the last post

so, this will be the last post on this blog. The trip is over, I am back in Amsterdam and do what people do here ;)
America has left a deep impression on me and the plan is to go back to the US in 2009. I am not sure yet when exactely and for how long, but I will figure that out. Again, thank y'all for visiting this blog and if you want check out my new website/blog about me and my music go to: www.micha-schellhaas.com
Ah, one last detail that might be interesting. On my way from Connecticut to the south, the desert, California, the rocky mountains and back to Connectiut I drove 19.000 km. That's 12.000 miles. phew! ;)

see you soon!

Flashback: L.A./Venice Beach

So folks. I am back in Amsterdam since beginning of this week. And already the speed of the city has gotten to me... I have to find a place, make 2983 phonecalls and write even more emails, organize rehearsals and I also played my first gig this weekend. BUT I have a good feeling about all of this, I took lots of motivation and inspiration from my trip and I will try as good as I can to continue with this good energy (hehe, it's gonna be hard though when the rainy days come ;) There is a lot to do in the rest of this year, I decided to try singing in my rock band, so that we can finally start recording and putting an album together. Well, if it doesn't work I at least ruin my own music and not someone elses, hehe! But I will write about all of this, maybe here, maybe I will start another blog (because this is a travel blog, right) or get my website back up again finally...

ANYWAY, here are the pictures from Los Angeles! Remember, after L.A. I couldn't get my hands on a mac computer to access my Ipod and to upload these pictures... Well, here we go!

I stayed one week in Venice Beach/L.A. with Vikki. She was really great and took me out to lots of cool places and partys! Most of L.A. though is rather,... hmmm,... how to say... boring! It just goes on forever in the style you see in the pic above. BUT, if you are in the right company and you hit the good spots, it rocks!!! ;)

goin' crazy in Venice Beach

the pier at night

Venice Beach!

what I didn't knew, those palmtrees are actually an import... If humans would leave california untouched, it would actually be destert. But thanks to us L.A. has those cool palmtrees which follow the sun during the day with their crowns. Cool!

looking down from Hollywood Boulevard into the city

well, and this was funny (NOT). I did not see the sign that you are not allowed to park on the street from 2-6 pm or something like that. I went to check out a guitar shop, and after 10 minutes my car was already pulled up by this truck. They are fast there! Luckyly they accept credit card and for 150 dollar turtle got off the hook again, haha!
What totally helped me to overcome this oh so unuseful waste of money was that a few minutes later I played an 1964 Fender Stratocaster in the "Guitar Center Vintage Shop", which was in perfect condition and was defnetly one (if not THE) best guitar I ever touched. Problem: the beauty was 80.000 dollar. Gulp. Well, lucky me, there was another one which was slightly banged up, but same year and sounded EVEN BETTER to me. And it was only 64.000 dollar (yes, sixtyfourthousand). I will start saving tomorrow. Wanna donate? Ev'ry dollar is welcome ;)

and in the small back streets of Venice Beach you find those beautiful jewels of houses...
they are unpayable of course for people like you and me, hehe

on Abbot Kinney in Venice, one of the main streets

next to Vikki's house

on the beach at night...

... and during the day!

this wall is especially for graffitty artists. With permission you can spray here. Which is nice, the motive changes every few days!

buy your slippers and hats here

just outside (north) of L.A.

californian sunset

I could totally live there!

of course, there was one more thing to do...

... to see this!

the streets of L.A. at night

I am not done here yet,... there will still be more! So keep checking back!
By the way, thank you all for coming here and reading my stories. It was so nice to see that people checked every day! It really helped me to go on with the blog, and when I was somewhere alone I was thinking about that I am gonna post the pictures I took, and that like this I can share my travel with all of you - plus, I never felt really "alone" :-)

that's all for now, see you later!

Bye Bye America!

Alright, I am back in germany! Totally tired, because I travelled without sleeping and had again a full day in germany... That makes 24 hours nonstop, hehe ;)
But now things settle down and I have lots to do and to organize for the next few months here in europe. I will stay 10 more days in germany and then go back to Amsterdam, to pick up all my activity there. But first, check out my very last days in AMERICA...

from Connecticut I took the train back to New York City... a very nice 2 hours ride

rollin' rollin' rollin' ...

and I found my way to Brookly, where I would stay in the "Dharmatory" for the next 2 nights

Manhattan stays impressive, altough I have a different view on things, now after my trip. I think for my personally it would be a bit to hectic to live here, but it's surely fun to visit !!!

and Chinatown again

at the left side: Jon and Sam

the next day I met Jon who studies at the New School in Manhattan. He is a killing piano player and plays with quite some names in the city. We jammed a bit in the school, had some very interesting talks and then went for a coffee in this cool place. There we met Sam, a very charming girl from Montana :) (countryside girls rock!)

on Marcin's rooftop in Brooklyn, the day of my departure. It was a loooong day: waking up in Brooklyn, packing my stuff, taking the sub to Manhattan, discovering my VISA card was broken (I don't know folks, the damn thing wouldn't give me any money anymore! what's that! and I was about to pay my Kansas speeding ticket... eehhh. I suspect that the card is broken and that I have to get it fixed. Do you know somebody who can repair credit cards ?! ;) HEHE.
Well, then when I left from Penn station the train lost power in the tunnel and they had to drag us back to Manhattan and we had to take another train. I was super late for my flight but I made it. Phew!

flying high !

