Rekkameininki
This is the story of the two weeks that I spent with two Finnish bands called Herodishonest and Rebound on their tour through eastern Europe. It is a story about truck driving, crossing borders, the search for the disco and the growing smell of hockey.
This story is dedicated to the nine people who let me come with them and who changed my life in so many ways and to all the people we met on the tour. Thanks for floorspace, food, great shows, and for giving me a glimpse of your culture. I will never be the same.
-Karin Fransson
Wroclaw, Poland
A tall man with blond hair and a beard walks into the very small backstage room where we are all eating. He looks shy despite his appearance. Do you speak Swedish someone asks him and he says "yes, a little".
The person asks him to say "I like you very much" in Swedish.
"Jag gillar dig mycket", he replies with an adorably cute Finnish accent.
"Jag gillar dig väldigt mycket", I correct him and he nods quietly.
The Americans immediately fell in love with the Finnish man who goes by the name of Anger, he has a Misfits tattoo on one arm and "rock n roll" tattooed on the other arm. He is according to the Americans the perfect image of rock.
Polish kids are crazy, in the best possible way. They go nuts at shows. The Finnish bands are playing and the polish kids are going crazy. The Finns are so excited and happy about the show and keep saying that it is the best gig they have ever played.
I am blown away by their amazing energy and positivity.
I am also really excited about meeting people who might speak some Swedish, when you've been travelling for a while things from home seem so much more exotic than they actually are.
They tell me that the stereotype that Finns have of Swedes is that all Swedish men are gay. The stereotype of Finns that I have is that they all have knives, and that Finnish men are hunters with beards and big bellies who spend a lot of time drinking massive amounts of alcohol in the sauna.
We are all hanging out after the show, outside by the vans. It is explained to me that their vehicle is not a van but a truck. And their theme song is "That's truck driving" by Johnny Cash. They have a leather-vest for the driver and whoever is the driver always has to wear it.
"Alright, it's time to go."
At first I don't notice the Americans demands. I'm in the middle of a discussion about violence at demonstrations when all of a sudden it is time to leave and say goodbye.
I look around, trying to find excuses to not leave.
Hugs and handshakes are exchanged and I am told to get in the other van and when we drive past the red truck I have a strong feeling of not wanting to say goodbye.
I don't know exactly how to explain it.
It feels like a great summer is coming to an end.
I think about all the great people I have met and all the great places I have seen and it feels like I am not done yet.
I'm not ready to go home to a life still unknown to me.
I want the summer to last forever and I want life to be this.
Travelling and meeting new people.
Someone is gonna go over to the Finns' house and give them food. The girl and I offer to go with him. I tell her that I want to go with the Finns and she says that I should ask them.
When we get there she goes upstairs with the food and I stay outside and chat with a drunken Finn.
I am so afraid to ask.
I know that it will seem strange and that they don't have much extra space. But I guess that I don't have anything to lose, it is either ask them or never see them again.
We see a hedgehog and admire her for a while and then I say:
"You don't possibly have any extra room in your van, do you?"
"Well", he says hesitantly,
"we have nine seats and nine people, but we can always squeeze one more person in".
"Cause I was thinking", I look at the hedgehog,
"that maybe, if it's ok, I could come with you guys for a few days?"
"Yeah, we are going through Sweden on the way back so you could come with us the whole time if you want."
Some more drunken Finns show up and we ask them if they think that it'll be ok and they say "oh, sure!", but since they are even more drunk I tell them to ask everyone else and then I am gonna call them in the morning.
"It's ok, it's ok", they assure me and we leave.
I ask the girl if going with them will be the most stupid decision I have ever made but we conclude that maybe it is the most impulsive one but not the most stupid one.
I spend my last night with the Americans saying goodbye and talking. It feels strange to know that tomorrow I might start a journey with nine people I don't know, most of whom I haven't even talked to.
I am a little nervous but very excited.
DAY I
Kojetin, Czech Republic
"I'm not coming home. I'm going on tour with two Finnish bands. Me and nine boys in a red van, goodbye."
That's what I write to all my friends in an email before I get in the red Finnish truck and start my adventure.
On the way to the truck someone tells me that they have all decided to only speak to me in Swedish as soon as I get in the van.. I mean truck.
This promise is broken pretty much the same second I enter the vehicle but that's ok.
The truck has nine seats that look like typical bus-seats and they are pretty comfortable. It's packed with equipment, sleeping bags, clothes, food and nine Finns.
Room is made for me in one of the seats and someone lays down on the floor in between the seats, underneath the "dinner table". On the floor are two orange 70's style mattresses spread out for people to take turns sleeping on.
Someone asks me if it smells bad in there and I say "no, not really".
I mean it doesn't smell good, but not as bad as it could smell.
I brought chocolate sprinkles with me from Amsterdam and promise to make them all cake sometime since they let me come along.
This summer has been the "Cake Tour 2001" so far and even if my girls are not with me anymore I am determined to continue to spread our cakes all over Europe.
We exit the parking lot as they demand "mera ös".
We drive towards the Czech Republic on the bumpy polish high ways. On the side of the road are farmers selling apples and mushrooms, and hookers selling themselves.
I am expecting silence.
I am expecting discomfort and lack of things to say.
I am afraid to find out that they are all assholes and that I will end up hating them.
I sit here and analyze everything they say, I look for asshole-tendencies but don't find any.
We start talking and it turns into one of those getting-to-know-people-conversations. I ask everyone their names and forget them the second they tell them to me, it'll take me some time to learn them. We talk about what we all do when we are not on tour or travelling. It leads to further conversations and I soon feel like I am starting to get a pretty good picture of who these people are.
The conversation stops occasionally and they speak Finnish to each other and I try to understand.
I enjoy the sounds of their language.
They all have cell phones, Nokia of course, and are constantly sending and receiving text messages from their girlfriends.
I wonder about the girlfriends and who they are. From the first day they are always with us in conversations, emails and text messages. They are, together with their friends in Finland, our contact with the outside world and often a nice reminder of life outside of touring.
My favorite cell phone (although I still hate cell phones) is one with a homemade leopard-print cover, which matches the owner's guitar strap, very cute.
We reach the Czech border and all pull out our passports and laugh at how funny we all look.
It's funny how you always have to get permission to get out of a country and then need permission again to get into the next country.
We joke about how it is probably the same border-guard who sits in one window and gives us permission to exit and then runs to the next window and puts on a fake-mustache and pretends to be another guard and lets us in to the new country.
Crossing borders with a band is different from sitting on a train while crossing the border, especially since we are more people in the van than we are supposed to be. It is an interesting experience and would probably have been a little nerve wrecking if it hadn't been for the calm Finns and the way they never seem to get stressed out.
Kojetin is a small town and seems fairly abandoned when we get there.
We follow the directions and find the venue where we are supposed to meet our contact person. The venue also seems frighteningly abandoned and empty. We get out of the car and explore the surroundings.
Anger finds a Misfits poster and stares longingly at it while we take pictures of him. Some of the boys engage in wrestling and other such outside-boredom-activities.
After half an hour or so someone drives up in an old, baby blue car. It is covered in skateboard stickers saying things like "skate or die", and "666".
"Wow, that's a really cool car!"
"Yeah, it's my mom's."
"What does she say about the stickers?"
"Nothing, she doesn't speak English..."
His mother also owns a grocery store and his brother owns a restaurant and they are probably a Mafia family and next time we hang out with him he'll drive up in a baby blue limo with the same stickers on it only in gold, and refer to himself as don Alesh.
He is a wonderful host and so helpful. He escorts us to his brother's restaurant and sets the outside table with lots of food.
