Day 36, Leipzig

Who's that?! Why it's Vladimir Putin, staring you down whilst you take a leak. Slightly disconcerting you'd have to say, although as an inducement to help you go about your business in the quickest time possible, thus freeing up the bathroom for one of your 8 housemates, you'd have to say it's quite effective. The world of toilet decoration is rather fascinating, another thing I'm discovering as I'm touring round Germany... although I feel that's a topic for a different blog. And perhaps the average concert host would prefer their restroom to remain anonymous - what goes on toilet, stays on toilet. Or in. As the case may be. But that's enough about that.... It was a shame to leave Dresden yesterday, it's a grand old city on the river Elbe, and the type of place I could imagine spending a lot more time, if I had it... But you know that's the nature of touring, at the very least it's nice to make a mental note of the places you'd like to visit again. Dresden is certainly one of those.

Last night's venue, LU99, was a cool little room on the ground floor of a big old Leipzigian apartment building. I don't know if that's the technical term for something from Leipzig, but that's what I'm going with today. My good mate Mijo Biscan played the first ever concert here when he toured with Lena a few years ago, and they now hold regular concerts for the residents of the building and the local community. It's not the first time this tour that we've come across a similar situation - Duisburg is another example that springs to mind - when Mijo and Lena first toured through Germany, they played 43 concerts in 43 days. No mean feat you'd have to agree, and many of those concerts were through contacts on couch surfing. Rather than just asking for a place to stay, Mijo also offered to play a concert in the living room or something similar, where the hosts could invite a few friends along to watch a touring musician from Australia. A few years on from that first tour, many of the places that Mijo and Lena visited are still hosting regular house concerts, and that's a bit of a success story in itself.

A big thanks to Daniel and the rest of the gang here in Leipzig, not just for hosting us, but also for the incredible soup AND the North Korean schnapps. A little memento Daniel had picked up from his recent trip there as part of a university exchange/co-op program of some sort. I'm not sure what was in the schnapps, but if I start praising Kim Jong Il Jnr in future blogs, please forgive me.

Adios, I'm off to take a wander round Leipzig, then it's off to Marburg. Alles gut. Till tomorrow... x