NASHVILLE !!!

Hey! What's up!
Since two days I am in Nashville and I must say, I LIKE IT A LOT !!! It's fantastic, there is so much music around and the people are very relaxed and open. I stay with Steven who lives close to downtown and in the evenings we go out and see some music. Yesterday we were seeing a band were the musicians are friends with steven, and they asked me to join in for 2 songs. It was just awesome! :)
There is a lot of country music, rock'n roll, singer/songwriter and other styles around. Tons of brilliant guitarplayers and I heard that 30.000 songwriters live in this town!
On Broadway every bar has live music, and you can see everything from old country to rockabilly. And, it's free! You just have to give some tip when they pass around the tip jar once in an hour or so. And all that you hear is very high quality, nothing like the horrible commercial clean licked country music you hear on the radio, to see it life here it' really fantastic!

But first some more pictures from Atlanta and from my way to Nashville...

the highway close to Klauses house with the Atlanta skyline in the background

ok, my first dirty deed here in the states: I could not leave this Les Paul hanging' in the shop looking so lonely amongst all those other guitars... And since Klaus will go to Germany in a couple of days he can take this babe with him so that I don't have to drag her all the way to the desert!

on my way from Atlanta to Nashville I took a detour and hit Alabama! I drove through the back roads to see some of the countryside... This is how the people live there.

a small supermarket along the road

then my first night in Nashville. Rene (left) and Steven (right) took me out to broadway to see some music. I was happy as f*ck!!!! ;)))

this is "Roberts" where we saw 2 amazing bands and had some PBR's. They also sell cowboy boots (you see them lined up at the wall) and I must say, I was tempted to buy some. But then I decided to wait until Texas, hehe!

out on Broadway I saw this fantastic car...

... and this beautiful lady with her great tattoo. I find this fuckin' awesome!

those guitar players pulled of a really great show. The left one was super amazing and as I later found out, one of the hot-shot newcomers in the Nashville scene

a great bassplayer in one of the next bars. Actually I have tons of more pictures from here but I am sitting in a cafe and I dont have more time... From this last band I also made video and I hope I can upload it one of these days.

The next move is again more south, I will pass Memphis, see the "crossroads" and spend a night in Clarksdale/Mississipi, the home of the blues! It will be during the week so I hope there is something going on then...

Goin' down south

Since 2 days I am in Atlanta, Georgia. But on my way down south from Connecticut I stopped by at Rob's and Linda's place in West Virginia first. Rob is also a "Schellhaas" and he found me on the internet a couple of years ago and we stayed in contact. Rob is also a guitar player and he's actually collecting guitars! I knew about this, but when I came to his house it was just awsome. Rob has almost 300 guitars and among this a great collection of old Gibsons and Gretsch guitars from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Some even date earlier. It was fantastic, I kept on playing and checking guitars for 2 days :)

just some of Rob's guitars...

I really loved this '72 Gibson and I will come back to Rob's place and take this beauty back with me to europe!



that's an veeery old Gibson, I believe from the 50's... I am I right Rob?

that's the house and one of Rob's cars. This one still needs to be fixed, so we took the other one out for a ride through the West Virginia country side... beautiful! check it out:

Then the next day I has a 11 hours ride all the way down to Atlanta. It was a beautiful day and I had some great sights along the way. Cruise control, air condition, good music and not much traffic (exept the last 2 hours close to Altlanta) made me enjoy the ride. There were not much places where I could stop and take pictures, so I took some from out of the car....

first I entered the blue ridge mountains and for some hours you drive through this beautiful area...

some bad ass bikers on the road

When you drive out of the mountain area, it's getting warmer and more humid... Vegetation changes and I realized... yeah, I'm going down south!

Arriving late in Atlanta, my friend Klaus welcomed me at his appartement. We didn't see each other much the last couple of years (since he moved to the states) but that doesn't matter at all and we're having a great time hangin' out!