There is bread and some strange-looking spread to put on it. I ask a Finn what it is. He looks at it for a long time then looks at me and says:
"Vomit".
From this moment we call all food that we don't know what it is vomit, which means basically all the food on the trip.
"Great vomit", pretty much means the same as saying "thanks for this tasty meal".
The venue they play at is pretty small and not very many people show up but the people who did are having a great time.
One of the people who's having the best time is a crusty midget who is very drunk and only knows how to say, "let's go" and "I love music", in English.
He wants to sing along the whole time even though he doesn't know any of the words.
He has a friend with the same kind of drullet haircut who is exceptionally tall and the two of them look quiet strange together when they mosh arm in arm...
Herodishonest dedicate their song "Girls" to all the ladies and Anger especially and a Finn shoves his fist into Anger's mouth and almost makes him vomit.
Watching the bands is so much fun. They are so funny when they play and that is a quality I really appreciate in bands.
There is talk about going to a disco that night, but we don't have enough energy to go anywhere and besides there will probably not be a disco in this town anyway.
This talk about the disco happens every night.
In the beginning of the evening we all say, yeah we are going to a disco tonight and are really excited about it and then later after the show, exhaustion kicks in and lack of energy kills the disco-plans.
After the show we pack the van and go to sleep upstairs in the dressing rooms and hallway. I sleep with three others in the hallway. That is probably a good decision since strange sounds can be heard from the other room and I don't know if I want to be a part of whatever is going on in there.
Before we fall asleep we are entertained with the "swan-dance" and Anger plays my recorder wearing only underwear and a towel on his head. I play for a while too until all the people in the other room scream shut up in Swedish.
One Finn comes back from the bathroom with a tortured expression on his face.
"My butt hurts." He says.
"The toilet paper was so hard that it hurt my butt. I don't think that I will be able to fall asleep." He is standing up in his sleeping bag outside of the bathroom.
"I will probably have to stand here all night.", he sighs. Eventually he crawls into bed, on the hard, cold stone floor.
This is my last memory of my first night with the crazy Finns, I am exhausted and the floor is incredibly hard to sleep on but not for a second do I regret going with them.
DAY II
Prague, Czech Republic
When I wake up on the floor after not much sleep, I first can't remember where I am and who the snoring people around me are, but then I remember and smile.
I am pretty tired when we start our journey to Prague so I lay down on the mattress on the floor and try to sleep.
It's kind of hard with nine loud Finns talking in your ears and the car shaking and swerving all over the place.
Some people are amazingly adjustable when it comes to sleeping in the van though, I see people in the craziest and most uncomfortable-looking positions sleep like babies.
Laying there listening to words I don't understand and the laughter of people I hardly know is for some reason a very comforting feeling.
Their voices mix with strange dreams.
Are we lost?
I slowly start picking up some swearwords and greeting phrases in Finnish and decide to start my own Finnish dictionary.
The dictionary includes many great and useful phrases such as "hello handsome, can you buy me a glass of water?" and "I like truck-drivers".
For some reason I have had this strange attraction to Finland and Finnish culture lately and being surrounded by Finnish people all the time is a great experience for me.
The Finns are having a conversation about saunas and how people everywhere else in the world know nothing about real saunas. They laugh at silly wimps from other cultures and their ideas of saunas.
So Finnish...
We write down the lyrics to "That's truck driving" so that we can all learn it by heart, which requires listening to it more times than is pleasant but hey, it's the theme song so we have to know it.
When we get to Prague we meet up with the girl who put on the tour. It is nice to finally get to meet the woman who according to the Finns can do anything and is the one and only reason that this tour is happening.
We split up into two groups and some of us go to Country life to have lunch.
While walking around in Prague they tell me about the contest that the bands have. It is a masturbation contest where whoever masturbates first loses! I think it would be better to have the person who masturbates the most win, but they don't agree with me. They tell me that I can be in on it too if I want, and it makes me feel good to know that I am now more or less considered one of them.
We find a poster for the show, which it says: "Rebound - hockeycore from Finland".
I find this hilarious and laugh for a long time at the Finns' dorky hockeycore-band. Rebound tells me that it had only been a joke to call themselves hockeycore in the beginning, but I tell them "oh no, once hockeycore always hockeycore, no matter if you sing about the NHL or broken hearts".
We drive to squat Milada where the show is gonna be and get food, good vomit-soup, and free beer. Me and my drinking buddies, who I watch drink, hang out and I make sure that they only drink two beers.
Only two.
Squat Milada is a pretty cool place but very cold. Kind of dirty, although people are sweeping the floors as we get there and we have to wait outside. We play with one of the squat cats and try to avoid the pouring rain.
Rebound wants me to sing a song with them but I say that I refuse to sing, I only play the recorder. We come up with the idea of me coming out on stage for the last song naked, playing "The final countdown" on the recorder.
Unfortunately this never happened.
There is no toilet in the squat but I am shown which the part of the bushes that is the ladies room. Someone started calling me and my drinking buddies the threesome cause we do everything together.
This leads to me coming up with nicknames for everyone. There is Lillebror, the dad(sometimes also known as sex-talk-daddy), the General, baby, the monkeybrothers, Bisse, the spiritual leader, and Anger. They call me Gunilla, or Lilla My, sometimes I am also referred to as grandma. The sprititaul leader's girlfriend has been with us for a day or so too. I call her the lady.
Hugs. Pats on the back. Wrestling.
This is also the day when it's starting to be ok to touch each other. It seems like there is a time before you know people when it is hard to know people's personal space and to know whether it is ok to pat someone on the back or not. But since we spend 24 hours together this process is a lot shorter than under normal circumstances.
From this day on it will be ok to hug people when hugs are needed or to slap people when slaps are needed or to wrestle when arguments need to be settled.
I learn how to say new things in Finnish.
I walk up to them and say: "I hate you" and when they ask me why I say, "Because you are Finnish" and find this very amusing. Unfortunately it doesn't always work since a lot of the time when I say I hate you the response is "good".
The show starts and Rebound demands only circle pits from the audience and that is what they get. They dedicate their Final Exit-cover to "all the Swedes in the audience, a.k.a. Karin".
There is a dog in the squat who is walking around during the set looking like he is having a good time, until the circle pit starts. The circle pit for some reason makes him bark nervously. Herodishonest are great too, despite not very many people at the show.
I love how they are always very supportive of each other's bands and dance and sing along when the other band is playing.
It is nice to start to know their songs after having seem them a few times now.
I could probably see them a million times without getting sick of it.
I wish that they had a million more gigs to play.
After the gig we go to the apartment where we are all gonna sleep. We talk about trying to find a disco but people are, as always, pretty tired so it doesn't happen. Because even if some people are less tired than others this group does pretty much everything together, like a little herd of sheep...
Someone always sleeps in the truck and this night me and a drinking buddy offer to do so. The guy in the apartment says that it is a good idea for us to sleep in the van since this is a very bad neighborhood and people break into cars here all the time...!
I feel wonderfully safe going to bed on the orange mattress on the floor, knowing that killers will come and brake into the van.
The Finn and I stay up for a while talking about how it doesn't matter how few people show up to the gigs. They always have fun playing anyway.
I think that's what playing music should be about... having fun.
DAY III
Zilina, Slovakia
No one has broken into the truck and we wake up alive and well. Off to Govinda's for a greasy meal in a greasy atmosphere.
And then...TESCO!
