Cottbus -Germany

It’s 7.25pm in Cottbus in eastern part of the beautiful country of Germany.

We just arrived at our hotel, when I say ‘we’, I actually mean just myself and guitarist Andy Gray, as Simon and Shaun somehow conspired to miss the flight.

Simon thought the flight was tomorrow and Shaun was probably just drunk. 
Here is an artists impression of Simon's face when he realised he would miss the flight

Cottbus has a population of approx 100,000 people, and was the old centre of the energy industry n the old GDR. Just a coupla weeks back we were in Wuppertal, here is Germany, famous for its overhead monorail railway.

To display how sturdy and safe this was, some bright spark thought it would be a great idea to borrowed Tuffi the Elephant from the local circus.

This was back in 1950, however, Tuffi wasn’t that keen and unsurprisingly, she jumped from the suspended monorail into the river below.

The elephant trumpeted wildly and ran through the wagon, broke through a window and fell nearly 40 feet into the Wupper River, thankfully suffering only minor injuries. A panic had broken out in the wagon and some passengers were hurt.

Tuffi is now a legend in Germany and the spot where Tuffi fell is remembered by a plaque to the unfortunate Pachyderm.

My room seems to be a bit close to the lift, I can hear the damn bell ding every time it stops on this floor! Ok off to eat now, and maybe a few ales in the bar.

More tomorrow .....

....and just why am I wide awake at 5am?

You will no doubt be pleased to hear that Simon and Shaun arrived on the later flight, missed dinner but the bar was still open, I think Shaun was in need of a hair of the dog..... and Simon just happy the bar was open.

Smoking is still allowed in the bar here, amazing how quick we get used to not smoking. So instead, we decided to sit in the restaurant and have a beer.

Andy missed breakfast so we are heading into town. Apparently there is a castle. As we leave the hotel, there is a big police presence and a crowd of people shouting in unison with something resembling The Haka, famously sang by the New Zealand team before the rugby match.

Although we usually have a warm welcome, and sometimes even a police escort, most notably in Venezuela, they even had machine guns, in Venezuela that is, not Germany, but this wasn’t for us.

The Erfurt football team were playing Energie Cottbus today in the German football league 3, and the team is staying in our hotel. That'll be all those blokes in Red then at breakfast.

In case you missed it, the local team are called Energie cos of the aforementioned power industry.

Cottbus is a nice town, they had their Christmas Market today, very picture post card image but freezing cold, and snowing, which adds an extra layer of authenticity to the famed Christmas Markets over here.

So after a Gluhwein it’s back to the hotel, as my feet are like ice, it’s a 5.45 pm lobby call so time for a bath and a snooze I reckon.

1am.

Thank you Cottbus, the venue really looked after us, and a capacity crowd who were appreciative from start to finish, we even played an extra 30 minutes beyond the curfew.

'Achilles Last  Stand' had an inclusion tonight.

As always 'Babe I’m Gonna Leave You' is well received, great, great live song, the dynamics are perfect. The acoustic set too, helps set the mood.

Nobody wanted to leave, and many where still there as we made ready to depart for our hotel a we have an early flight in the morning. However, the venue have been kind enough to throw an after-show party tonight in our honour, why are the parties on the days we have to get up early for our flight the next day?

I’ll leave it to the others to make our appearance, I am off to bed, g’night Cottbus, hope to see you again.