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!