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September 17th/18th 2003
When I woke up this morning (no, this is not the start of a blues
song!) my room was full of flowers. Some were given to me at the
show, some by the promoter and others by the Vodka company that
is sponsoring the tour. They gave me some Vodka too but I don’t
like it so I gave it away!! I love flowers and, in case you are
interested, there were orchids, roses, daisies and red sunflowers…
among others. Lovely!!
Today I had time to re-pack my bags and then, after a delicious
lunch we left for the station to catch the 4pm train to Kiev, the
capital of Ukraine. We had a long dinner on the train and the small
restaurant car developed quite a party atmosphere as the “locals”
swallowed more and more Vodka! I honestly don’t know how they
do it but……… Then it was time to grab some sleep…
more tomorrow!
The slow approach to the station in Kiev gave us time to enjoy the
beautiful view across the river Dneprov and I have to say that,
in my opinion at least, Kiev ranks as one of the most beautiful
cities in the world. It is clean, the roads are wide and the many
parks are well kept and colourful. On a trivia note… it also
occurred to me that all of my favourite cities in the world are
on water… or very close to it!
The small but beautiful hotel was on a converted river boat and
by now I had promised myself that I would one day spend more time
here. Kiev has a thriving ethnic population and, as I travelled
to radio and television stations I got to see the art district and
many of the monuments and statues that are prominent and well-preserved.
The dominant religion here (as in Russia) is Orthodox and there
were a lot of opulent looking temples (I am not sure what they are
actually called and I mean no offense). I have to say though that
the money spent on the gold domes could probably be put to better
use!!
Even though this was a “day-off” I had a busy afternoon
and evening because I wanted to spend some time with the engineers
who were working on my Hammond so after the press conference and
a really cool TV interview I visited the warehouse and workshop
of Bita Music which is the company providing our back-line, PA and
lights for the Ukrainian dates. They quickly diagnosed the problem,
located the parts and I was relieved to see that all was well. The
problem with my Les Paul was a cracked nut (my fault for using the
normal case instead of the flight case!) but their guitar tech was
able to sort it out so I can use it until I get home and have it
worked on!! More prayers answered!!
By dinner time I was really exhausted so I passed on the planned
shopping trip for tomorrow morning, preferring to rest and prepare
for 5 shows in a row and actually 9 shows in 10 days!! Up until
now the tour has been quite “relaxed” but that is all
about to change…
Next
day...
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