April 7 - Brussels, Belgium

I haven't the patience to recap the last couple of days, so you'll just have to use your imagination a bit. :)

Last night we played in Gent, Belgium, which turned out to be a really fun show. I was a little nervous about it after walking into the venue. It was small, and recalling the squished, sweaty, sardine-like nature of our show in Ghent in October, I wasn't convinced we'd fit without some sort of uncomfortable situation occurring. But it was fine. They pre-sold tickets, set out some chairs and we fit nicely. They also gave us all the Belgian beer we could want and more food than most of us could really eat. Twas great.

Someone made a comment about how each of my posts describes everything we eat and I hadn't realized until today how much I've had food on the brain this whole tour! I'm not sure what my deal is...But having a good stash of snacks and some sort of huge dinner has consumed me lately. I just found a grocery store a block away from our lunch spot at Snack Seven (I had this chicken wrap with french fries INSIDE of it. weird!). I bought a tiny jar of nutella to dress up all the bread we've been eating, and a little box of chocolate chip cookies. Anyway, that was a slight digression (this post apparently isn't going to be linear at all, my appologies). Last night the show was wonderful. Andrew did a great job of making a mediocre PA sound great, and I think we all played pretty well. A success, I'd say.

We split up by twos and stayed with people who organized/came to the show. It's nice sometimes to stay at someone's house instead of a hotel. When you're always together all the time, for me at least, it's fun to do something a little different and then feel excited when you see everyone again. The hospitality of people who've never met us will continually astound me. The people Nicole and I stayed with gave us dibs on this large box full of Easter chocolates. They also provided me with the most comfortable bed I've encountered in a week. We slept so well that we slept in. But downstairs was a table full of bread, croissants, juice and tea just waiting for the two of us. lovely.

(there I go with the food again...)

Ah gosh, I've written so much about nothing at all. As I'm writing, Nills is soundchecking and the venue is getting spruced up with all sorts of lights and chairs. Maybe someone will take a picture and I can post it. The place is sort of tucked away behind this old white brick wall that has ivy strands climbing over it. And this huge stretch of what looks like wooded roots is sprawled across the side of the building. Looks nice. We have a real piano tonight that's just been tuned. It's a sold out show. Should be good, I hope!

Tomorrow, we venture off to the UK on this.

-aisha