Tesco is the large grocery store chain in eastern Europe where they have everything a vegan traveler needs: marinated tofu, bread, tartex, peanut butter, ketchup, garlic and lots of water. This is pretty much all we eat when we don't get fed. Sometimes someone enjoys the luxury of a cucumber or some tomatoes.
All you really need is the tofu sandwich.
It consists of bread of your choice, preferably dark if available, tofuburger or marinated tofu, garlic, ketchup, tartex, and cucumber if available. It might sound a little strange to mix ketchup and tartex, and I have to admit that it looks incredibly disgusting but it is soooooo tasty. People who claim that it's hard to vegan while travelling are full of shit, this large corporate hell has it all.
Hail tesco...
After the Tesco visit we start the drive to Zilina, thinking that it is gonna take less than 4 hours but it ended up taking around 7 hours.
We talk a lot about relationships on the way there. The more they talk about their girlfriends the more real they become. They are always present through the text-messages on the cell-phones, smiles on people's faces and things they tell me about them.
We talk about the fact that usually when boys and girls start to hang out there's always that sexual element there whether you want to or not. Lillebror says that I don't have to worry about anyone putting the moves on me since they all pretty much have girlfriends.
It feels so good to be able to talk to them only as friends and discuss things openly without any annoying flirting elements involved.
When we reach the Slovakian border me, the spiritual leader and the lady have to get out and cross the border as "hitch-hikers" since there are too many people in the car.
It is raining really hard and I am a little nervous.
The border guards are as nice as border guards get and probably just think that it is a little strange that we are walking across the border since most people go across in some sort of vehicle.
We meet up with the truck about a kilometer down the road and there is much rejoicing...
We get to Zilina very late and at first it doesn't look like we are gonna get to play but the tour manager manages to get them to accept a really short set. We have less than an hour to set everything up and for both bands to play.
The place seems to be kind of in the middle of nowhere. It has a bar and a larger room with the stage.
The stage is uncomfortably large and the room is dark and decorated with horribly bad "modern art" and UV-lights.
All the people who had come to see the show have already gone home and the place is now mostly inhabited by what seems to be the regulars. The place is kind of irritating and so are the people; they are drunk and not very into it.
We manage to get everything up and play in 50 minutes, it was "öser than ever" as lillebror put it.
No bullshitting between songs, just rock.
After the gig it feels kind of weird, it feels like it was all over too quickly. I guess it makes sense since the drive was so long and the gig so short.
I talk to some of them afterwards and they seem kind of down at first but then outside we talk to some locals and they are very friendly and make us feel better.
"Come with me."
"Come with you where?"
"Come with me to where the fun is."
We don't go to where the fun is, we go to our designated sleeping spot instead. The apartment has two bedrooms and lots of space, but in one of the bedrooms there is a huge spider in a terrarium.
All the Finns and Swedewo sleep in the spider-free bedroom and the tour manager and the spider-owner sleep in the other room.
I get the privilege of sleeping in the bed and it is so nice... ahhh bed.
DAY IV
Bratislava, Slovakia
I wake up after the best sleep in a long time, despite some snoring going on in other parts of the room as I tried to fall asleep. And despite the fact that as the general put it:
"In your sleeping-bag you can smell your feet, your penis - everything".
I have been sleeping in my sleeping bag for the past 6 weeks, but then again I do not have a penis...
We get out pretty early and head towards Bratislava. I try to write in the car but as always I just end up talking to the others instead. We realize that it is kind of bad that this happens every time people have to write but come to the conclusion that it is much more important to have good conversation now than to write about stuff that happened in the past.
Lillebror, dad and I have very good relationship conversations and sex-talk-daddy always talks to us as if we are his teenage children.
We have quite the emo-talk and I share my life story with them very openly and without feeling for a second like they are gonna judge me for it.
When we get to Bratislava we go to an Internet cafe and I check my email. I have gotten some from home, (both Sweden and Seattle) which make me very homesick and for a second I realize that I am travelling by myself with people I don't really know and who don't really know anything about me.
I tell one of them about it and after only a few minutes I feel better, I tell him about my friends at home and about my life in Seattle and it makes things easier.
It also makes me feel better to get to know all of them more and more too, cause I do know them pretty well, even though it's only been for a short period of time.
The place in Bratislava is really cool, it is in a basement of some youth place and it has theatre seats just like the Paradox in Seattle. It makes me even more homesick. Next to that room is a cute little hippie-cafe with cute decorations in the ceiling and pillows to sit on on the floor.
We have some time to kill and hang out and I write for a little while. We get good vomit and everyone seems happy. We are all excited about the place and the gig.
Lots of people show up. Unfortunately people are pretty lame, they stand packed in the back and despite the monkey brother encouraging people to come closer telling them "we are not a movie", everyone is still watching from a distance.
People are only watching, not participating and, at least not openly, enjoying the show.
Afterwards I talk to different people in the bands and ask them how they are doing. Three people said that they feel "neutral". After more investigating I find out that this "neutral" in fact means down and empty and unhappy to some degree. It is interesting to see how people's emotions are as contagious as yawning in this group of people. The way one person feels ends up being how everyone else feels.
I guess it works that way when a small group of people spends all their time together.
We all had high expectations of this gig and it didn't really turn out the way we wanted it to, and of course that makes people disappointed, me included.
Then to top it all off we get a lot less money than expected. I know that money shouldn't matter but it does when you are dependent on it for gas, food etc. We don't know if it is the people who put on the show who doesn't give us all we are supposed to have, or if people just didn't pay to get in.
When we get to the apartment where we are gonna sleep we all feel better. That's one of the things I appreciate the most about this group of people; they are never down for a long time.
As long as they get to vent a little and make some angry or stupid jokes they're fine again in no time.
We hang out with the couple who lives in the apartment and drink tea. The man says that he can make Herodishonest-buttons for them if they want him to.
The Finns also want to make drop-out buttons since most people in the Finnish hard core scene drop-out of something, be it veganism, straight edge or whatever. They want to make buttons that say, "used to be" in tiny letters on the top and "vegan" in large letters. They say that they could make a fortune selling them... I don't know about that. Maybe their idea of a fortune is different than mine...
We go to bed once again without the disco.
I fall asleep thinking about how nice all of our hosts have been to just let ten strangers take over their homes and eat their food.
DAY V
Sarvar, Hungary
We leave for Hungary. I fall asleep in the truck for a while and wake up at the Hungarian border. The lady and I are designated to walk across as hitchhikers. We reach the border a lot quicker than expected and in the hurry we forget to bring a cell-phone and I almost forget to bring my passport. I use someone else's bag and we hope that they won't search it and find lots of men's underwear and kill me.
The boys drive across the border without any problems, but when the lady and I get there the guards inform us that since we are walking we can't cross there. We ask them where to go and they are very mean and unwilling to talk to us in English and just point to another border by another road.
We don't have much of a choice so we walk over there.
It is actually a railroad border control and they let us pass without asking any questions.
Now we have to get back to the high way where the boys are.
We realize that it will take us a while to walk over there so we hitchhike. A nice lady picks us up almost immediately. She doesn't speak any English but I manage to tell here where we want to go in my embarrassingly horrible German.
She drops us off a little further down the road and we cross a railroad where we see two old men sleeping in the grass by the tracks. They look like hobos, except for the fact that they have bikes with them. At first they look almost dead, but on a closer look they look peaceful.
We have to cross a field and jump a fence to get to the high way and joke nervously about how the Hungarian military will spot us and shoot us in the back...
We walk in the ditch next to the high way until I make a joke about landmines. We decide that it would be nicer to get hit by a car than step on a landmine. We walk on the side of the road.
