brussels. brussels. brussels.

After my last post, I had what felt like a near-death experience. After having driven almost the entire length of England, the Diamond found itselff aboard yet another ferry, this time heading to mainland Europe. To be more specific, our ship's destination was on the north-eastern corner of France. The process of mounting a ferry in Europe is strange if not totally frightening. You wait in a line of about three to four-hundred cars, bunched closely together in formation, and drive slowly up a ramp onto a massive boat. This morning, however, would prove to be a very challenging voyage across the channel. The rain during our drive down to the dover cliffs ceased only for about fifteen minutes during our entire trip, and only seemed to worsen as we boarded our ferry. Brian and i took a brief moment while still docked to snap some pictures, with the wind abusing us and the turbulent water rocking the boat beneath our tired and road-weary feet. As soon as we embarked on the one hour voyage across the channel, I realized this would not be an average boat ride.

I tried to distract myself from the ominous swaying and ebbing of the massive vessel by watching an episode of Tina Fey's new NBC series, 30 rock, only to find that comedy provides no solace for a fear of dying. I sat in my seat trying to contain my panic, only holding back from screaming because the other passengers on board seemed totally at ease. There were young children laughing and running around as our craft swayed violently to and fro, crashing into the manic surf beneath us. As i looked up briefly from my i-pod, i watched a young girl of about 7 vomit gracefully into a barf-bag. We were extremely lucky that the voyage was only an hour long.

Finding ourselves on solid ground, i silently rejoiced in my saftey as i fell sound asleep. I awoke with Brussels surrounding me, and with no namesake cookies in sight. Go figure. The venue was fantastic, complete with strange roadies speaking in tongues foreign to my ears, and with hairdos i had never seen before. After soundcheck, i killed time by calling home and napping in our backstage area. The show was the most well attended yet, and was even complete with a lighting guy. He utilized a lot of different looks, and even threw a strobe light in at the end of "freak out." Needless to say, the show rocked. Tomorrow, we head to Amsterdam. I couldn't be happier about that.