New Face on Tour

It's about time that someone updated this blog. And as Brett is sound asleep and the rest of the Dins are scattered about Sydney going about their various acts of notoriety, I guess it's up to me to enter my first blog entry of tour!

BANGKOK

I arrived at the Din's Hotel (Siam City Hotel, props), at around 6:30 in the morning of their 3rd day in Bangkok. As I creeped into Steve's room I noticed a tall blonde figure resting peacefully a few feet from our moustach-ed future doctor. (don't worry Jen, it turned out to be Eric).

You know, usually when you wake up your friend in the early morning after a twenty-something hour flight you expect some kind of greeting. Steve looked me straight in the eyes, squinted and sleepily asked if I was some Japanese man that he had met 3 weeks prior.

...

The rest of Bangkok was a blast, though, as Steve quickly remembered who I was and the Dins proceeded to take this Thai capital by storm. A few of us got our feet wet with some old-fashion bartering on the "floating market" (which turned out to be much more of a tourist-trap than we anticipated). The vast majority of the Dins also got measured for tailored suits (the most ridiculous of which is DChoi's who promises us that bright-red suits "can be fashionable"). And on top of that there was plenty of leopard-purchasing, elephant-feeding, buffet-eating, and amazing site seeing for all of us.


SINGAPORE

Modern, diverse, potable-tap-water, all things which strike you as you enter Singapore.

For food (always the first consideration), The Dins took to becoming mall-rats and convenience-store freaks. 7-11, food court, McDonalds, Carl's Jr., if it was cheap and pre-processed the Dins were on it.

The defining day of Singapore, though, had to have been our Marathon day which started with a 6:30am call in tails and ended at around 11:30pm, with a total of 6 gigs, two of which were full 75-minute (Sander's and-a-half) performances. Interestingly, it was one of those days that ended well and left us feeling energized. We then proceeded to go out for a very cool night on the town, which for me personally, ended with the most delicious plate of fried lo mein and chicken dumplings that I have ever had.

On the down side, ths was also Steve's last day, who has now gone on to a better place (Boston).

SYDNEY

More to come on Sydney, but Brett and I are staying in a great suburb overlooking the harbor and are looking forward to encountering all kinds of differentially-evolved wildlife.

Cheers,
Kevin


Oh, and a big "herro" goes out to Lydia who not only badgered me into posting but is also on her way home from Africa.

ASIA!!!!!!!!!

So at tonight's gig in Shanghai, tons of people came up to me and actually asked why we hadn't posted in a while, so it's officially time to reintroduce the Dins to the living world and assure our parents that 11 of us are alive...and well...and have completely recovered from our "delhi belly"...kinda

India:
India was such a breath of fresh air for me...not becuase the air was that fresh, but becuase this was what I had been waiting for all tour...a place where transportation was cheap and vaguely dangerous, the food was cheap and could make you sick for days, and the shopping was negotiable. We stayed in the Ashok Hotel, which is India's oldest 5-star hotel. Furthermore, we had 3 meals a day and a scale in the room...not a good combination.
The gigs were also a lot of fun...the audiences consistently loved us and we performed our Nsync medley to screaming fans...
Special thaks to Aseem, and his family, and all his relatives for making this a great start to Asia and hopefully a tradition for the next few tours to come!

Hong Kong
We knew in the beginning that Hong Kong would be very busy...the itineary alone was about 3 pages, and the contract that they sent me was 20....

so i had these grand intentions of writing this grand blog entry...but then steve convinced me to go get "dumplings and drinks" with him...so we bought 3$ of chinese moonshine and a bottle of fanta and coke zero and then went to an asian restaurant...drank...and ate...very good (don't worry mom...it was only 2 shots, even though it was 52%...and I now intend to drink lots of water and sleep the day away!)

I'll update again later when i'm much more lucid...(PS, steve is an enabler...)

Ricardo

Cyprus

Here we are in Cyprus, in the Asty Hotel. Feel free to make fun of the name; we already have many times. The hotel is pretty nice- wonderful food, free internet, AC, but we are smack dab in the middle of nowhere. And it is amazingly hot out all day.