Next morning Klaus took me for a ride through Atlanta:

the interstates 75/85 go right through the middle of Atlanta


that's downtown


some skyskrapers in buckhead

Atlanta is much more spacey than New York City. But I learned that most american cities are like that, and not as dense as NYC. You find lots of green here in Atlanta and a lot of small strip malls and shopping centers. Very diffrent from european cities, where you would find very old city centers with old houses and nice streets and so on. Here it's all new... But that's allright too and today I was haning out at the pool with Klaus, his roommate Tim and some other people. The pool belongs to the appartment complex (aswell as a gym that we were using in the mornings, a bar and an internet cafe)

the pool!

I will stay here for 2 more days and maybe I can post some more pics. Tomorrow I will explore the city a little more (I heard there are some good guitar stores around, hehe). Then in the middle of the week I will start driving towards Nashville, but this time on the back roads to see some of the countryside!

Ready for the road!

So guys, I am all set. I had some terrific days out here in Connecticut at Tassos and Carlindes place. We had a very nice meditation weekend with lots of friends and a great party with lots of jokes, jamming (Tasso has 2 guitars. 2 amps and a drumset in his basement and Carlinde plays sax) and good food.

Tasso and Carlinde. Two fantasic friends and exellent company... We drove out to New Haven to have Pizza and Beer. They brew their own beer there, and me as an experienced german beer drinker I can tell you it was pretty good beer :)

the bar...

... and the rough boys ;)

Altough I am a little tired and exhausted the whole time plus my throat starts hurting I am very exited and looking forward to start driving tomorrow. Also I got myself an US mobile phone number. So if you wanna have that number please email me and I'll send it to you. Then I bought a TOMTOM navigation system to bring me to all the places I want. And then the best, the car.

When I was planning the trip back in europe I thought it's gonna be best to buy an used car here and to sell it again when I'm done. But once here, this soon turned out to be difficult and expensive... I would have to fight through a lot of paperwork and I still would not have an reliable car. Renting turned out to be the best option. After some research I found some good deals around and decided to rent the smallest possible car from a nationwide car service in the nearest town. As returning the car back to the pickup location makes it much cheaper than to return it for example at the west coast (and fly back) I decided to really complete the full circle around the US until end of august, and to return the car back to the same dealer in Connecticut.
Today I went to pick up the car and... they had no more of the small cars left! But I made my reservation on the internet for a small car and so I got for the same price an almost new FORD ESCAPE SUV. "Sports Utility Vehicle" HEHE. Big, black and funky. Enough room to sleep in and ready for some dust roads. I was amazed. But see for yourself...

no words.


test drive back home from New Haven. Notice little "Bonnie" in the windshield - she's giving me great directions :)


the Ford in it's whole beauty

that's how the roads look like here

Und jetzt fuer meine Deutschen Leser!
Sorry Leute ich muss leider meine Zweisprachigkeit hier einstellen. Meistens habe ich nur kurz Zeit am Internet und viel zu erledigen (Schlafplaetzte regeln, Route planen, Kontakte aufnehmen) und keine Umlaute, hehe
Ich bin sicher Ihr koennt Euch meine Texte Uebersetzen lassen und Ihr koennt mir auch immer emailen aber ich kriegs nicht hin immer auch in Deitsch zu schreiben. Jetzt aber noch eine wichtige Information, ich habe jetzt auch eine Handy Nummer hier. Mailt mir einfach und ich schreibe sie Euch!
Supervielen dank auch fuer alle Euro Kommentare, sie kommen alle an auch wenn ich nicht immer antworten kann!
Also, morgen geht's los und ich geh' jetzt mal noch ne Runde meditieren, alles Gute und meldet Euch!!!

Thanks for all of your comments, please keep writing that helps me a lot to get greetings and wishes from the "old" and the "new world" hehe. That's it for now, stay tuned!!!

Bye Bye New York!

