European Tour Diary

The following is a not so brief diary on Ian and Naomi's trip to Europe. May 10th, 2001 - August 30th, 2001
We would like to thank the following people that helped us out so much: Louise, Emil, Dave, Paul, Sheep, Troy, Anthea, Kari, Nathan & Canaan, Ian, Rob and In The Clear, 30 Seconds Until Armageddon, Hannah, Claire, Paul and everyone in Canterbury, Dean in Soufend, Elad, Max Halifax and family, Delaney and Anthem Of The Century, Posi Jamie, Rudi, Marti, Fillip, Shannon, Sarah, Karim, Lexi, Bitre, Blind Guardian, Burden, Hendrick, Maarten, Bjorn and The Deal, Peter Kombat, Geert, the whole Hasselt crew, and anyone else we may have forgotten. We couldn't have done it without all the help. Cheers!

• September 2nd - OK...what I'm gonna do is fill you in on the last month. This is gonna take a while so grab a hot cup of cocoa, sit back and read away.
  
  So I believe we left off in Barcelona, Spain. But I did forget to mention one thing about the Goodlife Fest in Belgium. There was this girl there with a huge full back tattoo...full color..very nice piece. It said The Strength Of Clarity (or something like that) on it, except strength was spelt wrong - STRENGHT !! How lame is that..spelling errors on tattoos. Oh well. Too bad for her.
  
  SPAIN
  
      Right..so Barcelona. A very nice city. They had the Olympics there a few years back so it was all spruced up. We met up with Shannon who we had met at Goodlife fest there and he showed us around a bit...took us out to eat and to some cool punk record stores. He lived pretty far away so we ended up staying at a hostel while we were there. It was a nice enough place but it was so damn hot sleeping in the dorms there. ahhgghh. Shannon took off and we headed downtown. The main drag is called La Rambla...very touristy..lots of people selling stuff...including birds. there were like 20 stalls set up of people selling pet birds. I didn't think the was such a huge market for birds..but whatev.
      Right..next day it was off to the beach. I'm not the biggest fan of the beach, but Naomi loves it..and it was nice to relax. And it was so hot out that there wasn't much else to do. After a while we got bored...and we left and went to look at this huge church thing that has taken hundreds of years to build and still won't be finished for another 20 years. Quite impressive actually. Also another thing about Barcelona is that there are awesome skate spots everywhere. I definitely need to come back and check em out some more. The next day was more wandering around. It was our last day there and we were pretty much out of money so we were hungry, sweaty and bitchy all day. We went to the train station early and I went for a skate outside where all the local skaters hang out. Then it was onto the overnight train to the French Riviera. We met some nice girls from Brazil on the train but other than that..it was quite uneventful.
  
  FRANCE
  
      We arrive in Nice, France early in the morning and secure a hotel room after an hour of wandering around with our stupid huge backpacks. We dump our stuff and head out for some breakyfast. We find a nice sidewalk cafe and relax. ahhhh. Afterwards we took a train to Antibes a few miles away and checked out the beach - the one in Nice is very rocky and we heard this one was better...and it slightly was. So we hung out there and ate ice cream. We were planning on going to Cannes and checking out rich people but it was getting late so then it was back to our air conditioned hotel room to chill. We got some shitty food from the restaurant down the street...they had this veggie toast stuff which Naomi thought tasted like puke.
      The next day we were off to the beach once again. The Nice beach was pretty rocky so I opted to do some skatin on the boardwalk whilst Naomi soaked up some sun. There were some nicely waxed curbs right by the beach and they were quite fun. Despite the crazy heat, I managed to rip it up for a good hour or two. Soon it was time to leave, and we headed back to the hotel to grab our bags and get back on the train.
  
  ITALY
  
      The train took us right along the water. It was somewhat surreal traveling through these small Italian coastal towns on a hot summer night. We ended up meeting some kind folks...Nick from Boston and Katie from England. We spent an hour yelling out the window at Italian kids about Dr. Dre. It was all about Dre that night. That is, until the train dude found out Nick and Katie didn't have first class tickets like we did. After some unsuccessful pleading they were demoted to second class and sadly, we never saw them again. But we will always have Dre to remember them by.
      We got into Rome at 7am. It was already friggen hot out. It was once again time to find a place to stay. Our precious guide book suggested a place by the train station so we checked it out. It was run by a crazy old Italian lady who barely spoke any English. She did know the word cheap...we like cheap so we took the room. We got settled in and then it was off to explore Roma!!
      First thing we did was head to the Vatican City for possible meeting with the Pope. JP was hung over that day so we had to take a pass on that. Insted we looked around the Vatican. Very impressive buildings I must say. The heat was mad crazy today so we took refuge in the air conditioned Vatican post office. Eventually we went back into the painful heat and walked around a bit. It was about time to get some grub so we chose a little restaurant that was off the beaten tourist path. This was a mistake cuz the waiter didn't speak much English. Luckily, he knew the word vegetarian and brought us some food. It was pretty good but we knew he thought we were idiots. I felt very uncomfortable and got into a pissy mood. grrrr. So sad for me. It was back to the hotel for a shower and a nap. When we finally woke up again we were in much better moods and the sun had gone done so it wasn't unbearable out anymore. Yay! We went walking again and checked out some famous fountain and The Pantheon...which is some crazy old church. Like most tourist spots there was a McDonalds right next to it. Ironic having some 2000 year old building and a shitty McDonalds right next door. We went back to the hotel for more showers and finally some sleep.
      We were up pretty early the next day for some hardcore sightseeing. Our first destination: The Coliseum...perhaps Rome's most famous landmark. There were already huge line-ups to get in and I was tempted to not even bother going in. But luckily Naomi convinced me otherwise and we got in line. It only took about half an hour to get in and it was certainly worth it. It was quite odd being inside it after seeing in pictures for years. good shit yo. After the Coliseum is was off to the Roman Forum which is basically 2000 years ruins. More crazy old shit yo. More wandering in the horrible heat checkin out the sites until we could take it no more and headed back to the hotel for cold showers and our afternoon siesta. The night was spent doing laundry and screwing around on the internet...both at the same internet/laundromat place. How convenient!
      The next day we were up at 5:30 am in order to catch the train to Pisa. So we get there and go see the stupid tower. Yes..it leans. Oh wow. There's nothing much else to Pisa so soon we head off to Florence. My mom thought we should go to Florence because it is nice. So we did. And it was. Again we wandered for a good hour trying to find a cheap place to stay. This usually involves one of us watching our stupid heavy bags while the other walks around checkin out prices. Naomi was the hero of this day and scored us a great place right by the train station. After dropping our bags off, we walked around the town checking out the sites. There's a really big cathedral there. It's pink and green and is the 4th largest in the world. Gnarly. We must have walked around for another 2 hours getting way off the tourist area. We headed back to the hotel finally and got some food. Later that night, I went skatin by the train station where we had seen a few kids skatin earlier. It was pretty fun..I started skatin and they called me over...but none of them spoke English so we just skated in silence. I was as good as any of them and it was pretty fun. Yessir.
      Next day...it's time to head to Venice..so back in the train we go. I should point out here that with the train pass we have you write in the date that you want to use the ticket...I think we had 8 days of travel on our pass. Now...before we left I bought an erasable pen which meant we could erase the days we had used giving extra days to travel. I think in the end we got about 12 days of travel on our 8 day pass. We are so evil and going directly hell. But I'm fine with that.
      So anyhoo..we get to Venice..well actually not Venice but Mestre which is on the mainland...you need to take another train to Venice cuz it's on some islands. We decide to stay in Mestre cuz it will be cheaper. We drop our crap and head into Venice. I don't know where to start with Venice. It like nothing I have seen before. Definitely an amazing city. We start out by walking through the narrow paths of the city....you can never get really lost..just confused in the maze of paths, bridges and canals. It's so weird here...there are no cars at all. Just boats...water taxis, the highly expensive gondolas, and bus boats - all the public transport is on boats...so weird...but an awesome way to see the city. We check out some more crazy architecture, and more crazy ass huge cathedrals and plazas. Then it's onto the bus boats to check stuff out. We head to this island/beach called the Lido which was THE place to be 200 years ago...we are a little late. It's still pretty nice though. Then we get on a boat that we think takes us back to the city but insted we end up going back to the mainland. An hour later we end up where we wanna be. We hop on another bus boat and cruise back through the canals. At this point I get all bitchy again from lack of food so we head back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.
      Day 2 in Venice is spent wandering around once again...this time in some less touristy areas. Also I buy a pair of socks at the Champion store. I opt for the low cut sport sock which I have recently taken a liking to. Eventually we finished up being good little tourists and headed to the train station. Here's where the shit started. First off...we had to travel from Venice to Munich, Germany...however our rail pass didn't cover Austria...and if you look at a map (like you should all do everyday) you'll see that getting Munich without going through Austria is much more difficult. So we tried to figure out the best way to get there with the guy at the ticket counter. Of course he barely spoke any English so we ended up getting frustrated...at least I did...cuz I'm a jerk. We decided to hop on a train to Milan, which would then hopefully go through Switzerland, from where we could maybe get a train to Munich. A lot of maybes involved here. I am not a huge fan of the maybe. So we hop on the train bound for Milan. After a brief stop-over there hanging out with Right Said Fred on the catwalk, we get a train to Zurich...hoping we can catch a night train there to Munich.
  
  SWITZERLAND
  
      So we are on the train..going through the mountains. It had started raining too which was actually a welcome relief..for me anyway. Naomi seems to love the heat..but she is weird. hahah. Right..so we are on the train and sitting in the back of the car is this family...they are very loud and obviously American. American tourists seem to be really easy to spot over here as they are overly loud and don't even try to talk in the local language. Even I attempted to say hullo in the local language. Anyway...Naomi and I make fun of them a bit and then sit back and relax. Of course I listen in on the conversation as it is quite loud. I hear one of the kids and the parents discussing how to pronounce the word coalesce. This of course peaks my interest cuz Coalesce is a good band...but I assume they are just talking about the word itself as they a very normal looking family. Then I hear someone Candiria. ok...so that 2 hardcore band names...this is not a coincidence. I casually get up and stroll by, heading to the bathroom, and I notice this kid has Cave-In cds. So off to the bathroom I go..and on the way back I stop and ask him about Cave-In. It turns out they are from Connecticut and the kid is into lots of hardcore like Dillinger Escape Plan etc. He's only like 14 and has a band....which he played of demo song of on his discman..pretty good stuff actually. So we talk for a while. The dad of the family, who is a jazz musician also thinks Dillinger Escape Plan are very good and takes quite an interest in his son's music...which is very cool. Soon though it's time for them to get off the train. Now...this family, consisting of about 7 people in total, has so much luggage with them. An insane amount really. We get to their stop and they start unloading the luggage. About half the family is off the train and maybe half the luggage when the train starts to leave. Panic sets in with them and they start chucking luggage off the train onto the platform. Soon though the train is going to fast for them to get off the train. The rest of the people on the train are laughing at the loud Americans. So...left on the platform in the pouring rain in shitville, Switzerland are the mom, grandmother and 2 infants. On the train are the dad and the 2 kids. They are upset and saying fuck alot. Me and Naomi just look at each and try not to laugh. It shouldn't have been funny..but really...it was. Eventually the train dudes figure something out and the Americans get off at the next stop never to be seen again. I have the kid's email though....maybe I'll try to find out what happened after that. But now...it was time for bad luck for the silly Canadian travelers..namely.. us.
      We get into Zurich at around 10:30pm. We are quite worried that it is too late for a connecting train to Munich. And it is. It time for sleeping in the train station...or so we think. There's this Australian guy named Hamish in the same situation as us going around trying to get a bunch of people together to camp out for the night. The train station is full of sketchy people so we figure there is safety in numbers. We get all settled in our sleeping bags on the floor when security guards inform us that the train station closes from 1am to 3am for cleaning. And its raining out. And I try to get some Swiss money from an automatic currency exchange machine...but it just steals my money. I am not liking Zurich very much at this point. We head out into the streets of Zurich with Hamish and go look for a place to eat. We are pretty much downtown and there are lots of trendy club people around staring at us with our huge ass backpacks. Sadly the only place open to eat McDonalds...a restaurant that we never eat at because it is evil...but these are desperate times...well we are just pretty hungry...but close enough. I haven't eaten there in years but the food was ok....except the veggie burger which sucked ass. We manage to kill 2 hours in McMurders and head back to the train station. Of course they haven't opened it yet. There is a group of Japanese tourists huddled in the corner looking like refugees. Finally they let us in and we head back to our spot to finally get some sleep. Once again we are on the floor...Naomi is asleep and I am just resting...and the good old security guards come by and tell us we can't sleep on the floor..or the benches. We can only sleep sitting upright on the benches. Now I am really hating this fuckin stupid ass city. Naomi manages to sleep a bit lying on me...but I have no sleep at all.
  