We walk and walk and expect to see the red beast parked somewhere along the road but we see nothing red at all. It seems weird that they would drive this far without stopping and we start to get a little irritated with them. Then for some reason the lady turns around and sees what looks like the truck driving far away in a totally different direction.
When we realize that is probably when things start to get really annoying. I can't say that I am all that worried at this point, more irritated with the situation and anxious to find them.
We stop and talk about our situation and when we realize that we have no idea where they are going and that they don't know where we are going and that we don't have a cell-phone, I got worried.
We walk up on a bridge and look for them and ask ourselves what to do. We try to be logical about things and not panic.
I feel a little like crying. We need to somehow get a hold of a phone so that we can call them.
Somewhere in the distance we see something that looks like civilization and start walking in that direction.
We talk about what the boys are doing right now and whether or not they are worried or angry. The lady says that they are probably masturbating and have probably done that since the second we left the car. The thought of them all masturbating in the car makes things seem a little less serious than they actually are and we laugh.
She says that she is worried that they will be pissed off and yells at herself for forgetting to bring the cell-phone. I try to convince her that none of this was anybody's fault and that blaming oneself doesn't really lead to anything constructive.
On the way to the village we see a white dove on the dirt road and we take a picture of it before it flies away.
The lady says that it is a good sign.
We reach the village and manage to find a store and try to exchange some money since we have no local currency.
The people in the store don't speak any English but we manage to communicate to them that we need a telephone. A fat farmer tells us in German how to get to the money exchange place.
We find two exchange places but they are both closed or abandoned, this whole village seems very strange and abandoned. Very surreal, with strange roosters screaming and strange people staring at us.
The hotel in the town is also abandoned but next to it is a little place where you can buy alcohol, souvenirs and also exchange money.
There is a payphone a little further down the road. We put in some money only to notice that the payphone eats all our coins and doesn't work. We go into the store next to the payphone and desperately try to explain to them that we need help and a telephone.
No one speaks English. They just stare at us. We use all ways of communicating that we can think of but no reaction. The lady tells them that we are in trouble and that we need help and I can hear the panic in her voice. It seems like once we have said out loud that we are in trouble it all gets so much more real.
On the way out we ask a truck-driver if he knows where there is another payphone, he says that he doesn't speak any English but still manages to tell us to go to the gas station.
I start thinking about what would have happened if I didn't have the lady with me. I don't even have anyone's phone numbers and I don't know where we are going next. I would have been totally fucking screwed. I am so incredibly thankful that she is there with me, if for nothing else, for moral support.
I promise myself to write down everyone's phone numbers the second I get back into the truck and we say that in the future there should always be a plan B in case something like this ever happens again. It feels good to talk about what we are gonna do once we are back in the van, telling ourselves that we will eventually be back in the van.
We go into the gas station and I manage to buy a phone-card from the non-English speaking and very rude cashier. We put the card in the machine and when the phone number doesn't work I start to feel really bad. I really feel like crying and just sitting down and wait for someone to help us.
There is nothing I want more than to sit in the stinking truck with the stinking Finns again.
I go back into the gas station and find a road map and try desperately to remember the name of the next place that we are going to, but I have no idea. I ask the people if they know how to make international calls.
They stare at me.
I feel like screaming.
I go outside and the lady has figured out how to call and we try again.
This time it works. They answer and the lady talks as fast as she can since we don't have that much money on the card. She tells them where we are and that they should try to find the place on the map and then we will call them back in a few minutes.
It feels good to have gotten a hold of them but it doesn't feel quite ok yet. I go pee in the back. I have a hard time convincing myself that everything is going to be ok. We find a shower and a car-vacuum-cleaner in the back and say that we will use those to make the boys not hate us in case they will be mad at us when we get back.
We call again. They say that they have found the place. They say that they will come and get us.
We wait for a few minutes and then we see the red beast coming towards us. It looks so wonderfully beautiful. I finally feel entirely relieved.
They are videotaping us as we walk in but there is not much rejoicing. We explain what happened. They say that they are not angry, they blame it all on Hungary and the Hungarians.
They tell us that they have been worried about us and that they had turned around and crossed the border again to look for us. Lillebror asks if we ever panicked and when I tell him no, he says that he is proud of us.
It is very quiet in the car after that. It almost feels uncomfortable. Someone told me later that Finnish men don't know how to show emotions and that sometimes when people are very worried they get angry and don't know how to act.
I guess it makes sense but I still think there should have been more rejoicing than that. I mean we could've gotten shot in the back by the Hungarian army...
When we reach Sarvar we get picked up by the kids whose house we are staying at. It is such a rich-kid house it is almost scary in comparison to all the other places we have stayed at. They even have an electric bread slicer.
We watch the stuff that we have filmed so far and when we get to the part where we were lost I realize how serious it actually had been. It is both scary and feels good to see how worried they were. Three of them went and asked the guards about us. They had filmed the long quiet waiting time.
Daddy says that he was angry, the general calm and that everyone else had panicked.
It feels so good to be back with them. We do some much-needed laundry. Things were starting to smell like hockey. Like clothes worn whil playing hockey. Like sweaty feet in a locker room. Like gym-clothes left in the bag for too long.
We get fed really well. We eat pasta and pasta sauce. It might not sound all that special but it tastes incredibly good and we are all starving after an emotionally draining day.
While and after eating we are being incredibly silly as always and laugh hard and fuck up our digestion. This happens at most meals, I don't know why, but eating makes everything so funny.
Baby says that if anyone would lose the contest he would run into the bathroom and jerk his balls off immediately. There has been lots of talk about the contest lately. No one wants to lose but lots of people talk about their balls being ready to explode.
The show is in a castle.
It is so nice in here and a really cool place to have shows in. It is dark and has a rounded ceiling. It smells like old, moist walls and moss.
I talk to some of them about the fact that we all act a little differently when we first meet new people but that we started being ourselves completely very soon in this group.
There are not that many people here but everyone is having a good time. Some annoying Hungarian asks me if I want him to be my boyfriend and I say thanks, but no thanks.
We sell lots of stuff and everyone is happy. We get back to the rich kids and there is a big party going on. We all feel like we are back in high school. They want to take pictures and want me to be in them too, since I am pretty much in the band.
DAY VI
Pula, Croatia
The next morning we say goodbye to the lady since she is continuing her travels by herself. It is sad to say goodbye and to know that I will now be the only girl again.
We take off and decide to go to Croatia through Slovenia cause it is closer that way. When we are standing in the border control line some people in a big tourist bus next to us are laughing at us and waving for some reason. I guess they think the van looked silly and us too maybe. Then baby moons them and that makes them laugh even more.
The border guards laugh too, at our passports, and we have no problems leaving Hungary, but when we reach the Slovenian border they tell us that we have too many people in the car and we have to go back.
So we go back and go straight to Croatia and I get out and walk. This time I bring a cell phone and all the phone numbers.
Everything goes fine and when I get back there is much rejoicing, probably cause I had told them that they'd better be a little more excited when I come back this time.
The landscape that we drive through gets more and more beautiful for each kilometer that we pass. Hills and mountains covered with pretty green trees. It looks a little like Vermont.
The trees look like oak trees, but I'm not sure. There are also trees that I have never seen before. Someone says that it looks like Italy which makes sense since we are heading in that direction.
It is a lot less beautiful inside the truck.
It is starting to get seriously messy. We clean as much as possible pretty much every morning but as soon as we start driving and eating it gets messy again.
There is a pile of shoes right by the door.
Writing material, knives, cell phones, bread crumbs, water bottles, beer bottles, toilet paper, grocery bags and food is spread out all over the seats and floor.
