Helsinki - Stockholm

Hi kids. Well nothing too cray to report. Since I posted last time, we had a great time in Helsinki. The day of the show we were driven to a hotel that was in the city center and closer to the venue. The hotel was equally, if not, nicer than the previous one, which was awesome. We had some time to kill before the show so we met up with some of Puc's(our tour manager) friends and ate some indian food and checked out a rad local record store called Combat Rock. The store is owned by the singer of a great Finnish band by the name of Endstand. Check them out - myspace.com/endstand



The show in Helsinki was incredible, especially for never having played there before. There were about 800 people there all going crazy, singing along, stage diving and just having a great time all around. It's so refreshing to play a show with sing alongs and stage dives again, as opposed to the huge tour we just finished with Rise Against where everyone was 20 feet away from us, seperated by a huge barricade and didn't know who we were. Good times.

So after the show, we packed up and headed back to our hotel, went to sleep for about 2 1/2 hours and went to the airport to catch our flight to Stockholm. Flight was ordinary, we landed and met up with our drivers who took us to our hostel and we were able to get a couple hours of much needed sleep before coming to the venue.

Also, we made a pretty awesome discovery today. We were discussing Casey's swedish descent with our swedish friends and we learned that Casey's last name, Hjelmberg, in swedish means "helmet mountain." So sick. When we asked our friend why his family would've had a name like 'helmet mountain' he replied "well...maybe they lived by a moutain shaped like a helmet." Casey and I decided that this is definitely not the case and that's it's far more likely that the 'helmet' part probably means a battle helmet that was used during and epic battle at a 'mountain.' So basically, Casey is of swedish warrior stock. Sick.

So now we're just chilling in Stockholm, which is lovely but the weather is shit, waiting for the show to start. See you later.

-K

Pics

Here some pics from the plane to our hotel. Nothing too interesting, but you get the idea...

doh!

So the internet here is really slow so i wasn't able to post pictures in that last blog. So i'll post them next time. Word.

Minneapolis - Amsterdam - Helsinki

So currently i'm sitting in our hotel room at the Cumulus Hotel in Helsinki, which looks like an ikea store. Let me run down the past day to you.

So the trip started off at Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport where, after an emotional good bye to Rosie, I met up with fellow band members Casey and Jeremy (whose beard has reached Rip Van Winkle status) and boarded our plan for the 8 hour flight. The flight wasn't the best I had ever been on, I probably didn't sleep for more than 15 minutes. I did, however, get to watch Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, which was totally sweet. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid and it brought back some great memorioes for sure. Horrible acting, mullets, the worst engish accents, Christian Bale, swords, what's not to love?



Anyway, after my rousing viewing of Robin Hood, I decided to try to get some sleep but went in and out because of turbulance and because of a burning desire to build a bow and arrow and smoke some fools. So i just chilled, watched a couple more movies, and hung out until the flight was over.

We landed in Amsterdam for a layover of about 3 hours. Casey and I were too tired to try to walk around the airport, so we just sat in some chairs by our gate and caught up for a while.

We then boarded our flight to Helsinki where I promptly feel asleep after sitting down. I was so uncomfortable, but too tired to stay awake any longer. I was asleep for most of the flight, which made the time fly (excuse the pun) by. At one point when we were landing I was asleep but starting to wake a little when they announced we would be landing soon. Because I was half asleep I thought I heard the flight crew say something along the lines of "vee are starting owa desent into Helsinki and everyone look at ze american sleeping! Yahaha!" which totally bummed me out but then I laughed about when I found out I was dreaming it (or was I?).

So afer landing we caught a shuttle to our hotel, checked in, dropped off our crap, and then Casey and I decided to go on a mission for some food. We caught a glimpse of a mall half a mile away and decided to make the wak to find sustenance. After running across a 4 lane highway, and walking around through a parking garage we finally got to the mall and found a grocery store. I bought a banana for 10 euro cents but couldn't find anything else that looked appetizing. So Casey and I ran back across the 4 lane highway and went to the restuarant in our hotel which we orginally ruled out because of the price. We got to the hotel and I ordered Salmon and Casey got a steak and they were delcious, definitely worth the price.

After eats, Casers and I went to sleep and I awoke 12 hours later and checked out the free breakfast. The breakfasts at this hotel beat the living shit out of free breakfasts at American hotels. I feasted on eggs, bacon, toast, granola, yogurt, fresh fruit, croissonts, apple juice and yogurt. So after our meal last night and breakfast this morning, i've had some solid meals. Good times.

So that was the first day of our Europe trip. Today we play Helsinki which is suppose to be great. I'll return with more updates about that. Sorry about the novel. I'll try to keep it simple next time. See you then!

-Kevin

first time

So this is my first blog post ever. I decided to start one of these things so I can show my friends and family what kind of antics I get up to when i'm on tour and when I make the move down under soon. Word. See you soon.

-Kevin