We got up bright and early Wednesday morning and checked out of the hotel. We rolled our suitcases over a million cobblestones to the main train station, got the required ginger lattes at Joe and the Juice one last time, and then went to find the train to the airport.

AirBerlin seems to be one of those fly-by-night airlines (like RyanAir), so they weren’t in the check-in system. We went to the desk instead, and had to wait a while to check in. The luggage conveyor belt was broken, too!

We did some last-minute shopping in the airport, then went to find our flight. There was a row of really incredibly drunk guys behind us heading to Oktoberfest (they’d already begun their own personal Oktoberfest), so that was kind of annoying, especially when they continued ordering a bunch of beers on the flight. Thankfully, the flight was short. We landed at Berlin Tegel about 40 minutes later.

In the main terminal, we found the booth that distributes the Berlin Welcome Card, which we’d ordered in advance. Much like the CPH Card, it included all public transit, and a lot of free/discounted admissions in the city. From there, we found the bus stop and boarded the TXL bus to Alexanderplatz.

The bus took about a half-hour to get to the Hauptbahnhof, and we had good views along the way. We were a little concerned when everyone got off there, and we were the only two left on the bus. Still, Google said it was going to Alexplatz, so we stayed on. The bus went a few blocks further, circled a nearby park, and then there was an announcement that it was the end of the line.

The bus driver gave us instructions for getting to Alexplatz – basically, cross the street and hop on a streetcar. We did that, and crossed over to the former East German side to the Alexplatz U-Bahn stop. Our hotel was a couple blocks further east.

The Hotel Indigo was a very nice little business hotel attached to the Holiday Inn. Because Matt’s a gold IHG member, they’d upgraded us to a really fantastic suite on the 9th floor. The bathroom was almost the size of our bedroom in our house, and the shower was big enough for 10 people. I loved it.

They had some Blue Man partnership, so their branding was everywhere:

This was our view, overlooking Alexanderplatz and the Fernsehturm. I couldn’t get over how great it was.

We unpacked, then walked over to see the TV Tower.

I’ve been obsessed with Berlin since I started studying German in 7th grade, and then moved on to Russian during the Cold War era. Getting to see all the buildings I’d learned about for years was seriously incredible to me.

We decided to go for the overview first, so we got tickets to the rotating restaurant at the top. Usually there would be a long wait, but the observation deck itself was closed for a private event, and the only other option was the restaurant. The 25-euro/pp admission fee just to get into the restaurant was expensive, but for the experience? We didn’t care.

This is more sun glare than haze, I promise. Looking west, the Brandenburg Gate is in the middle at the entrance to the Tiergarten (Berlin’s Central Park). The main street down the center is Unter Den Linden, and the Reichstag is the building on the right with the glass dome.

I ordered a Schofferhofer grapefruit beer with guarana (energy beer!) and Matt ordered a Berliner Weisse with raspberry syrup. His drink came in a flat bowl of a glass with a short straw, and was more juice than beer. We quickly learned that the original Berliner Weisse is much different than the one we expect here.

Matt ordered potato soup and flammekuchen, and I had mushroom strudel with asparagus. We were pretty thrilled to dive into German food so completely.

Here’s the Spree river with Museum Island.

Looking northeast:

Looking southeast; the Alexplatz station is right below. Our hotel is the tallish building on the left. God, the Soviet-era buildings. So godawfully ugly.

After making almost two revolutions on the Fernsehturm, we headed back down to earth and walked over to the Berliner Dom.

We circled some of Museum Island and crossed back over to pass the DDR Museum, right on the Spree. We’d be stopping there later for sure.

We stopped in a few shops around Alexplatz, including the Ampelmann store. Bally got to meet him, too:

We walked back to the hotel to redeem our free-drink coupons (courtesy of the front desk). We both ordered beer, but the bartender said that he could only pour prosecco for women and beer for men, because that’s how it was. Germany, you’re kind of a stereotype sometimes.

We went back up to the room right as sun was setting, and changed clothes because it was cooling off. We did some map-examining and researched local restaurants, then headed back out for the night.

We walked a few blocks to Prince, a Thai restaurant nearby that had really good reviews. It was fairly full, but we managed to get a table. We had crispy rolls (both fried and spring rolls), a papaya salad, and green tofu curry. They had a really nice cocktail menu, too.

From there, we took the U-Bahn over to Gretchen Club in Kreutzberg. We’d wanted to see Youngblood Brass Band in the US forever, and of course the only night they’d played Minneapolis a few years back, we were out of town. We loved them, and coincidentally they just happened to be playing in Berlin the night we arrived. Which was convenient.

We bought tickets at the door and went inside. It was kind of like a smaller Quest Club (I know, nobody remembers Quest Club). Beers were cheap, and the bartenders were friendly. The show was fantastic, and for some idiotic reason, neither of us took pictures. So we’ll just have to remember that we were there, sweating in a crowd of Berliners watching a band from central Wisconsin. That’s how it goes.

They also covered Umbrella by Rihanna, Don’t Speak by No Doubt, and Mad World. SO GREAT.

Here’s a show poster I saw on the way back to our hotel, at least!

After the show, we rode back and decided to stop into the gigantic Hofbrauhaus a block from our hotel. It’s the same Munich-based one that you find everywhere (I think the first one we visited was in Milwaukee), but we didn’t care. It was Oktoberfest time, and we were in Germany. It’s the correct time to drink a liter of beer.

We left there about 1am and went to the hotel with the intention of sleeping in as late as we wanted.

Walked: 9.88 miles/ 68.45 total

Saturday morning, we had BIG PLANS involving brunch on a boat. We took the train down to Chelsea, and walked the mile or so to the piers. (Why doesn’t the subway go any nearer? It’s kind of strange.)

We checked in for our boat cruise with Classic Harbor Lines, where we were sailing on the Yacht Manhattan. Apparently you can only take small boats on a circumnavigation of Manhattan, because some of the bridges are so low.

We grabbed some brunch and our complimentary champagne and headed out onto the deck. We were leaving Chelsea Piers, and heading south on the Hudson River.

We sailed past the Battery, and on toward Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

That line around the Statue of Liberty doesn’t look that fun! Having been to Liberty Island before, I was very happy just passing on our boat.

We turned around past the Statue of Liberty and headed up the other side of Manhattan on the East River. The sun came out in time to light up the Brooklyn Bridge.

This photo is called “The Gang Goes to New York.” I love it. (That’s Wendy, Matt – my husband, of course, Amelia – Wendy’s wife, and Jumi.)

We passed under the series of famous bridges on the East River, enjoying further brunch and some Brooklyn Brewery beers along the way. The weather was perfect.

Near the north end of Manhattan, the river starts to narrow quite a bit. We took the west channel on the East River, and then followed the Harlem River further north. It started to look like there was actual wilderness on the island of Manhattan, which was surprising.

I really liked this little boathouse, and apparently that’s the Cloister in the distance.

Bally is a worthy seaman.

Those Columbia kids are showoffs.

We reached the confluence (or the division?) of the Harlem and Hudson Rivers under the Spuyton-Duyvil Bridge. (Best name ever?) There was a tiny rotating train bridge just past it. The Hudson River is huge at this point… it almost looks like a lake.

Any day Matt’s on a boat is his favorite day. We try to do that as often as possible.

The boat headed back down the Hudson and docked back at Chelsea Piers. The tour was about 3 hours in total, and I would surely recommend it. We considered just stowing away so we could go again.

