It's Christmas, and we're in Nünchritz on the far far far eastern side of Germany, right by the Czech border. We woke up this morning to find out that our gear had already been loaded for us (thanks to Andy, our new driver and amazing guy) and that breakfast was waiting for us. Definitely a pleasant surprise; especially considering the fact that we only got about four hours of sleep. The disse (disco) thing they had after the show went until about 6 am and kept us up. Certain members of our party were seen on the dancefloor, and I've got the video to prove it.

Europe continues to amaze us more and more each day, and I'm wondering just how great it plans to get by the time we leave. I guess we'll ride it out and see.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great holiday, whatever you're doing.

So, our site was just down for a week or so. It's not because we were late making payments this time, however. It's because we went over the allowed data transfer for the month. So, unfortunately, I've had to delete the Quicktime videos; people were downloading them too much. I'll find a new place to host them, so you can download them as much as you want. Until then, I hope you saved it if you want to watch it.

To answer Cody's question, we're not playing Michigan Fest. It wouldn't be possible for us to, even if we WERE cool enough (which we obviously aren't).

France is awesome. Jim and Justin are at the movies seeing Lord of the Rings (that's not what they call it here, but oh well) right now and Whitney, Nick, Martin and myself are all just sitting around being lazy and listening to records. Yage is on right now; I'd seriously suggest that anyone who hasn't heard their newest CD/10" does that asap. We have the day off today, which isn't so bad. We got to do laundry, and I got to talk to Jessica today for the first time since we left, which was awesome for me. So, if you'll excuse me, je vais aller à la piscine.

oh no not this again... stupid internet company... they should know that you are in europe.

are you turkeys playing michigan fest? i thought you was but you ain't listed on the site. you should try and get on. you have the stuff.

Having now played four shows in Europe, I can honestly say that it's going to be difficult for us to ever tour in the U.S. again. Every night, we get amazing food cooked for us, we play to full rooms, and people ask us to play more songs. Before two nights ago, I couldn't have told you when the last time we played 7 songs was. I know that doesn't seem like that many songs for some bands, but we usually play 5, or even 4. We had to drag older songs like "Asterix Legionaires" and "Uncommon Ground" out of retirement just to be able to play more. Luckily, we had the ability to practice before our first show in Germany. Also, fruit juice is cheaper than soda here. We commonly buy a liter of apple or orange juice for about the equilivent of $.50, which is really cheap.

Yesterday at the show, the guy who set it up told us that he had a hotel room booked for us. Then he said "actually, I have two rooms, because there's six of you, right?". After we picked our jaws up from the floor, we thanked him about 30 times.

We got the Dismal State of the Art CD and LP as soon as we got in the van after the airport. It's the first time we've ever had the same record on two different formats, and they both came out at the same time. It looks really good, and the vinyl sounds really good, which was good news, since we never got to hear a test pressing.

I'm currently at an internet cafe in Holland, and I only have 5 minutes left on my card, so I should probably end this. The only thing I wish is that we could check our mail a little more frequently; this is only the 2nd time we've been able to so far.

i'd just like to state that europe knows what is up! free food, really good food, and everyone is so nice.
everything has been going really well (knock on wood) and we have been having a shit-ton of fun too. i don't know if i want to come home.
word word.

Will Forstella Ford please tell us if they got the European LPs and CDs yet? I want to know how they look... so I can brag about them on the Skylab message board...

holy shit fofo is in europe!!!!

P.S. its almost 4 am here.

We made it to Europe just fine and are currently enjoying being foreigners. We played the first show tonight and it went amazing... they even made us play an encore! haha. We didn´t lose any luggage, either, which was surprising to our hosts, Ralf and Steffen. Well, they pay for the internet by the minute here, and the keys are all funny (which makes it difficult to type), so I´m going to leave you now.

So we're leaving early in the morning for the airport. It still hasn't quite sunk in that we're going to be in Europe, but I'm sure once we're actually in the airport and loading everything up, it will. I've been spending more time in airports over the last month or two than I ever have in the past. Hell, I was just in airports for most of today. I left Denton early today, much to my dismay. Oops, that rhymed.

In an effort to be able to sleep on the plane ride over to Germany, I'm still awake at 4:30 am, despite the fact that I stayed up this late last night when I also had to wake up early in order to catch a plane. I'll let you know how it pans out. We neglected to call the airline and request vegan and vegetarian meals, so it looks like 3/5 of our touring caravan will not be eating on board the flight. Oh well. We made our bed...

Today is going pretty well so far. I've pretty much completed moving into my new house with my friends Dave, Jeni, and Ian. The house is amazing - the neighborhood leaves something to be desired. Jeni and I did a little exploring the other night, and discovered that the liquor store around the corner has a rather interesting method of handling sales. The customers are separated from the employees and the merchandise by bulletproof glass. You have to point to what you want, and then slide the money under the glass. They then place your purchase in a vault that can't be opened until the opposite door is closed. It's kind of like buying beer from Madonna in the Open Your Heart (1986) video. Now I've got a thousand little things to take care of before going to the weekly Monday night dinner party; the last one I will be able to attend until January. The word on the street is that it's wontons tonight. Adieu.