Today is our first day off since the drive from Berlin to Milan, about six days ago. I'd hesitate to even call that a day off, really, because it was essentially an 11 hour drive we had to execute. There's not much real "hang-out", "chill-mode" time in that. However, today we awakened at around noon and had absolutely nothing on our schedule. Shara had risen early to catch a train to some small town in southern France to spend a couple days with an old friend, leaving the four dudes to our own devices. After a small perambulation, we settled on a kebab/pizza/crap place for lunch. Nuno and Brian ordered pizza in place of the falafel they had anticipated seeing alongside the other choices on the menu, while James and I opted for lamb kebab meals. I guess we forgot to mention that whole "sandwich" thing, because we essentially got a plate of meat and french fries - very salty, very meaty, and relatively disgusting. The highlight of lunch was when a local interrupted our mediocre meal to ask if Brian and I were the drummer and bassist in My Brightest Diamond. We answered yes, and he complimented us on a good show the night before. It felt sweeeeet to be recognized, and somehow it made the turdmeat seem all of a sudden ten times more delectable. It was a weird thing for me, because I am the spawn of a pretty recognizeable and rather sore-thumbish character. Walking around as a kid and watching people crane their necks in recognition of your dad gets pretty old, because he's always just DAD to you, not "that dude from that movie with Denzel" or something like that. I guess it felt nice to be recognized on my own for once. Anyways, forgive my lugubrious digression. We left Fribourg around 2:30 after returning to the venue to pickup the backline gear, and to make one last idiot check of the dressing rooms. Having left nothing we hit the road. During the 3-hour jaunt to Grenoble, Brian played the Beatles the entire time. I slept in the back seat, comfortably, happily, thinking about going home and finishing with a bang in France, and finally in London. We did get pulled over on the way, however, right near the border. It wasn't the first time this has happened so far on the tour. During our first day in Germany, we were pulled over by a couple of cops who were suspicious of our tall, scary, black van with Czech license plates (i don't blame them, especially because Nuno looks like somewhat of a shady character with his thick, arabesque beard and dark skin). That was weird though, because they didn't have sirens or anything like that. Their cruiser was shaped like a hatch-back, and had one of those scrolling LCD boards in the back window with the scrolling message of "Please follow us, pull over" in like three different languages. This time, the inspection was carried out by two very gruff looking French policeman. One had slicked back dark hair and a missing front tooth, and the other had barely any hair at all, but had a face like a career boxer and a walk like someone who had spent too many years on top of a horse (think John Wayne). He also had some rad spectacles. The slick-looking one asked if the van belonged to Nuno, and he answered "no, it belongs to a friend." I thought this answer was more than a bit suspicious, but it was delivered in classic Nuno manner and therefore thoroughly diffused any fears of foul-play. After a couple more procedural questions, we were again on our way.
We checked into our hotel at around 6, having battled through traffic in the outskirts of Grenoble. Without our faithful GPS navigation unit, Cynthia, traversing the small and ancient-looking streets of this city proved difficult. Our hotel, however, is great. It's actually called "HOTEL SPLENDID," which is totally splendid indeed. I've included a photo of the view from Brian and my room, which overlooks a quaint little neighborhood and has thus far been pretty hopping with drunken student-types. For dinner, the four of us went down the street to a great little Thai place called Phnom Penh. It was awesome. James and I split a beef-for-two dish which we cooked by hand on a little grill right in front of us. I got so caught up in the actual self-cooking process that I found myself neglecting to actually eat any of the delicious beefyness. It was also somewhat of a food-fascist move, given that Nuno is a vegan, and Brian is a hesitant vegetarian. Both of them were downwind of some serious meat smoke. I say sensitive because he's already "broken veg" once twice on this trip, both times in Germany. I can't blame him considering German food is ALL meat, and delicious meat at that. Plus, he's only been a vegetarian for about 5 months and talks about it kind of like it's AA, but i respect the move nonetheless. I've included a pic of the beef with Nuno sucking on the fumes in the background. To top it all off, Brian and I shared a banana split (such a cute rhythm section move), and Nuno had a friend banana thingy that looked delicious but gave him a tummyache.
So, here I sit, typing away on my laptop in room 27 of Hotel Splendid. The town has grown quiet, and Anchorman is on TV in french. I know this movie well enough to actually understand the dialogue, which is hilarious. WHAMMY!!! We have tomorrow off as well, and will be looking to either do some skiing at one of the local resorts, or find some place to rent some mopeds and get crazaaaay. Hopefully I'll find a way to avoid breaking my wrist or an important tooth.
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