day 49

day 49(?):

so, we're in Jonova, Lithuania now.

some things:

Kortrijk, Belgium and THE PIT'S are the shit.  Killer show our friend Dries set up.  It was really hard to restrain myself from nerding out on Belgian beers and trying a bunch.  Basically I've just swapped alcohol for sugar and had some insane Belg. choco treats and things.  I've been drinking fancy sodas every once in a while (word up to Fritz Cola), and of course I feel like a total wuss.  And I sipped a bit of this Old Damnation II beer that was super good.

We played a harsh noise show in a fucking train wagon in Offenbach, Germany while a decked out cruise ship was docked 20 feet away.

Tilburg, NL was fun, thanks Kevin.  My new favorite name for a Dutch clothing store is MEN'S DIGNITY.

Mulheim gig was canceled so instead we took a 15 hour bus from Rotterdam to Copenhagen.  I still don't understand how it took 15 hours but we were on a ferry for a while and there were some total sketchers on the bus and two or three guys got vanished by police officers when they checked our passports.  Then a dude fell down the stairs face first at 5:30 AM.  MAYHEM is an amazing venue and Copenhagen continued to rule really hard.  Sam and I did a Black Air performance including me contact mic'ing a mysterious hole from within the audience and Dan didn't even notice.  Fucking Dan.

We took a train to Hamburg and played at a theater.  It was great, people sitting in chairs and everything and I'll bet they'd even eat some popcorn if there was some popcorn around.

We took a bus to Berlin and oh man, Berlin was so good.  Met up with Daniel at Rumpsti Pumpsi (best noise/weird music record store ever) and he is the King of the Hospitables.  Thanks, Daniel.  We played show at the awesome venue NK and it was sadly our last night with Sam / The Rita.  The next two days Charlie and I went to the Nuclear War Now Live Ritual 2 at C-Halle and saw a ton of war/black metal bands from all over the world.  So many dudes with long hair and millions of embroidered patches on their jackets milling around and drinking beers in plastic cups etc.  The soundman was TERRIBLE and I don't want to know how much he was brutally overpaid to eat in front of a mixing board and blow it for two nights straight.  I was really happy to finally see many of the bands, but it was also incredibly awkward and boring at times.  Probably the last metal fest I'll attend.  I'm old? 

We also went to the Ethnological museum and saw all kinds of amazing artifacts and ate at Nil's twice.  Nil's is a Sudanese restaurant in Kreuzberg and instantly one of my favorites.  Coriander-heavy falafel sandwich with peanut sauce is on my death-row meal request without doubt.  Last night we had a really enjoyable show at Raum 20 and got to see Family Battle Snake and crashed at Federica's place (she served us potato and leek soup and cookies).  Today we woke up super early to fly to Kaunas, and now we're in Lithuania at our friend Armantas' flat and it's very green and sunny here and I gotta go.

-gordog