  GERMANY
  
      In the morning we catch the first train to Munich. Finally we get on the train and I can get a few hours of sleep. We arrive in Munich mid-morning. This will be our last train ride for a week or so as we are renting a car. Naomi watches our bags while I head out to the Munich Airport on the subway to pick up the car. This is where the fun starts. I pick up the car and hop in it. It has manual transmission. I knew it was going to but I figured it shouldn't be a problem because I had driven manual once before for a few hours. However...it is a problem. A big one. It all starts while trying to get out of the parking garage. I keep stalling trying to get up this little hill and there are car behind me honking. I am so stressed already. I finally get out of there and get on the highway. I have small map to help get me back into the city. It doesn't help much and I end up getting lost. And the car keeps stalling everywhere. People walk by me laughing. I want to kill them. Finally..about 2 hours later I get back to the train station. And am stressed beyond belief and tired as hell. "this is the worst idea ever" I say to Naomi as we meet up. We haven't seen much of Munich but all I want to do is get the fuck out of the city and onto the highway. By this point I start to get a slight grasp on how the car works. I'm still stalling a lot but not as much. We finally get on the highway and begin our roadtrip in Germany.
  We start driving north and really I don't remember much of what happened next except that we stopped somewhere for the night and slept in the car. Hopefully Naomi will be able to fill me in on the details at some point....I can tell you what I remember. And also..this was my first experience on the autobahn..famous for no speed limits. Part of the reason for renting a car in Germany was to rip shit up on the autobahn. However...the car we had sucked ass. It was a tiny little Volvo with a small engine. I floored the fukkin thing but it would not go over 160 kph no matter how hard I tried. Even at 160, other cars were fukkin flying by me..it was messed up. Next time I go I'm getting better car and I am gonna burn rubber and crash and burn yeah!
      I also remember going to Dresden as well. While we were in some plaza there these reporters from a local paper came up to us and asked us to help them with an article on tourists perceptions of Dresden. We agreed to this. They gave us a postcard to write home with and describe Dresden on it. I don't remember what we wrote...something along the lines of Dresden is nice and has nice buildings. They took a bunch of pictures of us as well and were supposed to send us a copy of the paper but that never happened. Oh well. We wandered around a bit more...bought a German-English phrasebook..and then it was back on the road. We headed east to the quaint town of Miessen. It was one of those out of the way little touristy towns with big old churches and narrow winding streets and shit. Very nice actually. I believe we had another night spent in the car around here somewhere.
      The next day it was time for Berlin. I was a bit nervous about driving in a big city again but by this point I think I had the car figured out OK. We got into the city eventually and tried to get into the center of town. We pulled over at some point to look at a street map and some old guy just comes up to the car wanting to help us with directions cuz we obviously looked like tourists. He was very nice and got us headed the right way. We ended up getting some free parking near some big column thing. We ended up going in it and walking to the top for a great view of the city. Then it was time for a lengthy walking tour of the city. We went to the shopping area which is also known as the tourist ghetto. Then to the city center which is being totally rebuilt after the reunification. Crazy amounts of construction and tons of new modern building..and lots of skate spots too! The remains of the Berlin Wall were next on the agenda. It was pretty weird seeing in real life. There wasn't too much left of it and there was an outdoor museum by it as well. Then it was Checkpoint Charlie time which is now a big tourist trap. More walking around....through the business area and then the Brandenburg Gates. We probably spent 6 hours just walking around. By this time we were quite tired and headed back to the car. We took a drive into what was formerly East Berlin and you can really tell the difference. Very ugly and bleak looking in parts. But alot has been rebuilt in the past 10 years. It would have been interesting to compare it to pre-no Berlin wall days.
  Night time was upon and we headed out of the city. We found a gas station to sleep at...and we did...sleep. Soon enough the morning was upon us..and after we freshened up at the local McDonalds we proceed to a museum that is the least fun way to start off your day. The museum is actually a former concentration camp. A very sobering experience to say the least. Though definitely something everyone should visit if the get the chance. We probably spent 2 hours in there looking around. It was pretty crazy for sure. We had almost slept in the parking lot of the camp the night before, but sleeping next to a place where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered seemed a bit weird.
      Eventually we were on the road again. Our destination for the day: Sweden. That's sounds like a long drive you might say...and it is.
  So right..we start driving..followed by more driving...then suddenly!.....more driving. We take a cruise through Hamburg on the way. Nothing too exciting...except for the live sex show bars. Tempting as it sounds, we keep on truckin.
  
  DENMARK/SWEDEN
  
      Eventually we hit the Germany/Denmark border and cruise right through as there is no one there. If only it were that simple getting into the US. We stop at a tourist info place and get some Danish money and try to call our friend Emil who lives in Mamlo, Sweden...right across the water from Copenhagen, Denmark. We can't get ahold of him...but we figure he's probably still at work so we keep going...passing through towns such as Middlefart. hahaha. ha. Then we cross over a huge bridge..it is also horribly expensive...like $40 one way. but we keep going! A few hours later we arrive in Copenhagen. It took way longer to get here than we thought. Its about 8pm now...and we started driving at like noon or so. we drive around and try to find a payphone to call Emil. This proves to be much harder than we thought. There don't seem to be any public phones anywhere...even in the center of town. We eventually get the bright idea to try the train station where they would have to have phones. So we did...and they did. I try to call Emil again and let him know we are in the area. He is a bit surprised to hear from us but says we can come stay at his place. I tell him I will call him when we get to Malmo. Off we go to find the ferry over there...we get lost once again and end by the bridge. This is yet another super long, mega-expensive $40 bridge....but we ended up crossing it anyway because it's getting late. After a brief stop at the Swedish border, we are on our way to the center of Malmo. Again the hunt for a payphone begins....and again they are no where to be found. I end up asking some lovely Swedish girls working in a cafe if they knew where a payphone was...they didn't but offered to call Emil for me and find an address. So finally...we have an address....but the lovely Swedish girls don't really know where it is and give us some vague directions. We follow them as best we can but end up getting lost. We stop and ask some lady who barely speaks English and get some more vague directions. We follow and get lost..though this time we think we are bit closer to the right spot. We ask yet another person....she doesn't quite know but says if we drive her home she can look it up on a map in the phonebook. So what the hell...we give her a lift and she brings out the phonebook from her house and finds the street for us and even rips out the map for us. Such nice people in Sweden. Finally...we find the place and Emil is outside waiting!! Yay!! Our horrific ordeal is over..it's time to sleep!!!!!
      But wait...Emil has food..and Sega Dreamcast..and Tony Hawk 2! No sleep just yet. His apartment is really big and nice. We eat some food, talk about Mouthpiece, watch a Victory Records DVD, and talk record collector nerd talk....followed by some rousing Tony Hawk 2 action. At about 2am...we call it a night and head off to bed. This will be our first sleep not in a car in days. Sleeping horizontal is a blessing...and a mattress...so sweet. In fact...I would rank this as one of the top 10 sleeps of my life.
      After a very restful sleep, we get up, and have glorious showers and then head out to eat. Emil buys us some yummy Falafel. Soon it is time to say bye to Sweden and we all head over to Copenhagen. Emil has called in sick to work so he could hang out with us. What a great guy! He shows us around the city...some of the sites. He actually works in Copenhagen so we have to stay away from the part of town where his job is. We go to a dollar type store and buy a pillow and moshing gloves. And then off to the mall for some serious shopping. well...not really...Naomi bought some pants and I bought some much sought after peanut butter which I don't think they sell anywhere in continental Europe. Then its off to the city center for a relaxing meal in some Italian restaurant. But soon it's time to say our goodbyes as we need to be in Germany the next day. We will be seeing Emil in a week at the Ieper Fest in Belgium so it isn't one of those "I'll never see you again" goodbyes. Right...so on the road again. We don't make it as far as I would have liked before getting too tired to drive so we park at a rest stop and begin another night of trying to sleep in the back seat of a very small car.
      Yet another pesky morning is soon upon us...as is some annoying guy trying to get a ride to Holland. We tell him no and continue on our merry way.
  