On the shelves are dirty underwear and the T-shirts and pants that they wear for the gigs every night.
Clean but wet towels and clothes hang to dry from the shelves and occasionally slaps someone in the face.
Wet clothes are also hung to dry in the door and taped to the front of the car, they dry pretty fast and afterwards they smell lovely, of diesel.
It starts to smell really bad from sweaty shoes and moist mattresses. It is really hot outside so people wear nothing but shorts.
We are all sweating.
The road we travel on goes straight up hill for miles and miles. It keeps twisting and turning and we have to hold on to things to keep them from falling everywhere.
Suddenly a toilet bag falls down from a shelf and lands in Anger's half-naked lap. It lands perfectly with the right side up. He puts it back but after a minute it falls back down and lands in the same spot.
We tell him that it is probably trying to tell him something like "Shave!".
The closer we get to Pula the more beautiful the surroundings get.
We drive past green valleys and hills with adorable little stone houses and amazing gardens and apple orchards.
A deep silence spreads in the car. The kind of silence that only true beauty can create.
The kind of beauty that many of us have never seen before. We take pictures and film a little. Occasionally someone says "wow", but none of us speak, we are totally spellbound.
We stop to look at the landscape and to pee. Some people get naked and pictures are taken. We laugh and the spell is sort of broken.
I fall asleep unwilling to stop looking out the window but unable to keep my eyes open. I wake up when we are already in Pula. We stop by some beach to ask someone for directions and the boys conclude that we have now reached paradise cause now we have found palm trees.
We meet up with our contact and go to buy some water and food. Since we have some time to kill we decide to go swimming. The town is really beautiful and punks have entertained themselves by spray painting circle A's everywhere, on walls, streets etc.
It is so nice to be able to wear little clothing and still be warm. We walk to the beach and me, Lillebror and dad manage to lose the others since we are talking and admiring the surroundings.
We find a beach but it is not the one that the others are on, but thanks to Nokia we soon find them.
When we are walking there in the sunset by the beach in this unfamiliar but so beautiful place I find myself filled with happiness. I don't know where it came from or where it is going but it fills my entire being and at this moment everything is great.
We find the others and some people jump in the warm ocean with me. It feels so nice.
I'm not scared at all.
On the way back there is much talk about masturbation again and people are starting to get really frustrated.
We play at a place called Monte Paradiso and it is inside of an old army building. It is pretty small and the walls are covered with posters and flyers and it could have been a really cool place if it wasn't for the life size female doll dressed in leather underwear that was hanging over the bar.
When walking in the door i say "I'm in the band" and I get my stamp. Usually I say I'm with the band, but being in the band just sounds so much cooler.
We get fed some food that really looks like vomit and tastes kind of like it too.
Outside are a bunch of kids drinking beer and other alcoholic beverages.
The "bathrooms" are fucking insane; they remind me of the bathroom scene in Trainspotting, only these don't have actual toilets. The stench of urine hurts your nose and in the stalls is nothing but a hole in the floor, that is where one is supposed to do what one needs. There are piles of old toilet paper and other gross, wet things on the floor. Dirt, old paint and other unidentifiable substances discolor the walls, floors and ceiling.
I pee in the bushes outside...
Rebound start playing after two local bands and it is pretty late and people are tired from swimming and driving all day and the kids there are way too drunk to even comprehend what is going on. People show no appreciation what so ever and Rebound leave the stage after only having played 5 songs.
They are bummed afterwards and discuss whether it had been wrong to leave the stage. They talk and support each other and say that it is ok to sometimes play bad gigs.
After the gig people keep partying forever. Four people sleep in the van. I make a little note that says "We are sleeping in here, please don't try to break in, we love you" and we put it up on the window.
Unfortunately there is no room for me in the van and I have to sleep "upstairs" which is a little loft over the stage. Underneath people keep partying, playing loud music and drinking way too much all night. At this point I'm starting to get really irritated with all the fucking drunks, the lack of bathrooms, the smell, the smoke and the fucking noise and the fact that we have to sleep where people are partying.
But then beauty comes along and I manage to sleep a little.
DAY VII
Zagreb, Croatia
I wake up after a few hours of bad sleep. Outside old men have put up some sort of market place and there is loud talking and bargaining going on. We wake the other people up and all go to the beach.
It is 25 degrees outside and so nice.
When we reach the ocean we notice how huge the waves are.
No one is swimming.
We talk about the fact that maybe it will be a little dangerous to challenge the ocean on a day like this but at the same time it looks so inviting. We walk down to the edge of the water. It is so warm.
Baby walks out to where the water reaches his knees and the waves almost make him fall over. He scrapes his toe against a rock when trying to fight the waves and gets the first "ocean-wound" of the trip. It is bleeding quite a bit but doesn't stop him from going out there again.
We take turns taking pictures of each other standing where the waves brake, trying to keep from falling down.
Each time the waves crash against the beach small rocks from the bottom and the beach hit your feet and legs with enormous power and it hurts really bad and you instantly get bruises. It hurts but it is worth it.
No one has the guts to walk out further than where we know that we can keep our balance. But then we see some lady in her 40's jump out into the waves and swim away. Obviously we have to be as cool as her. We run out into the ocean when the waves are the smallest and swim as fast as we can passed where the waves brake and let ourselves be devoured by the blue beast.
The waves are amazing and we keep swimming screaming "Come on ocean, you fucking pussy, you can do better than this. Give us more!".
It is so amazing to be surrounded by wonderful people in waves bigger than any of us have ever experienced before. We never want to go back.
It is so warm and beautiful and everlasting.
Me and baby start talking about sharks and about what to do in case we get eaten by one. We get a little scared. Eventually we have to go back and we manage to get out without getting hurt too bad. Some people pick some emo-rocks to bring home to their loved ones. I pick some to keep myself.
On the way home we talk about whether or not it is ok to piss in the ocean, baby says that it absolutely is not and that he is in fact so much against it that he is going to start a new movement called "youth against pissing in the ocean".
After a few minutes walking and talking one of the monkey brothers admits to losing the contest!! They had all guessed that it was gonna be him too. The worst part is that he did it in the fucking gross bathroom of Monte Paradiso! I don't know whether to be happy for everyone or very scared...
It is much appreciated by everyone and now there is even more talk about masturbation than before. Everyone congratulates the monkey brother. The desperate search for bathrooms with locks begins.
On the way to Zagreb I sleep in the truck and feel very emo while listening to the Weakerthans and looking at the pretty landscape.
The place in Zagreb is a cool activist space called Attack. It has cool graffiti on the walls and outside. It has one room with the stage and then a bar and a "kitchen" in the other room. Upstairs is a room filled with puppets and banners and stuff used for protests I'm guessing.
We get great vomit and the place is filled with really cute activist boys and girls and hippies with dogs.
It is very cold compared to Pula. The air smells like fall. It is so incredibly smoky in there that I have to sit in the car until the bands start cause I can't stand it.
I sit here writing but keep getting interrupted by others who also try to escape the smoke. We talk about first kisses and realizations occur.
A tall crusty punk with very long dreads gets into the car and asks if he can join us. He talks a lot but is very nice. Some skinheads have bought records from the distro and asked about nazi records. The crusty says that there are a lot of nazis in Croatia but that most of them are not really active, they just show up to pick fights.
He tells me that he once had a 4-hour conversation with one of them where he tried to convert him to anarchism. He also says that the anarchists and activists aren't really active either, they just want to hang out.
The show is good except for the smoke, it is so bad that I have to keep going outside to breathe.
Afterwards we go to our host's house.
