"Schlepp". verb. Meaning to drag...from the German "Schleppen". Not Yiddish, as I'd assumed.
Any tour of sufficient length involves schlepping your stuff around a bit. There are great venues and hotels and then odd venues and hotels. In and out, back and forth, up and down, is what touring is all about. Furious activity preceded and followed by non-activity. And city can change to country quickly.
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You may see interesting touristy things, but only for a very brief time, so you have to get it while you can. My efforts to condense my luggage into one titanic bag have made schlepping on and off trains a new form of weight lifting. But hey whatever works. I think I'm already getting bigger.
All during this tour (and practically everywhere else), George and John have been hitting the local golf courses, and we always get a few good Golfing Adventure stories from them. Impressive dedication to schlepp around those clubs...
After our first two shows' steamy interiors, things cooled down a bit and the train brought us to rural Germany's little town of Marienthal. This village appears to have money, but things move at a slower pace here. We stayed in a place called Haus Elmer, which turned out to be a large German bed & breakfast located in front of a little old catholic church and cloister, and one of the prettiest church graveyards I've ever seen. Each grave site seemed to have been created by a different artist. Lots of trees and birds and a few cows around. A good number of bugs.
Marienthal Audience
The Germans in both city and country seem to look at air conditioning in any building or vehicle as only a sometimes-necessary evil. A van driver actually scowled after we requested air to keep Kevin's children from melting into multicolored puddles (ok - and me into some sort of light brown fudge). Any fan of the Mythbusters TV show in the USA knows that it's actually slightly more fuel efficient to use A/C than to roll the windows down (due to drag from open windows). More often than not, things in Germany are at room
temperature or more. I opened my second floor room windows and went about my business. Only to come back several times and find a couple large spiders and other bugs had quickly entered. When that happens enough, you start to check under the sheets before bed and put up with closed windows and a warm room at night. And no internet either. What's a 21st century dude to do? For all the nice rural ambience, I started to miss cities.
The show: outside, directly behind Haus Elmer and in front of the church. Cool and breezy temperatures and clear skies. A great success. The sun set over the crowd. Later that night our hosts treated us to a gourmet meal at the hotel restaurant, and we sat peacefully outside at long tables.
Marienthal Dinner - Andrea and George
Cologne, Germany, home of the famous old "eau de Cologne" and origin of our common word for perfume, is actually called "Köln" by the Germans. One syllable. It's the home of the famous Cologne (or Köln) Cathedral...a truly massive place....gigantic. It took centuries to build, starting in the 1200's, and it's a highlight of our trip to this city. We briefly had a show planned for Cologne, which was cancelled due to unsuccessful promotion, but the scheduling created a day and a half of sightseeing in the city.
Cologne Cathedral
Andrea, Fred, and I were the first Rockapelloids to visit the Cathedral. After wandering around with mouths open and taking a lot of photos, we bravely ascend one of the massive towers via a narrow staircase, arriving first at the massive church bell area, then going even higher. When we finally got back down to the ground, we were a bit wobbly.
The second day in the city brought Rockapella to the Lindt Chocolate Museum, which featured a working truffle machine, vintage chocolate molds, historical materials and packaging, cocoa-harvesting displays, and a massive chocolate store. I ate a small pile of shop items very quickly and full of guilt. It was like going to the Wonka factory. The evening ended with a group Mexican food dinner. The cheese is a little different here, but a burrito is a burrito...
Sign leading to the chocolate museum
With playtime over, next was Baden-Baden. The town so nice they named it twice. Don't ask me why. Rather than staying in the city area, we were housed and performed in the rural area around it. This isolated zone was dead quiet. I'm guessing people either sleep there after working elsewhere, or they go there to die? But it seemed friendly enough when you actually found people to talk to.
The show was at a combination recreation center and performance space, adjacent to giant indoor badminton courts. Fred The Soundman was tearing his remaining hair out after equipment we contractually requested was not provided. The venue and ticket sales were small - under 200, and things didn't look good for this one.
Things can often look darker than they are. With his usual tenacity, Fred turned things around and the audience proved to be one of the best....with people from our previous tours in Europe attending! In addition to the friendly Germans, a few fans from Spain, Italy, and even Brazil introduced themselves. The Brazilians had planned part of their European vacation around our show. We need to get to Brazil. It looks like die-hard Rockapella fandom isn't limited to the USA. Dinner from the small venue restaurant was tasty too.
Our final show arrived, and it's a truly big finish to the tour. Lauchheim is home to the Kapfenburg "castle" hotel, which sits on a big green hill above a few small villages. The locals and tourists come to the concert series at this castle and perform on a big outdoor stage within the walls. The views are amazing, and there's pingpong and fooseball in the area we're sleeping in. Opening for us are the talented multi-ethnic European a cappella group, Flowalicious.
View from the hilltop
Scott went running today in the forested area near Kapfenburg. The green peaceful surroundings lulled him into a hypnotic 12 mile run, during which he lost track of time. As he described it, it was like running through a Lord Of The Rings movie, with nothing but the ancient forest around him, then he'd come upon some ancient castle-like structure suddenly. After encountering no other people, he heard the clip-clop of a horse approaching, which caused some alarm. A man sat atop the beast and tipped his hat. As the sun got lower and lower in the sky, Scott suddenly realized things might be getting a bit late, so he turned and sped back to Kapfenburg...all 12 miles back...
The show was terrific and quite funny, and the night air was perfectly cool. We've already been asked back. Everybody had a fun time, as with the other shows this week, sprinkling German throughout the show. Kevin's "Speedo" gag for Under The Boardwalk was replaced by "badehosen"... Beer jokes appear throughout, and at the end of the last encore the venue presented us with 5 large steins of Germany's finest across the front edge of the stage. John and I pretended to sip, and the rest took a taste before squeezing out Zombie Jamboree for a final goodbye.
Final show in Lauchheim
All this stuff almost makes me forget that we have to leave at 5am the next day to get trains to the airport for our flights back to the USA. I bought the final Harry Potter book, in English, and I'm ready. 8 hours in the air will be spent sleeping, and reading that thing before someone can spoil it for me.
Things you probably didn't know about German life:
1. Solar electric panels, solar heating panels, and cool giant power-generating windmills are often seen outside the cities. They're way
ahead of things on that point here.
2. BMWs and Mercedes cars are quite common - including big vans and a few taxis. Tiny "Smart Cars" also, especially in cities.
3. Eggs have a digital code printed on their shells telling where and how they were farmed. Organic, indoor, outdoor, etc.
4. Drinks of all types almost never have ice in them. They're just chilled and warm up quickly. You have to ask for such an exotic thing as ice.
5. Beer here is actually cheaper than both soda and bottled water. Huh? No really. I cannot make this stuff up.
We'll be back in November!
-Jeff
Click here to view more photos from Rockapella's Germany trip.
Click here to read Greetings From Europe - Part I
Click here to read Greetings From Europe - Part II
Stimmen Festival Video Recap
