I got up this morning at 5:25...

...and went to work.
That's how the story ends.
How it begins?

Well.
Eskimo Joe are a good Australian band. I saw them earlier this year, in March, in the Magnet Bar in Berlin. I saw a while ago that they were playing in the same bar on June 23rd, which was a Tuesday night. I thought to myself "hmmm... I don't really want to use up a day of holiday allowance just to go to Berlin and see this band again."
But I did want to go.
But wait, there's a way to do both!
Und zwar:

Straight after work yesterday, I went home and packed and went and met a guy who was going to drive me there - mitfahrgelegenheit.de - ride sharing - you find someone going where you want to go and pay them a bit of petrol money. 10€ in this case - better than a train, safer than hitch-hiking.

I dropped my stuff off at this guy's apartment - I found him through CouchSurfing, and was lucky to receive a positive response to my totally freeloading request of just one night, leaving early next day.

I headed to Magnet Bar a bit before the gig started, and was right up the front for the whole thing. There was a band before Eskimo Joe - The Alexandria Quartet, an alternative rock band of Norway/London origin. Really good stuff! I enjoyed their set so much that I bought a CD and a T-shirt, plus I got a set-list off the stage and had the guys sign it. Now I have 3 signed setlists. Woo!

Eskimo Joe came on and rocked the place up as usual, though I have to be slightly critical - it wasn't as good as the March concert. This is partly to do with the sound mix - for most of the songs, there was too much lead guitar and not enough rhythm guitar or vocals. Bass was sometimes up sometimes down. It made it sound less full. The other reason is one that's just my opinion - although I love their new album, Inshalla, I don't think that these songs played live sound as good as the songs off their other albums played live. The recordings are good enough though, maybe that can be attributed to sound engineering.

ANYWAY. I enjoyed myself. Eskimo Joe didn't come and join the rest of us after the gig, unfortunately, but I got stuff signed back in March. I was happy with talking to The Alexandria Quartet, then heading back to the apartment to get some much-needed sleep.

So if you were wondering why I got up so early to go to work, I woke up IN BERLIN FOOLS! I got dressed and packed my sleeping bag away and said a quick goodbye to my host. I negotiated the public transport system back to Schöneweide, where I had been dropped the previous day, because ironically, it was the same driver bringing me back to Dresden! I tried to sleep in the car but couldn't really manage it. I was dropped at Bahnhof Neustadt and took a tram to work, arriving about 20 minutes late. But I had warned the teacher of my group today that I might be about 20 minutes late, she was all cool.

Basically, I managed it! It all went off without a hitch! It cost me a bit of money but more importantly, I saved a whole day of holiday allowance that might just give me an extra day of relaxing in Portugal, or something.

Ollie gets back today from his adventures in Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.