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WEDNESDAY, JULY 13TH:
Today, Lindsey
flies back to the U.S., and I fly to Sweden to meet up with Becky Hobbs,
Elizabeth Cook and Jett Williams. Heather Myles flew to London for a show
tonight but will also be in Sweden with us.
Got checked in and said goodbye to Lindsey and Asleep at the Wheel. They are
all on the same flight back to the U.S. I was sitting in my terminal waiting
for the plane when there was a huge explosion and the room “shook”. Everyone
was scared to death, especially after the bombings in London. We all rushed to
the windows. There was no broken glass, so we knew it wasn’t our building that
had been “hit”. My heart was in my throat because I was afraid something had
happened where my daughter was. I was calling her on the cell phone when the
ticket agent made an announcement. He apologized because his “colleague” had
run into the building with a set of stairs. Said the stairs were too tall and
he had crashed into the building! Good grief….
The flight was on KLM and I was in business class….which was exactly the same
seats as coach class. There was a partition between the two classes but exactly
the same seat configuration. They had 3 of us squeezed into each section with 2
or 3 empty rows of seats. I got up and moved as soon as the doors were shut.
“Lunch” was two pieces of burnt toast with burnt cheese on top. My water glass
was cracked and when she brought me a new one, she dropped the tray in my lap!
Ironically, they asked me to fill out a “survey”. Don’t think they will like my
“rating” of that flight.
When I checked in, they told me my bags were checked all the way to Ostersund.
I had to connect in Stockholm and as we were getting off the plane, we were
informed that EVERYONE had to go pick up their bags and clear customs. I had
to pick up the bags, take the elevator to the 2nd floor, “hike” with
the luggage cart from Terminal One to Terminal Five, take the elevator back
down, go to the check in counter and “recheck my bags”, clear security again,
and go to the gate. Sure didn’t have any time to sit around.
Met up with two of Heather’s musicians and we flew on a PACKED SAS flight from
Stockholm to Ostersund.
Promoters were waiting for us and we drove an hour to the hotel. Hotel is
beautiful and the area is, too. Ski resort in the wintertime. Heather’s two
musicians who were driving over with her mech sales people arrived about 2 hours
after us. We had a nice dinner in the restaurant and looked at the venue.
Shows were supposed to be outside but because rain is being predicted, we have
moved everything inside the hotel.
Got a call from my office that all the artists flying in from Nashville were
delayed due to weather in NYC. So, I got to stay up most of the night dealing
with that. They finally flew out of Nashville at around 9 pm to Newark….knowing
that there would not be any flights out of Newark to Europe at that time of
night! Trying to figure out what we will do if they don’t arrive until Friday
morning – SHOW DAY!
THURSDAY, JULY 14TH:
Yeah, the gym
opens at 8 am. I had to pay 170 Swedish Kroners to use it and then there were 2
kids in there climbing all over the equipment and “playing”. Their mom was
totally ignoring them. Made me mad to pay to use the gym and then have to wait
for kids to get off the equipment to use it.
I drove to the airport with the promoters to pick up Heather. The Nashville
group is now stuck in NY until late this afternoon which means they won’t arrive
until Friday morning IF everything goes okay. I am so stressed!
We searched all over for “water with no gas” today. After going to 5 grocery
stores, we finally found it. All the water over here is carbonated!
Heather arrived on time and someone from a Norwegian Radio Station came to the
airport to interview her.
My cell phone has quit working and the signal for the wireless internet (that I
paid 170 Swedish Kroners for) has a vey low signal and keeps kicking me off
line. I told the office to call me but the hotel switchboard won’t answer their
calls. It just rings and rings and then goes to a Swedish voice mail. I am
ready to KILL someone. My office called T-mobile and their answer was that all
their customers who were out of the country were having problems.
The Nashville artists are on the flight to Sweden. Keeping my fingers crossed.
I feel 100% better today after having worked out.
Jude
FRIDAY, JULY
15TH:
Left for the
airport at 8:00 am to pick up the Nashville group –hopefully at 9:00 today. NO
such luck. They missed their connection in Stockholm and were STUCK. The only
other flight today was sold out. We tried re-routing them through Trondheim
but that flight couldn’t get them in any earlier. Elizabeth was supposed to
perform tonight but I knew there was no way it was going to happen. She still
had to have time to rehearse with Heather’s band.
We tried everything – all the airlines and routing to nearby cities. Even
checked the price of chartering a jet (too expensive). We were finally able to
hire a van and driver to bring them to Are today. It took them about 7 hours.