It's time to leave NYC.
The last 2 days I stayed in the diamondway buddhist center and made new friends :) we also had a lecture with Lama Ole the 11th. The lecture was great and the party afterwards also ;) I could help setting up the sound system and I was doing the sound during and after the lecture together with a nice lady from New Zeeland.
For the party I also became DJ and I shared the job for most of the party with a polish friend. I always wanted to DJ on a party like this and who would have imagined the first time would be in New York City! haha. But it was a tough job, we were running 3 iPods and one mobile phone to get the tracks we wanted... Did you ever DJ with iPods? pfffff......

Anyway, here are some more pictures I want to share with you:

Canal Street Manhattan. That's were Chinatown is

and that's some of Chinatown/Little Italy!

when you walk the Williamsburg bridge, you get a fantastic view back on Manhattan...

a street in Brooklyn... Its immedialtely more quite here but also more dirty than in Manhattan. But I would prefer to live over here rather than in Manhattan, as Williamsburg for example is a very inspiring and artist friendly area...

this is downtown Manhattan... maybe this short movie can give you an idea of how busy it is here day and night.

And then we left the big apple...
This is one of the last views back on the skyline of NYC while we were driving first to the Airport to drop Lama Ole and then on towards Connecticut. I think this view stays impressive even if you live here your whole life:


And thats the place where I stay now for a couple of days. Quiet, lots of space and lots of green. A good spot to get some rest and to organize the upcoming weeks. First I have to get my hands on a car! :) That's gonna be fun! Right now I am checking the options if I will either buy or lease a car for the time that I am here, and then... slowly I will head towards California... ;)

Heat Wave...

New York is experiencing an heat wave... Unusual for this time of the year and incredibly HOT.
HOT HOT HOT.
But that doesn't stop me from walking around the whole day and here are some pictures, as promised:

When I step out of the door here and walk 5 meters I'm on Broadway... and I see this:


The Metro station closeby...

Random street scene here on Broadway...

To central park its about an 15 minutes walk away from here. All of a sudden I was standing on an open space surrounded by skyscrapers... ouhhhh!

The New York Subway...

I spended 2 days alone here in the apartement because Lukasz and Ellen were out. The 2nd evening I was having a walk down to Hudson River and watched the sun set over New Yersey...


The next day I did more walking downtown... Amazing. You can see some streets down for some kilometers and it just won't stop...


5th Avenue building

the Chrysler building in the distance...



Ok, and then The Empire state building. First I went in the morning, because Lukasz told me that otherwise you might have to wait for 2 hours to get up (they only open 2 elevators to the public). But then the guy at the ticket desk said that it was "still cloudy up there my boy" and another lady gave me the advise to come back in the evening. So I did. I came back at around 9.30 pm an I really took quite a while until I was up. There was also a strom warning and it was said that the outer deck might be closed but I went anyway.
Once I was up there my mouth dropped open and I deleted all the other plans for that night right away. I stayed up there untl they kicked the last ones of us out at 2 am. It was like straight out of a movie, HAHA. See for yourself:

(by the way you can CLICK TO ENLARGE...)





Next night I was out looking for music in the East Village. It was a sunday night so there was not so much music around (ha, even NY has it's weekends. Those guys should come and see Amsterdam ;)) but I could still se 2 bands playing. Some pics from this night:


A band unloading their equipment before a gig. Those lucky guys have a COOL BUS :)



This is East Village during the day. With the next two pictures I can show you all where my heart lies... Music, girls and ... motorcycles ;)




Some more Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge!


Financial District... That's where all the money's made! (And of course in the rip-off-a-tourist mobile phone shops. Man, I'm still not over it! HAHA. Especially now that I've heard the new iPhone will come out in a month for half the price I payed for mine. AUTSCH!!!! that hurts)


But this was all for free. The staten Island Ferry with a great view back on Manhattan and on a very special (and very big and greenish) lady:


Tonight I will move to the Buddhist Center and tomorrow Lama Ole is giving a lecture then. Then my time in NYC will be over and I will move with friends to Connecticut...

Thats it for today, bye bye!