Regensburg, Germany 19 June 2013

After a three night stays in Frankfurt, everything in both suitcases managed to migrate to the four corners of the room.  This required a somewhat early rise, coffee, then begin stuffing it all back in the bags.  My fond memories of the JFK Bar forever imprinted in my mind on check-out as I settled what I'd charged to the room.  It was worth every Euro.

Another blistering day as we drove to the airport.  We boarded the Legacy and it was like a sauna.  The engines wouldn't start and it was a hot box inside.  We sat in the plane until whatever truck pulled up to jump start the thing, which was done successfully.  The plane cooled quickly and we soon took off for Ingolstadt to the south.  After landing it was a 50 minute drive through the beautiful German forests and countryside to our venue in Regensburg.  Along the way we saw fields and fields of Hallertau hops climbing up the lines to the sky.  These are the renown German hops that give Bavarian beer it's distinctive flavour.  For my taste it is the king of hops.  A couple of decades ago I'd immersed myself in home brewing learning as I went about that elusive admixture of malt, water, yeast and hops.  For all the years and all the miles, I'd never seen the hop fields.

We soon arrived in Regensburg and the venue, Donau Arena.  Another scorcher throughout Germany, 100 degrees today and the arena was hot.  There was duct work throughout but apparently the air conditioning wasn't on, only the fans vaguely moving the hot air around.  Sound check, a very light dinner, some pre-show guitar warm up and we took the stage a few minutes past 8 o'clock.  Large and powerful fans were placed at both sides of the stage blowing across it and made things a little better than the previous night in Frankfurt as far as the heat went.  As to the show, it was a steamer as well, a great gig to a wonderful audience of 5,000.

After the final encore we piled into the fleet of Rovers for a return trip through the countryside back to Ingolstadt.  Again, the engines of the Legacy would not start due to an overheating problem with the starter and had to be fired by external means.  Once started the plane's cabin cooled once more and we were airborne to Vienna.  We have a new flight attendant today, Natalie, who's giving Liz a break for a few days.  She served up a Bavarian dinner of brautwurst, sauerkraut, black forest ham and spaitzel in mushroom cream sauce.  I'd had little to eat all day and was good and hungry at this point, devouring every bit of it.  A couple g & t's later we touched down in Wein where we'll base from over the next few days.

So long,

Richard