Instead we had to disembark, so we walked over toward the north end of the High Line. Did I mention that the weather was perfect?

I think my favorite part of the High Line was that it was enclosed in so much greenery. You had hardly any sense of being in a huge city. Or above it.

I was a little surprised that there weren’t many businesses with entrances right off the High Line. Living in Minneapolis, I’m used to all the stores and restaurants that open onto the skyway. From what I could tell, you had to go back down to street level to get into businesses

There were viewing platforms in a few spots. The idea of sitting and watching traffic seems pretty entertaining. (How much does that street look like Chicago?)

The end of the High Line (for now – it’s being extended) is at Chelsea Market. We’d passed it on the way to the boat, and I knew I had to go back there. A few of us stopped to get popsicles on the High Line, and then we headed down to street level.

Chelsea Market was amazing. We stopped into an Italian market, an Asian market, got excellent coffee at a coffeeshop, bought bitters and a bunch of treats at another shop, and gawked at produce you cannot get in the Midwest (fresh dates?!?). I wanted to shop there much longer, but everyone else seemed to have moved on. I met them outside, and we headed to the subway.

We rode to Soho, and emerged into ridiculous midday traffic. We stopped into a Japanese market, and I ended up buying art from a guy selling caricatures of art dealers made with fabric and paint on the street. Then we headed to Purl Soho, the super-famous yarn store that Jumi had reminded me was there. I spent too much money there, but at least I didn’t have to have things shipped back home like she did!

While waiting for her to finish up, Matt and I went across the street to the Kate Spade store. Shockingly, I did not emerge with a purse.

It was then time for a snack and a beverage, so Matt led us to Miss Lily’s, a Jamaican restaurant/record store/radio station/juice bar on Houston. We walked in, and it was like being in Jamaica, only indoors. (One of the owners also runs the Rockhouse in Negril, which is incredible.)

We grabbed seats at the bar, and ordered rum punch. They didn’t have a full liquor license, so it was made with sake, but it tasted exactly like rum punch. A couple of us got meals, and I got an order of festival. (Fun fact: festival is named festival because the guy who invented it thought it was really nice, and wanted to name it after something else nice. Like a festival! No, I’m serious.) Matt and I were beyond thrilled with the whole place.

The rest of our crew decided to head back to the hotel for a siesta, so we made plans to meet up there before the show. Matt and I stayed at Miss Lily’s for another drink, and then crossed the street over to Pegu Club, timing it so we arrived just as it opened. We had a schedule to keep, after all.

We were the first ones there, in the bar that’s up a flight of stairs and so calming that it was very easy to forget the bustle outside. We grabbed seats at the bar and ordered cocktails from the very formal bartender. He became friendlier after another round, and we got some advice from him on the places where bartenders like to hang out in Manhattan. If only we had time to visit all of them!

Then it was time to head out for the show. We hurried to the subway and rode back to Times Square. We walked to the hotel and changed our grungy clothes for fancy ones, then headed down to the mezzanine to meet with the rest of the group, since they were enjoying mezzanine happy hour. From there we only had to walk two doors down to the Belasco Theatre. It was time for Hedwig and the Angry Inch!!

There was a huge crowd pushing into the lobby. We went upstairs, and got in the bar line to get drinks. Two cocktails (in plastic sippy cups) and a bottle of water? $30!

We got to our seats in the second row of the center balcony (thanks, American Express presale!), and the lights went down shortly thereafter. And then Neil Patrick Harris was onstage as Hedwig, and it was AMAZING. Even better than I’d hoped for. I knew all the words, and I wanted it to go on forever. (There was another show that night. I could’ve stayed.)

I think I left the show glowing. Oh, and I picked up the best souvenir ever: the Hedwig makeup towel!

We stopped back at the hotel quickly, and decided to meet back up again across the street at a place that had intrigued us since the first moment we saw it (i.e. the moment we left the hotel the first night): Jimmy’s Corner. First, because it looked super-shady and potentially divey, and second, because it was in the middle of the block and not on the corner at all.

Jimmy’s Corner did not disappoint. It’s a very narrow room, with a long bar and a small elevated room in the back. The bar was full, so I led Matt and Jumi toward the back. I got to the stairs and looked up to find a whole pack of bros sitting back there, so I elected to grab a spot along the wall instead. Nobody needs to be dealing with Times Square bros sober, after all.

We made friends with the people sitting at the bar in front of us, who were doing Fireball shots. One of the guys explained that the owner was Jimmy Glen, a storied boxing trainer. There were pictures of him with basically every famous boxer all over the bar, and also one of Michael Jackson making fists like he could possibly punch someone. That explained the ‘Corner’ part of the name, too.

(That’s one of our pals being really excited to photobomb.)

Here’s blurry Michael Jackson:

The drinks were Wisconsin-strong, and the place was raucous and entertaining. Wendy and Amelia arrived, and when a man came up to chat up Jumi and I (he mis-heard her name as Julie and she didn’t correct him) way too enthusiastically, we decided it was time to move on.

We headed west through Times Square (ugh) and down a few more blocks to Marseille for dinner. Since it was 10:15, a table for five wasn’t a problem. Their food was pretty good, though not spectacular. We ate, had a couple cocktails, and then it was time to move on. Wendy and Amelia headed home for the night, and Jumi and Matt and I walked further west to a recommended beer bar nearby called the Pony. (Which meant Ginuwine was stuck in my head for hours.)

The beer selection was indeed really good, but the crowd was bro-ey. That’s pretty unsurprising for beer bars, though. We had to stand for a while, and then got seats at the bar when some people headed out. We had a couple rounds there, and then it was 1am and time to head back and sleep.

Matt and I got up Sunday morning and took the subway down to Madison Square Park, where we found the Flatiron Building waiting for us.

We arrived just as Eataly opened, and it was strange to see the store nearly empty. We wandered aimlessly for a while, since Wendy and Amelia were coming down to join us at some point. We decided to wait to shop since it sounded like they’d be a while, and headed back to the subway instead. We figured we could ride down and see the West 4th Street Courts, and then come back and meet them.

We went down the stairs, scanned our passes in the gates, and then realized the trains there were headed the wrong direction. We went back upstairs, crossed the street, and went down the stairs on the other side. That’s when we learned that if you scan your pass more often than every 18 minutes, it won’t let you use it. Which is REALLY DUMB.

Rather than wait around for 18 minutes, we went back over to Eataly. The Marimekko store next door had just opened, so we went in there and I bought my required purse, plus a few other things. Then we went to Eataly and picked out our picnic food, wandered aimessly, gawked at the produce, and searched in vain for a bottle opener for the beer we were buying.

Wendy and Amelia still hadn’t arrived, so we walked over to a Walgreens and 7-11 in search of a bottle opener. Neither of them had them, which was really strange. We decided to go sit at the park across the street and wait.

We sat there watching a running class in progress, people sprinting around the park and being encouraged by way-too-enthusiastic trainers. We also watched people getting sandwiches at Shake Shack, and I was a little sad we weren’t in need of a meal. We finally heard from Wendy and Amelia, having arrived to do their shopping. We met them outside the store and walked to the subway, where we were permitted to use our passes again. Oh, and we found a liquor store along the way, so we were finally able to obtain the bottle opener we needed.

We rode up to Central Park, and walked in a ways to find a spot for a picnic. The weather was perfect, and we picked a spot on a hillside overlooking the amusement park. Our picnic consisted of fig bread, cheese, fruit, and beer. Delicious.

