A JOURNEY TO THE UNITED KINGDOM
Entry Six

We’re off to Birmingham where we will stay put in the same hotel for a few days. We are hoping to score another safe parking garage to tuck away the van and all our gear. The one BIG thing I did not get around to was checking on insurance for our gear. Another thing I didn’t get around to getting was a GPS system that we could be using- right about now. I thought they were too expensive but I think I would pay double for one especially if it had an English accent and could make roundabouts a breeze. We drive around for at least a half hour in the city trying to make sense of the internet directions paired with my useless European atlas. We finally cave in and stop for directions to our hotel and purchase a city map with way more detail than we can take. This very cool local guy offers to lead us straight to our hotel using his trusty GPS. The only thing is that I have to keep on him doing u-turns and through the crazy roundabouts in bumper-to-bumper traffic, which strands us for at least 45min in a one-block area. He gets out at one point and says its just right over there and points. I feel sick that we have trapped someone trying to help us out. It’s tricky to ride so close that someone doesn’t squeeze in… or roll back… or me jerk forward with my graceless clutch action. My goal is to not hit or be hit on this trip. We are not counting the guy and his side mirror. When we finally make it and can cut the guy loose, we hand him a cd and he has a huge grin on his face. We get settled into the hotel room and calm down a little bit. The room is awesome. First of all you get to use your room key card to power up the room. You just keep it in the slot by the door and you have power for the lights, TV, and heater. When you leave you grab your card and everything powers off. It’s a very cool invention and I wish we would have thought of installing something like this when we had all of the wiring sprawled out during the remodeling of the band room. We have a great view of a cooking school across the way and I watch them making stuff through the windows- just like the Food Channel. They get busy really early in the morning and at night the whole thing was lit up with those glowing blue fluorescent antibacterial light things. I bet they can see all of our food that we kept stashed in the freezing cold windowsill. We have to rig up a little cooler system up in the window for Troy’s veggies and yogurt so they would stay cool. It works!! At least this hotel had a machine to dispense ice- by the cup that is - not by the bucket loads like at home. I will never get use to how little they give you in your drinks if you get it at all. We decide to go out walking around to see the city. There is no way we are taking the van- never even crossed our minds after sitting in that one block for 45min. We head to the city library where we can email our friends and family for free. I keep trying to call home with my credit card swiping it in all the payphones but can’t get it to work anywhere, and of course I can’t find a calling card. Next time we are springing for one of the disposable internet phones where the calls are about a buck a minute. I’ve learned for next time to do all that stuff at the airport where it is right there handy- I have wasted loads of time looking around for that stuff now and can’t find anything. The library is hooked onto a mall with a food court but as usual everything is closed- except for McDonald’s. Outside the library there is a huge amphitheater with a huge video screen in the background. We immediately day dream about putting on a free show there the “next” time. I ask Troy how crazy the sound would be bouncing off of all the buildings surrounding it- and he said pretty crazy but we can do it. We stroll into a Hard Rock café and there is a signed guitar by David Gilmore. It looks like it is just propped up on the ledge- not locked up in some glass case. I can’t believe someone hasn’t grabbed the thing- wait till we tell Steve-O. We decide that we would like to play here too!! Just our luck that the booking agent isn’t in until the day we are leaving. Maybe next time… They have the coolest shirts, but with the exchange rate they would be about $40. Maybe we could play for food and merch. Back to the room to watch some weird British shows on TV.