Tour Blog pt. 1

Paris was the first show. we booked it for the drive to Italy. We got a trusty red van about a month before. It was the maiden voyage. The venue in Paris was a scuzzy little basement room at the back of a bar. kind of place I like. We played with half a drum kit, an amp that died early, an acoustic guitar that cut out when you strum, and an electric guitar with 2 broken strings. They fed us alcohol all night. We drove home and a government truck scraped our van as it overtook. not so great. There were a few reasons why we could do without any official involvement.

Something flew off from the collision.

The truck stopped in front.

I figured whoever was driving probably didn’t need official involvement either.

He got out his cabin.

The wing mirror was bent out of place so I walked up to it like it was the only thing wrong, pushed it back and told him there was no problem.

He said “desole”, got back in his truck, and gone.

I felt happy about that.

I went to see what had flown off from the collision. Looked like a piece of his truck, cut clean through metal by our wing mirror. weird. I took it as a souvenir. i think I’ve lost it now.

The next morning our other wing mirror was lying on the road next to the van, broken. Someone hit us it in the night. There was a weird balance to it.

We had to figure out a new mirror before driving to italy and 6 more days in Europe. Turns out noone’s heard of an LDV van in Paris, so we get a mirror cut at a local hardware store and tape it to the side of the van. Works ok.

Wim tapes up a hole in the roof that seems bigger than we remember.

windscreen wipers stop working. Another thing to sort out.

Wipers cost a lot in Paris and things were starting to get expensive.

We drank a coffee and ate the kind of sweet bakery things only the French could make.

I got asked for money in the street and gave the guy 3 euros before seeing his 4 gold teeth and realisinghe was way better fed than me. I am a sucker.

It’s started snowing. like a blizzard. or a snowglobe. We got out of ..Paris.. and drove to Italy, for 14 hours, through the alps at night. The same thing that makes those roads beautiful is what makes them dangerous. Wim slipped onto the wrong side of the road with a lorry coming the other way.

we nearly died.

We kept driving through tunnels that went right through mountains. Some went on for miles. I kept imagining being in the middle of one with no electricity, total pitch black, walking for miles trying to get out. You mind would go wild… and you’d be a sitting duck for rage-virus zombies.

motorway tolls burned us for more money.

At a garage in Padua we were told our tyres were different sizes and could have blown on the motorway. our spare had a hole the size of a thumb. We had to buy two new tyres. Money was beginning to be a worry.

Our rest night in Padua turned into a night at a bar that brewed its own booze. We ate and drank like happy travellers. should have slept more. i managed an hour and a half. We started the drive to Perugia.