Booking a tour in Europe when no one has heard of you before is almost as hard as hitchhiking across the Galaxy (or Canada). But somehow we managed to do it (book the tour that is – and I hitchhiked across Canada, hopefully the Galaxy soon).

While booking this tour, we would send sometimes a hundred emails, and maybe here back from one person. And sometimes not for weeks. Aliza and I gathered a database of a few hundred venues, ones we heard about from friends, and others that we found when looking for artists like ourselves touring in Europe.

One of the places we heard about from a friend was the Mobile Blues Club. This bar is built in a trailer of an eighteen-wheeler. Once upon a time it moved around, but it found a good home in a parking lot in Hamburg and settled in. The problem was that we didn't have an address and didn't know in which parking lot in Hamburg it was resting. We hadn't heard back from the manager either, and so we asked a friend who we knew had played there where it was. We also google-mapped just the name, and it gave us a location. It was a similar neighbourhood as the address our friend gave us, but basically we had two locations to somehow find in this unknown city.

We had arrived just before check-in began at the hotel and experienced, for the first time in Europe, a rude employee. Oh well. Our hotel was just a block and half away from that intensely busy Hauptbahnhoff (central station) that we had been through a few days prior. It was also a really rowdy neighbourhood, not bad, just loud. We were given a room just above ground level, and just above the bar. It was so loud and already drunken at 2pm, that we had to ask for another room. I had to go politely ask the rude reception girl to move us, which she did but I think only because her manager was in room this time.

In our new room we took advantage of the internet ethernet cable to make a call to my parents in montreal. We used gmail phone, and it was free and great. Gotta love these futuristic services. Aliza and I had a great talk with my mom and dad, and also my little sister Emily happened to be there too (for the bro's bday the day before). It is great having a supportive and interested and engaged family when one is far away from home and doing something new and unknown :)

We had a couple of hours to walk around town and have a late lunch. We found an OK place to eat, but I made the error of ordering pasta. You see, you should never eat pasta, (when not in Italy), before a show. This is very important. But of course, one gets hungry and one has to eat. But I suffered the consequences and lapsed into a food-coma-nap for two hours, and had to be torn awake by Aliza...

We still had to find this mysterious Mobile Blues Club. I stumbled with post-pasta bleary eyes through the madhouse of the Hauptbahnhof with Aliza staring at me pitifully. I thankfully found a double espresso that dragged my brain back into full consciousness.

We managed to vector in on the Mobile Blues, somewhere between google and friend. But turns out we were two hours early for the show, and since we were playing acoustic, we didn't need to soundcheck. The owner of the club was a super nice guy, and his english wasn't as bad as our german, so we were able to figure some stuff out. He had set the trailer up on the grassy edge a parking lot a year or two ago, and supposedly doesn't have to move it until the city builds something there. He had set up tables and christmas lights, and so had a really charming terrace. The stage was inside the trailer at the far end. The place actually looked (and smelt) like a funky little attic apartment. Seventies décor, and orange lights and an out of tune piano, wrought iron stools and twisted tables.

To kill two hours, we hoped back on the U, and went to harbour. Aliza got some ice cream and I got some beer, and we sat on a boat overlooking this important junction between land and sea. We even saw a boat called the Montreal Express and we tried to imagine the journeys this boat had taken across the Atlantic.

We decided to play two short sets, so that the crowd could move around and talk a little. It was a nice show, we had a rotating audience of twenty or so people in the small intimate room. We met some nice people at set break, and again at the end of the show. We were again pleasantly surprised at the listening skills of these folks; with no amplification and a busy street outside, they all were very quiet and listened attentively.

The owner later told Aliza that he was a musician and had made this club because he also had a passion for mechanics; the perfect joining – truck and music....