We said bye to Wendy and Amelia and walked up the west side of Central Park to the subway station at the Dakota. We hopped on the train and rode back to the hotel, where we dropped off my gigantic Marimekko bag (which I’d gotten pretty tired of carrying around). Since we had a long walk ahead of us that evening, we decided to change and wander over to the Algonquin to have a drink in their super-famous lobby bar.

The place was quiet and comfortable, and the servers all seemed to be old guys. There’s a cat named Matilda who lives in the lobby, and the front desk staff was hauling her out from behind the counter and putting her on the desk for people to see. Matilda did not seem thrilled about it.

Post-drinks, we walked to the train and rode over to Chelsea. It was another long walk from there to the McKittrick Hotel, where we had tickets for Sleep No More at 6pm. It was a little after 5pm, so we rode up to the rooftop bar, called Gallow Green. We got cocktails, and found a table under an arbor. The rooftop was really pretty and the weather was still glorious, so we wished we had longer to hang out there.

Jumi came up to join us after a bit (she’d been wandering doing nerdy things all day), and then it was time to head into the show. We rode back downstairs and waited in line to get into the hotel. (The ‘hotel’ is actually a set of three warehouses they converted for the show.) We headed inside, and were instructed to leave everything at the coat check – purses, phones, and everything. Matt brought cash for the bar, and that was about it.

From the moment we walked in, everything was dimly-lit. The check-in desk handed each of us a playing card for the show. Matt and I had 7s, and Jumi got a 6. A lady punched a hole in our cards, put her finger to her mouth and whispered, “Shhhhh!”, and pointed us up the stairs. We headed up into complete darkness, through a series of winding hallways. I couldn’t see anything, and clung to Matt’s shirt lest we get separated.

We finally emerged into a parlor area that was entirely red velvet. There were small tables around a stage, bartenders pouring champagne drinks, and a very unusual lady doing spoken-word bits on stage. We got drinks and a table, and figured out what was going on; they were staging people for entrance by number, according to the cards you were holding. We hung out for a while, and then they called our group.

We were all handed Venetian-carnival-style masks to put on. They were hard white plastic with huge pointy birdlike noses. It was hella creepy seeing crowds of people wearing them. We piled into an elevator with about 15 other people, and the guy running the elevator explained how it worked: you were free to wander wherever you wanted, and they encouraged you to pick an actor or group of actors and follow them around to watch the story unfold. We were also supposed to investigate everything that we found along the way, but we were not supposed to talk to each other; they encouraged us to separate so we could all experience it individually. The elevator stopped on a top floor, and the door opened and one person walked out. The guy running the elevator quickly slammed the door behind them, and we rode to another level. Suddenly I did become kind of nervous about losing Matt and Jumi, because I had no intention of wandering around there by myself.

We got out on the third floor, and decided to go up a level rather than following the crowd into the building. We found that floor mostly empty, and the first room we entered looked like a creepy hospital room, lined with cots. The room was super-dark, so we had to use the tiny lamps to read all the crazy handwritten medical charts we found on all the walls and tables. There was an outline of a person on one of the cots that appeared at first to be made of stones, but it was actually potatoes. I DON’T KNOW.

One of the next rooms was even darker, and it was a graveyard. There were tombstones and piles of dirt everywhere. Then there was a room of bathtubs, and a forest maze that I was pretty sure we’d end up trapped in. In one corner there was a hut made of twigs, and a pair of actors came rushing past and ran inside. We tried to open the door to follow them in, but one of the guides gestured to discourage us. Instead we went around the side of the hut and peered through cracks in the walls to watch them. There’s something about the show that turns you into a really creepy voyeur.

After being thoroughly freaked out by that whole thing, we went down to the third floor. There was a series of bedrooms and parlors there, and they all smelled strongly of mothballs. We rifled through drawers and looked at photos. The drawers contained things like bird feathers, stones, notes, and jewelry. Then we wandered into what appeared to be a battlefield, with falling-down walls, broken statues and crumbling foundations laid out like a maze. That room led into a bedroom with a bathtub right in the middle of it, and that’s where we found Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. He was naked in the tub, washing off blood. They didn’t really speak so much as shout meaningless words, gesticulate, and rush around in a dancelike, incredibly gymnastic way. They were fighting, lifting each other up, walking on the walls, and doing flips and jumps all over the room.

There was a large crowd standing around watching them, and we’d all have to shift around as they rushed around the room. Seeing this crowd of blank-masked people standing in a tight circle and staring was really incredibly creepy. There were windows into the room from the battlefield area with cloudy, broken glass, and you could see masks peering in from there, too. The crowd was entirely silent, occasionally gesturing at each other when they were ready to move on.

Macbeth eventually went tearing out of the room, and a large group went running after him. We decided to hang back a little and went downstairs. There we found a village full of shops and offices, and several actors wandering in and out. There was a tailor, a doctor, a taxidermist, a candy shop, a detective office, and a few other things. We watched some of the actors fighting in the hallway (I think one of them was MacDuff, but it was hard to keep track of who was who), and one of them walked across the ceiling supported by the other actor. It was kind of amazing.

As we squeezed down a dark hallway, a couple other actors came tearing past and went into the little room we were about to enter. A bunch of people followed them in, and Matt walked through the door. I was about to go in when one of the actors pushed me back (he was soaking wet, by the way) and slammed the door. Jumi and I just stared at each other, shocked. I was pretty sure my husband was going to be murdered by Macbeth.

We lingered around outside the door for a while, and finally it opened and he escaped. They’d apparently been having some kind of interrogation in there, and he was part of a small crowd that got to witness it.

At one point we were in the taxidermists’ office poking around at stuff on a desk, when suddenly an actor came running in followed by a crowd who crammed into the room. I ended up stuck directly next to his desk, where I had to watch him flop a raven on his table and start stabbing it with pins. I know it was fake, but holy crap. I was so happy to escape after that.

After wandering around that level for a while, we headed downstairs. It had been a couple hours, and people seemed to be moving toward the ballroom on the lower level. A bunch of actors were dancing in there, so we watched that and then went to look around the fake hotel lobby and restaurant (which had a ton of silverware glued into crosses lining the walls… it was pretty awesome). We circled around there for a while, and started to realize that we’d basically seen everything. (We learned later that that wasn’t even close to true – we’d missed an entire level with naked witches dancing, and a bar – but it still felt that way.) We kept going down stairways and passages and ending up in the same place, so I was wondering how the hell we were even supposed to get out of there when we were done. Suddenly there was a lot of movement from the actors, so we picked one and joined the crowd that was tailing him around the building. He ran down the stairs into the ballroom, and as we emerged there we realized that the vast majority of the spectators in the building were there too.

People kept entering the room, and the actors got up on the stage for the final scene. I couldn’t get over how remarkable it was that they’d managed to round up a 5-story building full of people and get them all into the same place at the same time with no actual prompting. It just worked out that way.

(For a far better writeup than I can provide, please read the NYT piece on Sleep No More. We want to go back and see the things we missed!)

After the show, we all piled out into the lobby to collect our things. We got to keep the scary-ass masks, which was awesome. We made the mistake of walking out without going to the bathroom or having a drink of water or anything (much less dinner), so it only took a few blocks to realize that was going to be a problem. I had to stop at a convenience store for water, Jumi has to rush into a restaurant and use their bathroom, and Matt had to stop at Dunkin Donuts to use their restroom, too. It was a long walk back to the train, and we were all store from our million miles of walking. (Who thought it was a good idea to wear high-heel sandals to walk all over NYC, by the way? Oh right, that was me.)