  GERMANY
  
      Soon enough we are in Germany and I can go fast again. zoooommm. well not as fast as I want cuz of my stupid shitty car! Anyway..I've been over that already. Eventually and uneventfully we get to Munster, Germany where we are supposed to meet up with our friend Lexi. I find a payphone after driving around half an hour and call Lexi's cell phone. We agree to meet up at the train station. I've never met him before...just talked online. He's in the band Sincerity who Envision is doing a split 7" with so it'll be cool to finally meet him! We hook up with Lexi and his girlfriend Bitre who is also in Sincerity and grab some food...more falafel. Then it is record store time. We spend a while in there as I have not been in record store in a while and need more records. So I buy some.
      Lexi takes us back to his house in the town of Werne. Its a very nice place with a huge bathroom and 2 crazy dogs who like to bark alot. We get settled in and I check out Lexi's records...I love checking out hardcore record collections! He's got some good stuff. Then we head out to the local bar to get loaded....loaded with fun and heavy metal! This bar rules...metal dudes everywhere. They play a Metallica song and metal dudes start head banging. Wicked! And since we are in Germany..home of Blind Guardian..true heavy metal...I figure they will have a CD by them here. So I ask the DJ if they have any Blind Guardian. and he says "of course!" and I ask if he can play "Mirror Mirror" and he says "I can". This bar is the greatest! A few minutes later the song comes on and I start singing along and embarrassing Naomi. Lexi and Bitre think I'm weird for knowing the song. But I'm having a great old time. When we leave the bar there's a car in the parking lot with a huge Blind Guardian sticker on it. What a great bar this is. Then it's back to Lexi's for sleep.
  It's morning again..haha...and we get some breakfast at Lexi's and then say goodbye to our new friends. Bitre gives us an escort out of Werne so we wouldn't get lost like we usually do. And then it's on to Cologne to drop off the car at Alamo rental at the train station and meet up with our friend Rudi from Belgium who is picking us up. We get to there right at noon when the car is due back...except wait...that would be too easy wouldn't it? Yes...far too easy.
  Ya see...we can't find the Alamo location at the train station...because there isn't one. I make a call to the Alamo hotline where upon I am told the car is supposed to be dropped off in Munich...many hours away. Not good. They give me another number to call and get it sorted out. By this point there is a long lineup behind me some I go try to find another phone. Once again the hunt for a payphone ensues. Finally I find one with a smaller lineup. Two German dudes in front of me start up a friendly conversation about nothing at all. When they find out I'm going to Amsterdam soon they start talking about weed and I smile and nod pretending that I care. Soon the phone is mine and I call the new number...I'm prepared to get mad....they screwed up my reservation and there's no way I'm driving back to Munich. Sadly no one answers the phone. I should point out that I'm am super stressed and freakin out in general. I call back the original number and they tell me its ok to drop the car off at the location there so it's partly ok. Except I don't know where the cologne location is. I do eventually find out where it is from some other rental company in the train station. So I drive off to find it while Naomi waits for Rudi to show up. I have a tiny map to guide me there and I actually do a good job of finding it. Then its on a train back to the train station...keep in mind everything is in German and I really have no clue what's going on but somehow I make it back...and only about 10 minutes later than our meeting time with Rudi. Everything is gonna be OK.
      I finally get a chance to catch my breath and look around. Cologne seems to be very nice..once again a huge elaborate cathedral dominates the skyline. But no time for sight seeing..we gotta move on! Our first mission: record store. Unfortunately we now have to carry our stupid heavy backpacks around. A week with a car has spoiled us. But there are places to see and records to buy. The store is great and I buy more records. (No LPs though...way to hard to carry around). Then it's back to Rudi's car and off to Belgium.
  
  BELGIUM
  
      We take some back roads around rural Belgium and see where Rudi grew up and finally we get to is house in Hasselt. We grab some veggie burgers at a restaurant, try out the local skatepark (complete with metal vert ramp) and then it's off to the evening's festivities. This includes an open air free concert in the town center featuring none other than The Sweet, 70's glam rock that you will know by the song Ballroom Blitz. But first we met up with some other local kids at a local bar including some people we met at the Goodlife Fest. Soon we all head off to the concert. Up first is a old band from Holland that I have never heard of. They are shockingly ugly and sing in Dutch. The Belgian kids seemed to know them though. Then The Sweet play. They are horrible as to be expected and even uglier than the previous band. There are all these drunk middle age couples having a blast and singing all the songs. A sad spectacle indeed. They finish their set predictably with their only hit Ballroom Blitz. Mildly entertaining it was. At this point sleep is in the cards for us all so we call it a night.
      The next day we head off to Holland for an all day hardcore fest. It's in a town in southern Holland called Maastricht. The fest is a big production, with corporate sponsors and it's inside this huge tent. There was a essentially a shopping mall of distros and on-site tattooing. Kinda weird...I wasn't digging the atmosphere. Some bands that I can recall playing were Full Court Press, Born From Pain, Reaching Forward (my personal fav), and Unconquered. Here's a SHOW POSTER. It was an ok show..I am glad we went. Right....so back to Belgium for a great meal (huge falafel plate...so good) and then sleep at Rudi's house.
  
  HOLLAND
  
      Next day it's time to move on. Our destination: Amsterdam. Rudi drives us to the bus stop and keeps us company until the bus comes. We haul our bags on the bus and head to Maastricht once again where we get a train connection. I don't recall anything of note happening along way and we got to Amsterdam in the early evening. Yet again we didn't make any reservations for a place to stay so we walked around with our stupid bags trying to find a cheap place to stay. It was not working very well. There were people coming up to us and offering us "deals" on accommodations but we didn't trust anyone. So we walked around even more. A few hours later we hadn't found anything and our backs were in serious pain. We were not happy campers at all. Finally we found a place that was not at all reasonable but we were quite desperate for anything at this point. It was right in the middle of the red light district and quite a sleazy hotel. But I guess that's to be expected since this was one of the sleaziest places I've been to. Lots of drugs, hookers in windows, live sex shows, and plenty of gross scummy men. We walked around a bit, got offered cocaine, ate shitty tourist food and finally went to sleep.
      The next day was much better. We got ahold of a girl named Sarah that Louise and Emil had told us about. She picked us up and took us to her apartment. She was super nice and let us stay there for a few days. She only had a small dorm room but we managed to squeeze ourselves in there. Sarah was pretty busy with school work so we went off to explore Amsterdam on our own. Usually I'm pretty good with direction no thanks in part to my amazing geography skills...but for some unknown reason I couldn't get my bearings in this city at all. We ended up getting lost trying to find a record store...but we got to walk around and see all the crazy canals. It's not a big city so it's hard to get too lost and eventually we found the store. It was pretty cool. I bought a rare Fastbreak 7" that I had been looking for. Sweet. Then it was off to some museums...but not those arty kind. We first went to the Museum Of Torture. It was ok....not gory enough. Then it was off to the Museum of Erotica. This place had X-rated cartoons playing with mice and pigs having sex with women. it was weird. And lots of old school porn pics and weird sex toys. A very odd place but a good way to kill an hour. I think we just spent the rest of our time in the city wandering around, eating, and falling asleep in a park by a canal. Oh we also went in a sex store and the had a video called Goat Gangbang...and the picture on the cover had some dude fucking a goat. This is a weird city. In fact..it is the 2nd weirdest place I have been to..Las Vegas being number 1. Really I don't remember much else...lots of wandering around in the heat. But it was fun fun fun!
  
  BELGIUM again
  
      Sarah would be joining us on the next part of journey. Our destination was Ieper, Belgium for a three day hardcore festival...the biggest in Europe. But first we had to go to Sarah's parents house in Southern Holland. We took the train there and Sarah's dad picked us up. He bought a whole bunch of cheese on the way home. I don't like cheese really. We got some food at her house, did laundry and had a few awkward moments sitting with Sarah's sisters who were too shy to speak English and therefore didn't say anything. Eventually is was back on a train to Brussels, then an hour wait, and then finally a train to Ieper. We got into Ieper at about 5pm. It's a fairly small historic kinda town (I think there's some World War 1, Flanders Field connection here). Check out a photo here. Not the kinda place you'd expect a huge hardcore fest to take place in. But it's been going on here for 5 years or so. Thousands of people from all over come here once a year for this. Pretty much everyone we know in Europe will be here so we are quite excited.
      We head to the camp site, which is also where the show will be taking place, and try to find people we know. Eventually we find Emil and put our crap in his tent which already set up. We still need to find Rudi though cuz he is supposed to have a tent for us. But we need food so it's off to the town. I'm ordering some fries at some take out place when I hear screaming. It's Louise!! Wooo!!! She is now in Ieper and very hyper. We eat our food and head back to the camp where we find Rudi and set up our tent and get some much needed sleep.
      DAY 1 of Ieper fest 2001 is soon upon us. I won't bore you with a band by band analysis...see who played the thing here. I will merely go over some of the highlights. The Deal ripped shit up playing Boston style pissed hardcore. They covered Cro-Mags and Floorpunch. The mosh was in full effect and I hurt my knee quite badly. I couldn't walk very well at all after that. From the Dying Sky and Course Of Action put on good shows. Caliban were awesome as well on this day. Good Clean Fun finished the day off and it was crazy. So many kids singing along and on stage. My knee was still pretty bad, but when they covered Youth Of Today I somehow climbed on stage to sing along. Very fun. We headed back to the campsite to try to get some sleep. As you can imagine several hundred hardcore kids gathered in one spot is not the best place to find quiet. People were being very loud. Finally people started to quiet down and we in just about asleep when we heard the familiar voices of good ole Louise and Rudi. Louise had decided to loudly announce to everyone that she got a new sweatshirt...or a jumper as she called it. Did I mention she was loud? And it was 4am? We pretend not to hear her but Emil wasn't so lucky in the next tent over. He responded to her which only encouraged her more. After a while she gave went away and we went away to dreamland.
      DAY 2 was plagued with pouring rain. Some highlights were The Oath, Stack (with everyone piled up on top the stage to escape the pouring rain) and Liar. It actually cleared up near the end of the show for Liar and The Locust. I know everyone likes the Locust..but I don't quite get it...30 seconds of grind, screaming with keyboards. It's cool at first but then just gets old. Whatev.
      DAY 3 had more rain problems...and some serious fighting. It all started during Bloodsport's set when some crust punks started making fun of the band. The singer didn't like that and a fight broke out somehow. All I remember seeing was the bass player jump into the crowd swinging his bass at the punks. What fun. They finished their set but that wasn't the end of it. It flowed out into the parking lot where more fighting began. I gotta give the crusties points picking a fight when they were so vastly outnumbered. It was literally 5 against 1000. Anyway..punches and glass bottles were thrown until finally the punks retreated. The whole thing kinda put a damper on the day. But luckily Canada's own - Burden, put on a great show and cheered people up...well me anyway. Their show started with someone throwing tons of confetti into the air...it looked like it was snowing. People were dancing and diving and sliding all over the place..it was friggen great! It started raining in the middle of the set causing the confetti to turn to mush. Everyone just got up on stage except for me and Sheep and Emil...we did some rain mosh for a 7 Seconds cover. Facedown also played what was I believe their last show. They ended with Firestorm..hahha..they were quite good though. Leiah were ok too but the singer had really bad hair. Finally 3 days of music and mosh had come to an end. We went into town for some food and said bye to our new friends. Then back to the tent for some sleep.
  
