Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Regensburg/Nurnburg/Gorlitz & Thomann!


Part two of our March and 1 day of April duo tour was a lot of fun.

Thursday 29th March: Regensburg

We started our long weekend with a lovely show at Dombrowsky Buchhandlung in Regensburg. Ulrich and his wife are fantastic people and own a lovely bookstore in the historical centre of Regensburg where they have built a small stage for concerts and performances. Although the audience was small, we really enjoyed the gig and found the people to be super friendly and hope to come back soon. After the show we enjoyed Indian in the old town and then breakfast again in the old town in the morning. Would really like to see more next time.

Friday 30th March: Nurnburg

Ah this is where it all started for me 10 years ago when I played the Bardentreffen Festival in Nurnburg with my then guitarist/musical partner Amira. It was quite humbling to come back here and play to a much smaller audience but although small they were just as enthusiastic and warm as 10 years ago. The folks at Artefakt couldn't be nicer. A funky little bar not far from the centre of town they made us feel at home with pizza from the local Italian restaurant (vegan for me!) and lot's of smiles. Thanks to Markus for organizing this for us last minute. So far I really like the little I have seen of Nurnburg but hope next time we can get to see more of the city.



Saturday 31st March: Day off in Thomann!

Karsten and I had been dreaming of this for ages, a day spent inside the main Thomann store in Burgebrach.
It was nice to try all the guitars and keyboards, my oh my they had so many keyboards. Karsten tried some recording software and then eventually, many hours later we had to leave because we were starving and needed to make our way to Gorlitz. Yes I think we will be back in July on our next trip down that way ;)

Sunday 1st April: Gorlitz

Holy crap what a beautiful city! I am constantly surprised by these beautiful eastern German cities that no one talks about. We arrived late the night before but managed to find a very cheap and sweet pension with a small apartment in the roof (we couldn't stand up near the window) and proceeded to cross the bridge to Poland (Kartens first time!) and had a lovely meal for a ridiculas price. The food was pretty damn good and they couldn't speak so much German or English so I ended up with a weirdo sweet red wine. They were pretty stuck up actually and looked down at us...Ok we did look like we just came off the farm but so what?!?.... As an Australian who lived in Canada, I still can't get over how cheap Germany is and Poland even more so, it seems insane to me.

We spent the day exploring Gorlitz and the neighbouring town Zgorzelec in Poland. Unfortunately a lot of the shop people we met in Poland (mostly young women) were very stuck up and rude...very different than my experiences in Sczecin where people are super friendly. Maybe it's just too close to the border and they are tired of tourists...None the less we had a lovely day and enjoyed another very nice lunch by the river where the waitress was actually super sweet. We finished the evening with a lovely show at the Student club in Gorlitz organized by Jan who is a great dude. I felt the gig lacked a little energy, at first I thought it was the audience but it turns out they were in the middle of exams so can't blame them really. In the end it was really nice and another promoter asked us to come back later in the year to play his concert series which is nice. We finished the evening sitting around Jans kitchen having a late night snack and then fell asleep after a lovely, busy weekend...