It was well past dinnertime at that point, so we decided to go get some fancy drinks instead. (It made sense at the time.) We took the train to Grand Central Station, and went up a level from the main lobby to the Campbell Apartment. Having spent plenty of time at Prohibition at the W Hotel/Foshay Tower in Minneapolis, which also happens to be a former tycoon’s office, we felt right at home there. It was indeed fancy.

We ordered drinks, and noticed they had a cheese plate on their snacks menu, so we got that too. Our server was super-nice and incredibly scatterbrained, but I’m guessing part of that had to do with the fact that it was after 10:30, they were supposedly closing at 11, and a huge wedding party had just walked in the door.

We got our check around 11 and took the train to Times Square, after much debate about whether the Times Square shuttle was actually a bus or a train (it’s a train, sort of like a monorail running between the two stops). Times Square was as shitshowy as usual, plus the baby was there. God, could anyone be creepier? Blech.

At that point we realized that we’d actually not really eaten any dinner, so we decided to stop at the Long Room again, across the street from our hotel. As we arrived, we saw a big crowd in the street outside the Belasco, where NPH’s run as Hedwig had just ended. We walked up to see what was up, and he was leaving the theater right at that moment. We didn’t see him, but we did get to watch a guy running down the street shrieking, “NEIL PATRICK HARRIS SIGNED MY FOREHEAD!!!” Awesome.

This time the staff was far more attentive at the Long Room, and we got gin and tonics and more food. We hung out there til a bit before 1am, and then went to the hotel to sleep.

We woke at 10am to housekeeping knocking on the door. I’m pretty sure they learned after that, because they didn’t bother coming back before noon for the rest of our stay.

We decided to have breakfast at our hotel, overlooking the beach. The weather was unbelievably perfect: clear skies and calm ocean.

the pool at our hotel. nice, but who needs it when you have the ocean?

Having obtained rum punches on the way out, we went to change into bathing suits and headed to the beach to swim. We spent the next three or so hours bobbing around in the ocean, attempting to bodysurf on the occasional wave, and climbing on each other in inappropriate ways. We then took up beach chairs and read, until it became clear that no matter how many times we reapplied sunscreen, we were going to keep burning if we sat in the sun. We gave it one last shot and went back to swim in the ocean for a while longer.

After showering, we decided to walk towards town, in the direction of the one cash machine we knew dispensed Jamaican dollars.

It was maybe a mile or so from our hotel along the road (there’s only one road). Cabs honked constantly as they passed, which was mostly disconcerting just because they drive on the wrong side of the street. All along the way, there are jerk and other vendors, restaurants with beckoning cooks, and guys standing around offering to sell you whatever you want. The main offering is weed, but they made sure we know that they could get us anything we wanted. We politely declined.

The downtown area is just a few blocks radiating from a central roundabout. Past that area, the road heads up into the cliffs, where the other main resort area is. There’s a Burger King and a couple other Americanized places there, but nowhere near what can be found in Montego Bay (I think they even have a Wal-Mart. Yuck).

We spotted the ScotiaBank with the ATM, but decided to wander and look for the Hi-Lo supermarket first. As we rounded the curve, a dude introduced himself as Junior and started walking with us. I asked him where the Hi-Lo was, and he told us he’d take us there. He was, after all, a guy who shows people how to get around. I had flashbacks to Johnny in the Dominican Republic. So we started following him, and I made sure I had a few bucks in my pocket to give him when we got there.

He led us a few blocks further, which involved balancing on the sea wall, stopping traffic to cross, and staring at the ground to be sure we didn’t stumble on rocks or broken concrete. There were cars rushing past, and it was far more hectic than our area on the beach. He walked us through a shopping center with several souvenir shops, and stopped in front of one to point it out: that was his friend’s shop – wouldn’t we like to go in? We told him we’d prefer to stop there after the Hi-Lo, and continued to follow him.

For the moment, I was glad Junior had attached himself to us, because we’d have never found the store without a guide. He brought us inside and grabbed a basket, and at that moment it became clear that he intended to shop with us. I took the basket from him, thanked him for his help, and told him we’d be fine. I shoved $3 in his hand and walked away.

Junior was a little distraught by that. He followed us, telling me that that was a very small amount of money in Jamaica. We knew that he’d be able to buy a couple of Red Stripes with it; it’s not like he was giving us a cab ride or anything. I apologized and kept walking; he protested to Matt for a while, and finally gave up. We were very glad to be free of Junior, and did our shopping in peace.

We still didn’t have any Jamaican cash, figuring we’d be able to get it at the Hi-Lo. After circling the store and not finding an ATM, I handed Matt the basket and told him I’d go check around outside. I didn’t find one there, either, but I did find Junior hitting Matt up again when I returned. The best part is that he didn’t remember him til I showed up; he then looked perturbed and left. Oh, Junior.

We bought our collection of Jamaican beverages (and deodorant, since that was the item I chose to forget to pack) with American money, and got change in J$. That’s pretty much how it works there: you can pay pretty much anywhere with either form of currency, but you’ll get change in Jamaican. You’ll definitely be on the short end of the exchange rate, but it’s at least convenient.

By that point, we were starving, so we followed a sign for Sunshine Pizza and headed upstairs in the mall. We found a little shop there with tables outside, placed an order for a couple of pieces of pizza and two Red Stripes, and hung out, overlooking the ocean. Perfect.

After lunch, we stopped into Junior’s friend’s shop and picked up some souvenirs, which included a few small bottles of liquor. One of them was Rum Bar Rum, which the owner told us was the strongest overproof one could find. WIN. We shoved our purchases into my string bag and threaded our way back through the deathtrap that is downtown Negril. We stopped at the ATM (which apparently has extremely long lines some days; we only waited for a few minutes), got Jamaican dollars, and were way too excited that the receipt said I had $40,000 in my account. Jamaican, of course.

We headed back toward the beach, encountering many of the same hustlers along the way. Our new favorite was Kanye, thus named because of his sunglasses. We ran into him several times over the course of the week, and were never sure exactly what he did. He appeared to be a pot-dealing cab driver. Which is par for the course in Negril, of course.

We decided to stop at Yellow Bird, because it was on my list as having happy hour before sunset. It was a few hotels down the beach from ours, near Bourbon Beach.

There’s a sign hanging in every bar in Negril that reads:

It is my intention to apply for a spirit licence to sell rum, gin, brandy and other distill spirit at the next court session in Sav. (Signed by the owner.)

Sav refers to Savannah-La-Mar. I’m pretty sure these court sessions only happen once every 20 years, because there was only one place, Rick’s, that had actually obtained this license.

Also, there were Nebraska Cornhuskers flags strung all the way around the bar. No clue.

I asked the bartender if they had happy hour, and she seemed confused by my question. I rephrased; she said yes, and brought us each a rum punch. When we ordered a second round a bit later, we got two-for-ones. Again, no clue. Regardless: rum punch, bar on the beach, thatched roof, sunset over the ocean, watching the world go by. It doesn’t get much more awesome than that.

There was an American lady lounging nearby on one of the resort’s beach chairs, being attended-to by one (and sometimes two) of the locals. Matt named her Karen from HR. She was the first in a long series of women we saw in Jamaica who were seemingly there alone, and often seen picking up locals and smoking weed. They seem to all be in their 40s, and probably the opposite of players at home. That’s pretty entertaining. I’m sure their coworkers would die of shock if they knew.

sunset from yellow bird

We watched the sunset from the beach. As we were sitting there, the shrooms guy who had hassled us the previous afternoon rushed onto the property, trailing a group of Canadians in their 20s. He was haranguing one of them for payment, but the guy apparently had no cash. He ended up getting his handful of mushrooms for free, because one of the guys at the bar came out and booted the seller after yelling at him about being on the property. The whole time we were there, that was the only seriously unpleasant hustler we ran into. And he seemingly had a reputation as such.

