Ghent, Belgium

I left Antwerp by train, bound for Ghent, my other gig in Belgium.  I was couchsurfing that night with Viviane, a wonderful lady who also helped me set up the show that evening at a local bar.  After picking me up at the train station, she took me downtown to show me around a little bit.



More of the narrow, old homes of the type seen earlier in Antwerp and Amsterdam.  All of these buildings date back to the 1600's.


Old buildings line one of Ghent's many canals, making this town very charming.


The tiniest, narrowest building I have ever seen.


Viviane told me that Ghent is known as the City of Towers, or something like that, anyways.  Exhibit A.


Exhibit B.

The show itself was really fun, and there was a really great showing from the local couchsurfing community.  I can't thank Viviane enough for her hospitality, and for arranging a place for me to perform.  Thanks also to everyone that came out to see me in Belgium, I hope to be back very soon!

The Berlin House Concert

I am very fortunate and honored to have the privilege of playing house concerts in people's private residences.  The idea of a house concert is that a host will have a living room space or somewhere that would suit an acoustic concert, and then invite friends.  Most of the house concerts I do are set up through couchsurfing, and so they become also couchsurfing meetings for the local hosts and traveling surfers to attend.  I already had played a wonderful concert in Prague at my friend Rolf's place, and this one in Berlin was the second of the tour.  I still have two more to do, one tonight in Antwerp, Belgium, and in two nights in Bordeaux, France.

While I was honored to have such a great audience for my concert, the best part of the evening, for me, was meeting all of the locals and travelers from so many different countries.  Enjoy the pictures from the after party...


We decided to have an international guitar exchange, and so everyone who could play anything at all was required to show everyone else something from their country.  This crazy Ukrainian guy sang some rowdy Russian songs.  Other nationalities I can remember sitting around this circle: Indonesian, Bulgarian, South African, and of course, German.


Hearing some German children's songs!





Sophie packing some strawberry flavored tobacco into the hookah, while Alice watches in amazement.


At the end of the night, and Fachreddin is ready to pass out.

Thanks, Berlin!

Dresden

After the gig in Chemnitz on Tuesday, I had Wednesday night off before crossing the country for a show in Unna on Thursday.  I decided to spend it in Dresden, which is only an hour by train from Chemnitz, and is the capital of the region of Saxony.  I set up a last minute couchsurf with the help of my friend Rolf (Prague), and had a lovely evening.  My host Maria invited some other cs'ers from Dresden over for Poker, and I even taught some of them how to play Euchre.  It turned into a bit of an impromptu house concert, as well.  After getting the hell out of Chemnitz asap I did a bit of sightseeing around Dresden before meeting up with Maria, and so below are some pictures from that.  



Dresden is a beautiful city in the eastern part of Germany, and is still rebuilding and re-inventing itself.  Towards the end of World War II it was the target of a massive bombing campaign by the British and American air forces, and the city was pretty much completely destroyed.  It remains a very controversial military operation, as 3,900 tons of incendiaries were used on a town that was not a strategic military target, and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 24,000 to 40,000 innocent civilians.  Kurt Vonnegut wrote about the firebombing of Dresden in his book, "Slaughterhouse-Five", and the author actually witnessed the attacks first hand as a prisoner-of-war at the time.  All of the buildings in the pictures have been rebuilt since that destruction, even if they look old.


The domed building in the background is the Frauenkirche (church), a proud symbol of Dresden's re-building.  More on that in a moment.





A piece from the original dome of the Frauenkirche, which has been set in this main town square as a memorial.


Ok, so the Frauenkirche is an important symbol for Dresden, because it was almost completely destroyed in the bombing and was only recently reconstructed.  Only one wall remained standing after the bombing, and the ruins of the church sat untouched under communist rule for nearly 50 years, and the ruins became a sort of memorial to the city's destruction.  After the fall of the Iron Curtain and the reunification of Germany, the city began to plan to rebuild the church.  It was only finished in the last few years, opening in 2005.  The few darker blocks you can see are the few usable pieces from the original church.

Prague

I left Vienna by bus for Prague, the beautiful capital city of the Czech Republic.  Prague would be the last familiar city I would visit on this tour, as I was there last year.  Like last time, I couchsurfed with my good friend Rolf, who works and lives in the Swedish Embassy.  Also like last year, I once again put on a house concert at his place, and this time the crowd increased from about 20 people to 30.  The concert was once again great, and I had a great time meeting a whole new batch of couchsurfing friends!  Below are some pictures I took while wandering through Prague.  I will say that it is very nice to visit a city for a second time, as you don't feel that need to see everything like you do the first time.  It was nice to just walk around with no pressure, and simply enjoy the people and the sights.



Walking down the street that leads from the Embassy down to the city center.  There was a good snowfall the night before, and the city was sort of digging itself out.


On the Charles Bridge.


The old town center, always lively, even when cold and snowy.


Looking down at a canal from the Charles Bridge.


My new Prague friend Ronja and I stumbled onto this "Christmas Tree Graveyard", as she named it.  It seems like people brought their old trees here and set them upright in the snow.  You could still find tinsel on some of them, and Ronja was looking for some candy, to no avail.

Vienna (Wien) - Austria

After leaving Budapest I took the train to Vienna, Austria, where I couchsurfed with my new friends Jascha and Nora for two nights and played one concert.  The concert, at a cool DIY underground venue called Subterrarium, was amazing, and there was a very nice crowd of intent listeners.  I felt very fortunate to have such a great audience, since I am a nobody in Austria!  Below are some pictures I took while wandering the city in my spare time.


One of the main city center shopping streets, very alive in the early evening.


Up.


Part of the Imperial Palace, lovely at night.


My hosts took me to an art exhibit opening my first night in Vienna, and it turned out that the artist was Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Matt Cipov, who had just flown in to set everything up and be there for the opening.  His stuff is really cool, so please check out his website and catch some of his work back in Wisconsin if you get the chance.  Really great guy, as well, had a lot of fun talking to him, and I think we were both equally shocked to run into fellow cheeseheads that night.


A park with a giant statue of Maria Theresa, Austria's only Empress.

August Tour - Toronto

We arrived in Toronto with some time to kill, so after checking in with our couch-surfing host Corrina, I went for a walk next to Lake Ontario. This shot is of the emerging Toronto skyline as I got closer to it. We played later at the Gladstone Hotel as featured artists at their open mic.

An evening rowing session on Lake Ontario.

Looking southwest along the lakeshore.

Bam! That CN Tower is big!

Our couch-surfing host, Corrina. She took this shot herself during a drive through downtown Toronto. A fun fun, gracious host, and she had the comfiest of hammocks.