Alright, did I say my mind was blown last time? Well this time, my mind resembles baby food. Mashed carrots or pureed cauliflower...or something mushed and nasty! We drove out of Switzerland today, and I was actually choking up a little. Must we leave? Must we really??
After the show in Zurich, everybody told us all about this crazy venue we were playing the next night, called Bad Bonn. You'll think you're going the wrong way, they said. You'll be driving around in the middle of nowhere, and you'll think Tom Tom has taken you somewhere very strange indeed (she often does...). But just keep going and you'll find it. As we drive up, we realize just how accurate that description was....there's a sign hanging outside the venue cheekily exclaiming "Where the HELL is Bad Bonn?". It's in the Swiss mountains, in the county surrounded by farms and a gorgeous lake. If anyone has played in Canada, kind of similar to the Black Sheep Inn...but there's no town. Amazing hospitality once again, and the list of people who asked me to say hi to the promoter, Dukes, said something about how famous the venue is in this country. We played with this lovely woman, Matana, just her and her voice and her saxophone...she was amazing and got us all worked up and excited when we found out she had played her sax o the last Godspeed record.....coooool. Plus we saw sheep with little bells around their necks, AND we tried green sugar (mint sugar). Someone here told us that if you eat something you've never eaten before you get to make a wish. I'll get to make a lot of wishes this trip!! More about that in a bit though.
The next day was a radio day. We did two acoustic sets, one in Luzern (dairy land wooo!), and one in Zurich on Swiss national radio. This is a big thing for us, because we have never ever ever played acoustically before...um! so we're practicing in the van on our way to Luzern like, what should we play?? But it worked out ok, plus our new album cover made kind of a stir on the National radio- we found out what the german word for tiny penis is...um!!! Schabilis! Funny that that got said in front of 100 000 thousand people...eeee.
That night we got put up by Tatjana and the rest of the Rüegsegger clan. We met her at our Zurich show and her and her family were kind enough to host us the other night. I mean, like I said...mashed potato mind, these guys were so SO nice to us!! We got fed this massive dinner, then played the french card game 'réflexe' all night with the whole family! We learned the word 'coupable' and 'haut les mains' and got really good at slapping piles of cards! Plus Tatjana's mom made this amazing fresh raspberry pie with swiss cream in the middle of the night, which we happily scarfed down with the bottles of wine they kept plying us with...they had the sweetest kitties and we could not have been taken in by kinder people. So crazy. So unbelievably nice. Wow!
Then last night in Nyon, Switzerland, we played a 2000 year old tunnel built for Julias ceasar!! The venue was called La Parenthese and reminded me so much of Zoobizarre in montreal, only actually ancient. Plus everyone spoke french so I didn't feel like so much of an ass...I felt mostly understood! Pretty nice :) Also I tried horse steak with fries and red wine for dinner. Sorry guys but mr. Ed was delicious....It was sort of unbelievable. Met some gallant gentlemen, one of whom worked for the Red Cross and was a former food critic....we had lots to talk about! I left feeling rosy in me cheeks....that's for sure!
SO like I said, it was hard to leave Switzerland today...
Literally and emotionally...Literally as in Heath got swabbed for drugs at the border into Austria!! We were all sweating buckets but they let us go anyways...heh.
Ok, well I gotta go! See you soon!
XOPANDAS
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