  FRANCE
  
      We were up early the next day and said some more goodbyes to people we wouldn't be seeing again for a long time. Also..we now had a new traveling companion..Emil!! Our destination for the day: Paris! We hiked it up to the train station in Ieper and caught a train to Lille, France right on the border. We were there for about an hour where we brushed up on some French and tried to teach Emil some basics....I guess they don't have too much French in Sweden. Soon we were on the highspeed train to Paris. We arrived in the late afternoon and once again had no hotel booked. I went off to find a place while Emil and Naomi watched our stuff. I was worried that there would be nothing cheap around....but for once I scored us a great place. Well...not great...but cheap and not too far away. I even talked in French to the guy there. Yeah..so we put our crap in our modest room and headed out on the town. We walked down to the Isle de Cite area where the Notre Dame is. Food was eaten and more walking around occurred...it was pretty late at night by this point so we headed back to the hotel.
      The following day we headed out early to be tourists. We got a metro pass for the day and headed for a place called The Catacombs. If you ever go to Paris, you gotta check this out. Basically, the bodies of millions of Parisians were dug up from overflowing graveyards and their bones were neatly stacked in underground tunnels beneath the city. This place was crazy...skulls and bones everywhere. Check out some pics right HERE (me and Naomi posing in front of the heart skulls) and HERE (Emil - over my dead body!). On the way out you got searched to make sure you weren't stealing any bones..which apparently people try to do alot. The next part of our morbid day was this huge cemetery where Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and other famous people are buried. Cemeteries here are way different than in North America...they are very chaotic and much more elaborate. We checked out Jim Morrison grave...there were lots of people gathered around of course. People like to leave stuff on his grave like metro tickets, doors memorabilia and US dollars. Very odd. We soon left and ran into Baghead. It was a guy sitting on a bench who kept putting a bag on his head. We named him Baghead. Next stop was The Arc Du Triomphe and the Champs Elysse. I think at this point we got some food and checked email and wandered around some more into the evening. It's all a blur to me now. Eventually we ended up at the Eiffel Tower. We walked up as far as you can walk and then took an elevator to the top. As you can imagine..it was an amazing view of Paris at night. We hung out up there for a half an hour or so...then headed to the hotel for that glorious thing we know as sleep.
      For our final day in Paris we didn't have too many plans. Just wandering around basically. We checked out a big church called the Sacre Coeur by our hotel, which also had a great view of the city. We walked through the sex district as well and saw the famous Moulin Rouge. Then back down to the Notre Dame to see it in the daylight. We walked along the Seine River and sat by it for a while watching all the stupid river tour boats go by. Some guy came over to us speaking in very broken English. He seemed quite interested in Emil's chest tattoo. And he wanted a sip of my Coke. Next we went to a big underground mall to escape the heat. By this point in the day we were pretty damn tired and hot so we just chilled in a park by the Louvre for a couple hours. We eventually headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and head to the bus station. We said bye to the hotel owner who for some reason thought we were German and spoke to us in German. Emil actually spoke a bit of German and told him we would be back the next time we were in Paris. And we probably would go back too.
      The bus station....where all the worst people in the world meet and get all grumpy. We were booked on an overnight bus to London. We knew damn well this would not be a fun experience..but it was cheap. There was a security guard in the station with a drug sniffing dog walking around. He seemed to enjoy letting go of the leash and letting the dog attack people..well, this only happened once but that was enough. Emil and Naomi went off to find some food and left me there to guard our bags. An eternity later they returned with pizza...it was good. After a few hours of waiting we were crammed onto the bus with an interesting mix of annoying, pushy and just plain stupid people. Sleeping on the bus was not an easy task. Some people had interesting ideas for getting their kids to sleep though...like the patents who tried to give their kid more "medicine" to help him sleep...to which the kid responded, "I don't want anymore wine." Right..that's just great.
  
  UNITED KINGDOM
  
      Trying to sleep was futile on the bus to hell. Maybe I dosed off for half an hour if I was lucky. The only interesting part going through customs and driving the bus onto a train to go through the Chunnel to the UK. We got into London at 5am. We had a rental car booked for noon. We had 7 hours to kill but sleep is what we really wanted. We found some benches in Victoria Station and I sat around while the others napped. Eventually we decided to move to a park outside once it got a bit warmer out. We ended up at the same place where I had my oh-so fun skateboard races a few months prior. We just laid out on the grass and slept for a hour or two. Soon enough I grew weary of sleeping in a public park. It was 10am at this point so I decided to see if I could pick up the rental car early. And I did. Now....after my horrible rental car experience in Munich I was a bit nervous....especially since this would be my first time driving on the other side of the road. But being the amazing driver I am, I adapted quickly. This car was alot easier to drive and I didn't stall at all, y'all. Surprisingly, I got back to the park where Naomi and Emil were quite easily. Things were all coming together. We headed off to north London to pick up some boxes of mine that I had in storage...and I guess I should point out that a drove through a red light here...maybe I'm not the amazing driver I thought. Anyway...that stressed me out a bit but nothing a good all you can eat vegan Chinese buffet wouldn't cure. So that's where we went...to our old hood in Golders Green. We ate more that our stomachs would allow. Yum...I love eating until it hurts! Then we went by my old internet cafe next door and checked email, etc.
      Next we went to Camden Town where we were gonna meet Dave and Louise at 5pm for a big roadtrip over the weekend (Scotland and the last In The Clear show were all on the agenda). It was only 3 so that gave us a chance to hang out. We called up our friend Troy to come hang out and he showed up soon enough. I also got a much needed haircut. Afterwards we wandered around, did a little browsing in stores. There was this book in Tower Records about moshing..and there was a big picture of Sheep stagediving in a Zao shirt. Funny. We met up with Dave at 5 but not before getting a 30 pound ($60) parking ticket. Ouch! Louise was running a bit late so we said bye to Troy and went to pick her up at work. She does research for reality TV shows about loser dorks being all crazy in Las Vegas and Ibiza...sounds like fun. Soon enough we are on our way out of London on the M1 motorway. I actually am able to get out of the city quite easily. We head out to Louise's house about 40 minutes to the north. We met her mom and ate some food. I also have a shower for the first time in days. Now there's nothing holding us back. We hit the fuckin road and drive up to Leeds...about a 4 hour drive. Louise has mad contacts throughout Britain so finding a place to stay was no problem. The people we were staying were still at a bar so we went there first. Sheep was there too...but me and Naomi didn't bother going inside the bar. We just hung out outside until they were all done with their clubbing. Then we all went off to their place and promptly went to sleep. The next day we are on the road. We are gonna try to get to Scotland but we take our time and stop a fair bit along the way. This includes some old school castle ruins. Lots of stuff here you never see in North America. We keep on cruising and by the early evening we arrive in:
  
  SCOTLAND
  
      Yes...we soon arrive in Scotland. We head into Glasgow and look around. The Glasgow Festival is going on this weekend...if you've seen Trainspotting you might be familiar with this. There are tons of people around making parking quite a chore. We find a spot and go get some grub and look around a bit. Naomi and Dave buy these shortbread cookies which will make some great snacks for the rest of the weekend. Louise gets a hold of her friend in Edinburgh that we can stay with tonight. It's about an hour drive there so back on the road we go. Of course we get horribly lost getting out of Glasgow...adding an extra hour onto our travel time. Louise's friend is at a show in Edinburgh so we agree to meet her there. We get there just as the show is ending. Catharsis was playing the show and they are loading out their gear. I am not at all upset about missing them cuz they suck. We hook up with Louise's friend whose name I totally forget. Again sleep is top on my list of things to do when we get back to her flat.
      After an great wake up call, we are soon on the road. This time we take some back roads through the Scottish countryside. Really crazy winding roads through the rolling hills. Some very cool scenery and lots of sheep. baaa. We got a bit lost and ended up in Lockerbie...home of plane crashes. It was also my mission to go see Hadrian's Wall - I remember this wall built by the Romans a few years back, from History class - so I wanted to see it. Some others were against this idea but I was he driver and the driver is always right. Well..the wall was a bit disappointing but I'm still glad we went to see it. It was also in the middle of Foot & Mouth disease country...there were warning signs about all over the place. But didn't have to worry about it cuz we don't eat dead stuff. oooo...how high and mighty of me.
      We then got on even crazier narrow road... a fun drive for me! We noticed on our map that there was a Buddhist Temple in the area. How could we not go to a Buddhist Temple in the middle of nowhere in rural Scotland? We couldn't not go..meaning that we went. Very tranquil indeed. Temples, monk dudes, peacocks, fuzzy animals running free, and of course...peace and quiet. It was OK for 10 minutes but I soon grew bored. I could never live there..I'm a city boy. I like computers, video games, loud music and moshing. It could never be. After this journey into the soul we continued on our merry way. Our stop for the night: HALIFAX!!
  
  UNITED KINGDOM
  
      What? Halifax? But that's in Canada..that's where you live. Well this was Halifax, England. And our buddy Max just happened to live there in a mansion. So we went there. Max wasn't there just yet but his mom made us feel at home. This house was huge...there was an indoor trampoline and Badminton court. Sweet. That night we watch the movie "Edge Of Quarrel" - a straight edge vs. punk movie. It's very entertaining...not a good movie by any means, but entertaining. "Swear on your edge!"
      The next day was the last In The Clear show in Leeds. Before we went to the show we went into town to get some pictures of the other Halifax with the crew. Then it's off to the show!
      I had been looking forward to this show for a while. It was In The Clear's last show ever. They were one of the best bands I saw in Europe and some of the nicest guys as well. Almost everyone we knew in the UK was gonna be there as well as some friends from Belgium. And in addition, there was a great line up of bands.
      I first band I saw play was a local band - Fig.4...they were pretty good...fast and crazy. I believe HHH were next and the were really good too and got the crowd going. 30 Seconds Until Armegeddon rocked the house next and played an Unbroken cover. Canaan were up next...I thought people were gonna go nuts but people were saving their energy for ITC...they played well though. I'm thinking Reaching Forward were next...another of my favorite European bands. They were awesome...they even did If The Kids Are United by Sham 69. Sweet. They brought a bunch of Dutch kids with em too including the singer from Mainstrike. Sweet. Enstand from Finland played next I think....I quite like this band...they didn't get a great response but I enjoy them. As a side note, they all have slicked back rocker hair which is apparently a traditional Finnish thing. Go figure.
      Speaking of slicked back hair, my good buddy Sheep was leaving for Russia for a year and this was his last show for a long time...he also put on the show too. Anyway...Sheep moshed for virtually the whole show and looked like he was dead by the end of it. I don't understand how he can keep it going for long. When the next band Course Of Action played Sheep was going nuts and helped them sing a song. I'm gonna miss that guy! COA weren't really my style but people really like them, and there's no doubt they are good at what they do.
      Finally, it was time for the last In The Clear set. The energy level was high and people were going off as soon as they started. Lots of singalongs and dancing for the ITC boys! They even got me and Bjorn from The Deal up on the stage for their Chain Of Strength cover....it was an honor to be part of such a great show. Sadly it all had to end...and before I knew it, it was all over. In The Clear was over. I'm really glad I got to see them one last time..they will be missed!!!!
      The show was over and once again...more goodbyes. More people I won't be seeing for a long long time (except for Maarten who came to Back To School Jam 5 in Mass). It was an eventful day and we were all exhausted...but the fun was just beginning. We had about a 4 hour drive back to Louise's house. Then I got to sleep for an hour before having to drive Emil to the airport so he could catch his flight back to Sweden. We dropped him off at around 6am and said more sad goodbyes..though I'm sure I'll be seeing Emil sooner rather than later. Then we had to get Dave to work by 9am which wasn't gonna be too easy in London rush hour traffic. We dropped him off at a tube station where he could get to work fairly easily and then it was time to find a place for us to stay. Naomi's mom was in Canada and was in between flats so we headed into town to find a hotel. We found an OK place and unloaded all the crap we had gathered over the past month. I was very tired....but we had to get the rental car back by 10am. So off we go to do that. I believe we pulled in at just about 10. Finally we were free....we could do whatever we wanted now! I chose sleep. And it was great.
      Now I probably should mention that I was leaving to go back to Canada in 2 days so we had some last minute sightseeing to do....but it really just turned into wandering around and eating at the buffet place. For my last day...I wanted to do one final London skate session. We got up early and headed out to the Stockwell bowl. Naomi sat patiently and read while I skated the bowl for about an hour. I hooked up with Dave and Paul later in the day and Naomi went for dinner at her uncle's place. We opted to not go to our traditional Southbank skate spot and went to try someplace new. We ended up at the Royal Albert Hall. There were already some kids skatin there and we sessioned with them for quite a while. After a while it was time to leave..I was supposed to met up with Naomi, Louise and some other kids at the veg buffet. We started to head off to the bus spot when Paul bailed at high speed. He was bleeding alot and looked a bit messed up. We started walking to the bus stop when he "passed out"....I still can't tell if it was for real or not. Eventually he was able to move again we headed into the city to meet up with everyone...about half an hour late though. Everyone was already eating when we got there, and were soon eating to our hearts content. This would be my last meal at my favorite restaurant in the world so I enjoyed every last bite. It was getting late and we all headed to the tube stop. More goodbyes and hugs. Such great people I met in London. I miss em. They should come here sometime and visit me dammit!
      The next day I was up at the crack of dawn to catch my plane back to Canaduh. Naomi walked me to the tube station for the hardest goodbye of all. It really was the end of the summer. Damn. That shit's no good at all. Well, I got on the tube and headed off to the airport..or so I thought. For some reason the train took a wrong turn..I'm not sure how this happened but it did. What should have been a 10 minute ride to Victoria Station turned into an hour. When I finally got there I went to buy an ticket on the Express train to Gatwick Airport. I put the last of my UK money in the ticket machine but nothing happened. Some guy came up behind me and told me to go report it in the office. I didn't trust him at all so I just stood back from the machine and watched. He told me that I needed to go to the office so I went and looked in the door of the place and saw a huge lineup. I went back to the machine and the guy was gone. I found some guy that worked there and told him what had happened. He opened up the machine to look for jammed money but there wasn't any. He told what I had already figured out. The sketchy dude had stolen the last of my money. Fortunately, the train company gave me a free pass to the airport..fuckin rad! I was now running really late and was starting to get worried. Once I got to the airport I booted over to the Canada 3000 desk only to be informed the plane had be delayed for 5 hours. Just perfect. They gave me some food coupons which I used at Murder King so it wasn't all bad. I just wandered around killing time. Later rather than sooner I was on the plane flying over the Atlantic Ocean. After an uneventful flight I was back in familiar territory.
  