There is smoke here too so I decide to sleep in the truck, I can not take any more smoke in one night and neither could my lungs.
Before sleep there is talking and walking and someone getting worried.
DAY VIII
Still in Zagreb
The morning after we go upstairs and make some food. It is so nice to make our own food for a change. I have missed cooking so much.
Our host is the craziest person we have stayed with so far. He seems pretty normal in the morning but the later in the day it gets the weirder he gets. At night he is insane.
He jokes about everything but always with a straight face and the jokes are not really funny more like strange...
No matter what you ask him he answers something crazy, and I'm glad I don't have to spend too much time with him. When I ask him if I can get back into the apartment building after the door is locked he says "No, not until next Monday."
He also claims that things like brushing your teeth is illegal and when someone asks if they can use the microwave he says that it only takes coins.
Someone else asks him what he knows much about history and his answer is that he "has heard of him".
He rolls some sort of cigarette and someone asks him if it is a joint and he replies "No, he doesn't have a name."
Later in the day after checking emails and walking around town we go back to Attack for the extra free show that we decided to put on since we have an extra day there and nothing to do.
By this time 6 people have lost the contest and that makes me pissed off. I don't want to be the last person to lose the contest, especially not since I'm a girl.
So I go upstairs, find a bathroom with a lock and lose the contest.
I am warmly congratulated when I tell them the news and they
give me high-fives and say that they are proud of me.
I am proud of me too.
The show is good and a lot of people show up considering it is the second show in a row. Unfortunately Herodishonest doesn't have enough time to play before the cops show up. There are also a bunch of Nazis there and they pick a fight with a monkey brother and make it all very uncomfortable. They are big and scary and we don't feel like kicking their ass.
The cops grab me when they show up probably cause I am standing by a table selling records. They yell at me and I say "I'm sorry but I don't speak your language". The cop asks me who was in charge and I say that I have no idea and ignore him.
He asks several other people and they all say that no one is in charge. Eventually the show is stopped and the cops spend a long time arguing with the people who "are in charge" and then they leave. I guess there had been some complaints about the noise from someone in the neighborhood.
It is too bad the show had to end so abruptly but at the same time I want to leave and get away from the nazi-pigs.
When we are packing up a nazi and his girlfriend are standing right by the van and refuse to leave. The nazi asks some people if they are communists. He says that he hates communists. I am afraid that they are gonna try to steal equipment and it is really uncomfortable.
Finally they leave and as he walks away the nazi says something to me in a language I don't speak but I'm pretty sure I have an idea what he said anyway.
I spit on the ground where he has been standing.
They all get in a car and drive off and I really want to pick up a mic-stand and shove it through their window, but decide that it is probably better not to.
Packing the truck is enough of a hassle as it is; you definitely don't need some Nazis to distract you. The general does an excellent job of packing the van as always. He does it every time. He puts the flashlight between his teeth, analyzes the space, then orders us to get him what he needs. And every time he manages to fit all the equipment perfectly.
I talk to a Finn about not wanting to go home and wanting to be on tour forever. We are starting to count down the shows and days that we have left.
I wish there were more.
DAY IX
Prague, Czech Republic
I cross the border with a Finn. It is so beautiful. The sun is shining and the surroundings are amazingly beautiful. We talk about never wanting to go home and I suggest that we stay there in the valley and camp out instead.
Getting across the border is easy but a few miles down the road a cop pulls us over.
He asks for driver's license and papers and asks: "are you Finnish?" when the answer is yes he asks: "have you been drinking?".
Dad says that he hasn't been drinking but he has to get out and take an alcohol test anyway. We take a picture of him by the police motorcycle and the beautiful mountains in the background.
It turns out the cop was really nice, he kept apologizing for his bad English and gave dad the plastic mouthpiece as a souvenir and told us to be careful cause since there is a radar speed control up ahead.
When sitting there in the stinky van I am once again amazed over how much I like these Finnish bastards. They are so cute when they sleep, especially when they sleep close to each other or lean on each other. And when they laugh hysterically at stupid Finnish jokes.
I also think about crossing borders and how after a while all the border crossings seem the same and about all the border guards and their different reactions to us.
Different countries also sort of blend into just Eastern Europe.
When we cross the Austrian border we all stay in the car and the border control ladies laugh at us and at our passports and let us pass without a problem.
I sit there watching Lillebror writing in his journal with a little smile on his lips and then I look down at the monkey brothers sleeping on the mattress on the floor like spoons. They are so cute that I melt.
I think about their stupid Finnish rhymes that they always say and laugh at. I lay down on the floor and fall asleep.
After a while someone gets a text message on his cell-phone saying that there has been a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in NYC, and that someone has tried to burn down the Pentagon.
All information sounds like a strange dream and when people make jokes about how this is all something that the U.S. deserves and that finally shit is going down it still doesn't feel real.
Someone says something about the terrorists celebrating but that it probably isn't as much fun for the thousands of people who died, and after he says that I start to realize what has happened.
I am told that two planes have been hi-jacked and flown into the WTC. The panic grows inside me.
My reaction is to try to go back to sleep cause I don't want to think about it. Not now when I know that it will be hours before we will get to Prague and I will be able to check my email.
For the first time on this tour I feel very left out when they are talking about what had happened in Finnish. But at the same time I am glad not to get more information than I will be able to handle.
I'm sitting in the car that has now stopped at a gas station where we have checked our emails and read some news.
I don't know if my sister is in Sweden. She was flying from New York sometime this week. I hadn't gotten any emails from my brother so I'm assuming that she is ok.
To not know for sure feels so horrible.
I also don't know if other people I know in NYC are ok.
But what can I do other than sit here and wait and feel nauseous in a van with nine people I don't really know.
I told them about my sister at the gas station and I cried.
They know that I am worried and I can feel their support in the heavy silence. Someone is touching my foot lightly and giving me warming looks when I look at him.
Someone else is writing but looks up at me and asks me if I am ok.
A third person says "you will manage" and I don't know if it is a question or an encouragement.
The sun is setting somewhere in Austria. In the car are silent people whose first reaction to the news was cheering and talk about the end of the world.
One of them is wearing a T-shirt that says "destroy everything".
It feels like I am travelling in a dream.
I have no contact whatsoever with people I know and I am on my way to places I have never been.
The stock market is crashing and there is chaos in the world of telecommunications. In here people are sleeping in peace and quiet.
Outside a beautiful landscape is passing by and I'm thinking about how hard it will be to say goodbye to these people that I have gotten used to spending 24 hours a day with.
When we reach the Check border a scary lady asks if we are tourists, when we say yes, she asks in German if we are sure about that...
I sit next to Lillebror and he says that he feels bad that they had reacted the way they did when I started crying in the gas station. He says that Finnish men can touch others when it is in a happy and joking situation but when it is serious stuff they have a really hard time giving someone a hug or a pat on the back.
When we get to Prague we meet up with the tour manager and her friend and go to his house.
I sleep in the van.
I feel sick and mentally worn out, but the nausea is gone.
The Finns and I have discussed the chances of my sister being on that plane and decided that she is probably ok.
DAY X
Prague, Czech Republic
We go into the city and park in the same spot that we always park and all go to different places to eat. Me, the monkey brothers and Anger eat falafel and since that isn't enough we go to Country Life too.
We check our email at a cafe and my brother hasn't written anything about my sister so I'm assuming that she is ok. My friend in Seattle whose mom is a flight attendant for united airlines said that she is ok and that is a great relief.
I got emails from other people too and most of them were short. People talked about feeling very shocked. I write emails to everyone I know saying that if they want to move to Sweden they have a place to stay.
