The journey continues...

Amazing breakfast before leaving London

 After our day off in London we had a drive to Exeter. The van was pretty cramped, so drives were spent watching the scenery, checking social media, etc. (when we had service), and, even though it could be tough, grabbing a nap to catch up on sleep. At one point we happened to be awake, and I noticed a bunch of people standing on top of the upcoming hill. We kept an eye out as we got closer, and suddenly, we're driving next to Stonehenge!!!!

Photo from out the window in a moving vehicle

We literally just drove by it without time to stop. If we had been asleep, we would have missed it!

Sometime around now Kim also started not feeling well. Luckily we got into the city with some free time before load in so we could get her started on antibiotics as well.

We got to the venue, and they had a whole self serve tea bar for us! They had a dispenser of hot water, a variety of tea bags, honey, sugar, etc. It was so awesome! As I mentioned in the last blog, everywhere seemed to be cold. It was so nice to have hot tea to warm us up while we set up :) The hospitality everywhere in Europe was really amazing! There were also some fans that couldn't make it to the show. I don't remember if there was an age restriction or if it was a time/schedule thing, but the venue let them in early to hang out and meet the artists. That was super nice of them.

Through out tour I had people recognize me from Kim's Instagram/Twitter posts, but this may have been the first show where someone came up to me and asked "Are you Melinda the merch Snork?" My mind was completely blown. Someone, on a completely different continent, who I've never met, knows who I am! There are a few of you I know through the powers of the internet, but to have a complete "stranger" know who you are? I can't even explain it. *explodes* Another epic thing that happened through out tour was fans in the meet and greet line. There were several teary eyed fans who would come to Kim after the show and tell her they'd been waiting YEARS to see her live. Or someone would introduce themselves and Kim would excitedly get my attention "Melinda! This is *so-and-so*!!! I've been sending them merch for several years! They're a real person!!!!" It was so nice meeting you all!

Our next stop was Southampton. We got there, checked into our hotel for the night, and still had some time before load in. Kim stayed at the hotel to get some extra rest while Junior and I headed to a nearby mall to grab some food. Junior and I ate at a cute little revolving sushi bar, then headed to another restaurant where we got fresh juices, and a bunch of goodies to bring back for Kim. While we were waiting, the hostess kept humming something, stopping, and frustratedly asking herself why that was stuck in her head. Eventually I figured out she was singing "Mambo No. 5" 😂 She tried asking her co-workers if they knew it, and no one seemed to. Junior looked it up on his phone and played it while we all danced to the entire song. It was a random, awesome moment.

We got our food, got back to Kim, and headed to the Venue. Now, a bit of a backstory. I was talking to some fans at the Phoenix show during the US leg of the tour. They told me one thing I need to try while in the UK is Strongbow Dark Fruit. It's Strongbow Cider, but with blackcurrant and blackberry. They'd had it while over there, and aren't able to find it in the US. They said it's amazing and they miss it. I'd been looking for it at the venues we'd been playing at, but no one seemed to carry it. Junior and I were checking out the selection at the venue in Southampton, and I mentioned out loud that they didn't have it either. The promoter over heard me talking about, and went out and bought me a 4 pack of it!  What?!?!?! I was completely blown away that he did that.

It was really good too! It had some good fruit flavors and wasn't an overly sweet cider. I wish I could have smuggled the 2 we didn't drink back to the US.

Unfortunately, even though we got Kim on antibiotics, her voice was starting to give out. Scott Romano noticed and actually left the show to buy her a jar of honey, and managed to get a cup of hot water with lemon from the bar for during meet & greet. He is amazing! Despite needing a bit of help singing the words, it was still a great show. I've now seen One-Eyed Doll in more States than I can keep track of (I think it's somewhere around 35-40). I've seen them in 9 different countries. I've seen them doing extremely short opening sets and over 2 hour headlining sets. I've seen them at 100%. I've seen them sick, tired, sleep deprived, in pain. I've seen them at venues with amazing sound systems, and on tiny stages where the one monitor they had stopped working before their set. But they always get on stage, give it their all, and put on an amazing show.

The next morning we had to get up early because we had to catch a ferry to main land Europe! We were hoping to take the tunnel, but apparently they only sell so many tickets per day, and it was sold out by the time arrangements had been made. It was a crazy day of traveling. We left England, landed in France, drove through Belgium, and ended up in the Netherlands!

Some photos of the Netherlands from out the van window:

Sadly the photos don't really show how beautiful it was. I also bought a Kinder egg from a gas station along the way! Don't worry, I ate it and didn't illegally bring it back to the States.

