We woke up early-ish to catch our train. Dirk had prepared us a continental breakfast, which we enjoyed before he and Jossip walked us to the bus stop, where we spoke about Canada's strange names for its one and two dollar coins until the bus came (loonie? Twonie?..). It was cold and misty, a bit refreshing after all the heat, and all our train connections went smoothly even though most of them were only 5 minutes. We arrived in Leiden, two hours early for our sound check, which was nice, because it gave us time to explore the charming city a bit. We had lunch by the canal, watching the boat passengers duck as they passed under the bridges, and made sure to tip all the local buskers.

Edoardo from Minderbinder music had booked this show for us, and he also did the sound for us at the Duke of Oz, an Australian bar in one of the squares. We were doing an afternoon/early evening set, and Sergio Escondez, a great local musician, played first with his band. There was a good crowd, not packed, but nice for a cloudy Sunday afternoon. We played a short set, since we were also booked to play a second show at a nearby restaurant. We played a lot of songs that afternoon, it was great! In the restaurant we played unplugged and the acoustics were great because of the high ceilings and brick/stucco walls. We were then served a great dinner of baked potatoes stuffed with many ingredients so that it was a massive plate of goodness. Edoardo was hosting us at his house that night, his parents' place that was a short drive out of town. His band was also recording that night, and it was great hanging with all these super nice local musicians who then turned out to be very talented. We got to enjoy the recording session from upstairs while we looked through all our pictures from the last two weeks. Hard to believe all we've seen!

A couple of the songs on Edoardo's band's EP were going to be acoustic. We mentioned that they should make use of the talented violinist that was staying over that night, and they thought it was a good idea. So around midnight, after late night cake and beer, Aliza added some nice tracks to the songs. The singer really has a beautiful delicate voice, and the violin really fit in well. Good timing, it was serendipitous to be traveling through just then...