firenze, italy

Hotel Dante room 302 Firenze
flight back to roma...baggage excess...
100 kilo minus 80 = 80 kilo = 140 Euro....we'll take it...being driven to Florence (firenze) as we understand it??
Picked up at roma aeroporto by paolo...driven thru the countryside to florence...so beautiful...
show is at Pergola teatro - insanely beautiful theatre.
sound is not so...as our sound engineer described as "like driving a bus from the rear"...very difficult.
a giant reverb chamber and lots of slapback to the stage. difficult show to a seated audience with bright white lighting. show is stopped abrubtly with one song to do (love) because of sound curfew--- we end up playing encore anyway - promoter will be fined. our good friend enrico mariani is in the house tonite, and of course back stage with us. fantastic to see him. we discuss briefly our collaborative album 'secret voices' which will be mixed in philadelphia for a summer release...great hang. a brief brisk walk around the city square after the show to dante statue with full moon. good night.

roma, italy

hotel ars roma room 201
9:30am
up early for a quick breakfast (expresso, cereal, croissant) before setting out to explore firenze.
this city is extremely beautiful -- everywhere you go, or look -- is quite staggering in it's wonderfulness.
today (and everyday i'm sure) is swarming with tourists from around the world. we see replicas of statue of David, neptune, and othres in the square--walk to Duomo and to the bell tower (which we climb as well)--out of breath with so much beauty. we take probably around 300 photos in 4 or 5 hours...haha.
2:30pm
walk back to hotel for checkout and drive to roma for a few days off...badly needed...sleep on first leg of drive until stop at an autogrille for lunch (pasta, salad, red wine)...arrive in rome to extreme traffik--crazy motorcycles everywhere--it is insane here!
the hotel is modern and very nice with internet...so i'm able to finally catchup on things...and rest...
10pm
out to dinner (seabass, salad, white wine)...prepared at the table. superb. a drive around the city to view the ruins, fountains, collesium---resonating...off to bed--collapsing!

roma, italy day 2

rome day 2
9:30am
a nice breakfast, then back to bed to sleep
until 1pm. nice to finally have a sleep in.
feel almost human again. laundry (self-serve nearby). cafe (cappacino, salami+egg sandwich)--a walk around.
3pm
back to hotel. rendevouz with ursula and paolo--head off to city center--walk around. try some amazing pizza. the pizza here is out of this world! find an outside bar in from of pantheon...chimays are here! properly fueled and happy. walk to ruins and colliseum--wow! then to dinner a few hours later...
(ravioli, salad, tomato/mozzerella, redwine). this was a wonderful time today--my first walk around to see some of rome. after dinner, taxi back to hotel
(15euro)...more sleep is in order. darren emerson (underworld, underwater) contacted me today about singing on a track for his new album. very exciting stuff. hoping it will work out. we'll see.
fly to lisbon tomorrow.

lisbon, portugal

dom carlos room 505
nice hotel. very comfortable.
terrible day--starting out with our highest excess baggage fees at rome airport--and it takes forever to sort it all out. once thru to security, they would not let me through with my 2 guitars. so i had to walk all the way back to ticketing counter for a special boarding ticket...which they didn't have. ahhh! run back to security, they let me in this time...all this for nothing. jumping thru hoops. finally on flight--stressful. flight is good to lisbon thankfully.
our promoter here, jorge, picks us up at airport--tensions arise concerning an extra gig, lots of mis-communications between label, promoter, agents, artists, band...which creates friction in our small travelling party...hope this all will disappate. off to soundcheck immediately...we run out of gas in the promoters car 3/4 of the way up a steep hill. he has no choice but to put it in park, and run around the corner to get gas, much to the dismay of 10 cars behind us. this takes 45 minutes...hilarious day...finally at LUX...such a great venue and crew here...one of my fav spots anywhere...sound is great and big...check is good...the show tonight is soldout...500 people...one of our best shows of the tour...just incredible...people here are so enthusiastic for what we are doing...4 encores...they wouldn't let us leave...after show we stay at bar upstairs until 6am, i believe. we are driven back to our hotel by a friend, but she is stopped by the police for a sobriety check. haha. just our luck on this crazy day. she doesn't have a licence with her. it seems like we are in a bad situation, but they let her go. we drive in the pouring rain through lisbon and try to find our hotel. we finally do. exhausted.