  CANADA
  
      I had a long wait through customs, and then met the parental units. They feed me a Harvey's veggie burger for the first time in months. I was home. Back in Hellifax. I was sorta glad to be home....but mostly not. It was good to see old friends again for sure. My surprise visit to Ryan and Morgan's place was great. A day later I was bored. Since getting back here's what has happened. Got old job back at HMV, got new apartment with lovely new roomies J.Diddy and Steph, watched world change 9/11/01, roadtrtip to American hardcore shows...now that's what I missed - saw American Nightmare, Carry On, Panic, Converge, Sick Of It All, etc., and finally I fractured my ribs last night putting me out of commission for who knows how long. FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!! Still waiting for Naomi to get back in January...hurry up!!
  (I guess I should point out that we broke up when she briefly returned in January..not a good time at all..stupid England....but such is life....)
      Once again...thanks to all those that helped us out. I'll be back again..I had such an amazing time this summer. Everyone should go check it out...just pick up and leave..I did. you can too! just fukken do it! ok....thanks for everyone's patience...I know it took me a while to get this all finished up. I hope you enjoy it. Right..that's all for now. MOSH IT UP! bye.
  
  
  
• July 25th - OK..lots has happened. We finally got going on our European trip. I spent the day running around getting our plans in order, exchanging money, etc. The fun started late Friday night when I got picked up at London's most remote tube station. The guys in 30 Seconds Until Armageddon were kind enough to give us (me & Sheep...Naomi had a drive with some gals from London) a drive to the Goodlife fest in Belgium that they were playing at. So just as they pulled up, they got pulled over by the cops. But soon we were on the road...a minor setback. It took an hour or 2 to get to the ferry to France. We then had to wait another hour or 2 for the ferry. This was spent making of fun of people and asking them if the liked Throwdown. hmmm. Anyway..on the ferry we went. it was quite uneventful and I slept for most of it. And then I slept on the drive to Kortrijk, Belgium. I woke up and we were in this small Belgian town. I didn't even know what language people spoke. I thought it was German but it turned out to be Dutch. It was still pretty early, so I wandered around the town. Some lady came up to me and asked me a question in Dutch. I have no clue about Dutch at all..so I said sorry and ran away. Back to the club now..people were starting to show up now. Lots of London kids were there too. The show started around 1pm I think. Lots of bands played. I won't bore with a description of them all so I will mention the highlights.
  Burden - I know these guys. they are from Vancouver. It was cool talking to some fellow Canadians at hardcore show in Belgium. They played real good too.
  Do Or Die - tuff guy stuff from Belgium. They were the 1st band to get the crowd going. good stuff!
  Poison The Well - what can I say. This was their 1st show ever in Europe so tons of people were there to see them. It was friggin insane. I don't even know where to start.
  ok..i´m almost out of time..other good bands were 30 seconds, Spirit 84 (awesome!), Sentence, and fuckin CALIBAN!!! damn..they were good! right..to sum everything else up quick...went to a Belgian beach town on Monday. saw PTW again. hung out with our Belgian friends Rudi and Marty. and maarten and Geert too. Tuesday...took a bus to the French border..train to Paris. hung out for a few hours. train to Barcelona, Spain. That's where I am now. This city rules. Off to the beach tomorrow. Yes. bye for now...I'll fill in the gaps later.
  
  
• July 19th - Me and Sheep went up to Peterborough on a bus yesterday. This town is not very exciting...but the show there was awesome!!! It was in some tiny room in a pub. HHH played first..old school kinda stuff...very good. Followed by Stand who were metal and also damn good. But I was there for In The Clear. This would be my 2nd last time seeing them so I went all out and brought the mosh. Really..i talk about moshing alot but never really do it much...well last night I didn't just talk the talk. My hand is bruised today from floorpunching and I have many other exciting bruises. It was lots of fun. Everyone was into it..lots of singalongs, dives, and of course the M word. In The Clear let me sing a song for them...Too Deep Until Now by Chain Of Strength...which of course Envision cover as well so I knew the song by heart. I think I did a pretty good job and rocked the mike. I would say it was the best show I've seen in the UK so far..though I know the last ITC show in August will be way crazier..I can't wait.
  So tomorrow I am off to Belgium to the Goodlife Records fest. I'm getting a ride with Sheep and a band called 30 Seconds Until Armageddon who are playing the fest. Naomi is going over in a car with a bunch of UK gals and we are meeting up there. Then it is off to travel Europe. Here is a tentative schedule:
  July 20-23 - Belgium
  July 24-27 - Southern France
  July 28-Aug 2 - Rome/Pisa
  Aug 3-4 - Venice
  Aug 5-12 - Germany somewhere..and Copenhagen in there too
  Aug 13-18 - Amsterdam
  Aug 19-21 - Ieper Fest, Belgium
  Aug 22-25 - Paris
  Aug 25-28 - Northern UK, Scotland
  ok..that's somewhat accurate. I'll be home shortly after that I think. I don't know if I'll have internet access for a while so updates may be not be very frequent. OK..good bye for now and all that........
  
  
  
• July 18th - Alrighty..where to start? Let's go back to last Monday when I got fired, shall we? Ok..so after the somewhat distressing news I treated my self to vegan Chinese takeout and felt much better about my new found freedom (and glory). I ended up going to see one of the first hc/punk bands ever listened to that night..Agnostic Front. I've been listening to them for 15 years but had never seen them live before. Well...if I had seen them 15 years ago I bet it would have been awesome...however AF in 2001 suck ass. The singer is an asshole..really..gettin mad and yelling at the bass player for being out of tune. An then there is Stigma...who now has a mohawk and looks really old. He is also very dumb. No big surprise there. Their set consisted mainly of new songs but they did bust out a few classics that almost made it worth going including Victim In Pain, Friend Or Foe, United Blood and Crucified.
  Now..I'm still trying to remember how the rest of my week went...I have a feeling that I slept in a lot. I'm sure something exciting happened but really..i don't know. I do remember that on Thursday nite I went to a club with a guy I used to work with. Now this club was like a regular Halifax bar..lots of booze, dancing, loud music and sweaty people...except the were playing punk/hc/metal and a bit of hip hop. They played Snapcase, Ignite and Grade and people were dancing to it like they would at The Marquee or something. There was even a bit of "moshing" for some heavier songs. It was very odd...dancing to pre-recorded music in a club...hmmmmm. And the place was packed with lots of trendy punk/nu-metal types...oh and lots of hot girls (not that I was lookin..heheheh). So that ended at 3am and I took the night bus home where I proceed to get lost for about an hour walking around some sketchy neighborhood. Around 4am I got home and went to bed.
  Fast forward to Saturday..which would be the beginning of the shows marathon. The first one was Sat nite with Shelter and In The Clear. ITC are one of my fav UK bands and this was my first time seeing them...they play youth crew style but with more of a Bane style to them. They were awesome and brought the mosh nicely. A band called Sri play next (ex-Baby Gopal) and were somewhat forgettable. Shelter was the band everyone was there to see. I never really did get into this band, so I wasn't too excited. It was pretty weird to meet Ray Cappo after all these years. He was pretty friendly..maybe too friendly. I think he was hitting on my girlfriend, so killed him as promised. I guess all the Krishna stuff paid off for him because he was soon alive again. Shelter played and everyone was really into it. I gotta give to Ray...he is a great frontman and knows how to work a crowd. They played a couple songs I knew and it was surprisingly fun. I also met some guy their who was in the best named band ever: Sportswear!! he was cool.
  Sunday was skate time. I met up with this guy named Sheep (ask me someday about how he got his name) and my friend Dave. We went to this totally awesome skatepark in Brixton. It was a concrete bowl type thing from the 70's..way bigger than the Halifax one. It was so much fun. I will have to back at some point. We skated for a few hours there and then it was off to show number 2. This was up at The Swan in NE London. There were lots of bands playing but we only stayed for the first two..Canaan and 30 Seconds Until Armageddon. Both bands were just super and metal. Then it was off to The Garage to see Canaan yet again...and a band from Belgium called Facedown. It was their last UK show before breaking up. They were quite good as well. I got in for free too cuz this Sheep guy has got da codes!
  Monday, me and Sheep took a bus down to Canterbury to skate and see show #4. And here is my tale. We met up with Hannah and Claire who live there..they were gonna come skatin but for some reason didn't. we all went out to get some food and then took a train followed by a cab to a skatepark there. The skatepark was closed for unknown reasons. Then we took a bus to a guy named Paul's house. He lives right by the beach in this Seaside resort town called Ramsgate. We ended up skating on the beachfront for a hour or so until I slammed and Sheep broke his deck. It was fun while it lasted...it felt like we were in California or something. Pretty rad.
  Eventually we made it to the show. Bands playing were Cry For Silence, Canaan and In The Clear. It was a pretty cool little veune in downtown Canterbury. The show wasn't all ages but kids seemed to sneak in somehow. Lots of people from London were as well. Cry For Silence played...they are very metal..Morning Again style..watch out for these guys...fukken great. Canaan played next...and the are from Canterbury...so it was pretty crazy...lots of mosh. They have a new CD out that I cant say enough good things about. In The Clear played last (though crowd favs Canaan probably should have) and once again were super good. Sadly they are breaking up at the end of August..but they have a final show up in Northern UK that is gonna be sweet. I will be there! After the show it was back to Paul's house with In The Clear. We ate food and went to bed. zzzzzzzz.
  Tuesday afternoon, we took the bus back to London. It was pouring rain and really shitty out. We met up with Dave at the Victoria Station were we waited half an hour to get on the horribly over crowded tube. If you are ever in London..avoid traveling anywhere between 3pm and 7pm as it is insane. So many people..ugh. London needs a serious overhaul in its transport. Anyway..up to the Swan we go for the next show..#5. We get quite soaked getting there. The show tonite has a different crowd than normal. In The Clear is playing once again, but 2 bands from Sweden - ETA and DS13 are playing. They seem to have brought out the crusty and Ebullition crowds. The place is packed. ITC play..it's pretty good. We sing along and have some fun. ETA are next and play thrashcore stuff (what happens next, spazz stuff)...pretty good. DS-13 are the band everyone is here to see. Same style as ETA, but everyone seems to know their songs. Lots of singalongs and friendly mosh action. They ever played a No For An Answer cover. They were friggin great and I bought a CD. I'll bet little Morgan would like them as well.
  That brings us to today. Right now I'm relaxing after catching up on some much needed sleep. Later today me and Sheep are taking a bus up to Peterborough to see yet another show..#6 in 5 days. Once again In The Clear will be playing. I might sing a Chain Of Strength cover if they play it. We'll see.
  OK...that brings us up to date I do believe..i'm sure I've forgotten a few things but oh well. We leave for our trip to Europe this Friday. Should be exciting! We start off in Belgium at the Goodlife fest w/Poison The Well, 100 Demons, Burden, etc etc. I'll try to post our schedule on here if anyone cares..and I know you all do.
  
