight right after the show, thn
into Brno, Czech tomorrow.

Side Note: almost every woman I see is freaking gorgeous, and it makes
me sad, cause I know that even the alour of tour or anything can break
the strong language barrier between us...that, and I smell aweful.

Every show so far i've been overjoyed just to be apart of this journey,
and I'm grateful for what the music I play has brought me, and where
it has as well, but, at least once every show, I see a couple being a
couple, or just plain makin' out in the corner, and I get envious. I
guess that's a bit selfish since I've been granted with the gift to
not only bring music I enjoy playing to the world, but to travel it as
well, but it'd be nice to have someone close to share my stories with
and have a little more intimacy than just a close friend or bandmate.
Anyway...back to the fun.

Show, once again, was incredible. Ton of people, they were into it,
rawkin' out, and except for one of the cymbals being broken, the snare
shifting constantly, and the kick pedal fell off the kick drum
twice...I'm in Athens, Greece, and nothing can ruin my good time.

There's a problem with being paid though. Apparently, the people that
put on the show didn't get enough people out, and can't make our
guarantee. Usually in the US, if we were pampered this much, and this
happened, we wouldn't feel comfortable taking their money, and we'd
just take a little hit in the pocket. Blindead wants that money, and
now they're arguing. /sigh

We'll see what happens, but honestly, I'd rather just forget about it,
and talk about the next show when we get to it. I'm hungry.

Wandered around for food for a bit, found an awesome place, had some
crazy good pizza. Waiting out in front of the venue waiting to head to
the airport.

So...on the way to the airport, we see the promoters car (filled with
almost all of blindead, pulled over in the side of the road
surrounded by 6 police cars. I still don't known exactly why they got
pulled over, but they said they pulled them from the car one by one
and searched them, and there was a guy on the hill watching them with
a pistol pointed at them. Way to be intense late at night Athens. They
probably thought they were the 'anarchists' from the riots.

One of the greek drivers said that the anarchists throw bombs at police
where they know they'll gather. Crazy.

So...tired. Redeye flight to Budapest connecting to Prague. I'm about
to pass out on the airport floor. I really hope I get to sleep once
back in Prague.

The flight to Prague was actually super short (I think because I fell
asleep) and they gave us cinnamon rolls and orange juice. Still kinda
tired though. Gonna try and get in a shower and then we're off to
Brno, Czech.

Got wifi at the hostel in Prague, so, updating stuff now.

From Wroclaw to Prague

Gonna start just copy/pasting my days notes into emails and submitting
to my blog that way, since it's getting harder to find unlocked wifi,
except when I'm busy having o load or play a show. So here goes.

--
Took forever to load up and get going. Finally leaving wroclaw at
2:30pm (we were supposed to leave around 11am). Turned on the radio in
the van, and nickelback was on :- /

On to Prague. Poland is really flat. Pretty though. So tired, bur I
hate falling asleep in the van because I never know where I am when I
wake up.

Had some great coffee at a truckstop. Unheard of in the US. Entered
Czech. Scenery has changed a bit.

Reading 'the Tao of pooh' and enjoying the Czech countryside.

Except for all the signs I can't understand, it feels a bit like we're
on a US highway.

--
P.S.: I'm just going to post pictures to Twitter when I can, so follow
me at http://www.twitter.com/lafingputz to get the days images of tour.

BJ's tourgasm!

So...this show was rediculous. We played two encores. wtf? After we played I walked out of the show near the merch tables, just to throw out some water bottles and stick paper-wrapping, and got hounded by people asking me to sign everything from their tickets to beer bottles (not kidding) and tells me they've seen Isis and cult of luna live, and we were tons better. Weird.

More later on in Prague.

I woke up and I was still in Poland.

Everyone went to a play of Hamlet last night. I opted out to lay back and relax...though I ended up passing out in my bed fast asleep.

Got to the venue and setup shop at the merch table.


saw a dead pigeon w/o a head.


and now it's setup and soundchecks.



...more to come.

A gander at Wroclaw.

Just got back from a stroll around Wroclaw. It's a nice place, and I can't understand a word anyone is saying. I tried to order a cappuccino, and I failed, I had to utilize my charade skills again by pointing at the menu, then trying to ask what something else said. Apparently it was some kind of upside down chocolate brownie/muffin with chocolate sauce and caramel on it, with cherries all around it...mmm...I was happily surprised when that arrived. I also exchanged some money for polish 'zloty' and I'm a rich man. I handed the exchange person $40 and I got back 127zloty. w00t!