We headed back up the beach. After some hotel-room-based entertainment, we went off in search of dinner. It was around 7pm or so.

We decided to go back to 23/7 again, as it was already our favorite bar. This time there was a woman serving, and we instantly loved her. She commented on my tattoo, because she knew Joyce (she’d even read Finnegan’s Wake). She also recommended the steamed fish to Matt, because she’d decided she wanted to marry it. (“If you could cook fish like that, you wouldn’t need a wife!”) I ordered the callaloo sandwich, which was basically the greatest fried egg sandwich ever invented, with cheese, tomato, and callaloo on top. (It would, in fact, change my life forever: I’ve ordered seeds to grow our own amaranth plant, the basis for callaloo.) I ordered a rum punch, and she poured an extra shot of overproof on top. Matt had a shot of overproof, and a Red Stripe.

A roaming band wandered up onto the beach and started playing reggae. They passed around the magic hat for donations, and we all put in. We told the bartender we were going to head down to Bourbon Beach for the show that night, because Gregory Isaacs was supposed to be playing. (All we knew of Gregory Isaacs was his name, because Mos Def mentions him in Ms Fat Booty. But still! We knew his name!) She looked very wary, as if she didn’t believe the show was actually happening.

Regardless, we headed down that way after a while. We found a giant blue barrier around the complex (it’s one of the larger bars), and a ticket-taker at the gate. It cost $1000J, a little more than $10 US. We got wristbands, then had to buy drink tickets for some reason; it was the only place we saw that week that did it that way. It was still fairly empty, so we grabbed seats at the bar and started working our way through the tickets. I tried to convince Matt to have a shot of Teachers (the ‘scotch’ made by Appleton) neat, with a water back. He was having none of it.

The music started around 10pm. We heard the Indika Band, and enjoyed them quite a bit. In between sets, the trumpet player took a seat near Matt, and they started talking. Matt ended up buying a CD from him, because the band was awesome. By 12:30, there was absolutely no sign of Gregory Isaacs, nor had there been any mention of him. We were exhausted from the previous long day, and decided to head out. It’s entirely possibly that our bartender was right, and he may not have been there at all. That’s not uncommon in Jamaica, apparently!

On the way out, one of the hustlers on the beach asked if he could have our wristbands. We said sure and started to pull them off, but he abruptly stopped us and did it himself, to minimize the damage to them. Jamaica rules.

Saturday morning, we went down to Bumbershoot to pick up mainstage tickets, then visited the Space Needle. Matt and I had been there before, but Colleen and Steve hadn’t.

Steve and Colleen had to run home briefly, so Matt and I bought half the inventory in the gift shop and then went and laid in the grass underneath it. It was gorgeous outside, and I could’ve stayed there all day.

We had lunch at the Mecca Cafe (where Steve ordered french toast and a gimlet), then walked back to their apartment to hang out for a while.

Later in the evening, we went back down to Seattle Center to see Gogol Bordello’s set. I hadn’t seen them before, and loved it. Afterward, we headed back toward Steve and Colleen’s place, to a bar called Paddy Coyne’s. They didn’t know of the wonder of the Johnny Jump-Up, so we were only happy to spread the love to the city of Seattle.

Sunday morning, we took the monorail down to the market.

colleen and steve

We had brunch at the Athenian Inn, an old restaurant inside the market, and then wandered around until it was time to go back to Seattle Center. We hopped on a bus and rode up to see the Kings of Leon, one of my favorite bands. I saw them many moons ago at Bonnaroo, and at the Fine Line in Minneapolis.

Then we all crowded into a smallish building (I didn’t know they had indoor shows there!) to see Bouncing Souls. My favorite part, of course, was when they did ‘Argyle’, the song P.O.S. covers in ‘De La Souls’.

We then herded into the mainstage area to see Sean Paul, followed by Fergie. First of all, I did not realize I knew at least half of Sean Paul’s songs. I’ve danced to all of them many times, in bars and barefoot on streets throughout the land. His set was pretty awesome, if populated mainly by 15-year-old girls. Seriously, I went to the bathroom and realized I was twice as old as every girl in there, and half of them were drunk on smuggled beer. They’d be passing out by 11pm for sure.

And then, there was Fergie.

Thing is, I don’t really like Fergie. I’ve obviously danced to ‘London Bridge’ and ‘Fergalicious’ a minimum of 50 times apiece, because that’s just dance music. But when I heard she’d be playing there, of course I had to see her. How could I miss that opportunity? It’s not like I’m going to pay for tickets to her shows.

The first part was as expected: all her radio songs, and three costume changes (in a one-hour set). She was apparently doing hand-springs and such, but we were too far away to really be able to see much. Towards the end, she yelled, Do you want to rock?? Of course we wanted to rock, at least until we found out what she meant.

She launched into ‘Barracuda’ by Heart. It was definitely out-of-place, but not totally wrong for her; she had the voice for it, at least. I was amused knowing that probably 90% of the people there had never heard the song before, since they weren’t even born then. At the end of the song, she shouted, You know where you are? You’re in the jungle, baby! You gonna DIIIIIIEEEE!

Our minds were blown. We barely even absorbed the fact that she also covered ‘Rehab’ by Amy Winehouse. We felt like we were broken, and stumbled out after the show, stunned.

We walked toward Belltown and decided to go to Cyclops, Colleen’s dad’s favorite bar. It had an awesome interior, even more awesome bartenders (I loved the girl who called us lovebirds because she kept seeing us making out), and a strangely mixed crowd.

We spend a good portion of our time there watching a couple dudes putting the hardcore mack down on two willing girls. They swooped in with a bucket of Rainier, most of which was consumed by the little guy, who we named ‘Limpy’, due to the fact that his friend was obviously going to get all the play when he was unable to perform. We could only see the other dude from the back, but he was clearly a giant, so Steve named him Frankenstein. I loved their antics, especially when Limpy would start to doze off clutching his beer bottle, then spring awake to make another sly move on the ladies.

We left as the bar was closing, and unfortunately did not get to see the outcome of their efforts. However, we’re pretty sure the score was Frankenstein 2, Limpy 0.

sophie the monorail cat

Monday morning (well, more like afternoon), we at the 5-Point. It’s owned by the same people who run the Mecca Cafe, only it’s very near Seattle Center. It’s also open 24 hours, so you can drink til 2am, sober up for a few hours, then start drinking again at something like 6am.

They have a periscope in the men’s room so that dudes can look at the Space Needle while they’re peeing. AWESOME.

We went back downtown to stock up on supplies at Lush. The girl working there said they’d be opening a store in Minneapolis soon! Yay!

matt and steve at the first starbucks

We did some more wandering around the market, then went down to the waterfront. We spent a very long time shopping at a pirate store, and then it was time to head back to Bumbershoot to see Lyrics Born.

puget sound

lyrics born callin’ out

Lyrics Born is always amazing, dudes. I’ve seen him four times now, always in the most awesome circumstances: closing down the Hip Hop n’ Harmony festival, at Foundation, in the front row at Lollapalooza. He’s coming back to Minneapolis this fall, and I can’t wait. He has the greatest energy.