We get a hold of a newspaper and look at pictures from the terrorist attack. It still feels totally unreal.
Some of us go to a cafe and they drink beer and coffee
Someone jerks off in the bathroom. They all talk a lot about masturbating again.
I'm not much part of the conversation but realize that I probably understand 90% of what they are saying anyway. From understanding their body language, a few words of Finnish, and the fact that they always talk about the same things...
When we get back to the truck we buy some really cheap and great springrolls from a Chinese stand. We go to squat milada and get soup, of course we all eat again, we never say no to free food.
We get soup with soy meat and veggies and all get homesick. I claim that the soup is typically Swedish and they claim that it is Finnish, but we all know that I am right.
I wonder if all this talk about sex and all this eating is a reaction to the terrorist attack and feeling vulnerable and mortal. I believe it is part of a survival instinct to want sex after death related experiences and food seems like something good to want too.
The show is not the best.
There are hardly any people here and it feels kind of like we have come here for nothing. People are tired and grumpy. Some people are very homesick, but they seem to have fun when they play anyway. I say "we want more, hockeycore" and they love it. When Herodishonest play the general dedicate their song "girls" to their girlfriends "I think that we all miss them very much" he says.
I think we all miss loved ones this day.
I sleep in the car and a Finn borrows my toothbrush, which has now been used by five different people on this tour.
When trying to fall asleep on the gray and orange striped seats of the van I think about the past two days and what they have meant. It doesn't really seem like anything has changed here in our little world of tours and travelling but I know that on the outside of our bubble nothing will ever be the same.
And maybe some things have changed for us too, maybe now we know each other a little better and now we know how close we really are. Close to each other and close to the end of the world...
DAY XI
Vienna, Austria
It is raining in Prague as we are leaving, actually it rains in Prague every time I am here.
Someone finds a broken mic in the truck and starts rapping in Finnish. It is very funny and extremely bad rapping.
Dad gets irritated with a driver next to us so some of the Finns moon him. Mooning is a great way of expressing your feelings to other drivers.
At some point I look up at baby and see him sitting with a tartex-tube in one hand, a piece of bread in the other and his note book in his lap, staring out the window totally unaware of everything it seems.
People keep themselves busy by playing solitaire, reading, writing or sowing patches onto things. Tesco-bags once again fill the car.
Things are still falling from the shelves, someone gets someone else's pants in his face while someone else gets a text message about the U.S. now being in a state of war.
We talk about the possibilities of a third world war and what that would mean.
I think about the fact that these people never fight.
It seems incredible that a group of people who spend this much time together and in sometimes really stressful situations never fight or get sick of each other. The only time that I have seen people really irritated is when the general farts cause it smells like sewage, but at the same time it's hard to be mad at him for very long cause he is so cute.
At all the new places that we go to it has become sort of a tradition to ask where the disco is and to talk about wanting to go to one but still there has been no disco and I am wondering how serious people actually are about this disco-business.
I sleep when we cross the border so someone else has to get out. People are starting to get really bored in the truck and at some point Anger gets a hold of a lighter and burns some hair off his chest, this is really funny until it starts to smell incredibly bad.
I start to get incredibly inpatient and my PMS is killing me. I have warned them before of my mood swings and anger management problems before my period but I don't think that they are prepared anyway.
It is so annoying to sit here in the hot stinking truck, with my body aching and us not finding the way.
The more times we realize that we are lost and have to turn around the angrier I get.
When we find the squat but no parking I am seriously ready to explode. After about 20 minutes of parking-lot searching we find a spot that is just a little bit too small, so some people simply grab the car in front of us and lift it a few inches ahead so that our red beauty will fit.
The EKH squat is an amazing place and being here made some of my anger go away. I fall asleep happy in a room full of mattresses and people and a few cockroaches.
DAY XII
Vienna, Austria
I wake up well rested and have tofu-sandwich in bed. The boys force feed the tour manager a sandwich and claim that if she doesn't eat it they will get very sad.
We walk around Vienna for a while and when we get back I start baking the cake that I have promised them from the first day we met.
The kitchen is large and has everything we need, including lots of cockroaches.
The rest of the squat is amazing too. On the top floor where we are sleeping is a large room for travelers and bands with quite a few bed spaces.
I wrote my tag on the wall, other great things had been written there too, like "here so and so slept with some Slovakian girl".
On the floor underneath are rooms for people who live there permanently, the office and the kitchen.
Underneath that is a library and underneath that is a refugee camp and space for refugee organizations and on the bottom is the bar and the show space.
In one of the bathrooms there is a large bag of tampons if anyone needs them.
One of the residents also shows me a theatre room behind the bar. It is so cool. That's where they have bigger shows and techno parties.
They have put up a large white screen and also show independent movies there. Over the stage is a large dragonfly made out of metal and she tells me that it breathes fire!
This place is so cool.
We get fed falafel and it is so good.
For dessert we have chocolate cake. It tastes so good even though it is a little bit burned. It is very much appreciated and they give me pats on the back, hug me and say "hyvää paska", good shit.
Our friend from Kojetin is here and it is so much fun to see him again, and so are the couple we stayed with in Bratislava. I realize that Europe is small and it feels so good to have friends everywhere.
More and more people show up and eventually the place is packed and the smoke lays thick once again. It is even hard to move that's how crowded it is.
I guess it is partly because the Locust is gonna play but we pretend that it is because of Rebound who according to the flyer are from the States.
I make another cake and walk around handing out left over lemon cake to strangers who happen to stare at it.
When Rebound plays there are a lot of people and a lot of fun. Anger dedicates lots of songs to their tour manager. When they play their Final Exit cover someone says in Swedish "play more Swedish songs". Baby, who understands Swedish pretty well, says "so, there are two Swedish people here tonight" and he looks at me. I look over at the Swede and we nod. It is kind of like a band-nod only it is a Swede-nod...
After the show we talk a lot and he hangs out with me and the Finns the rest of the night.
Then Herodishonest play and it is great. People are dancing and the General accidentally says that it is nice to be in Australia. It is funny. They dedicate songs to everything, to the tour manager, to the place, to the food...
There are some accidents too. The general gets kicked in the balls twice and he thanks bisse who kicked him once for making sure that he will never have kids. Then the general is swinging his mic and accidentally hits bisse in the face. He gets a black eye and is even bleeding a little, definitely the coolest rock wound so far.
The monkey brother lets Anger, baby and Lillebror sing along a lot and then he jumps off the stage and onto them. Poor baby doesn't have a chance to catch him and hurts his back badly. He crawls onto the stage and has to spend the rest of the night walking around bent over.
He is in a lot of pain and even the General's massage doesn't help. He is fucked...
But despite all of this, or maybe because of it, this is definitely the best gig since Wroclaw.
I talk to people about never wanting to go home. This is too great. Everyday needs to be like this.
After that the Locust play and I watch them for a while, then get bored. I go upstairs and talk to dad, who is now being selling-records-daddy. He tells me that one of the squat dogs came up to him and peed on his foot. He is very pissed off and says that he hates dogs.
There is a guy here who is probably on LSD, or something similar. He is incredibly high, violent and obnoxious. The people who sort of run the place keep throwing him out but he just keeps coming back and starting fights. At first they were nice about asking him to leave but when that didn't help they got violent back, but not even that helps. He is outside on the street screaming and throwing bottles and tries to get back in.
It is still a great night and it feels so good to have such a great night towards the end of the tour. What better way to end the tour than with a great show, broken bottles and puke on the sidewalk.
