day 4

komma: esslingen, germany

we have played our first two shows and they have gone off without a hitch. our first show in esslingen was an enormous party, about 500 people were there. we played in one of the smaller rooms which held about 150 people. they cheered very loudly and forced us to play an encore. it was very exciting to be in an environment so welcoming to us. afterwards we danced the night away in one of the larger rooms while trying to socialize. most germans speak english very well, it is somewhat disconcerting to realize that out of all four of us, only ben speaks another language besides english. the party went until 5:30 am, we slept for a few hours and headed to our next venue in offenbach.

hafen2: offenbach, germany

the cities have history just oozing out of their walls; you can almost see what parts of the city were ravaged during world war II and rebuilt. blake and i went for an early morning walk and there is a dinstinct sense that these memories have not yet fallen out of the german's minds.

we opened for califone from chicago and it was a pretty good show, about 60 people. yet again they called for an encore, but out of respect for the other bands, we chose not to. the show ended early and we were able to get some much needed sleep.