After the show, we waited in line at the record company booth to meet him, but they booted us out of line because we wouldn’t buy a CD (I have it already), and he’d only be there for 20 minutes. LAME. At least I got this picture.

lyrics born

We shopped at the extensive craft fair, then made our way over to the 7-11 near the Space Needle for Slurpees (fun fact: 7-11 has sugar-free Slurpees! VERY EXCITING.) We were carrying flasks full of Malibu because we’re way classy, and mixed ourselves some cocktails right at the beverage counter.

We made our way to the mainstage and sat in the stands drinking our Slurpees and eating a cube of fries. We saw Lupe Fiasco, who was pretty awesome; I knew most of his stuff because he raps on a lot of Jay-Z and Kanye West tracks.

During the break in between shows, we noticed that a huge group sitting in our section kept cheering at people walking by on the floor, but we had no idea why. It was hysterical because they’d bust out screaming or groaning in disappointment ever minute or so. We finally figured out what it was about: there was a puddle of vomit on the floor, and they were cheering every time someone stepped in it.

It shouldn’t have been so damn funny, but it was. We couldn’t stop watching.

And then? It was time for the Wu-Tang Clan. It was the perfect ending to the festival.

wu-tang clan ain’t nothin’ to fuck with.

Colleen headed home because she had to work in the morning, and Steve and Matt and I went to the Victory Lounge near their house. It was nearly empty, but the bartender was awesome and they had Naked Ladies. We played a few victorious games, then headed over to another bar that we found closed by 1am. What? Instead, we went back to their apartment, got ourselves some beverages, and went up to the roof of the building. It was raining so we couldn’t sit down anywhere; instead we stood under the awning and talked about work. Because we rule.

Friday morning, I have no clue how Lauren got up and went to work, but she managed it. I slept in, spent time in the bathroom with Joe (I love that cat), talked on the phone a lot, then headed downtown to meet Kaye and Mollie. We headed into Lollapalooza, and the rocking commenced.

panic! at the disco

kaye and mollie stretching

raconteurs

My favorite bands that day were Panic! At the Disco (which featured burlesque dancers), the Raconteurs (because I love Jack White as it is, but Jack White in a southern-rock band? Drool.), and the Violent Femmes, because everyone loves the Violent Femmes. Afterwards, we met Lauren by the Bean in Millennium Park, and she and I headed to dinner at Bandera, a restaurant far too fancy for our dress (and my smelliness), but who cares?

Afterward, we met up with a dude named Walt at Watertower Park, stormed through the crowds of date rapists lining the streets of Chicago, and hopped a bus to what Lauren promised to be the most annoying hipster bar in town, the Rainbo Club. She was right; we couldn’t move more than ten feet from the doorman, it was so crowded. And smoky. And pretentious. We actually talked to a few dudes who were pretty funny, but not funny enough to make us stick around longer than a drink. We bailed around one o’clock and headed off to find another spot, finally deciding on Subterranean, when Lauren ran into a friend of hers nearby. We hung out with him for a while, then headed home.

Lauren and I got up Saturday and went to have brunch at the Bongo Room, which was excellent. We also bought me some sunglasses, which I still have to this day. That’s a new record, and I probably just jinxed it.

me in the bathroom at the bongo room, with amazing sunburn.

We saw several shows Saturday, but the one that I’d have paid the entire ticket price for was Lyrics Born. Mollie and I got there early to get a spot near the front, ending up about three people back.

lyrics born. i love this man.

By halfway through the show, I was against the railing, and totally fucking thrilled about it. I emerged from the show drenched in sweat and gasping for air, my camera chock-full-o-videos that I should probably post somewhere to share the awesomeness. Afterwards, I stuck around for Blackalicious, and was surprised at how much of their music I still knew. I was also giggling inside at the conversation the kids were having next to me: they basically discovered hiphop that day.

blackalicious

I met Kaye by a pole for half of the Dresden Dolls, and then took off on a mission: to get Lauren at the station and go find a little bit of Minneapolis in Chicago. She told me to hop in the last car so she could find me at the Damen stop, only I got turned around and got in a car very near the front instead. At each of the next four stops, I’d hop out of the train, run as far as I could before the doors began to close, and then hop into another car further down the line. I really hope no one knew what I was up to, because it was comical. But I did finally achieve the last car, met up with her at the correct stop, and we were on our way to the Abbey Pub to see P.O.S..

We got there early enough to get dinner, including curry fries, which are good enough to fantasize over, oh my god. We heard the sound check finish, the side door opened, and P.O.S. walked in. I almost peed my pants with excitement. But of course, there are like two people in the universe I’m too intimidated to talk to, and he’s currently one of them. We met some boys in line who were excited that I was from Mpls, and one of them was convinced he’d seen me at shows, so we compared notes. We went in and talked to Sims and Cecil Otter at the merch table about Hiphop and Harmony and Lollapalooza, and then the COMPLETE AWESOMENESS OF THE SHOW BEGAN.

the aristacats

mictlan

doomtree!

p.o.s.

artist outside the show

It was so great I can’t even really describe it, except that it involved a lot of yelling and dancing and jumping around and whiskey and picture-taking, many of which you will find in the usual place. I have more videos as well. P.O.S. rocked our pants right off, and I daresay Lauren the punk girl might even be a new hiphop convert. At least a little bit. After the show, we went back and talked to them some more, I was still too intimidated to do much but shake P.O.S.’ hand, we met Psalm One, and some people left with my number we can hang out when they’re in town for Atmosphere at the end of September. All in all, the best show ever, yet again.

lauren

We hopped a cab back to Lauren’s neighborhood and stopped at 7-11 for large bottles of water, which shared the bed with us that night.

Sunday morning, we got up and went downtown to Millennium Park to take about 400 photos of the bean, aka the Cloud Gate. I could probably stare at that thing all day. We sat and watched the kids in the fountain, then wandered back into downtown to find food. We found Kaye and Mollie there, so I headed back to Lollapalooza with them.

I was very excited to see the Hold Steady with their many many Minneapolis shout-outs (and also the fact that Craig had shown up to perform with P.O.S. the previous night at the Abbey). My second-favorite show was Queens of the Stone Age, although the Kids from the School of Rock kicked ridiculous amounts of ass for being so young.

the hold steady

In the evening, Lauren and I went to Piece (aka the Luce of Chicago) for dinner, and for a short while it seemed like a really great idea to go out after that; however, by the end of dinner, we were both dragging. I was sore from the walking, the rocking, the sunburn, and the general awesomeness. We went back to her place to hang out, and then I passed out hard.

Friday morning, we headed up to Nashville, as the shows we wanted to see didn’t start until later. Stephanie had never experienced the joys of the South, so I aimed to show her the highlights. We started at Bongo Java. She witnessed the miracle of the Nun Bun, and I bought coffee and some souvenir underwear, because it’s what I do. The coffee boy freaked when I pulled out my wallet. He said, ‘Can I take a picture of that?’ and pulled out his camera phone. I held it up for him, and he told me about his Hello Kitty fandom. I said, ‘Well then…’ and put my keys on the counter so he could see my Hello Kitty sushi chef keyring. Then I showed him my cellphone. He looked like he was going to pass out. He dug in his pocked and produced a little Hello Kitty, which he placed lovingly on the counter. It was a moment.