Some time later when we are gonna go to bed we see the spiritual leader sitting on the sidewalk next to the LSD guy with his arm around him saying something about how he can't stay up and talk anymore cause he has to go to bed.
The LSD-guy sighs and says that he doesn't want to sleep yet. I guess it took a spiritual leader to calm the beast.
Later that night when bisse gets up to use the bathroom he finds the spiritual leader in the hallway peeing into an ashtray. He points this out to the leader who replies "oh" and keeps peeing.
DAY XIII
Zagan, Poland
We all get up about two hours after we went to sleep. There is breakfast in the kitchen for us, as well as a pile of dog-poop on the floor. It always feels good to smell dog-shit in the morning.
Dad also manages to step in the poop, he's been having some bad luck with dogs lately...
We have a 13-hour drive ahead of us and it feels pretty crappy. Baby is laid out on the floor and is in pain every time he moves. The rest of us try to make room and get some sleep.
I cross the border with Lillebror and we pass this no-mans-land called Excalibur City. It is this gross American inspired casino-type place with tax-free everything.
When we get to Prague it is time to say goodbye. Baby gets out of the car and says that he is gonna hug the tour manager even if it kills him. It feels sad and I start thinking about leaving as well. After many hugs, thank you's and a few tears we continue our journey.
We stop on the way and pee and the spiritual leader puke in the bushes. Lillebror go with him and films it. I think we all feel pretty hung over for one reason or another, and the narrow winding roads of Poland doesn't make it any better. I get a little carsick and feel nauseous.
Crossing the border is fine, they talk to us in German and we reply in English and Finnish.
Poland is really beautiful, the nature is so pretty with forests and sunshine and cute little villages along the road. We have to stop in the middle of the road and let a newly wed couple pass us with all their relatives and friends blocking the road. We wave at the happy Poles and keep going.
The woods look like they are taken out of a fairytale and the ground is covered in pink heather.
I feel like getting out of the car and picking mushrooms.
I feel less nauseous after a while but then I get really cold. There is cold air coming from the vents in the truck, since they don't work right, along with a lot of other things in the truck. The brakes, for example, work but they smell really bad whenever driving downhill, and Poland seems to consist only of step hills.
And the third gear doesn't quite work either and a step by the door is falling off as well as the door handle...
Finally we reach the Polish highway the General says that it is like a rodeo and exclaims "Yeeha!".
I look at one of them and am amazed at how he is able to sew on a patch on this road without killing himself or someone else in the process.
It feels so good to be with these boys and know that they handle stressful situations better than most people I know. If we get lost they just swear so much that we all start laughing and then figure out where we need to go, and no one ever blames anyone else for getting us lost.
The spiritual leader is very very hung over and when he gets out to puke I say, "wow, he's awake". He looks at me with a serious face and says, "I'm always awake". I guess that's what makes him the spiritual leader...
Someone asks him how he is doing when we get to Zagan after 13 hours and he says "a little better".
There are quite a few things in the truck that now have started smelling like hockey. Half-rotten towels, and some of their show clothes that haven't ever been washed.
We get to Zagan and a young man takes us to the venue. Zagan is the smallest place we have played in and very strange.
Very Eastern Europe.
The venue is an old bar that kind of looks like time has stopped here. There are Beatles posters on the walls and the place smells old.
A group of kids comes up to us and wants to talk when we are unloading the van. One of them, the oldest one who is probably not older than 10, knows a few words in English and he keeps repeating them. "Hello!" he says and wants to shake our hands.
He asks me for a cigarette and I tell him that we don't have any and that smoking is very bad.
I fake an asthma attack to show them what I mean and that is very appreciated. They want to see what the truck looks like on the inside and laugh at everything that we do.
There are very few kids at the show here and they all sit in the back of the bar and look at us as we eat the food. It is very good and we are being very silly and laugh a lot as always around the dinner table. Lillebror and the General invent some new kind of food flirting and it is hilarious.
I go to a tiny grocery store, which amazingly enough still is open. Me and a Finn manage to buy some bread and apples from someone who doesn't understand a word of what we are saying. We don't understand Polish either for that matter. Some more kids are in there and they too laugh at our pointing and ways to communicate.
The show is better than expected. Baby manages to straighten his back out a little bit and plays guitar standing completely still. The crowd consists of tall, skinny Polish guys wearing plaid shirts tucked in their pants, suspenders and boots. Their pants are pulled up to their nipples. For some reason their fashion reminds me of Nazis.
They dance and raise their fists even though they have never heard the music before and don't know what the bands singing about.
The people who aren't dancing are sitting in the back looking more bored than anyone I have seen in a long time. Anger gives some kind of good bye speech even though none of the Polish kids speak English, and he thanks them and everyone else for a bunch of things. He also says "we have to play a short set cause our guitar player broke his back yesterday". That isn't entirely true but who cares...
Baby's back isn't broken but he is still in a lot of pain. He plays nevertheless, what a true rockstar...
Herodishonest play really well too and after the show a few people buy some records. Some guy asks everyone for autographs including me, since I am pretty much in the band...
The boys have now played a few gigs without showering and start to get really disgusting. We pack the truck for the last time, make ourselves comfortable and get ready for the long drive home.
DAY XIV
Jönköping, Sweden
I fall asleep and sleep for a long time, pretty much unaware of crossing the border. I wake up again when we are in Rostock by the ferry. I go to the tax-free store with some of them and I buy them some candy. They say, "thanks mom".
We have breakfast consisting of really good polish bread, tartex, apples and peanut butter.
When it is time to get in the truck again I can't sleep. I am sitting here writing and thinking about this whole trip and what it has meant.
It feels so unreal that I am gonna leave and not see any of them in a long time.
The drive through Denmark is fine and when we get to the border to Sweden the border guard asks what we have been doing in Europe.
"Vacation?" he asks, and we say yes and also mention that we have played some music. He wants to know what kind of music and our driver makes the mistake of answering "punkrock".
"Punkrock", says the guard and contemplates that for a while, then walks off and talks to his colleague.
We tell our driver to never answer that ever again when someone asks, it's better to say polka or something a lot less threatening.
But then the guard waves for us to continue and we decide that he is a punk in disguise.
I sit here looking at my Finnish friends and their bruised punk rock bodies and ask them what the first thing is that they are gonna do when they get home. We all come to the conclusion that we will have to use the bathroom, eat and sleep all at the same time to be truly satisfied.
The countdown of the kilometers starts.
They are gonna drop me off in Jönköping and then I will take the train home from there.
"Only 114 km left!, someone says and makes a sad face.
I am told the story of how Rebound was started and I make fun of them for playing hockey core, as always.
The countdown continues and we give each other silent looks. We talk a little bit and I think about how fucking much I will miss them.
And then all of a sudden Jönköping is there right in front of us and I get a strange feeling in my stomach. We all get out of the truck and I take a picture of all of us.
Lillebror goes to use the bathroom while I am getting my train ticket and when I realize that there is a train leaving in five minutes I ask someone to go get him. He comes running out of the bathroom and says that he didn't even have time to wipe but that he had to hug me before I leave.
They thank me for coming with them and I say that I am the one who should thank them. They say that I better write and I promise that I will.
I get on the train and start crying almost immediately.
I look out the window and see the red beast drive by and wish that I could have gone with them.
I'm now on the train crying like a baby even though I don't want to.
I'm gonna miss them all so much.
It's so quiet here and lonely.
I have learned so much these two weeks about them, and about myself.
I never thought when I saw the hedgehog and decided to go with them that it would be this amazing.
The silence is screaming in my ears and I feel empty but at the same time absolutely filled.
With wonderful memories.
Well..
I guess that's truck driving...