Thursday, May 12, 2011

Jo Fo Euro. Day 9. Day off - Kiel to Berlin

On the 9th day of the tour we were supposed to be play Leiden in Holland. Unfortunately, by this time we've come to the realisation that the way this tour has been planned out, it seems as if our booking agent took a map of Europe and threw darts at it to see where we'd be playing each day.
So, having only left the country for Germany yesterday, we should now be driving back to Amsterdam before we drive to all the way to Switzerland tomorrow. But (since the promoters of the Leiden show can't even guarantee they'll be able to pay us enough to cover the cost of all the petrol we'll have to use to get there and back) we've very begrudginly been forced to cancel the show. What this does mean is the total drive to Switzerland will be a good few hours shorter, we can do the trip in two days and can hang out in Kiel for a bit...
...and go to the beach.
After beach times and getting supplies at a music store we hit the road.
This goes swimingly for a few hours until our van is hit by a truck on the autobahn. It's a pretty damn shitty disaster, but the way it goes down seems like divine intervention. A half seconds difference could have meant the van been written off, the death of Lex or maybe all 6 of us. Instead the truck just clips us, taking a nice clean chunk off the front left side of the van, politely leaving our headlight and side indicator in perfect working order and van still totally roadworthy.
Much like with our winnebago-related mishap in the USA last year, the accident is followed by us spending some time somewhere really pretty.
After catching some sun and our breaths we get back in the van. Sit in terrible traffic forever and only get to our halfway point in Berlin at midnight. Check into our hotel and crash into our pillows.

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