Got to see a really neat church right before heading back. I made a panorama with my iPhone pano app. It's sweet. check it here.

It's weird...driving around here, sometimes I forget I'm in Poland. Some parts actually look a bit like Boston for some reason.


Edit: re-linking all my photos cause for some reason twitpic refuses to let me link them remotely.

Made my first international purchase...

Cost me 4.05 euros...which is like, $6 US. Got an orange soda and some pretzel sticks, w00t. The flight wasn't that long, but it was annoying. For one, I was unusually uncomfortable. Usually I'm fine on planes for sleeping, but for some reason this time I had trouble getting to sleep. Secondly, we apparently sat in front of 2 gentleman from the Philadelphian Italian Mafia, and their mother, whom which they were taking back to the motherland...and they're loud, and obnoxious, yay!

On the plus side, I'm in Germany. This is my first official post of the Europe tour. If I connect to the wifi at the Frankfurt airport wifi, I have to pay $0.18 per minute...so I'm not gonna do that, and just wait till I have free wifi to upload my posts. I already have a picture. Took it of the Germany equiv. of our 'Air Mall'. It's advert-fail, and I love it. Matt said to me after this, "there will be a lot of 'english fail' all over Europe." I'm excited.

Check out the bottom left hand corner:


We're here on a layover waiting at Frankfurt airport to fly to Wroclaw (still don't know how to pronounce it), Poland. At that point, we get to where we're staying, which I think is a hotel of some sort, then Matt checks over his gear, makes sure it works properly, then I think we're gonna try to practice with our rented/borrowed gear here or something that. I've been informed that I am not allowed to fall asleep when we get to our hotel in Poland, otherwise I'll be set to that sleep schedule for all of tour, and I will be miserable. So, I'm sad, but at least after todays torture, I'll have a normal sleep schedule, and sleep like baby when I finally do.

So, I'm gonna take a nap on the floor of the airport here waiting for a flight (which i not for another 2 hours) then on the flight to Poland, drink LOTS of coffee.

--Later...

A dude approached me as we were boarding the flight from Frankfurt to Wroclaw. He asked us if we were a band. I thought to myself "are we that dirty already? that we look raggedy enough to be a band on tour?" He introduced himself, and said he was gonna be in town for a while and when/where we were playing. I gave him the info, and I'm hoping to see him at the show tonight.


On the flight. Had a ham and butter roll sandwich thing, and a mars bar. It was yummy, the mars bar was cold too. :)


We then landed in Poland, and I needed to use the toilet. I asked an old lady if she was in line for the bathroom, but she responded in German. Luckily I'm awesome at charades...and had no clue what she said, so I just nodded and smiled. Once done, we collected out bags, thanking jeebus that everything got there alright (as far as we knew at that point, cause matt still had to check if his amp actually worked when he turned it on).

I'm writing this as matt is flipping out reconstructing his amp, we're in awe at the venue, and I just had a coffee (plus the one from the plane, and the one from the plane before that...) but I want more coffee :)


I'll post more pix once we get to the hotel...or something, wee! Poland!

--

Up late, packing, playing, writing...etc.

I procrastinate like whoa...

Meant to spend the whole day doing laundry and packing, but I ended up setting up my drums and writing/recording two new songs.


It's now (at the time of writing this sentence) 12:47am. I have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow before 2pm which is when we're leaving, so hopefully I have the intelligence to pass out after posting this.

Here's how my desk looked prior to posting this...notice world of warcraft present on my main screen.


Anyway, my bags are packed now (except for some last minute laundry, and whatever toiletries I need to pack after I use them tomorrow morning. So I bid thee farewell, and we'll see how well I handle my promise of writing a blog everyday. I don't guarentee that I will post every day, because It'll depend on if I can find a place with wifi or not, but I'll definitely write something, and post it once I find internet.

Much love, c'yall lata.

The European blog ftw.

Sending in my blog via email to test this out before we head off to
Europe. I'll keep updated with my awesome descriptions of awesomeness,
and take many pictures. We'll be bringing a video camera as well, but
I don't think I'll have the footage off that till we get home.

Anyway, stay tuned, and rawk on!