  
• July 9th - I got fired today. Yes I did. Apparently I did nothing wrong..there were just too many people working there...and since I was only there for the summer and not the long run I was the first to go. Well...this certainly changes my plans a bit. I need to get some money real quick as I do not have that much really. I'm not too concerned about this getting fired thing...though its the first time it has happened to me. Shocking.
  Not all is bad....tonite I can go see Agnostic Front play and more importantly I can tell you what I really thought about my job without fear of the boss seeing it and firing me. So here goes: The place is run by Nikki and Leo...a married couple in their 40-50's. They are fucking assholes. They have 5 kids and they are all spoiled little fucking brats. I actually liked everyone that I worked with. There's a guy named Elad from Israel that I get along with real well. He's into metal and stuff like Biohazard. He also thinks straight edge is silly but that's ok. He's coming to the Shelter show on Saturday with me. And Thursday..I'm gonna go to some bar with him and listen to "heavy music" while he gets drunk. heheh..should be fun. Right..now back to the stupid pricks that run this place. They are humorless, arrogant and must have everything go their way. Sure they run the place but that's no excuse to be an asshole.
  Ok...now that I've got that out of the way..it's time to get posi and always think on the bright side of life (begin to whistle here). I can now concentrate on the finer things in life such as sleeping and watching the tele. It's too bad Wimbledon is over...I had fun watching that. I was almost late for work (which wasn't work cuz I got sacked) from watching the final match. As fate would have it...I had left when the game was almost over to catch my bus...but I forgot my ££ and had to go back...where I happened to turn the TV back on and finish watching the match. I would have been really mad if I had missed the end only to find out I wasn't working cuz I got fired. But it all worked out..sorta. OK..not really all.
  Well...I guess I'd better go job hunting now. Hopefully I'll still be able to update this every once in a while. I will still come visit my work to hang out with everyone and I still have some time left on the computers. Hrmmmm. An interesting development to say the least. But I shall forge ahead unscathed and triumph over the evil of fat-ass internet cafe owners who will, in the end, wallow in their own crapulence. We'll see who has the last laugh.
  
  
• July 7th - It's a somewhat rainy Saturday at the E-cafe in Golders Green, England. I sit here and attend to the wishes of the many lovely customers for the better part of the day. 24hrs of precious weekend time will be taken up at my job. Sleeping will compromise a great deal of the remaining time. A serious lack of sleep is starting to catch up to me. 4-5 hrs a night for a week straight are not a good thing for me. Ideally I should be getting 12-14 hours of sleep a night. hahah.
  So this week has been emo week for Ian. Starting with Tuesday night.. I finally got to see Weezer. It was OK. I did get in for free which always rules (thanks Louise!!!) Weezer played alot of new songs..too may I would say. It wasn't until the end of the set when I really started to enjoy it. They played Undone, Tired of Sex (which I only knew because my brother used to play the sing 50 times a day in his room), and Buddy Holly. They came back for an encore and played my 2 fav songs..Say It Aint So and Surf Wax America. I was happy.
  Now...as if that show wasn't emo enough...Jimmy Eat World played last night. I didn't really care that much since I had seen them open for Weezer a few nights before. But my friend Dave wanted to go so what the hell..I went. There were 2 opening bands. They were emo. It was very hot in there. This deadly combination made me quite tired. We went up front for Jimmy Eat World....and I actually quite enjoyed them...better than at the Weezer show. They were very energetic and played lots of songs I didn't know but everyone else seemed to. They played some new songs too...one of them is very catchy (note: this turned out to be that Bleed American song you always hear...and they did get alot more famous..I am brilliant) and will probably make them alot more famous. We'll see.
  
• July 2nd - The big news this time around is that I've moved. No longer do we reside in the lovely Jewish community of Golders Green...we now are located in the slightly more posh..and slightly more white Queen's Park..which is kinda east but not so far north...near Paddington Station and that stupid bear. What? Here's the deal. Naomi's mom is buying a new flat and she thought it would all be finished by July 1st...but of course it is not and we had to get out of the place we were living in GG (not allin). So..Naomi's uncle also lives in London. So now we live with him...he is also in the process of moving out. The details are much to confusing. Let's just say I go live some place else. The new phone number is posted below. Call me!
  Unfortunately, I still work in the same place so what was once a 5 minute walk (are you talkin to me?...sorry) is now an excruciating 1 hour long tube ride during rush hour with a couple million other people. But I am a trooper.
  In other news I got my haircut. yes.
  There were no shows last week..ones worth going to that is. I think Beck played but he's a stupid hippy. I mostly just worked and slept and watched tennis on TV. I'm sorta thinkin about heading down to Wimbledon to check dat shit out. As we all know I am the best tennis player in the Halifax scene....I will play anyone anytime!! Just ask Lance...I always win!! HAHAH! right. So that's about it for this installment. Everyone go see Reach The Sky and Ensign! just go!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! fcuk.
  
  
• June 21st - Not too much to talk about this time..i've been working alot. Mostly 8am - 4pm...and I'm sure you are aware of how well I deal with the early morning (not well). And since Naomi works till 11pm or so...I sit around or even more likely go back to the internet cafe and mess around and play video games (Delta Warrior 2 is my fav at the moment). Basically my job involves sitting around alot and occasionally helping less than intelligent people get on this new fangled "internet" thing. But I shouldn't complain..it's a pretty good job.
  In other news...some folks from Germany are coming this weekend to hangout..Lexi and his girlfriend (who's name I forget) both from the band Sincerity who are doing the spilt 7" with Envision, and also Stefan who is putting out said 7" is coming along as well. So that'll be cool..i have to work at 4pm but that leaves plenty of time to do the shopping/site-seeing thing..and I will have to take them to the famous Chinese buffet as well.
  Really..nothing much happened this week that I can think of. We went to a show last Sunday featuring Decimate, God Forbid & Stampin Ground. There was a good show in Manchester that day but we couldn't get a way up there (which is too bad cuz I heard it was awesome). So we settled for this show..and it was actually pretty fun. Sorry if you don't like hearing my show reviews...I know I write about it alot..but that's me..deal with it! ok...Decimate were OK..pretty metal..they have a CD out or something. God Forbid are from the states and they were pretty rockin. Naomi liked them enough to buy a CD. Again very metal..tech stuff with some harmonized guitar parts. Apparently the do an At The Gates cover which people wanted them to play..but they didn't. Next up was Stampin Ground who are easily the biggest UK hardcore band. They have lots of fans...and not just hardcore kids..some metal dudes, goths, korn kids etc were there for them. I had heard SG were pretty bad but they seemed good to me. I knew a few of their songs and it was quite enjoyable. Some pretty crazy moshing...the metal dudes seemed a bit confused by the kickboxing etc. it was funny. But even funnier was during a big breakdown in one of their songs..all the cool kids in the know opened up the floor as if some serious mosh was gonna go down...but insted they all dropped to the ground and writhed around the floor. It was really funny. Other mosh highlights included some guy going against the grain of a circle pit trying to take out as many people as possible..funny again...and also some guy would stand on his head in the middle of the pit...but push off a bit so he slid across the floor on his head. I had to laugh. OK..now that I've bored you with mosh talk I will sum it up by saying that we had fun at the show and were glad we went. now mosh. I hope people in Halifax have learned to mosh better since I left. I will be testing you when I return so start practicing. Oh geez..it's tea time..I must depart. Now where did I put those crumpets?
  
  
• June 16th - Oh yeah. I am back again. Not much happened today...we went to the vegan Chinese buffet place once again and stuffed ourselves. I don't have to eat for the rest of the day so that's cool. Last night we went to see Hot Water Music. When we got there, a big SOLD OUT sigh greeted us at the door. Due to laziness we neglected to buy advance tickets. I was pretty mad cuz I really wanted to see them. I know they aren't youth crew but I like em so shaddup. So yeah..we wandered around the block to see if anyone we knew was around or if we could find band members to give a sob story to so they'd get us in. But this was to no avail. So we went to the front of the club and just sat by the door to see if anyone would show up. I even made up a sign that said "spare HMW tickets?" I was just about to use it when this very large skinhead guy came up to me and asked if we had tickets. We said no. He responded by telling us that if wanted to get in say "you are on the Blocko guestlist...your name is MonkeyBoy (me) and your name is Kerry(naomi)" so...yeah...it sounded like a joke or something. There was a band called Blocko playing so after some debate we tried it out. and guess what? we got in!! damn...we are lucky folks aint we?
  So this Blocko band were pretty good. They were these big skinhead dudes that played mid tempo popish punk...they reminded me of Seaweed. Speaking of Seaweed...how come more people don't listen to them. Their album Weak is so good. Best SubPop release I say..in fact go to the messageboard and post yer fav SubPop releases. Ok..let's get Back..On...Track...Back on Track. sorry..10yrdfight joke there. yeah...After Blocko..Leatherface played...I had always heard about this band but never heard them. They were ok...the singer was seriously 50 years old. fast/mid tempo punkish stuff. Next was Hot Water Music. They were awesome...so good. Everyone there was really into it. A bit too into at times..i was surprised by the amount of jockish people in attendance..but I guess that's what happens when you sign to Epitaph. The show ended on a sour note when a fight broke out. The band got everyone to yell "PRICK!!!" at the guy who started the fight. cool. A good show. Afterwards we went out to eat with our buddy Dave...and had a swell time.
  I don't think there's too much else that happened during the rest of the week. Both Naomi and myself have been working and sleeping, working, sleeping, repeat as necessary. But that's the way it goes. Brilliant!
  