This morning, Brad and I went for a run to Turkey. Cyprus is split into Greek and Turkish halves; we're on the Greek one. I (foolishly) assumed that the status quo was a peaceful, friendly one. After crossing the border, I know that this isn't true, even though I have yet to research why. I'll probably just ask Aseem- he always knows these things.

Next to the border (which is basically a security checkpoint on the road complete with a depression in the concrete so soldiers can use mirrors to check for bombs under cars), there is a compound which looks like a massive prison: tan walls 30 feet high covered with bushes of razor wire, and security towers labelled "UN" surrounding it. Then there is the "UN buffer zone," which looks like a bunch of apartment buildings clouded in more razor wire. Then as you leave the Greek side for the "buffer zone" there is an anecdote, strangely written in English only, written on ceramic tiles on one of the barriers about some 26 year old Greek guy who was beaten to death by Turkish soldiers. You literally cannot miss this story. Oh, and his wife was pregnant when it happened. Clearly this story is meant to disparage the Turks, and the fact that it is in English is telling.

Well, we crossed the border and got "visas," pieces of paper that we had to write our own names on and then get stamped by the border guard. We ran around The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus for a bit, and then went back and surrendered our "visas" as we went back to the Greek part.

An interesting morning, and a big departure from what we've been used to so far.

Spirited Away

It's been just about a week since I left the Dins to begin "reality" here in Chicago, but it feels like a lifetime. I often catch myself during the day daydreaming about the adventures of the past month, and the continued trials and tribulations the group must be encountering as it continues its journey around the globe. These moments usually come at particularly fascinating junctures of the day: compliance training, programming classes, group lunches with senior management. Suffice it to say, I miss you guys very, very much.

This past week has been extremely exciting and energizing, despite the 360-degree change from the lifestyle of a collegiate jazz a cappella singer. It's an incredible and momentous time filled with challenges and brilliant opportunities. I'm excited to begin life as a young adult, but at the same time still scratching my head at the idea of no longer being able to don my all-too-clean set of tails at the drop of a (top)hat.

This group has been one of the most rewarding and memorable experiences I could have hoped for in my college years, and I have to thank those incredible friends with whom I shared the journey. You have provided me with memories that I will treasure for years to come. Thank you, and you are always welcome here in Chicago. Especially if Asia tour falls through (which would, of course, be Brett's fault).

To our gracious hosts along the way: thank you for your kindness, warmth, and generosity. You've made our trip an extraordinary experience (and prevented us from having too many cheap meals).

To parents and friends reading this blog: now that I am reintegrated into normal society, I've put up some pictures from the Dins travels this past month in Europe. You can find them here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/shaan.hathiramani

Dins, be well and enjoy the ride.
Scray scray,
#182

(Picture: paragliding over the Austrian alps in Zell am See. Uhh....hi mom!)

This Should Be Read in Order After Sam's Entry and Before Matt's

For the record. Sam did NOT win the pillow fight.

Yes, I know. I will update soon enough. I've been keeping a doc on my desktop full of day-to-day activities, and it will (in part) make its way here soon enough. Unfortunately, the topics will probably no longer be relevant, since I'll probably start way back in London.

While I'm here, I guess I might as well muse. Sorry, Matt, if people are actually reading this entry before yours (see title, if you haven't yet, don't worry about it). It'll just be a little while longer, I promise.

I learned how to spell a cappella today. This is an interesting factoid about Daniel. Apparently, I've been typing this word relatively frequently (and often in correspondences with clients and whatnot) and I always assumed that red line under the word meant something else (probably that the "capella" part of the word was more important than the "a"). In a related story, I've been spelling "ridiculous" with an e, so it's been "rediculous". This is all important as you will soon see.

Just kidding. This last paragraph was actually irrelevant to everything. Enlightening, though, yes?

So, we got into Stockholm this afternoon. The Krona (sp?) is interesting. Interesting in that the exchange rate from Krona to Euros is about 9-10 Krona : 1 Euro and 5-6 Krona : 1 Dollar (the colons denoting "is to", similar to its usage in analogies of the SATs). This means that when Ari exchanged 200 Euros this morning, we got about 1700 Krona. This is awesome. It led to an astonishing conclusion. I love large numbers of things, generally. Holding 1700 Krona in my hand was incredibly satisfying. Much more so than holding two 100 Euro bills. I suppose 1700 of anything would be amazing. Imagine 1700 postcards, or a 1700 color crayon box, or 1700 ways to use a peanut. Wouldn't that be great? Things in bulk are so much better.