The Netherland's venue was crazy! It was probably the biggest stage and room they played all tour, and it was also the biggest turn out! And we were in the smaller room! There was a second bigger stage somewhere else. We got there to load in, and they asked if we wanted a drum riser. They BUILT a drum riser (out of legs and platforms, not from scratch) for Jason as we loaded in.

There were green rooms for both stages on a separate floor with snacks and water in them. Another cool thing about the Netherlands is their tap water is EXTREMELY clean, and they're all about reusable bottles! There was a communal area with a coffee maker and more snacks. They even cooked dinner for us, but I wasn't able to eat until after the show. Not only did we have all of that food, but Scott Romano somehow managed to put together one of his signature cheese platters for us!

Everyone was SO nice at this venue! They took such great care of us! The hospitality here, like some many places in Europe, was unbelievable! I don't know if I can even explain how great this venue was. But, most of you are probably wondering more about the people at this show than the venue itself...

Many of you involved in the online community know Richelle. She's a HUGE One-Eyed Doll fan and supporter from the Netherlands. She has a YouTube Channel with many videos related to One-Eyed Doll. I even knew of her before I started touring with OED. Scott Romano credits her YouTube videos for being the reason he discovered OED. She's been waiting YEARS to see OED, and her dream finally came true! She was excited to meet us, and we were SO excited to meet her too!

Back in the day I never would have thought I'd be on tour with One-Eyed Doll, in Europe, meeting this huge fan that I knew of from the internet. I kept poking her to see if she was real. I think this was the show we were all most nervous about for the entire tour! We hung out, we danced the "Be My Friend" dance, she gave us some epic Dutch gifts! We even face timed Federico Dalman (HI! *waves*), the amazing OED fan and artist who has made a lot of fan art, including some of me (which 2 of you now have tattooed on you! 😮 I still don't know how to process that). We couldn't really hear each other, but it was cool to see him anyway. One of these days we'll get to meet you too! *fingers crossed* I don't know if I can even fully explain how amazing the night was. If you have 45 minutes to spare, you can watch Richelle's epic video about meeting One-Eyed Doll HERE! It's totally worth it and captures the whole night so well! Watching it makes me antsy to get back to Europe! It was such a great experience, and touring, no matter what hardships we may have to endure, is always fun.

I also met Martijn! He actually flew to the States to see One-Eyed Doll, but that was before my time touring with them so this was my first time meeting him. He brought us lots of Dutch gifts too!

After being sick and having trouble with her voice, Kim was really worried about this show. She did AMAZING though. She sounded fine and you couldn't even tell she was loosing her voice the night before. It was an epic show!

After all of the craziness was over and everything was packed up, we headed back to the greenroom (where I finally got to eat!). Remember how there was another stage? Apparently a Dutch band was playing a homecoming show, finishing off the end of their tour. There was a whole mob of people in the common areas dancing and singing a traditional Dutch song. Kim got a little Backstage Video you can watch on her Instagram.

The venue/promoter booked the place we stayed that night after the show. We ended up getting 2 full rooms in a Hostel! This was my first time ever staying in a Hostel, and it was a really nice one! They even had mints waiting for us in the room.

They had a breakfast buffet the next morning. After eating English breakfasts for the past week, it was interesting to see the difference in the foods they had available. (They still had a similar coffee machine) It was also cool sitting in a dining area with other travelers staying at the hostel. There were different ages, groups (friends, families, etc.), and languages! The people sitting at the end of our table were having a conversation that I didn't understand and I'm not sure what language it was!

My Breakfast

Cute decorations on the wall

OED Abroad!!!

I'm in Europe. OMG. I don't even know where to start...

The last show of tour at the Whisky A Go-Go was awesome. At some point I'll have to to a US tour wrap up post. But I want to write about Europe while it's fresh in my memory.

After the show we loaded out while simultaneously trying to pack/set aside stuff for Europe. We grabbed some food, dropped Mando off with family, parked the bus at a fan's house, and headed to LAX. That's right, we were up all night and flying on no sleep. SUPER fun...  Our first flight was to Seattle. From there it was a long flight to Iceland. We managed to nap on and off, but it's really hard while sitting in a cramped airplane seat. Then, it was from Iceland to Scotland. We were supposed to have a little bit of time between flights, but for some reason both times we ended up getting there just in time to run to the next gate, where 2 of us would board while the third went to grab some sort of snack because we were starving. It was super rough being sleep deprived and lacking food, but we made it to Europe!