BUT, remember, they arrived at the airport on Wednesday at 11:00 am and have
been “traveling” ever since – 3 days!!! First, their flight was delayed out of
Nashville to Newark because of “weather”. They didn’t depart until around 9 pm
and then got stuck overnight in Newark. The airline “ran out of vouchers for
hotel rooms” so they had to try and find their own place to stay. All the
hotels were booked and my travel agent finally found them somewhere to stay.
They went back to the airport in Newark on Thursday but were “wait listed” for
their flight to Stockholm. Fortunately, flights from LA were delayed because of
weather and they were able to get on board. They knew they had a tight
connection in Stockholm and the flight out of Newark was late leaving because
all the computers went down and all the luggage had to be “hand weighed”.
They rushed to pick up their luggage in Stockholm and take it through Customs –
but Customs was CLOSED. They had all their luggage to recheck and no one around
to re-check it for them. Some man was finally helpful and told them to take
everything to the gate with them. He called the gate agent and told them to
hold the plane. They literally ran to the terminal but all the “moving”
walkways were broken and they had to take elevators instead. When they arrived
at the gate, the airplane was pulling away from the terminal!
I felt so sorry for them by the time they finally arrived here. Heather did a
90 minute set tonight and we moved Elizabeth’s show to tomorrow night with Becky
and Jett. Heather had a great show and although the audience was smaller than I
had hoped for, they loved her. We start rehearsals at 10 am tomorrow morning
and hopefully the crowd will be bigger tomorrow night.
Everyone is booking massages for Sunday. We deserve it!
My allergies are killing me. My nose itches, my throat itches, my eyes itch,
I’m sneezing….and it’s all because of cigarette smoke. Be glad when the entire
planet is “smoke free”!
Jude
SATURDAY, JULY 16TH:
Up early to get
the girls started rehearsing and to WORK OUT. Got in an hour with weights and
another 45 minutes on the bike. It was WONDERFUL. Then went to the solarium
for a few minutes. Have to go do laundry and then the big show tonight.
This hotel is a “ski resort” and summer getaway for families. I’ve never seen
so many kids! There is a fabulous pool with a big winding slide but the pool
is overrun with children. Lots of bodies of water around and not sure if it is
a lake or river or what but it’s beautiful. We are in the city of Are which is
in the Northern/Central part of Sweden. Lots of sports facilities here for
hiking, skiing, biking, swimming, boating, horseback riding…all the things I
can’t do with a broken toe!
“Hiked” up the hill into the LITTLE town of Are looking for the laundry that the
hotel sent me to. They don’t do laundry for the guests at this resort (don’t
tell me this is a 4 Stars Hotel!). It was misting rain when I left and when I
finally found the place, there was a sign on the door that indicated they were
“closed for holiday from July 7 until July 29!” Must be nice. It started
raining hard before I could hike back to the hotel – with my dirty laundry.
There is wireless internet connection in this hotel but the signal is SO LOW
that I get knocked off about every 2 minutes. Then I have to shut down AOL and
relaunch Internet Explorer and type in a really long username and just as long
password. Such a challenge.
Tomorrow is the pampering day – a REAL DAY OFF – exercise, massage, facial, and
a birthday dinner for Elizabeth Cook. I’m sort of “caught up” on most of my
emails so that helps with being able to relax!
Great shows tonight with the girls. Long way to come for just a 45 minute set
each though. I think the Swedes get as drunk as the Norwegians though. The men
were constantly asking me to dance but fortunately I could show them the foot
cast and get away from them.
Hope the weather clears up tomorrow so we can take a long bike ride.
Jude
SUNDAY, JULY 17TH:
On my final
trek back to my room from the show last night, I passed a couple of men and a
woman walking towards the lobby. One of the men had on a terry cloth robe like
the Spa gives you. He was shoving his pants leg up under the hem of the robe
and he had on dress shoes and socks and I could see his shirt in the opening of
the robe. Not sure why he was trying to give the illusion of having on nothing
but the robe but I didn’t stick around to find out.
GREAT workout again this morning…my last for a while other than bands in my room
in Switzerland. L
Went into the dining room to get a cup of coffee and some yogurt before my
workout and the place was packed. People were even sitting in the lobby eating
breakfast. I found a little tray at the lunch counter, grabbed my coffee and
yogurt and came back to my room to eat out on my patio. The weather is still
horrible – misting rain and overcast. A little cool but not cold. Hate that I
won’t get to see any of the area before we leave because of the weather.
Someone took the gondola up the mountain yesterday but said it was so cloudy
they couldn’t see anything. Since I have to ride a gondola up to the venue
next week in Switzerland, I’ll pass on that experience here.
