Song of the Viking

Scandinavia. Nary a plastic Viking helmet has been purchased, much less observed for sale, and I mean, what the hell? Håve they nø pride? We sadly haven't seen much/any of this nether-land, except for the parcels immediately roadside (beautiful though they are), because we've been driving the whole time. This is a big place. There are still people named Leif here.

Hamburg to Stockholm is a long, lonely drive, with either aurora borealis or very-distant city lights as your guide. You'll arrive in the wee hours of the morning, after two ferries and three different currenies, some of which you could fashion into a sweet necklace.

northern Germany

We stayed in an old prison (ca. 1863) on an island in Stockholm. We've stayed in our fair share of hostels that felt like jail cells, but this one was actually a jail cell. A nice one, at that. The day never really gets going up here. We played in the nicest theatre of all time (ca. 1863). Highly recommended, if you're a band of a certain caliber traveling thru Stockholm and looking for a cool place to play.

Berns, Stockholm

Oslo to Stockholm consisted of mostly two-lane blacktop in snow/slush, past many lakes, over many hills, thru a veritable winter wonderland. Then, turns out, the Norse run a real tight border, especially once they catch wind that you're a band. Pockets emptied, contents
explained, genitals handled, the works. Everybody except Will, of whom it musta been assumed was a narc. The ultimate was when Sgt. O'Norse mumbled a mouthful of foreign tongue into his radio and punctuated it with "te DOGS." Which was terrifying for no reason, until he let us go 2 minutes later.

Oslo girls are the polar opposites of Paris girls. It's like they've never seen dudes before. They're sweet. Maybe French girls are sweet too, but they don't make ostentatious displays of it. Unless they're from Chile. They want you to drink all night with them and never get drunk, except all you wanna do is sleep, in the land of the midnight sun.*

Bummer we didn't get to experience Copenhagen at all. Although the book's yet to be closed on that.

* except in winter. land of the noon moon.