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