central & eastern europe 17

Ruse in Bulgaria was the last city we played at on our journey.
Again everyone was super helpful and supportive throughout those 4
days of rehearsals and intense song writing.
The concert took place on thursday at the Canetti Haus - an old
building owned by the Canetti family. The space was very rough and
really cold. It was probably the smallest place we performed at
during the last 4 weeks but it was also something special and much
more exciting than a normal club.
About 50 people came to the show - a very mixed audience - 13 year
old music students and over 60 year olds who came out of curiosity
standing side by side listening to our one and a half hour set.
We had to learn four new pieces on this tour which we all performed
that night + 2 older pieces from our repertoire. For the first time
it really was quite stressful recalling all the things from the
compositions and I realized that I should have taken more notes
during rehearsals. We did some mistakes - a computer crashed, a cell
phone rang, someone started the wrong piece at the wrong time, a
mixer broke... but the audience was very friendly and we all had a
few laughs during the set and looking back now it actually was a
pretty good concert.
Afterwards we all went out for dinner and drinks and of course to
celebrate.

The next day was an official off day which some of us (including me)
used to rent a car to get out of Ruse and explore some more of Bulgaria.
We went to a wonderful monastery in the mountains, some ancient ruins
and a great little town called Veliko Tarnovo. We did some really
touristy stuff, had a fantastic lunch on a balcony overlooking the
whole city and walked and walked and walked.
On saturday our taxi from the future took us back to Bucarest from
where we took a plane back to Berlin.

Thanks to everyone who made this journey possible, thanks to the
Laptop Boys and thank you for following this little diary.

talk soon - Stephane

(in the photos: the old house surrounded by trees is not the venue
but the monastery)