Sofia, Skopje, and Belgrade

Day 12:

Sofia-

Bulgaria is a much poorer country than Romania, and it is clear the second we enter the country. Very flat, soviet era architecture, and everything seems to be well worn and crumbling. At the border, when the guards found it we were musicians on tour, they requested cd's from each band. We happily obliged, and were on our way. 

Joel commented that driving on the Bulgarian highway looked much like driving through Iowa, and I agreed. We're still about 3 or 4 hours our from Sofia, but it sure is an interesting change in environment from most of the countries we've visited in the EU. All 9 dudes in the van today are in Bulgaria for the first time. 

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The venue is in an underground subway-style building, but seems to be pretty cool. They ordered us food from an Italian-style restaurant, and it was pretty good as well. 

Come time for the show to start, the first band opened to the room packed already, so we got pretty stoked about how it would look when we're up there. Though it'll be hot and humid, it'll sure be fun. 

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I think this show is the best I've played so far, at least technically. Everything felt like I did it correctly, and everything sounded good on stage. 

The hostel we're staying at tonight is more of a house, but it's quite comfortable.  

Off to Skopje, Macedonia tomorrow. 

Day 13:

Skopje-

The drive was fairly short, but we stopped off at a lake to go swimming. The lake was ice cold, and when I say 'ice' cold, I mean it was just short of the temperature I think it would take to actually have ice cubes floating around in it. 

Because of our swim in the lake, we ended up being a little late to the show, but I feel like we're very good and moving things along quickly. We setup fast, sound checked fast, and then had some food before doors opened. 

The weird thing about tonight's show was that there were only supposed to be one local band in the show, but there ended up being 3, for a total of 5 bands playing the show. The problem presented with that, is that not only did the show run incredibly behind late, but by the time we got on there was no energy left in the crowd. I'm sure people were a little tired, and it was a Sunday night, but it felt like we were playing for an empty room. 

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The hotel we are staying at is about 40 minutes away, but whole following the promoter out into the middle of nowhere, for a moment, there was a feeling like we were being led to our doom. Little did we know, we were just being led to a weird motel immediately adjacent to a very loud dance club that was playing loud shitty music all night. All the rooms also only had double beds, so we were all forced to sleep with a buddy. Luckily, tour makes you close to the dudes you're with, so we weren't horribly uncomfortable with the situation. 

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The weather is cool and beautiful this 4th of July morning, and we will be celebrating it in Belgrade, Serbia. 

Day 14:

Belgrade-

Crossing the Serbian border was considerably easier than we thought it would be, they were just slow. We arrived in Belgrade greeted by friendly faces, and tasty delicious food. 

The sound on stage was magnificent, and the crowd was fun and engaging. Armine even got hoisted up and carried around during one song. 

We stayed at the same apartment we were at last year. It was comfy, and we're now remembering to bring in the fan inside for air movement. 

We went back to the venue to pack the gear in the van and get breakfast. Today we're off to Zagreb, Croatia.