Europe Day 1

As this European tour is a bit of a unique experience, I'm going to do my best to try and document it a bit more comprehensively than I do our normal travels. So, you know, I can live vicariously through myself when I turn 35...and am working at the local Blockbuster. 

Following our day off in Vegas (which was, as a side note, not a very good idea), we headed up to Park City, UT for our final headlining date before heading out of the country. Park City was good, though the impending overnight drive made it a bit hard to fully enjoy the show. 

The overnight drive was terrible. After pulling off the road to use the bathroom in the middle of Wymoning, Matt happened upon an elderly man doing cocaine off the sink. At 730 in the morning. I hate Wyoming.

We blasted through Fort Collins, picked up a our first hard copies of the Confessions of Mr. Modest (!!), and headed down to DIA to hop our first of three flights that would eventually lead us over the Atlantic. 1 "lost" Serato box, $300 of extra bagge fees, and a whole lot of confusion later, Grieves and I found ourselves on a packed United flight to Boston. I sat next to two women who spent the entire 4 hour trip consternating over bed spreads and drapes. It was like being trapped in a flying episode of the View. 

We landed in Boston, left security, re-checked in to our IcelandAir flight, we went back through security, ate "The World's Best Hot Sandwich" (severely mis-represented), and boarded a flight to Reykjavik. 5 sleepless stuck in between two very large, snoring, Skandanavian dudes later....Iceland. 

As I was getting ready to exit the plane, I heard someone shout "Budo??" from the rear of the aircraft...a bunch of kids on the flight had caught our most recent Burlington, VT date. Really, really surreal to be recognized in Iceland. Pretty awesome!

Grieves and I killed the hour of free time we had at the Reykjavik airport trying to digest as much local culture as is possible from within the confines of an international airport..i.e., we ate breakfast....or lunch, or dinner, or whatever the goddamn meal was appropriate to my screwed up internal clock. Whatever it was, the airport furnished an incredibly delicious breakfast buffet, complete with gravlaks, poached eggs, fresh fruit, and rye crackers...reminded me of the year I spent in Norway as a kid. No, seriously. Unfortunately, the Icelandic candy that I purchased as an after-meal treat was not so delicious. It was, honestly, the most horrifyingly disgusting thing I've ever consumed...with a taste somewhere in between dead fish and cigarette butts. After choking on my first (and last) piece in the boarding line, the lady behind me remarked "They're sugar free!" Sure, but so is horse shit.

Another 3 hour flight and we finally landed in Copenhagen. Following a remarkably painless baggage collection process 9 bags between two dudes is pretty ridiculous, we made it through customs without a hitch and were met by our dear friend Johan, whom we met and traveled with on the Cunninlynguists/Looptroop tour last November. He's a huge part of the reason that we were able to make this tour feasibly work, and has really graciously opened his home to Grieves and I for the Scandinavian portion of this run. 

After an odd lunch spent in a Lund burger spot, watching Mariah Carey music videos on a massive flat screen TV with the sound all the way down and weird Swedish marching band music piped over the PA system, I took a long run through this little college town in the very South of Sweden. Though the white-washed palate of an un-characteristically cold winter has imparted a slight hue of post-communist Russia on my surroundings, I'm really really really happy to be here. 

Tonight, a beer or two and then as much sleep as is humanely possible before we head down to Copenhagen tomorrow to join the US tour! Oh, and our Rhymesayers debut 88 Keys and Counting comes out tomorrrrrrrow!!

And thus concludes the longest blog I've ever posted.