I am slowly realizing that this entry has less to do with traveling/touring and more to do with whatever happens to enter my head as I'm typing. For this, I apologize.

Our wonderful homestay (Eric's aunt) set us up with internet, food, and dvds. What more could anyone ask for? Also, as an added perk, the sun is only gone for about 4 hours here. It set at around 11:30 PM and I am told it will rise at 4 AM. This is ridiculous. But cool. Anyway, back to the homestay.

We (Brett, Aseem, and I) decided to watch Bruce Almighty. The moral of this story comes less in the meow form of what we meow were watching, and meow more in meow what happened during meow the movie. Brett wanted to turn the volume up, and so reached for the controller and started mashing buttons, resulting in a cataclysmic catastrophe that caused the tv to freak out. He then spent the next 10 minutes sitting two feet from the tv with three controllers fumbling in his hands trying to make it work again by pressing various combinations of buttons on these three controllers. Now, in no way would I like to ridicule Brett, especially since this man is one of the smartest people I have ever met and is a beast when it comes to technology. But watching him look sadly at the television while pressing controller buttons was all at once the saddest, funniest, cutest, and most entertaining thing that I have seen in a while. After letting him press buttons for a while, I walked over and pressed a button on the actual television, and we soon went back to watching the movie.

I love eating by the ridge. Potato chips. Apparently they are measured in kilojoules rather than kilocalories, which scared me, as I read that 100 g of potato chips were worth 2000 kJ. Ridgy potato chips are better than non-ridgy ones. I think it's because there's a greater flavor surface area. When you can pack more flavor crystals on a chip, it tastes better. And I like eating my chips slowly. By the ridge. Like Remy the Rat in Ratatouille. You just nibble, and it's great.

I murdered a soccerball today. This made me sad. I've been carrying around (Sam has been helping) this soccer ball since Switzerland (Geneva) and today, while taking a subway to Stockholm, Ricky (or someone else) bet that I couldn't throw the soccerball off the far end of the wall (on the other side of the tracks) and have it come back to me. Now, the wall was concave (convex? I'm not sure which) which meant that it basically curved in a way that the ball would rebound straight down if I threw the ball. Physics-cally, this made no sense at all. However, I am a man who believes in himself. I believe that you can do anything when you put your mind to it. The soccer ball bounced straight down, rolled on the tracks, and about 5 seconds later, our train arrived, and it was lost forever to the abyss.

The pokemon sounds during I Got Rhythm are a nice touch.

Shaan left last night, which scares me. You see, Shaan is a bass. I am a bass. Matt Schwede is a bass. Matthew H. Schwede is also music director. When I make mistake, Schwedles immediately recognize and can choose to either point it out, look disappointedly at me, or do nothing, letting me think that I got away with it. With Shaan gone, I am alone to face this juggernaut. I mentioned this while we were doing final toasts, and a couple people chuckled, but this is actually a realistic concern of mine.

Shaaners, for real though, definitely miss having you around, and I hope everything goes great at your new place of employment. Let me know how Fred at the watercooler is doing.

Raichu is the evolved version of Pikachu, lovable yellow rat and first pokemon of our hero, Ash. What is confusing, is that, unlike most pokemon, Pikachu evolves not through gaining experience, but through being exposed to a Thunder Rock, which apparently emits enough radiation to turn a toaster into Optimus Prime (that's right, two, count it, two pop culture references in one sentence. Call me Ishmael.

The birds are chirping. Chirp chirp. chirpchirpchirp.

Mom.. Dad.. I hope you're not reading this. But, if you are, I know that you're accepting me for who I am, hahaha. No, for serious, I miss you and the rest of the fam. Katie, Bryan, you know you're out there. Amish you guys.

I think I will call it a night. Ciao.

