Euro Tour: Day 14, Leipzig

We had a nice breakfast in the sunny lounge at the hostel. We trekked back to pick up our van and headed toward Leipzig. We found the Zoro squat without too much difficulty but it was early, so we took a walk downtown towards the train station to change our Czech Krunas to Euros. Jason, who had been doing so well with our primarily vegan diet, was suddenly craving junk food and dragged us into McDonalds. The coffee menu was all in English but my perfect American pronunciation of “grande flat white” threw the girl for a loop. Bill bought a t-shirt because he couldn’t stand the smell of anything in his bag. (We still have not found a place to do laundry.) We strolled back to the club stopping for ice cream and sight seeing. Once there, we met Maria and Ralf at Zoro and they showed us around. We loaded in to the basement and then went upstairs to the third floor for yet another fantastic vegan meal.

Tuesdays at Zoro are a music/game nights. People come to play fooseball and ping-pong and check out a band. Ralf had assured us that though the show was donations only, it usually works out quite well. By the time Joe 4 played the music room was full and Ralf was working the crowd for donations. Joe 4 was really loud (and amazing) as usual but the crowd dug it and a huge drunken German guy danced like a hippy. Jason danced with him and then they took turns picking each other up. Later Bill did a waltz with the guy. We all grabbed the mic at various points and sang along to Johnny, Ilova, and Spartacus. Josip wrote our set list and we rocked a pretty tough set. The crowd had grown a bit and it was nice to see all the heads bobbing. One kid right up front had a shit-eating grin on his face the entire time and was really getting into it. We didn’t sell any merch, but ending up collecting 160 Euros in donations. All and all another excellent night.

Since Vienna appeared to be totally flaking out for the next day, we opted to get in the van after the show and drive to Zagreb. The drive started with the biggest Croatian blow-up/shouting match yet and we were a bit hesitant about getting in the van while WWIII was going on…

An hour or so into the trip, someone suddenly announced that he had to piss and couldn’t wait a second longer. He was going to piss out the van window but someone else convinced him that it would be a better idea to pee in a beer bottle instead. So an iPod was used for illumination of the process. Half asleep form the front seat, I kept hearing the admonition, “don’t overfill it!” Suddenly I heard bottles breaking as they were flung out the window. I heard desperate cries from the back seat: “What are you doing? Don’t do that!” Now, having used all the bottles, hanging it out the window was required anyhow to finish the call of nature.