We drove over to see the Parthenon. Stephanie was unimpressed. As a sports fan, she was way more excited by the Coliseum (I even learned there’s a sports team there called the Titans, and apparently they play a game known locally as ‘football’), which was crawling with country music fans in town for the CMA festival. We drove around for a while trying to find a parking spot amongst the crowd of cowboy-hat-tube-top-wearing fans. The nice thing about Nashville is that all the funny touristy stuff is confined to a few blocks along Broadway, from Ryman Auditorium (the original Grand Ole Opry) to the… well, Hard Rock Cafe. Whatever.

Anyway, we wandered. I pointed out the Batman building. We went into the offensive souvenir shop where half the merchandise comes emblazoned with a confederate flag. We stopped into Hatch Show Print, because I’m obsessed (my upcoming portfolio is a tribute). We marveled at the fashion we saw:

‘Was that a one or two-piece hot-pink bodysuit?’
‘How does he transport that giant beer gut on those spindly legs?’
‘What’s the connection between NASCAR and country?’

We stopped to get our photo taken with Elvis, and to talk to some country music fans on the street, who told us about the festival events, and the loads of free crap to be had. We decided to check it out.

They had a bunch of tents set up, selling state-fair food (again!), and crappy beer. There was a tent with Sharpie markers, one for eBay, and a cooking tent sponsored by Mrs. Dash. No, I’m not joking. There was even a karaoke stage, on which bemused fans in various degrees of patriotic decoration were belting their hearts out to today’s greatest country. It was… interesting. We went to the Charlie Daniels museum instead. And then, we were just in time for the opening of the world-famous Wildhorse Saloon. If you’re not me, you probably don’t recall that it’s the place I learned to line-dance.

I was feeling nostalgic, so I ordered fried pickles even though Stephanie wouldn’t touch them. I ate a few, then had a ‘cowboy’ caesar salad. As she pointed out, I was eating the same thing I eat at Luce: caesar salad and a diet Coke. I told her to shut up, since it was the only thing on the menu I could eat.

This would become a theme.

We headed to Katy K’s Ranch Dressing. I can’t say enough good things about her custom western wear, so I won’t. You just have to see it. She noticed the kitty shoes I’d bought from her last spring. I bought a tshirt with her logo. She gave us directions to Bonnaroo. I wanted to hug her goodbye, but I restrained myself.

So we drove the 70 miles to Manchester. The main exit was closed, so we had to go three miles past it and turn around at the next exit, as instructed by about a hundred state troopers. There were cars lining the freeway for those entire three miles, and they didn’t seem to be moving. People were hanging out of their cars and wandering around on the side of the road. We decided to stop at the gas station to pee and get snacks and water.

We got on the entrance ramp and sat parked there for half an hour. I got out and talked to the passing folks. One boy with rhinestone sunglasses told me he was parked about a mile and a half up the road, and it had taken him three hours to get to that point. We turned off the air, opened all the windows and sunroof, and settled in. I watched the temperature creep from 92 to 101.

We crept down the three miles of I-24 and reached the Manchester exit after almost 4 hours. We were thrilled to almost be there. We were drenched, had to go to the bathroom, and were running out of water. We had watched people walking down the highway twice the speed we were driving. We watched them climbing into the woods and peeing, and seriously regretted being girls.

At the exit, the friendly troopers told us we were entering total chaos. There were 90,000 people there, way more than they expected. There wasn’t enough room for all the campers, so people were just parking anywhere. It was a mess. They were amused. We were not. We realized that the traffic backup didn’t end at the exit, and that we had farther to go, but no idea just how far.

A total of nine hours after leaving the gas station, we were parked at Bonnaroo. They were correct about chaos. We drove through rocks and grass and mud and found a parking spot amongst the campers. We weren’t camping and were supposed to be parked in a separate area so we could leave later, but they had abandoned any order. I asked three different people in STAFF tshirts and was told they had no idea how I was leaving, since all the exits were blocked by cars trying to get in. My favorite response was, ‘I heard there was another exit around here, but I’m not sure. It’ll probably be cleared up by 8am.’

We tried to remember where we parked in the dark, and walked a mile or so into the festival. The main camping area was full of vendors. They had some tshirts and such, but mostly it was glass pipes and ganja brownies and mushroom truffles and inventive mixed drinks. It would’ve been really funny, had we not sat in the car for 9 hours without water, having to pee. Knowing we would have to face the dreaded music-festival port-a-potties. Shiver.

It was a life-changing event for me. I tried about six bathrooms before finding one that seemed tolerable. I climbed in with Kleenex and seat covers. Since it was dark, the stalls were pitch black; she held the door open partway while I peed and watched the folks outside buying weed. As we traded off, passing hand wipes, a girl came barrelling out of the next stall, stoned and freaking out. And the Dead weren’t even playing that night!

Finally, we were in. We watched Dave Matthews. Or she did, and I watched the people. I have never seen so many people stoned at one time, and I’ve been to many shows. And in keeping with her request/threat, I remained completely unaltered. The entire time.

After the show, we did manage to find our way back to the car. I told Stephanie I was going to get us out of there, no matter what. I had a plan that mostly involved brute force, and it worked.

Chico is not an offroad vehicle, and even a Jeep would’ve been hard-pressed in that environment. We made it out to the road, and another trooper stopped us. He said, ‘You know you’ve got something dragging up here?’ Apparently a piece underneath the bumper had dropped down. He said it didn’t look like it would cause any damage, so we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Saturday morning, I got up way too early, as usual. I drove over to Starbucks, got gas, stopped at CVS to pick up the razor I had forgotten to bring (got forbid one be hairy at a hippie-overrun music festival), fruit, and duct tape. The girl at CVS told me she was from Manchester, and that this was the best-organized event to date. I almost fell over. I brought Stephanie back breakfast, and set to work duct-taping my vehicle. A big piece of plastic under the front of the engine had broken off and was hanging down. I taped the shit out of it and we were off.

We got to Bonnaroo at 10:30, well before the shows started. We had no trouble getting into day parking, as all the campers had finally settled. I wish I could adequately represent what the camping looked like: huge open fields full of tents, as far as one could see. It was pretty awesome. And a complete mess. People were walking down the road to bathe in the dirty creek. The whole place already smelled like garbage. We, however, were clean.

I strapped on the Camelbak and we waded through the sea of contraband to the entrance. We spend some time wandering around Centeroo and figuring out where all the stages were, as they all had immensely useless names such as What Stage, Which State, That Tent, This Tent, etc. We checked out the food, and I was thrilled: there were a few full-on vegetarian booths, and even a vegan one. It figured with the audience, but sometimes I’m surprised. I bought a pretzel and we went to grab spots close to the stage in That Tent for Kings of Leon, the original reason I wanted to go to the festival in the first place.

The show was so great. I loved it. We were up close enough to see everything, and they rocked hard in that Tennessee way. They had crazy hillbilly hair and the tightest jeans ever seen on human beings. During the show, which was under a big tent, it started pouring outside, and everybody cheered and ran out into the rain.

After the show, we wandered around and saw some other bands. Gomez was awesome live. There was a huge crowd listening on the lawn. We saw most of that show, then I went to hear Rachael Yamagata in a little tent hidden in the back. I fell in love. She’ll be here in Minneapolis this month in a tiny little room at the Quest, and I will be there.

We saw Del McCoury and My Morning Jacket, and spent some time laying in the sun listening to whatever band was nearby. I ate a hummus wrap and immediately felt sick because of the heat. It was better to not eat at all, and drink water whenever necessary, but not too much, as we had a very good reason: avoiding the port-a-potties again. Word was getting around about how bad they were already, and there was no way I’d go willingly. So we devised a carefully-executed technique we termed ‘controlled dehydration’: drink enough to stay conscious, but not enough to have to pee. And it worked!

