...and the pendulum swings back aain. everything is cyclical. wheels within wheels. back to using pen and paper. i didnt want to take my puter on this trip because i wanted to travel light. besides the essential 'work' equipment (amp, cables, pedals and gi-tars) im really not carrying anything else. i could have taken the puter, but traveling light provided me with a good excuse to get away from it for a while. you all know my stance on puters, but its hard to get away from it when youre around one all the time.
by now this travelling has become so routine that it barely even startles me anymore. my pop dropped me off at the aiprort this morning - no weird, sentimental/emotonal stuff this time - nothing wrong with that sort of thing, ofcourse - but it just goes to show that everyone's getting used to it all.
met up with drummerman syba t our gate. he took his entire family with him. kind of trippy compared to just my pop dropping me off. we checked in right away. didnt have to pay overweight on my amp. its a heavy, so i was glad. the girl behind the counter was really nice. it always helps when people at the airport treat you good. they dont have to, but a lot of them have 'tude sometimes. so again, this lady was righteous. seemed really young, too.
we went downstairs to " schiphol plaza" after checking in and had something to drink with syb's folks. an hour before departure we done said our goodbyes and went up to our gate. besides exchanging some money, nothing really eventfull happened betwen check in and boarding. like they say - nothing to write home about.
short flight to london. listened to some tunes but before i knew it they started handing out sandwiches. bacon - the veggie one had eggs. i passed and god some hot water with a slice of lemon instead. flu still got me weakened, so it helped my stomach.
sitting here, i wonder what it's like for monks to fly - when they get invited for talks, seminars and that sort of thing. it must be wonderful to have no baggage. just your robe and that's it. would like to try that someday...
transfer at london was pretty seemless. landed after just a 40 minute flight, but waited for atleast another half hour before we could get off. i fell down into a bunch of empty chairs when i took out my guitar. woah, it's heavy! lost my balance because of it. we all laughed. took the bus to terminal 3 for our transfer, did security, you know, the usual. they searched my bag becasue of all the guitar pedals it had in it. looks like a bunch of electronics in the scanner - just like certain bombs, i guess.... or maybe a good spot to hide narcotics.
heathrow's a trippy port - it has this big oval-shaped waiting room in the midst of this huge one-floor department store-like structure. we waited for an hour before they announced our gate number. again, prety uneventtfull. but londons trippy, though. definitly a completely different thing from europe. culture, demographics, the whole lot. boarded at 230. plane took off at 345. konked in and out of sleep for a little bit, wrote some lyrics an dput on some music. put on some brant w/ the bros lie, listened to bls's blessed hellride for the first time in a good little while. still love that record, it's heavy as can be.
part 2 later... gotta get out of this internet cafe. it's a little dated now, but it lets you know what was going on inside my head last week. take care!
max