My dad picked me up in Frankfurt and we went straight to a german VOLKSFEST where I had original LEBERKNÖDEL and live music. It's diffrent than Texas for sure, HAHA! (Did you see "Schulze gets the Blues" ? After being up for 24 hours I finally got to bed... and I was dreaming about... AMERICA!

That's not the end of this blog yet, folks!
Come back and see more aftershock posts and pictures soon!

Driving Back East -- Part II

Ok folks, I did it !!! I am back to where I started... At the moment I stay with Tasso and Carlinde in Connecticut , but thursday I will visit New York City again, for the last 3 days of my stay. But first check out what happend on my way from Colorado back to the East Coast...

Driving staight east from colorado you enter the great plains... I had a 26 hour drive ahead of me, which I pulled of pretty much staight, with only a few naps in the car. By the way, the dentist in Colorado Springs gave me a root canal, and everything seemed to be fine at first, but yesterday the tooth (or better, the nerve or whats left of it) started to give word again. Grrrr. This gets annoying. Anyway I am pretty fine and in a good mood, and I will have it fixed again if it needs to back in europe.

open sky all around... the landscape was fantastic!

but after a while, well. As you see there was not much to see, hehe ;)

driving towards the rising sun

at about 1.30 am I pulled over to a rest area. I made myself as comfortable as possible and got some sleep. At 4.30 a good friend from Nashville called me and we were talking on the phone for quite a bit. It was super fun and I was awake again. So I continued driving and I saw this beautiful sunRISE...

I passed a few citys, this is Kansas City if I remember it right. The drive was great but also veeeeery long I tell you. Well, 2600 km is a serious distance!

one of Rob's Z's

Well, but I made it and at the end of the 2nd day I was back in West Virginia at Rob's and Linda's house! We had a good time talking about lots of things, playing guitar (watch this: http://www.youtube.com/v/oRtXRusvWtc me playing Rob's 1957 Gibson 175. WOW what a guitar... !!!!!) and I took the Gibson 345 I saw on my first visit. I will enjoy this Instrument a lot !!! We also took a ride in one of Rob's Z's!

After spending a day in West Virginia I drove off again the next morning towards upstate New York. I wanted to visit another Buddhist Retreat place there. But on my way I crossed some interesting parts of Pennsylvania... First the battlefield in Gettysburg. That's where the last battle in the civil war was fought...

and today they preserve the battlefield and turned it into a huge memorial area

and then I entered the amish country. They live without machines and electricity...

amish farms

next day I spended at Khenchen Rinpoches house. A very nice place were you have the chance to take some time off and meditate. And if you have questions there is Rinpoche to answer them!

prayer flags

the last drive

and in the evening I would start my last long drive, back to Connecticut to Tasso's and Carlinde's place. After 2 1/2 hours I was there. I knew there was meditation weekend so there were people at the house, but the surprise was that Tass and Carlinde just got MARRIED that day!!! Wow, what reunion! We were so happy and had a great party... (one of the highlights: I remember in the middle of the night we started running around the table making monkey noises.... ahem. we did quite some rounds actually, hehe)

Tass and Carlinde... I didn't catch them in there wedding outfits, but let me tell you they both looked awesome !!! (well, they still do in their normal clothes, haha)

I will post more news from back in NYC, so check back for my final reports !!!

The Buddhist Retreat Center in Colorado

For a long time there was a search going on for a suitable piece of land to have a north american Diamondway retreat center. Now the land is found and the work will start there in spring!
I tell you, this is really a good place... I went up there together with Jesper, Charlie and 3 other sangha members (plus kids of course!) from Colorado. You have to drive for 2 1/2 hours from Colorado Springs to reach this beautiful and remote piece of land. But see for yourself:

there is one cabin standing there now. It needs some work and upgrades, but it´s a good start!

standing on the porch you have this amazing view

the property came with 2 heavy machines. fun fun fun... !

many things need to be discussed... the water supply, the septic system and so on

we had a cloudy and rainy day up there, but nevertheless lots of fun exploring the huge property

from the land you look upon a great plaine which was formaly a lakebed. On the other side you see enourmous mountains, they are as huge as the mont blanc...

and this was supermega fun: there are also 3 ATV´s that belong to the property!!! we had such a blast driving them around!

Jenny is having fun! ATVing kicks ass!!!

the cabin again

and the beautiful view upon the mountains

that´s the closest town: Salida. Very nice old downtown area. Also a good place for Kanuing and Rafting. By the way you can do incredible hikes and climbs around here too!

the local bar. This place is gonna like us, hehe ;)

(and we will like this place back)

to complete the all American mountain experience there was a car show going on in Salida on sunday. Pretty cool! ;)

So, this morning I had my root canal done. Phew, it was about time. It´s still gonna hurt a bit for the next days, but that´ll be healing pain and it´s gonna be allright. My next move is to drive back to Rob´s place in West Virginia. Is pretty much a 24 hour drive, so I will drive as much as I can tomorrow, sleep in the car and then drive the rest! Check back for more news!