After landing in Scotland we met up with our driver Neil. For the Europe leg of tour we're sharing a Mercedes Sprinter van and trailer, and we have Neil driving us around. The Sprinter is similar to the one we rode in during the Otep tour back in 2013, except the seating area is a bit smaller and the storage area in back is bigger. There are still 9 seats, but it's 3 rows of 3 (including the driver) rather than 2 seats in front, 2 rows of 2 in the middle, and a 3 seat bench in back. That, and the driver is on the right and passenger door is on the left! It's so weird!

People have also been curious about how we got stuff over there. This time around, we paid to have a few boxes of merch shipped over. Kim brought 2 guitars and her pedalboard. Junior brought his kick drum pedals and cymbals. Blackstar, Kim's amp sponsorship, is based out of the UK so they hooked her up with amps and heads. Neil picked up them and our merch before meeting up with us. Junior was also supposed to have a Crush drum kit, but there was a mix up and they accidentally rented both their Crush kits to other people. It ended up being just as expensive to buy a kit as it would be to rent one for the entire tour, so One-Eyed Doll now has a cute little sparkly red kit in Europe 😊

We had some time to kill before load in in Glasgow, so Kim and I checked out this little tiny thrift store right across the street from the venue while Junior dealt with the drum kit. I ended up finding an AWESOME warm coat for Europe, and a cute, super Melinda, scarf. It has owls, frogs, hedgehogs, squirrels and butterflies knitted in. Now I just need to find a nice, warm, water proof pair of boots!

You'll see this scarf in every outdoor photo because it was so cold

We also stumbled across a cool, vegan vitamin/health food store, so Kim stocked up. We then grabbed some food and tea at a cute little tea house, and headed back to the venue to load in.

First European Load In!!!!

My tiny Scottish set up

After the show we were starving, so we went across the street to a fish & chips place where I had some epic cheese fries with malt vinegar on them, and a deep fried Mars bar, because why not. They also had deep fried haggis. Long story short, Alice Cooper was at our last show in Hollywood, and one piece of advice he gave Kim was to NOT eat haggis. Well, while we were standing there waiting for our food, a drunk Scotsman came in, and somehow learned we'd never had haggis before, so he bought us one. I, being vegetarian, didn't try it, but Kim and Junior did. They actually really liked it and seemed to have no adverse effects from it.

Victorian House Hotel where we stayed

The street outside our hotel

The next morning we had to get up early because we needed to catch the ferry to Ireland. I didn't get a photo of it because we passed it too quickly, but we drove past a stone wall that had "Whit's yer hurry?" carved into it.

Our Ferry!

Vegetarian English Breakfast

View from the Ferry

Landed in Ireland!

Unfortunately the show in Ireland wasn't all ages and there were some fans that weren't able to get into the show. Kim met up with them before the show while Junior and I set up. After the show, Junior and I got a Guinness, because you kind of have to while in Dublin! And it's true what they say, it is better there.

Kim's backbend while playing guitar

If I remember correctly, we didn't end up staying the night in Dublin because we had to drive, and grab yet another ferry to get to England. You don't know just how glamorous touring is until you've seen 6 people spread out across the seating area on a ferry trying to grab some sleep while they can. Luckily, we were able to get a hotel room just down the road from the venue, and check in early. One thing we've noticed in the UK is that rather than coming with double/queen/king beds, they have these super narrow beds. Places - venues, hotels, restaurants, etc. - all seem to be cold. It's like they're just used to it being cold and don't bother with heat (or several rooms we stayed in had the heater right below the window so the heat all immediately is lost out the window). Any who, we relaxed a bit, Kim and I grabbed some coffee while Jason slept (he wasn't feeling very well), and loaded in. This show was in Birmingham, home of Nasty Clothing. Kim's modeled some of their stuff on social media and I've been following them for a while now. It was crazy actually meeting these people in person! They're real life people, not just a store on the internet! (Edit: I'm actually proof reading this before posting while wearing one of their shirts Kim shared with me. It's really comfy and I really like the color/design.)

After the show we had an epic feast at a near by Indian restaurant and headed to bed.

The next day it was a short drive to Manchester. Luckily it was a short drive because Junior woke up still not feeling well. Usually he'll power through anything, so when he skips breakfast to sleep, you know something's wrong. We got to Manchester a few hours before load in and managed to find a walk in clinic. There was a 2 hour wait, so Kim and I went to find food. We ate at an AMAZING meat pie place called Pieminister. They even had vegetarian pies.

Goat cheese, sweet potato, spinach and red onion pie
topped with crispy shallots and a side of red wine gravy,
mac & cheese, mash, and minty mushy peas!

