I'll follow the sun.

I guess it's time to try and write about the end of an era with Niz and I.  Who knows if we will make music again?  At this moment I am a bit hurt and low and wondering what to do with myself.  It is a long story so I will do my best to take it from the summer....

We left for Ireland in July and after a heat wave in Amsterdam and great music and memories in Berlin we touched down in Galway where the rain was coming sideways with the wind.  It wasn't as much rain..It was like a heavy drizzle.  Soaking you but not raining.  We thought Galway would be much bigger, but everywhere in Ireland the towns and cities are quite tiny.  It had a great atmosphere to the place though and we loved it.  We had a soup and a coffee and the people serving us felt like relatives feeding us after a long journey.


And a long journey it had been!  12 hours from Amsterdam to London..Then a 5 hour wait whilst we slept in the park.  Then a 15 hour bus ride from London to Galway with 3 changes in between.  We had chosen Galway because there was a chance we would be helping out at this farm.  They wouldn't give us any concrete information on what was expected of us, or if we could stay there for sure.  They just lured us in by saying how does a caravan with a wood fire and a small garden sound?  It sounded great enough for us to take the journey there.

We had nowhere to stay whilst we were on the bus and when we took the ferry we got some good news.  We had posted a few requests on Couch surfing and none had accepted then we received this message from a beautiful soul saying that she just had the urge to log on to CS and see if anyone needed her help.  So she sent us a message saying we could stay with her.  We ended making a great friend in Giulia La Bianca.

The other good piece of news was that there was a barn in Donegal that we could look after for a few months from August.  We breathed a sigh of relief as we were worried where we would stay once we got to Galway and our lucky stars looked after us again.   The farm in Galway turned out to be a dead end.  It was owned by a drug using juggler called Jimi.  He sent us this video when we were asking about the place and we watched it in horror when we got to Galway. 'I'd just like to recommend drugs, heroin for breakfast, cocaine for dinner and life is a struggle if you don't juggle.  He didn't have a nice face and we were glad we didn't go down that road.

After waiting at the train station for around 6 or 7 hours we finally met Giulia.  She was a bright eyed Sicilian with a warm smile and heart and we felt once again like we were meeting an old friend.  We made the 40 minute walk to her place in the rain me carrying the big case through the muddy paths and woods and then finally made it.  She cooked us some nice veggie food and we chatted about life and all kinds.  We were too tired to go busking and plus it was still raining.

We ended up spending a week with Giulia and meeting some of her really nice friends.  The rain stopped enough for us to do a bit of busking and make some money and the busking in Galway was fantastic.  Even though there were buskers every ten meters or so, people were really generous.  They really appreciate it the Irish.  Music is a sacred thing to them.  And we met some nice buskers a long the way.  One guy was playing Pink Floyd's Breathe' so beautifully and softly and had such a nice sound and voice.  I asked him where he got the chips he was eating and he just gave me them.  The Irish are very generous and good hearted people.

The beer was so expensive though.  And the food.  Everything was really.  I lost 4 kilos in a week!  The rain would stop for a few hours each day maximum.  When it did, we would rush out on the 40 minute walk to go busking and then it would start again.  We were getting a little disheartened and we would fight a little bit and storm off on eachother.  Like we have done all through our journey together.  As much as we felt so close with eachother there were times we would scream at eachother and really feel distant from eachother.

I just took it as a consequence of the life we lead.  The highs are beautiful and the lows are hard.  We would always come back to eachother though and always be strong.  But after a week in Galway we were so disheartened by the rain that we decided to leave for wherever the weather radar map showed there was sun.  Brighton was to be our next destination.  We still had a month before we returned to Ireland to look after the barn but for now, we needed a bit more sunshine.  Once again, we would meet legendary people, make great music and memories and really feel a part of the place we are in.

Download the fanastic album 'Where The Days Have No Name' and pay whatever you wish..