As it got later, we decided to head out before the Grateful Dead. The idea of hanging around for that was just depressing. So we got back to the car easily, just as it got really dark and the wind picked up. Tents were billowing, and garbage was flying everywhere. Within ten minutes of leaving, the downpour began. We were so glad to not be at the festival for that.

It took us too long to get to the hotel in the rain. I showered the sweat and fifteen layers of sunscreen off me. The sunscreen seemed to be doing no good at all. The news on TV said that two people had already died at Bonnaroo due to multiple drugs and heat and dehydration. We drove back up to Nashville for dinner, as Stephanie was insistent about eating at Wildhorse again. I worried about getting in due to the CMA festivities, but figured we’d find something else if the club was closed.

We found the exact same parking spot as the day before, and cheered. As I started off down the street and looked back over my shoulder, and noticed something I didn’t want to see: the front tire was flat. I had one of those split-second gaps in reasoning that really makes me question how I think sometimes: I thought, ‘Eh, leave it for later.’ I almost walked away. But then I snapped back to reality, and I was pissed.

We were parked on a downward slope, so I pulled up the parking brake hard, ripped all the tools out of the trunk, and set to work. See, I’ve changed flats on this car so many times that I could qualify for the Saab racing pit crew. Not that that makes me any calmer about it when it happens; in fact, each time it gets worse.

I was parked close enough to the curb that getting the tire iron in to loosen the nuts was highly inconvenient. It took forever to crank up the jack. At least they didn’t use a torque wrench the last time around, so I didn’t have to jump on it to loosen them. As usual, I got the nuts out and then couldn’t get the tire off the hub. It likes to rust in place. I jacked it up further, yanked on it some more, then planted my ass on the curb, put my feet on the tire and kicked it over and over, cursing loudly the whole time.

At that moment, I heard women talking behind me. A couple of ladies had meandered up the hill and taken up a spot on the ledge behind us as my audience. They were lamenting to themselves, then to us, the fact that no men were coming by to help. They tried to flag one down, but he rushed off with a painfully lame excuse. And part of me was pissed that nobody offered to help, especially in a place like the south. On the other hand, I’d probably have refused it unless I couldn’t have done it myself.

So I continued kicking and yanking and swearing (a little more quietly, considering the southern belles nearby), and they expounded on their theory about why no men were there to help. They said it was to do with the fact that they were all off at war dying. Therefore, nobody to help me change my tire.

Um, right.

I finally got the tire off, then put it all put back together, tossed everything as hard as I could into the trunk, and we headed off to dinner. Me with completely black hands.

As expected, Wildhorse turned us away. They were having a CMA party with the stars of NBC daytime TV. Yeah, we seriously regretted missing that. We headed to a restaurant nearby and I had… caesar salad and diet Coke, after scrubbing my hands in the bathroom for 10 minutes straight. We drove back to the hotel at a much slower speed on the infamous red donut tire, but you know. At least we were alive. All the men, they were dead.

I woke up Sunday terrified that I would find no one in the wilds of Tennessee who would sell me a new tire on a Sunday. I paged through the phonebook, calling tire repair numbers randomly. A sleepy-sounding guy answered, and I asked him if they were open today to fix a flat. He asked, ‘On a semi?’ I said no. He said, ‘Call Wal-Mart,’ and hung up.

It took me about two seconds to abandon my principles, and go to a company I’ve refused to patronize for quite a long time. Yes, I suck.

They had the tire fixed within 20 minutes. I’ve never, ever had the luck to blow a tire and have it be repairable, so I was shocked. I paid $7.14 in cash, and we were on the road by 9:30am. We got coffee, then headed to Jack Daniels. I was hoping Goose would be there to give us a tour. He was working, but had just taken a group out and wouldn’t be back for a couple hours. We didn’t have the time to wait, so we checked out the visitor’s center, did some souvenir shopping in Lynchburg, and then headed back to Manchester.

On the way back into the festival, we saw cars leaving covered in mud. Not just smeared with it, but like balls of mud had been flung at them. The day parking was terrible, and it took us a while to find a spot where we could turn without danger of getting stuck. As I backed into a spot, a girl was standing across the way pointing and grimacing at the front of my car. I nodded, because I knew… Chico was falling apart again.

The duct tape had come loose, and the entire piece was folded forward and attached only by a bolt in the center. I tried cracking the plastic, and it wouldn’t let go. I yanked on it, I twisted it, I stomped on it. I pinned one end to the ground and bounced on the other. I’m sure it was a great show. Finally, I twisted it enough that it snapped. I left it on the ground next to the car, and we went back into the festival. Did I mention my car sucks? It does.

My Camelbak was really heavy, so I dumped out half the water. It was easy to find water anywhere inside, so I didn’t need it, and the straps were hurting my sunburn. It was overcast, but still in the upper 90s and unbearably humid. We got to the gates and people were wading ankle-deep in mud to get in. We had to pick our way very slowly along the edges to avoid drowning.

It took a good 15 minutes to cross the muddy expanse between the main stage and Centeroo. You would find a safe little dryish island in the middle of the mess and have to stand there, planning the next part of the route. People were barefoot and covered in mud, but I was hoping to avoid that. The staff drove ATVs, which would go rushing by, splashing muddy water all over the place. About half the grounds were wet, so people were clustered in all the dry spots. It was a mess.

We wanted to see moe, but that would have required wading again, so we just listened. We heard some of Burning Spear, Marc Ribot, Marc Broussard, Taj Mahal, and Cracker as we walked around. I got a falafel sammich and met some awesome people from Louisiana who talked about their camping nightmare, and how they were prepared to run as fast as possible after the last show that night. We weren’t even waiting around for that, we were leaving after Maroon 5. None of that 9 hour shit again, thank you.

Stephanie went off in search of water, and quickly discovered the vendors were out. I regretted emptying any of it out of my pack. We managed to find pop, and went to hang out for a while, listening to the Bad Plus and waiting for Guster to begin. I laid on the ground and listened to these southern girls talking about how they couldn’t wait to get married so they wouldn’t have to support their own lazy asses anymore. I wanted to smack them, but it would’ve hurt my sunburn.

We got up to pack into a tent for Guster. A cute boy complimented my dirty kitty shoes and offered me his pipe; I declined. I hope Stephanie appreciates my restraint. Guster was OK live, but not great. The crowd was really fun, though. The second the show was over, I pushed my way near the front, as instructed by my sister, who was desperate to see Maroon 5 up close and personal. We congratulated ourselves on being maybe 20 feet from the stage before the rumors started circulating: they had cancelled. The singer had blown out his voice. I felt really bad for her.

We headed out, and I told her she was definitely going to get dinner at the hick dance club, as if that would make up for it. We stopped at the hotel so she could shower. I went for coffee, and found a lone guitarist with three teenage fans playing at Starbucks. In between songs, he worked the crowd. He asked the kids if they were friends of his sister, and they said yeah, they were in her church group. A couple of them taught Sunday school. Now, ain’t that the cutest thing?

We went back to Wildhorse and the bouncer let us in free. We ate and watched the line-dancing lessons; even though I had done them before, I just wasn’t up for a dance called ‘the Rebel Strut’. Shiver. They danced to a song called ‘Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy’. It was great.

We rushed back to the hotel without the huge donut-tire hindrance, and crashed hard.