  
• June 12th - I now have a cell phone..or a mobile as it is known here. Stop laughing. It was quite cheap. £5 for the phone and £8 for this card thingy to make it work. And its a pay as you go sorta deal. Now here's the story...I've had the phone for a while now but not a "sim card" as it's known. So I looked for one in the London version of Bargain Hunter. I found one..called the guy...and went into London to pick it up. Now I must have gotten the wrong address cuz he wasn't there. But there were lots of scummy people around (this was a shitty neighbor hood....an estate as it's known.) and they just happened to have a sim card that fit my phone for the same price. So I figured what the hell...I've been waiting long enough. not a good idea. The phone works fine...but the card was obviously stolen as people keep leaving messages for me like "hey baby..lets hang out tonight" And there was a big list of phone numbers programmed into the phone. But I erased all that. And also there are security codes needed to do a few things which of course I don't have. Well...hopefully no one will track me down and stab me anytime in the near future. I would say that it was a learning experience. And the best thing about the phone is that you can choose the ring tone for when someone calls you. The previous owner/theft victim had downloaded some cool ones onto it so whenever some calls me the phone rings to the tune of Last Resort by Papa Roach. (later on I figured out you coul dprogram in your own ringtones so mine soon became Raining Blood by Slayer..it ruled!) How cool is that?????? hahaha. yeah. These phone are big business over here. Everyone has one..including 10 year old kids. It's crazy. Everywhere you go you hear phones ringing to all these stupid songs. It is quite odd. But now I'm a part of it. What have I done?? But really...there have been plenty of times when it would have come in very handy...so now I'm set.
  Today..i'm at the cafe using the computer. it's noon but I don't work until 4pm. I think I'm gonna end up spending a lot of time here. Maybe I'll play some Quake 3 now. right...that's it for now. Hot Water Music are playing on Friday...and on Sunday we might go to Manchester with Canaan to see a show. Stay tuned!!!
  
  
• June 10th - Well..it's been a while but I have been busy with...MY NEW JOB!! Yes..that's right...I got a job..at an internet cafe. So far it seems pretty good. In fact I'm doing this at my work right now. How exciting. OK...so let's recap the last week or so if I can remember.... OK...way back on last Sunday we went to a show with a bunch of local bands at a bar called The Swan. It was in east London in a somewhat dodgy (what?) part of town. But it was a cool little venue nonetheless. Lots of tough guy beatdown style bands played....I don't even know who really. We just went to see Canaan. Once again they were quite awesome despite a few technical problems.
  Ok...the rest of the week was kind of a blur. All I remember was getting quite worried about having no money....and then I got a job as I mentioned previously. So alot of my time has been spent doing that. I haven't really had much time for skating either. I did find a school near by which has some OK stuff to skate...so yay for me. Also..at some point during the week we went to this all-U-can-eat vegan Chinese buffet called VegVeg. Holy...this place rules! it's only £5 and you getting to fuckin stuff yourself until you feel like yer gonna explode. Lots of fake meat stuff which I always enjoy...I recommend the sweet & sour veg-chicken balls. mmmmmmmmmgood. I will be going back no doubt.
  Ok...fast forward to Friday. This was the night Reach The Sky and Dropkick Murphy's were playing. So I went down to the show and met up with the Canaan boys and Louise. It was a big edge party. RTS played and we moshed it up for em. I got some good dives in and this guy Jamie attempted some headwalks. very nice. Also I should point out that I got myself and Louise (now we're even for new found glory)in for free cuz I gots da codes. I talked to Ian..singer of Reach The Sky for a bit...we talked about touring, the upcoming RTS show in Halifax (which you WILL all be at!!!!) and The Legacy. The Dropkick Murphy's were pretty good as well. The last song was cool when everyone got up on stage. A fun time for all. Oh...some all girl band from Japan called Thug Murder played first...they were ok...sounded like The Queers' faster songs. yeah. Then I went home.
  The next day I worked for a while and Naomi went to hang out with Louise and some guys from Washington DC who were traveling here. There was a big plan to go to the VegVeg downtown later on. When I finally got off work, Naomi had gone home cuz she was sick or something. But ended up going to VegVeg anyway cuz I had starved myself all day in preparation. So I went to the city to met them, and we ate so much food, then strolled around. The guys from DC were pretty nice. They are in a band called The Chase (they described themselves as a cross between Lifetime & The Swarm...odd. here's their website The Chase. We were supposed to meet up again with them on Sunday but we ended up sleeping all day insted. And then I worked that night.
  
  
• June 2nd - Hi it's Naomi (finally). Here's my observations:
  1. There are some things here that suck. The toilet designs that make it impossible to go to the bathroom with any degree of stealth (and to flush without getting water all over the seat) is way up at the top of my list, along with the ridiculously expensive phone system which charges you by the call and by the minute and the internet services.
  2. There are some things that are awesome, such as the beautiful buildings and winding roads and the little tiny 200-ml cans of Coke. Also the history. Let me give you an example: beside one of the tube stops, there is this wall just in the middle of everything. People walk around it to get to where they're going, and nobody really stops to look at it. But then you get closer and realize that the Romans built that wall. That wall is about 2000 years old. We don't have things like that in Canada.
  So you may have heard that I have a job. I'm pretty stoked on it--I get 40 hours a week, £5/hour (which is good) plus tips, and I get paid for holidays. Here is another thing I love about London: four of the people who work with me are from Georgia (which is a country that I think used to be part of the Soviet Union), two from Morocco, one from Finland, one from Australia, and one from Portugal. Oh yeah and two from England. That means that I hear people talking in Arabic, French, Portuguese, Finnish, Georgian, and English every day (but somehow, that doesn't stop anyone from making fun of my accent).
  Ian said earlier that everyone drinks here. That is not an exaggeration, it's like the national sport of Britain. I can't believe it. At that big punk thing we went to there were 14-year-old kids drinking right out in the open. When I was 14, that was strictly an under-the-wharf-at-the-waterfront activity. The people I work with think I'm insane because I refuse to get loaded with them. A good part of every day is taken up with planning special cocktails they can make to "start me off" in the wonderful world of alcoholism. I really thought that people stopped being so weird about alcohol after high school. I haven't bothered trying to explain straightedge to them--that would just be way too complicated.
  London is like one big shopping mall. Add to the equation my insane need for beauty products, and the way people here jump on fashion bandwagons, and the presence of stores where I can buy things that actually fit me for cheap--well you see my dilemma. So far I have been able to restrain myself, but I just got paid for my first few days of work in cash . . . .
  Well I can't really think of anything else. If you thought that was boring it's your fault for reading it all. Feel free to email me. Also I have lots of cheesy postcards to send ("breast wishes from London!")so if you want one email your address. XOXOXO
  
  
• May 31st - OK...it's been a while since the last update, so I'll break it down for y'all. Here we go...
  Saturday, May 26th - Today we went into London just to wander around. However, poor Naomi's feet hurt due to working the previous day in ill-fitting shoes, so our little journey ended sooner than expected. And besides, we were due back at home for a little BBQ. And so we returned home to find lots of food I didn't like. I got out of there as quickly as possible and headed back downtown, by myself this time around. Sadly there wasn't too much going on. No one was at the regular skate spots so I ended up wandering around again. Wandering aimlessly took longer than I expected and I missed the last tube home so I had to resort to the not-so-glamorous night bus. That was it for that day.
  May 27th - Similar to the previous day, not much happened until latter on in the day. Naomi's feet were still sore so once again I trodded off alone to the city. This time however, there were skaters everywhere, including my new skate posse (Paul, Dave, etc etc) We began tearing around the city, stopping briefly for some Chinese food. We ended up on Oxford Street and these marble benches where there were already lots of skaters gathered. They had set up a little metal ramp and were ollieing over boxes and shit. I was able to bust an ollie over the boxes which were pretty high...so that was cool. Some dude broke his board doing it as well. Anyway...off we went eventually just cruisin down the streets at high rates of speed. Quite fun. I did this fairly big gap by Hyde Park with buses driving at me. We ended up having downhill races in some park. I won most of my races included the big final race (Canada vs. UK). However, I didn't do so well in the style competition. We had tourists taking pictures of us dressed up like idiots. One guy Tom, took off his shirt, put his belt over his shoulder (Rambo style) and put his shoes in his pants - now that's style! It was pretty late by this point, so we all headed home. I had to take the night bus once again. It was more fun this time around as a bunch of drunk people got into a fight right in front of me. One guy almost got hit by a bus. That would have been so cool. Damn.
  May 28th - It was Deconstruction Tour day. Picture 10,000 kids in a huge arena watching puck rock megastars rock the house. That was this day. So let me break down this corporate extravaganza by band:
  
• The Beatsteaks - a UK band I think, kinda punk, kinda ska. Bonus points for the singer's insane front flip dive off one of the 15 foot high speakers.
• Catch 22 - ska core stuff...I'd seen before and didn't really care...watched em from the back of the arena.
• Avail - well, well, as you may or may not know I was a huge Avail fan a few years back so it was really great to see them once again. It kinda sucked with the stage being 10 feet behind barriers but they put on a great, although quite short set. I had fun.
• Bouncing Souls - exactly the same as when I saw them 4 years ago. The singer is quite funny to watch cuz he's so laid back. I enjoyed it.
• BoySetsFire - It was pretty weird seeing them play in this huge arena. They were quite amazing though and everyone there seemed to like em.
• A - yes..this band was called A. The singer had a visor. I left the room and went to the "chill room" - complete with video games, mechanical bull riding, sumo wrestling and more. We sat down and watched the first Plan B video. ah...memories.......
• Sick Of It All - Another band I hadn't seen in years. They seem to be a pretty big band here. Tons of people were singing along and dancing on the very slippery floor (thanks to all the bottles being thrown around - more on that later)
• Snuff - drummers should not sing. ever. yyyyyyaaaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnnnnn.
• Lag Wagon - I saw them last in Saint John, NB in 94 (I think that was when it was). They were ok. They played a few songs I knew and of course their "happy fun cover" of brown-eyed girl.
• Pennywise - I was pretty skeptical about seeing the PW again. I was afraid that their success would have gone to their heads...but it seems as though I was wrong. They seemed really into what they were doing. I had a lot of fun actually and knew a majority of the songs as well. Highlights included the largest circle pit I've ever seen and having the ban getting audience members past security & up on stage for the last song...which of course was Bro Hymn. ohhhhh..oh oh oh...ohhhhhhhh oh ohohoh. yeah you know it. Everyone in the whole place was singing along. it was just super.
  OK...now simple math lets us all know this was not your regular punk show. 10,000 x £15 = £150,000 (or $330,000 CDN) That is a whole lot of money..and this was just one show on the tour. I'm not really sure if punk rock is supposed to be like this. Ah well...what can I do? Also, none of the bands were selling merch because the arena for going to take 50% of their profits which would force the bands to jack up their prices. So all the bands were planning on selling stuff in the parking lot afterwards...that is until the arena called the police and the tax office to make sure they didn't. I guess this is what happens when you take punk away from where it should be and into the corporate world. Oh...bottles. There were bottles being thrown everywhere. people were having bottle fights. thousands and thousands of plastic bottles everywhere. I guess they don't have recycling in the UK...but at least people can have bottle fights. That was our day.
  May 29th - Another show today...this time a hardcore show in a small venue. yay!! I met my new best friend Dave there. Here's a breakdown (mosh!) of the bands:
• Ignoramus - very good band....thrash core meets youth crew meets grind meets crust punk. Somehow they pulled it off. Amazing drummer.
• Cry For Silence - very metal...Morning Again style (in fact...a lot of bands here sound like Morning Again..they seemed to be worshiped over here) They are a fairly new band but are very tight and write awesome songs...expect to hear more from them if they don't break up.
• NJ Bloodline - Touring tough guys from New Jersey. They wanted to play in Halifax a few years ago but that never happened. They have a decent following in London and there was some mosh action. There were many tough boys in attendance.
• Knuckledust - hometown heroes. They put on an amazing show. Some crazy pit action and tons of sing alongs. My favorite band of the night.
  May 30th - not much happened today. I met Naomi at work...I was late as per usual. People there like to drink and are astonished when someone doesn't. Apparently everyone in this country is a raging alcoholic. Good for them. Oh there was one funny thing...on the tube this guy kept snapping his fingers...I don't think he knew he was being annoying but he sure was. Anyhoo...some drunk (aha..see!) business guy started telling him to stop snapping and they almost got into a fight but the drunk business guy's girlfriend/wife/whatever stopped him. too bad. It would have made the ride much more interesting. Sometimes the tube gets so boring...I'm always falling asleep on it. I read newspapers that people leave behind to stay awake. Such is life in the bustling metropolis of London. Farewell for now my friends and piss off.
  