As we were finishing up, we got a text saying they were loading in early. Kim got some food to go for Junior and headed back to check on him while I headed to the venue to help load in. I set up merch not knowing if they were going to end up canceling the show or not. They diagnosed Junior with a chest infection and they put him on antibiotics as well as a fever reducer/anti-inflamatory and they went through with the show. We even had the Nasty crew back that night, and the girls helped on stage with "Be My Friend"

After Manchester was London!!!! And guess who flew there all the way from the US?!?!??

Scott Romano!!!!!!!!!

Scott flew to the UK and followed us around for the next few shows! How awesome is that! The London show was a super fun show. Neil's family came, Kim's Backstar rep was there. I even met and got to thank their European booking agent Liam.

The next day was our first day off :) We finally had time to actually see one of these epic cities. I was told by several people to check out Camden Market, so we got up, grabbed some coffee and breakfast, and headed there. Speaking of coffee, one thing we noticed was big pots of coffee aren't really a thing in Europe like they are in America. Most places have these epic machines that brew an individual cup. They do espresso, lattes, cappuccinos, white coffee (coffee with milk), mochas, hot cocoa, etc. Some places the closest thing you could get to a regular cup of coffee was an Americano. They also don't really do cream there either. Kim has trouble with Lactose, but usually half & half or cream has enough fat that it's not a problem. Europe seems to do milk or whipped cream. It does seem to be easier to find lactose free milk though, as well as non-dairy milks that aren't sweetened. Kim mostly stuck with cappuccinos since they're more foam then milk, and I was all about the latte macchiatos I was getting (I'll save you from having to scroll through the million pictures I took of coffee). Anyways... back to our day off.

We got to Camden Market, which was awesome! There are so many cool shops! Like tourist cities in the US, a lot of tourist shops sell the same thing, so you don't necessarily want to buy everything at the first shop you see. We wandered up and down a little bit, then stopped into this awesome punk rock shop because Junior needed a better coat. He got a coat, and Kim and I ended up exploring all 3 floors of this amazing place. I wanted to buy EVERYTHING! On the 3rd floor we had this beautiful goth woman helping us with pants since UK and US sizes are different. She's originally from Serbia, but I can't remember how long she said she'd been living in the UK. She had an interesting accent that reflected both. (Kim and I also had a nice chat with the door guy at our hotel in Manchester. He was originally from Iran and had a neat accent that reflected that as well). Kim and I got matching purple and black diamond patterned Hell Bunny pants, and plaid shirts, and I got a sweet David Bowie shirt. So much for not buying everything at the first store you go into...

After shopping we were starting to get hungry, so we stopped into this little burger place, Haché Burgers, we stumbled across. They ended up sitting us at Amy Winehouse's favorite table. I honestly don't remember much about my veggie burger because the truffle fondue fries were so amazing!!! The guy at the table next to us got a burger served in a smoked dome (he let Kim and I film the presentation, but I'm not going to upload it because he's in it for a bit).

Junior still wasn't feeling well, so he went back to the hotel to sleep. Kim and I went to explore the rest of the shops, which was hard because there were SO many and they were all SO awesome! Even the store fronts were epic! (Apparently Europe is too awesome, and my new over used word is epic).

Instead of saying "For Rent" places are "To Let"

We ended up not going inside here, but it looked cool!

Street art!

At one point we stopped and got some fresh orange juice from a cute little stand.

We came across a cute little booth where I got something for my baby niece. I'm not going to say what though because she hasn't gotten it yet, and I don't want to ruin the surprise if my family reads this. Freddy, the man running the booth, was actually from France. When he's not running his friend's booth he's a tour guide! We had a long chat with him, and he gave us a list of cool places in the area to check out. Kim and I wanted to get an official Afternoon Tea while we were in England, but it was starting to get late, and we were having trouble finding the tea room I had looked up online. We ended up just grabbing a tea to warm up at a different little cafe. By the time we left all of the shops in the area were closing, so we didn't get to do much tourist shopping. But, instead we headed over to the area with a lot of famous landmarks.

The London Eye

Me and the London Eye!

Big Ben was under construction :(

One of Big Ben's clock faces that you can actually see

Gotta get a photo with a red telephone booth

Or several...

Look ma! No feet!

Westminster Abbey

The architecture is so cool!

Is this even real?!?!

We even rode a red double decker bus! We ended the night by grabbing some dinner. On the wall next to us was a giant, old, framed photo of (we assume) the owner with Muhammad Ali outside of the restaurant. Next to it was various photos of him and other famous people at the restaurant. We noticed that the same photo was also part of the collage, but with family members in it as well. Looking back and forth, it looked like the family members were edited out of the large photo and made to look like shadows. Weird... Kim took a photo of one of the pictures, and before we left I got a photo of the other so it wasn't too obvious what we were doing, lol.