North America Guitar Tour - spin off
To Italy
July 28, 2008
I woke up just before 7 and went out to the balcony, and the couple was still fast asleep. I was careful not to wake them up, but the sound of a train arriving at the station just below woke her up. As we were talking and looking at the picture-postcard like scenery, Mr. G got up and made me some coffee. Soon the boyfriend woke up too and started getting ready. They said they had to go back to Berlin by the end of the day, so they couldn't take it easy. I was surprised to see her getting changed right in front of me, but I guess it's not a big deal here.
The couple and the dog left in a hurry, and Mr. G left for work shortly after, and said he'd be back at 3 o'clock. Since I had a Eurorail pass, I was planning to take the train to Zurich, where the night train to Florence departs, but Mr. G offered to drive me there, so I decided to take advantage of his kindness.
Now that I had some time to myself for the first time in a while, I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. Unlike at night, the streets of Bregenz were bustling with tourists during the day, with souvenir shops lining the streets.
I returned to the apartment once and lazed around until noon, replying to comments and messages on YouTube on Mr. G's computer and changing the strings. After that, when I was playing on the balcony to loosen the new strings, I saw a woman in a bathrobe waving from the terrace of the apartment next door, so I waved back. It was a weekday afternoon, but it felt like a scene from a movie.
Mr. G returned home a little before 3 o'clock, and when I asked him about the woman in the bathrobe across the street, he said she was quite elderly. From a distance, her blonde hair sparkled in the sunlight, so she didn't look old...
I packed my things while Mr. G was taking a shower, and left the apartment before 4 o'clock. There had been a couple there the day before, so we didn't talk much to each other, but he had lived in New York for a few years, and I had been there a few times when I was in Boston, and he talked about that and how he was struggling with whether he should get back together with his ex-girlfriend (I assume a different girl from the one left apartment this morning) , and then we reached the Swiss border. I took out my passport just in case, but a border guy just took a quick look inside the car and let us through. There were a lot of cars in Zurich, and contrary to my expectations, it was a pretty messy city. We were both hungry, so we found a suitable parking lot and decided to go to a healthy restaurant that Mr. G had been to before. It was a buffet-style restaurant, and nothing looked very appetizing to me, I am a picky eater, so I chose whatever I could eat and filled my stomach. After that, we went to a coffee shop nearby and had an Italian-style espresso. It's a sake cup-like coffee cup that holds a quantity that you can drink in one gulp.
As the train was about to depart, we decided to head to the station. There was a lot of traffic in front of the station and there was no place to park the car, so we asked Mr. G to drop me off at a place where I could see the platform, and said goodbye there. I had just decided to go to Bregenz at the last minute because he was Mr. B's colleague, but it was the perfect two days to relieve the fatigue of a long journey. Even though there were about 10 minutes until departure time, the platform column on the electronic bulletin board was still blank. Just like when I went from London to Liverpool, they said they didn't know until the last minute. It was a pretty big station, so I was worried that if I was at a distant platform, I wouldn't make it, but I had no choice but to wait for the display on the electronic bulletin board to change while being ready to start running at any moment. Fortunately, it was a nearby platform, so I was able to avoid any problems, but if you're used to the Japanese railway system, this vagueness is surprising.
列The train was quite old, a complete change from the modern German ones I had seen up until then. Since it was a sleeper car, the conductor had to check my ticket before boarding, and although I had no idea what he was saying in Italian, I understood from his gesture that it was okay to board. The difference between a shared room and a private room was about 5,000 yen. I was tired at the end of the trip, so I splurged a little and got a private room, but the room was quite old-fashioned, and although the door facing the corridor was locked, the door to the next room had no locking knob. On the other side, they had secured the door with something like a stepladder to prevent it from opening, but it was a poor temporary fix that left it half-open every time the train stopped at a station. Shortly after departure, the conductor came to take my passport (because we were crossing the border in the middle of the night), and when I asked if door to next compartment could be shut a little more tightly, he told me to hold my valuables and go to sleep. When we left Zurich, the room next to me was empty, so I hoped that no one would get on, so I did as I was told and put my valuables under my pillow, and I was watching Tora-san on my MacBook and before I knew it, fell asleep.
*The people appearing in this article have been given their initials until their identities can be confirmed.
Contents
Introduction
Until Departure
Seattle
To California
Day Off
Sunnyvale
To La
LA 2 Days
To Tucson
Albuquerque
To Colorado (beginning of Miracle)
Berthoud
Denver
to Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City 2 days
To Texas
San Antonio
Georgetown
Dallas
Houston 2 Days
Benton
Nashville (CAAS)
Roswell
Tampa 2 Days
Miami
Orland 2 Days
Myrtle Beach
Chapel Hill 3 Days
Kingsport
To Indiana
Indiana State Fingerstyle Guitar Festival
To Staten Island
Manhattan
Phillipsburg
Nazareth (Martin Guitar Factory)
To Massachusetts (end of Miracle)
Methuen
To Montreal
To Buffalo
Meadvill A Day Before
Meadvill Ghost Hotel
Detroit
Chicago
Minneapolice
Spin Off #1
Spin Off #2 "EU Tour IN 2008 / Until Departure
Czech 1
Czech 2
London
Liverpool
Chesham
To Germany
Lemgo
Ingolstadt
Bregenz
To Italy
Florence
The Last Gig
Going Home