TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH – NORWAY TO GERMANY:
What a day! Got up at 5 am, showered, had breakfast and we left for the airport. Arrived in plenty of time to get checked in. Got lucky and we weren’t charged any excess baggage fees! Howard and David had already gone through security and I stopped to look at the monitor to see if the gate had been announced for our flight. That’s when I saw the word “CANCELLED”. We had just checked in 5 minutes prior to that!
We were told to get in line at customer service and you can imagine how long that line was. Fortunately, they opened a line for “Priority” Members and that was much shorter. Still took me about 30 minutes to talk to anyone. Surprisingly enough, they were able to rebook all 9 of us on the same flight – Lufthansa via Frankfurt – and we would land at the very same time our original flight would have landed via Amsterdam.
We had to go downstairs and collect all 20 pieces of luggage/equipment and then go to the Lufthansa counter and check in again. By the time we finished all that, we only had a few minutes before our flight departed.
We have Sandro (a videographer) flying in to meet us in Amsterdam, so I had to let him know our flight was canceled. He had flown from Zurich to Amsterdam earlier in the day. He said the flight from Amsterdam to Nuremberg was delayed about 50 minutes.
The fight from Oslo to Frankfurt took about 2 hours and we had a little time to go into the Lounge so I could answer some emails. We boarded the flight on time and they had told us that there were no aisle seats available. Wrong, there were plenty of empty seats. Just prior to taking off, I got a message from Sandro saying his flight had been canceled entirely! They were flying him back to Zurich and he flies out of Zurich tomorrow morning to Nuremberg. He’s going to try and take a train to the hotel from there.
We landed on time and our buyer – Kurt – was there to meet us with a Sprinter Van and a cargo van. It took around 1 ½ hours to drive from the airport to the hotel. My dear friend Silvia from Schweinfurt was already at the hotel waiting for us. It’s a beautiful hotel/spa “in the woods” of Germany!
We dropped our luggage and had a great dinner in the hotel restaurant. Finished up around 11 pm and I went into my room to work. Only the Wi-Fi doesn’t work in my room. I have to stand out in the hallway to get a signal. I gave up and connected to my T-Mobile Hot Spot instead.
It’s almost 2 am and I’m going to bed as soon as I can. Hope tomorrow is a BETTER day!
Jude
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH, 2017 – PERFORMANCE IN GERMANY:
Forgot to mention the “strange” request I had yesterday when we were standing in line to check in for our “new” flights to Europe. There was a female in front of me in line who appeared to be in her 20’s. She turned to me and said in perfect English (so I assumed she was an American), “Wil you watch my bag while I go to the Kiosk and check in?”. I told her that because of security restrictions, I could not watch her bag but she could take it with her and I’d hold her place in line. She didn’t accept the offer and about 2 minutes later, a young man joined her. Not sure why he couldn’t check them in or watch her bag while she checked in. And if she was going to check in at the kiosk, why was she standing in line to check in?
I could not find the “heater” in my room and it was FREEZING at around 2 am this morning. Silvia told me this morning that it is “inside” a counter in the middle of the room but that the hotel turns it off at night and back on in the mornings. Very strange because the temperature is much lower at night than it is in the daytime. No way for the hotel guest to have any control over it.
Got up and went to the “exercise room” at the hotel to meet Silvia for a workout. Wasn’t very much available for “weight training” but fortunately I took my “bands” with me and got a fairly good workout. We had breakfast and then showered and met the guys to go to sound check. It’s a beautiful day but a little bit “cool” outside. The venue is really nice and completely sold out! I stayed long enough to check out the backstage access and dressing rooms and eat lunch, then came back to the hotel to work for a couple of hours.
We all had dinner at 6 pm in the hotel restaurant again and left for the venue at 8:00 pm. The hall was PACKED and it was a great audience. I had a couple of friends attending from Grafenwohr Army Base and it was great to see them. I got a call from Michael – our bus driver – before the show. He had “computer” problems with the tour bus and was running late. He was supposed to come to the venue at 10:30 pm and pick up the musicians and equipment and then come to the hotel to pick up the Bellamys. He wasn’t going to arrive in time for that so he came straight to the hotel and we got a rider for the musicians and gear back to the hotel.
The hotel is on a hill that has a steep, winding road leading up to it. There wasn’t room to turn the bus around if it made it to the hotel plus the hotel was sold out and cars were parked all along the road. Michael is such an incredible bus driver that he backed the bus the entire length of the steep, winding road in the dark! Very impressive.
We packed up and were able to leave the hotel at 1:30 am for the 6 hour drive to Austria. It was so wonderful to see Silvia again – even for such a short time!
Jude