It was nice to be in a hotel for two nights, because we actually got to sleep in the day of the show and didn't have to wake up early and check out. We woke up five minutes before the continental breakfast ended, and even though we were quite tired and could have slept in more, we stumbled down the stairs bleary-eyed and made it to breakfast. Yes, we were those annoying guests. It was a misty, gray day, but looked like it might get sunny again, so we made our way downtown for some sight-seeing. We didn't make it to the historic waterfront, but we did enjoy some strolls through the old part of town with some nice markets and austere churches. We had a very filling lunch of bratwursts and beer, and then went to our first department store of the trip to get some socks.. We also went book shopping, since I had already plowed through two books, and I bought my self the complete set of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which I finished 9 days later).

We went back to the hotel and got ready for the show, and made the decision to go to Berlin for our next days off. We also got an email from an old Australian neighbour of mine named Carly, who asked us if we would be coming through Cologne, where she now lives. I met Carly and her roommates when I was living for a month in the McGill ghetto. They were living across from me, and were always having a party on their front steps ('the stoop'). When I first moved in, they called me over to play some guitar for them, and from that time on, I had a dedicated audience and friends to drink with anytime from noon to 5AM. I figured I would see her again in Australia some time, but luckily, while she was procrastinating doing her homework, she 'facebook-stalked' me, and saw that I was on a European tour. I asked her if she knew somewhere to play in Cologne, very short notice since it was only 5 days before we'd be there, but luckily she happens to have a musician boyfriend, Ben, who is in the scene in Cologne and got us a gig. We were happy to get the gig, which helped fill in a quiet week in our tour.

We had booked the hotel purposefully close to Prinz Willy, and it was a nice ten minute stroll through a residential neighbourhood to the venue. Prinz Willy is a really nice cafe/bar in a cozy neighbourhood. Willy made us some amaaaaazing sandwiches, and we had some time to soak in the atmosphere before the show. Willy was the first person of our tour to ask us to play two sets, and we were really excited because we got to play more songs in one show. Here's the point in the story where we tell about the amazing audience. The bar was L-shaped, and we were also playing amplified, so normally under these conditions people will talk a lot- either they don't have a good vantage point and become distracted, or think they can talk because the music is loud enough. This was not the case. For both our sets, we experienced absolute silence and focus. Even for the second set, when we figured not everyone would return, even more people came, and within 15 seconds of the start of the set, everyone's attention was on us. We were very appreciative of this experience. It was really special for us to have people listening that well. We can assume that this was the case because people came out to Prinz Willy specifically to see us play, after seeing a caption about our show in the local paper.

After the show we chatted with some locals and met a nice older couple who told us all about the great beaches and sailing traditions of Kiel. There were too many things to do in one tour; we wanted to stay and swim, but we were off to explore Berlin..