  
• May 25th - Yesterday was Naomi's first day of work. She says it was "OK". Well that's good....now if only I could find a job. Maybe if I didn't spend all my time updating this I would actually get around to looking for one. ha. Yesterday for me involved sleeping in and skateboarding. I went down to the skate show to see if that guy Paul was working..and he was..and he was going skating with a bunch of people after work. So I hung out there for 45 minutes until he finished and we went skatin! There were 6 of in total...one guy was Dave who I met at the New Found Glory show...he really likes Creation Is Crucifixion..so that was cool. We tore down the streets frightening pedestrians, getting kicked out by security, stopped by the cops in funny hats....everything a good skate session should involve. We went to a whole bunch of spots that I hadn't been to before. Lots of cool curbs, stairs, etc. Eventually our "crew" dwindled to 4 and we went onto the tube to go somewhere else (I don't know where...I was just following)
  This is when I realized how quite insane these boys were. The tube ride consisted of them jumping around the train car, hanging from bars on ceiling, sleeping on luggage racks, washing hands with cranberry juice (not recommended) and a fun game where you go outside the train at a tube stop and dive back in the train as the doors were shutting. It was so damn funny. You had to be there I guess. The other passengers on the train were also quite amused...or annoyed..one of the two anyway.
  When we finally got of the train we went to do a bit more skating...but it quickly digressed to jumping into bushes behind some church. We then went down to Piccadilly Circus. Checked out Tower Records (which is open at 11pm), exchanged phone numbers, watched Paul hit on tourist girls, and just hung out. Then I went back on the tube to go meet Naomi at her work. Of course when I got there she had gotten off early and wasn't there. So then I went home and went to bed. ahhhhhhh.......
  Today involved getting up at 8:30am to help move a big desk...a drafting table to be exact. Details are not important...all you need to know was that it was a big desk and we (me and Naomi's brother)had to go downtown to get it. Some van courier guy drove us and the desk back home. It was my first time being in car in London. It looks both fun and really annoying to drive in this city, but I still wanna do it. I like to drive. Then I went back to sleep. I like to sleep. And soon I will go job hunting. I do not like job hunting. grrrrrrrrrrrr.
  
  
• May 23rd - OK..so we get into the New Found Glory and it's in this tiny bar...smaller than The Pavilion. So no wonder the show was sold out. I guess this was their first time over here so they aren't quite as popular as I thought in the UK..not yet anyway. They have a single coming out soon here for..that song...you know the one. For some reason CD singles are a big thing here...and all the big chain store carry lots of vinyl as well (nothing good of course). The new Geri Haliwell single "It's Raining Men" is the biggest seller here (this is also Louie's "favorite song ever" - a direct quote from the "man" himself. Right..back to the show. Some horrible pop punk band called Caffeine opened up. Apparently they pay money to open up for big touring bands. how cool. I talked to Chad from NFG in the bathroom for a sec. He liked my Throwdown shirt...and we talked about when I met him 5 years ago in Vancouver when he was still singing for Shai Hulud. He didn't remember me surprise surprise. Also..he was wearing a straight edge t-shirt. neato. SO NFG played really well and I was up front the whole time. They are quite the fun band and don't have much rockstar attitude at all. I kept thinking."it's too bad Ryan isn't here..he is their biggest fan ever...he would give the singer head for sure." I got him a sticker though. And, I will no doubt lose hardcore points for this...I did a front flip stage dive during...that song...I'm very sorry to have let you all down by doing this.
  After the show we went out to eat with Louise at this Indian restaurant..it was called Maharahj something something. If only this restaurant was as good as the band. The food was decent the waiter was a fucking prick and really rude. He kept trying to make us order more stuff, saying that what we ordered wouldn't be enough. It ended up being more than we could eat. What a fuck. And the worst part was that they included the tip in the final bill...so we couldn't not tip him. damn.
  Then yesterday (Tuesday) I did very little. I went to the mall. handed out a few CV's..called some places about jobs. blah blah blah. Today is equally as exciting. The Donnas are playing tonite but we have decided we don't care enough to spend £7.50 (which is basically $15 to see one band). At least the weather is nice...maybe I'll go skating tomorrow insted of looking for a job. yes...I like that idea muchly. Right then...toodles from Great Britain. ack!
  
  
• May 22nd - Righto...the last few days have been somewhat eventful. Let's see...when we last left off, me and Naomi were still in Southend. On the previous day we had bought a return train ticket that was valid only for that day. But since we missed the last train we thought we would "pretend" to be stupid tourists that didn't know are tickets weren't valid anymore. And it worked and we got on the train. And when we were on the train some looked at our tickets and didn't notice they were expired. And then.......as we left the train...they didn't notice my ticket..i got through! but then they noticed Naomi's ticket was from the day before...and I had to go back and they were going to fine us and all this shit. But we were nice so they just charged us a bit extra. It still sucked cuz we were so close to getting away with it.
  OK...after that little incident...I went down to this skateshop where some pro skaters were going to be..Rick Mcrank and Eric Koston among other. Lots of little kids there trying to get autographs. I met this sxe guy named Paul who worked there so that was cool. Then I went home to grab me skateboard and get some food. Mcrank and Kosten were doing a demo later that day at the Playstation skatepark at around 4pm. Eventually I got out of the house and took the "tube" down to the general area of the skatepark. After searching around for a bit I found it, but by then it was 5pm and the demo had just ended. Oh crap. I hung around a bit and watched people skate. There were literally hundreds of little skater kids everywhere.
  By this point, I wanted to skate myself, so I took off to the south bank area where I had been the previous week. This time there were skaters everywhere..like 50 at this one spot. So I skated there for a couple hours and it was quite fun. That Paul guy from the skate store showed up eventually and we hung out for a bit. And then I went to meet Naomi in Trafalgar Square. And then we went home and slept a lot. Incidentally...Naomi will be adding to this diary when she has some spare time.
  
  Ok...Monday. New Found Glory was to play this nite. However the show had been sold out for weeks. But this would not stop us from going. Somehow we'd get in. The first part of the day was spent job hunting again. I handed out a few CV's around the city though nothing looked promising. At around 5pm we gave up on that. I called our new best friend Louise to see if she got us on the guest list for the show...and she did!!! She's got codes, yo. SO we met up with her and headed off to the show. uhoh...I gotta go. I'll fill y'all in on the show tomorrow.
  
  
• May 20th - Sorry it took so long for the update. I haven't been able to get on the "net" recently. ok..so lemme think back to the last week. Monday to Thursday I did very little...sat around, slept, watched bad British TV, skated around the neighborhood, etc etc. On Friday we went job hunting more. Naomi got a job while I pretended to look for one. I ended up walking around for 4-5 hours to all these weird places. I did end up handing out 1 CV (that's what they call resumes here) to an HMV. yup.
  Now on Saturday we decided to go see a show in Southend-On-Sea (that's what it's called..dont blame me) which is an hour train ride east of London. It's a very strange town. There's a huge boardwalk along the beach with crazy amusements parks, arcades, casinos and clubs all along it. at night people stand along side of the road and watch morons drive around all night in their souped up cars. it's really weird.
  SO anyway...the show was at a bar along this strip called Chinnerey's. It was all UK bands playing. I forget who the first band was..they were pretty good..it was their 2nd show I guess. Next up was Pushed Aside..they were tough. Then it was From The Ashes..they were very metal and very good. Morgan woulda liked em...lots of tech and grind. They ended with an At The Gates cover. xCanaanx were up next and were fukken awesome. Hatebreed sotra style ..jesus..fucking brutal. They have a CD coming out soon. Oh..i should mention that there was hardly anyone there..but everyone was getting into Canaan. yup. The show ended with Anthem Of The Century (who we saw last week) and they played awesome as well. whew. We met lots of cool people here and even though it wasn't the greatest show it was still worth going to.
  So by this time is was real late and we had missed the last train back to London so we ended up staying with Dean, the lad who put on the show. Dean was very nice and fed us toast in the morning. He also was/is a big Green Day fan and has the most uncomfortable bed in the world.
  well...there more to tell about today..but I gotta get going. stay tuned euro-diary fans! cheers! oh god..kill me now.
  
  

• May 13th - Righto...I went to my first UK hardcore show and it was pretty good. Not to far off an American show. Bands that played were Unite (they were OK), Beatdown Fury (they were tough..lots of amateur kickboxing), Anthem Of The Century (awesome..similar to Bane...and the singer looked exactly like the singer from American Nightmare) and Shutdown (Brooklyn yo!) It was pretty fun. we met up with this girl Louise I met on the internet and her friend Emil..youth crew guy from Sweden. great folks they were.
  Then today we went to speakers corner at Hyde Park were morons stand on stools and rave about crap...most god-related crap. Boy do I wish Gerry was there...if he was drunk enough he could get up on a stool and start yelling at people..it would be sweet. Good ole Gerry. then we went to Camden were there's a huge market and punks and stuff. we met Louise and Emil there by accident and ate lots of vegan ice cream. then me & the sorge went home and had a bar-b-q.
  And finally tonight I went into the city by myself to go skateboarding. I met up with these 2 skater kids in the South Bank area. there's some rad places to skate there...though not really anywhere else that I've been. I busted out some brilliant moves and impressed them all. then I went back home again...but not before having my ass pinched by some crazy chick (good from far, far from good) who thought I was following her..but really I wasn't..no really..she was like 30 and you all know that aint my thing. hahah. nevermind. but really...I wasn't. and now I'm home and must go sleep for tomorrow is job hunting time!! ta ta.
  
  
• May 12th - Ok...I'm not dead at all. I made it here fine. no troubles at customs other than the huge lineups. So now we are living with Naomi's mum in north London. it's not really too far from stuff but it's kinda boring in this area. yesterday we walked around alot and saw the sights: tower of London, Trafalgar square, piccadilio circus (or whatev..), and oxford st. I went to the HMV there...my punk section was better than theirs so ha.
  there was certainly some culture shock being here. fries are called chips, chips are called crisps, and lettuce is called salad. and the toilet here suck. anyway...you get the picture. it's different. oh..and TV is lame as well.
  tonite I'm going to see Shutdown. mosh. and I think I found out where some good skate spots are finally. ok..that's all for now.
  
  
• May 10th - I'm on the plane now using the internet. it is ok. Hey...what's that noise? oh no! an explosion...the plane is going down in flames!!!! AAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!.....
  
  
• May 9th, 2001 - I haven't left yet. go away.
  
  
  You can contact us this way:
  Ian - x902hardcorex@hotmail.com
  Naomi - whysweetpea@hotmail.com
  ICQ - 70731654 msg me to get added to the list.
  
  
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