Today is our last day off during the European leg of the tour. We've got 3 festivals in a row to finish (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) and then everyone flies home on Monday.
I woke up on the bus around 9am. Never fails – as soon as the driver gets off the highway and starts doing start/stop driving, I wake up. I can only sleep as long as the bus is moving on the open road. Same shit as in America.
Make it to the hotel in Brussels by 10:30. After getting everybody checked in, I take a walk to find a USA Today. I've only read (maybe) 5 of them in the month we've been here. I feel like I don't know what's been going on back home.
Holy Shit! It is so fucking hot here today! It feels like North Carolina. I want to sit in my room in the air conditioning all day.
Take a bath and fall asleep in the tub. Follow that with a nice shower and then spend most of the afternoon working in my room. Finally get out late in the afternoon and walk to a park nearby. Spend a couple of hours people watching and watching the kids play. What a great way to veg out and spend the afternoon. But it's so hot I could just melt into the bench! Oh well, at least it's in the shade.
Lots of cool buildings here. Stark contrast in architecture between the old world buildings and the uber-modern EU buildings. The European Union is headquartered here and seems to have buildings everywhere you turn.
Mick Ridley, the merch dude, rings me up and wants to go eat seafood for dinner. We make plans to do that later.
Can't find any seafood places in the neighborhood and wind up going for curry instead. None of the restaurants have A/C, so they're all stifling hot. I'm miserable from this heat. The food doesn't help because it's hot as all hell. The waiter brings a fan over by our table and that helps a bit. Afterwards, we go to Kelly O'Shea's, a nearby Irish pub. I nearly get sick trying to drink beer in the heat. Can't do it. Off to try one more pub, but it's hot as hell, too. It turns into a disco at 10 so we head back to the hotel. Great relief to walk in the air conditioned lobby. We sit and drink a couple of beers. Werner, my bus driver joins us, as does Za, the guitar tech. I run grab my laptop and check my email from the bar while hanging out. There's no high speed in the room, but it's available free downstairs.
Finally get to bed around 1am after fighting with the window frame in my room. It opens, and someone has managed to bend it slightly, resulting in a bad seal against the frame. I'm on the 10th floor and the road noise is significant. Plus there's a huge skyscraper going up next door and I'm sure the noise will come early. We'll see how well I do.
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