Now, my internet is doing just the opposite. It still has a LOW signal but
every time I sign off AOL, it automatically signs me right back on. Not sure
what is happening. And, my IPAQ that I was having so much trouble with --- now
I can’t receive ANY emails and the phone doesn’t ring when someone calls.
ARGHHH….I am technologically challenged and don’t have a clue how to fix any of
this.
NOW, it tries to reconnect and it can’t connect but keeps trying over and over
and over. It’s stuck in some kind of cycle and I can’t shut it off. Only way
to get it to quit is to do a hard reset on the entire computer. I have to buy
these little “wireless” scratch off cards at the front desk. Pretty expensive –
around $20 for 24 hours of service. But, when you scratch off the coating, most
of the letters and numbers scratch off, too. Then the type is so small, I can
barely read it. There is a user name that is a sequence of about 12 letters and
numbers with small and upper case letters and the same for a password. If you
make a mistake and type a lower case instead of an upper case, you get an error
message. I had to go to the front desk last night and have them read the card
for me.
Had the massage which didn’t start off on a good note. She insisted that I was
scheduled to have the “relaxing” massage instead of the Swedish Massage. I
finally had to tell her I was going to cancel the entire session unless I got
the Swedish Massage. And, then it was very disappointing. I wanted her to
get the kinks out of my neck and shoulders. I couldn’t even tell she was doing
anything until she started working on the front of my legs. Then she used so
much pressure I wanted to leap off the table. Okay, next time write in a Road
Kill Report that I am going to have a massage, email me and say, “Don’t do it.
You’re wasting your money!” Kyrgyzstan was still where I had the best massage
ever – for under $20, too!
The owner of the Holiday Club (and buyer on this date) was extremely happy with
the artists and all their performances. He’s already talking about next year’s
event. Wasn’t at all upset about the small attendance. Took the attitude that
this was the first year and he has to “build his reputation”. Whew. The
artists certainly enjoyed themselves once they got here. Just hope we don’t
have as many problems getting them back to Nashville and me to Switzerland.
We had a lovely dinner with the promoters and afterwards, a special surprise for
Elizabeth. The promoters had a birthday cake made for her and it was red,
white, and blue with the pattern of the American Flag. It was so awesome.
And, talk about delicious. It had this flour like crust with strawberry jam,
then a layer of white cake that was filled with some type of cream and then a
delicious icing….and it wasn’t SWEET like our desserts in the U.S.
Everyone is going to bed early since we have a 3:30 am wake up call. Night!
Jude
MONDAY, JULY 18TH:
Up at 3 am (went to bed at 1 am!) to drive to the airport and HOPEFULLY NOT have
to fight with SAS. Because the group didn’t take the flights into Ostersund
last week, we ran the risk of having their outbound flights canceled. My
travel agent has been working on this all weekend.
Got to the airport very early – before the ticket counter even opened, but we
were first in line. We had a sweet little man and he checked us right in with
no problems. Short 1 hour flight from Ostersund to Stockholm where we didn’t go
through the “pick up your luggage” nightmare this time. I had changed my flight
so that I could fly with the group but it meant a 4 hour layover in Stockholm.
It was fine. They have wireless connection so I was able to get lots of work
done.
I thought I was in business class on the flight from Stockholm to Zurich – 2 ½
hour flight. But when I boarded, I found I had accidentally been booked in
coach. The flight was FULL and I was in an exit row seat so the seat didn’t
recline at all. So much for getting a little sleep on the plane. They flight
attendant even made me take off my fanny pack because I was in an exit row.
Never had that happen before.
We hit severe turbulence right before we landed in Zurich. I do NOT like flying
over the Alps and having turbulence. When we landed, it was raining in Zurich.
My friend – Ben – from California had arrived Zurich early that morning. I gave
him directions on how to go into downtown Zurich and he had been in walking
around. Met me when I landed and the airlines had lost his bag!
We took the train from Zurich to Interlaken. It’s Ben’s first visit to
Switzerland and I’m the tour guide. God knows, I know where to take him after
all my trips over here. It was raining in Interlaken, too, so we had dinner at
an Indian restaurant and he was going to go to bed early. I got my computer
and printer all set up and then couldn’t connect to the internet. Went to Ben’s
room and I could log on there. So, I packed everything back up and we switched
rooms. It’s storming here now and it’s after midnight. Sure hope the weather
clears up because tomorrow is the only day we have for me to take him up to
Jungfrau – the highest point accessible in all of Europe (my second trip in TWO
weeks!).
It’s strange to look outside and see “darkness” after only having about 30
minutes of “dusk” in Norway and Sweden.
Jude
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