The flight wasn�t actually that bad. I can�t really remember how long it was (14, 16, 18 hrs?) but the free beer and multitude of movies helped pass the time. We landed in London for a short layover then headed into Amsterdam. I know what you�re all thinking, The Blue Devils + Amsterdam = Bad. And you would be correct in this assumption if it weren�t for the fact that we never left the airport. Our first housing site was to be in La Gorgue, France. On the way there we proceeded to make sure the whole Continent knew that not only The Blue Devils were there, but we were American as well. No more than ten minutes into the bus ride do we have guys in the back of the bus trying to get some European girls to flash us. If I were a girl (from any nation) and some random guys were holding pornography up to the window, that�s the first thing I would do.

Nothing could be worse than the food they served us on our first day there. The milk was hot (no not warm, hot - as in someone had to heat it up), and the "cheeseburgers" were cold. We were all going to starve. Ah, but the best part was the fact that we couldn�t drink any of the water there, they had to buy hundreds of bottles for us. Then once people started �abusing� their water privileges we were told this: "Your water privileges have been removed, you will no longer be able to obtain water." Quite unbelievable, but true. The guard watched as we did our runthrough that night. They were on a later flight...bitches.

Our first free-day was split between Brussels and Brugge in Belgium. I got a sweet soccer jersey for only ten Euro ($12.50), I ate rabbit (kind of tastes like sweet turkey), and had several different flavors of beer: a white, a blonde, and a dark. I recommend the white beers if you enjoy a beer that goes down really smooth, but I have to say it lacked a little bit in the taste department. Most blondes are basically like your Heinekens and taste the best out of most beers in Europe. Then you have your darks, think New Castle Brown Ales, quite tasty.

The next two days we learned to hate France. Those were both rehearsal days in which we not only sweat out the beer from the day before, but every other drop of alcohol we�ve ever had as well. The temperature on both days was 104 and 106 degrees, respectively. And If you�re ever in Europe you�ll notice the extra-thick shutters on all the windows. That�s because the sun never sets in Europe. Well, it does set, but just not until 1 o�clock in the morning, only to rise again four hours later. Lee and I went crazy. Trust me, there were convulsions.

A couple of days later we had a "parade" in Belgium. I say "parade" because that�s what we were told, but ended up �marching� 200 ft to a square where we performed a standstill. That was the best example of some miscommunication across the language barrier I think we had. That evening we had one of the most enjoyable shows of the season, it was our first real show. The crowd was absolutely insane. From the moment we came out to the moment we left the sound they made was so loud we couldn�t even hear ourselves. People were throwing their babies at us, I caught two. Their response almost made us forget that instead of yard lines they had yard strips of rope, yeah�Our final score that night was a 93. Our closest competitor received a 63. Laughing? So were we.

The next day was one of my favorite spent in Europe. We had a parade in Belgium and in this tiny square different groups from all over the world had gathered. In a tiny town in Belgium I met people from Slovakia, England, France, Brazil, and Mexico. Makes sense, I have to travel 5,000 miles to speak Spanish�in Belgium. Anyway, before we all took our spots in the parade we all played for each other, totally spur-of-the-moment and totally cool, totally. However, later that day the Mystery Tour continued when we were informed that we would be doing a show with no stretch, and no warm-up. That�s ok though, we were headed to Paris for a free-day, two actually�And then another in Venice, Italy. Life was rough for the Blue Devils.

Ah, Paris�What wasn�t great about Paris? Wait, the cars were stupid, yeah the cars sucked. But the women were absolutely gorgeous, I couldn�t believe it. And to be honest the French aren�t really all that rude, they�re pretty much just as bad as Americans are. It was the Italians that proved themselves to be jerks, but their cars were cooler. Blake told me he�d give me $100 if I wore a shirt, with something (specific) on it. I wore the shirt, he has yet to come through. I did the whole tourist thing and visited all the hot spots, bought a cool shirt, ate some good food, and drank some more beer. I found some really good cologne that I want to buy too, this stuff. Did I mention they put us up in hotel rooms?

Those two days off in Paris would be our last in France. Like I said, after that we spent the next day in Venice, and were in Italy for a good while. But we can get to all of that (all of that being Italy and Holland) later. I think what we have here is sufficient for now. I know all you want to do is look at pictures anyway.

*Some pictures were too big so I had to scale them down. If for some reason you want to see the larger versions just ask. And I have a ton more pictures than what I put up on here. So again if you want to see those too, just ask.

Either someone's really good at Photoshop� or British Airways thinks we're the shit.

These are all pictures of our housing site in La Gorgue and few from the surrounding area. The first is the field where we rehearsed, then the showers which stopped working halfway through cleansing oneself, and the gym which was so hot it defeated any purpose for taking a shower because you sweat so much. The fourth picture is of one of the coolest/oldest churches I've ever seen. And the last picture is one that really means something to me.

It's a WWI and WWII memorial to all of the French Soldiers and Civilians who were casualties of war who were from La Gorgue alone. On the left you'll see the huge number of victims from WWI who (again) were all from La Gorgue. On the right are the victims of WWII. The reason why there are so many less for WWII (and why the French were so "easily" defeated) lies with the number killed in WWI. An entire generation of young men were annhilitated, most of which had not returned home to marry and have children of their own.

These four pictures were taken in Brussels on our first free-day.

Scott Chandler took a nap inbetween our trip for Brussels to Brugge, so I took a picture of him.

The first four in this section are all pretty much big buildings. And well, big buildings are cool, so I took pictures of them. These were all taken in Brugge later on during our free-day. The last one is everyone gathered around the fountain that was our meeting point.

This is another WWI memorial. This one was somewhere in Belgium. The same place where we had our mistranslated "parade" and standstill. I didn't have as much time to look at this one so I don't know as much about it.

This is Pete. Pete Emmons to be exact. Pete Emmons is The Man. Here he is doing what he does best, being Pete. This was taken near the statue, which was near our standstill performance in Belgium.

There are more pictures left, but those will all come with the next installment of The Mystery Tour 2005.

MUSIC: Weezer - This Is Such A Pity

PREV : HOME : NEXT