The Fifth Day

We have a few day off since the our fucking tour manager is still nowhere to be found. Freddie is pulling as many strings as he can to fill up the empty dates, but clubs usually need more than a day's lead time to book a band. At this point I'm going to give up all expectations, not believe anything until it actually happens, and simply take things as they come. Freddie said to me "I was wondering when you were going to relax." Belgian punk.

The road is growing on me. We've kind of settled into the groove of this lifestyle. Staying in a hostel is more fun than staying in a hotel. Plus, it's 27 marks a night, about 12 dollars, for a four-bed room. We're at the Sleepy Lion in Leipzig, which is right in the middle of everything. The guys running this place are my age and just as idealistsic. They're not driven solely by the pursuit of money, they want to have a good life doing what they want to do. I think this philosophy fits me better than obsessively hawking compulsive nightlife to yuppies. I'd rather entertain them myself. At least that way I can tell them to fuck off if I want to. It's not like I want to go back to being poor, but I need to balance things out a bit more when I get back home.

Travelling, meeting new people and hanging out makes living out of a suitcase bearable. I'm no longer sweating the small stuff like showering or washing clothes. I'm picking up more and more German as we go along, which makes socializing much easier. People have been very friendly everywhere we've been, and we almost always are able to carry on good conversations in our broken German and their broken English.
What can I say? It's just beautiful.
Somewhere in the Neues Rathaus, in search of eine kleine vagina.
I don't know what this is, but it's beautiful.
We took Jerry out for his birthday last night. It was the first restaurant meal we've had, and it was incredible. Authentic German food, lamb, beef, pork, quail, saurkraut, dumplings, bier, bier, bier. It was great.

I'm really blown away by Leipzig. It's London-esque, but of course a bit different. Two nights ago we were in the dark side of town, and yesterday we crossed the tracks into the more upscale part. In the center of town are the Neues Rathaus and the Altes Rathaus (New Town Hall and Old Town Hall), which are huge, beautiful complexes of 17th, 18th and 19th century buildings. They look like palaces, but are now basically shopping malls. There's a district like this in London, but I forget what it's called. There's a lot of construction going on, replacing the GDR-era buildings with newer structures that better reflect the spirit and culture of the city.

So we're here again tonight, no gig, and I have no idea what we're doing tomorrow but I'm pretty sure we're going to another town and playing a show. Que sera sera.

Ciao,
Shambo