After two depressing days off in boring Mannheim, we rode a few hours to Saarbrucken right on the French border and played a good show in another smallish club. We have a new driver, Jana, who had driven for NovakSeen on their last tour. We all like her alot, and she had retired from driving to become a schoolteacher but came back to hang with the 'Seen one more time.

Being in the west part of Germany after being in the east for so long is a little refreshing, but also a little dull. The American influence is much stronger in this part of the country, and in Mannheim especially because of the Air Force base that had been there for so long. Almost everyone speaks very good English, which is nice, but the town doesn't feel as authentically German as, say, Leipig. There's a more distinctive class separation, with the upper middle class hanging in the center of town, and the poor Turkish immigrants on the outskirts. There are also brothels almost every where you turn, pictures of naked girls on billboards, hard core porn movies showing in the bars. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm tired of seeing so many tits.

But we're playing again, and the last three shows are supposed to be the biggest and best. We are a tight ensemble right now, and that feels good. We all have bad colds, but the adrenaline kicks in once we're onstage, and we're still able to groove.

	At the club in Saarbrucken after the show. From left is Jana our new driver, Jerry, Claudia (Marc's fraulein) and Travis.
Stosh and Noli hanging with this cool kid Janosh at club Hellmut in Saarbrucken.
	A sign in the Christmas festival in central Mannheim. It's not anti-semitic, it says "jewelry from Israel". There were a few other funny signs (funny in a lowbrow way) I wasn't able to get a pic of: "Gute Fahrt", which means good rest stop, and "Pissoir", which is exacty what it sounds like.
Christmas carousel in Mannheim.
	One of the many nuclear power plants along the autobahn.

We're in the midst of a 7 hour drive to Dresden right now, we have a 10 hour drive to Aachen tomorrow, then a 4 hour drive to Belgium Sunday, then we fly home Monday. It's gone by faster than I thought it would have.

See you next week,
Shambo