Munich day life

After a euro each and a dozen flights of stairs, Shaan, Aseem, and I reached a literal high point in Munich for a crash course in rooftops and parks, a life-size map to direct us to the English Garden. The tower was right next to a local, highly efficient (juice stands across from juice stands) outdoor market. Munich isn´t exactly full of sky-scrapers, more like a sprawling German town spotted with the occasional photo-worthy landmark (oh so many of these in Europe), but the view was still breath-taking, especially because with the exception of a couple days, the Dins so far have been the bearers of good weather. Well, that´s not exactly true. Rome´s weather was a little too good, which is why hiking in Austria followed immediately by a dip in a lake felt so good.

But while I´m talking about Zell am See, I´ve had two profound realizations since that stop. Dins couldn´t stop raving about that town. Perhaps it was actually the enthusiasm of the audience at our concert or the pleasant accommodations, but the guys constantly discussed how "beautiful" it was. Yes, after so many urban areas, anything natural is gorgeous, but let´s not go nuts. I realized that even I was overrating European hills and fields as I took pictures on the train between Strasbourg and Paris. So let me be a snooty Pacific Northwesterner and say that anything Zell am See has, so does Whatcom County. We have serene lakes surrounded by trees and hills, and we have enormous snow-capped mountains perfect for skiing and snowboarding, and we even have an ocean on our western coast. We have fields and pastures everywhere you turn, and the people are nothing but friendly. So what´s so great about Europe?

To answer this question, I bring up my second profound realization: everything is cooler in Europe. Perhaps this is because of the foreign languages, the endless history, the accents, the many quaint shops, the stylish clothes, or the old and thoughtful architecture, but something about this continent makes everything seem more interesting. I may just be eating ice cream, but I´m eating it while walking along the River Seine. Yeah, it´s still just a river in a big city, but the vendor near us is speaking French, and it´s the perfect opportunity to practice what Eddie Izzard taught me. ("Le singe est sur la branche et la souris est sur la table"). I may just be sweating my tails off in a tram, but I´m also suavely gazing at Roman ruins (ciao!). So let´s back up. I´ve now been all over Europe, and what on earth does Zell am See have that Ferndale doesn´t? Well, objectively, Zell am See is actually quite beautiful, much more so than anything in Whatcom County, but the main point is that even if it weren´t, it would still put anything in Whatcom County, even in America to shame. Europe is just cooler.

I´d like to close with a few words about beer gardens. Leave the invention of this concept to the Germans. Following that Munich tower, Shaan, Aseem, and I walked through the English Gardens and spent the afternoon at a beer garden situated on a lake in the park and sipped our weisbeers slowly as we soaked in the Germanness. After a couple half-liters we ventured into more unusual drinks. Who knew that you could mix Sprite and beer? And that wasn´t even the best one. Lemonade and weisbeer tastes like a cotton candy lollipop. The Germans certainly know the ins and outs of beer. Thank you, Shaan and Aseem. That was one of the most relaxing afternoons I´ve had for quite some time.

Shaan, we miss you already. I´ll keep you posted if any girls outdo the Luxembourgers.

188

Shaan = gone => :(

Last night we said good bye to Shaan, our intrepid business manager, who is off to start work in Chicago. We turned a tradition on its head and sang Shaan *out* of the group with what was perhaps the worst rendition of Johnny Harvard I have ever heard. Then we each toasted him in turn and said our good byes. Even Ricardo, who was so...tired...that he was unable to string together a coherent sentence, gave a heart-felt speech (I'll put you UP!!). Being the business manager of the Dins is an enormous task, and Shaan truly took the position and this group to new heights. We have him to thank for so many of the awesome things we've gotten to do this year. Shaan's incredible energy and enthusiasm will be sorely missed as we continue on our tour. We all wish him the best of luck in Chicago!

Sans Shaan (and a few others for various reasons...) we arrived in Stockholm this afternoon after departing Munich at a leisurely 10:30 am. Breakfast this morning at GHotel (our accommodations in Munich) was fantastic. A delicious spread of eggs, cheese, meats, and most importantly, smoked salmon. I have eaten so much smoked salmon on this trip that my fingers smell like it even after I shower and my breath still smells of it even after I brush my teeth. But there is nothing else I would rather smell like. Life is so hard.

Ricardo, Matt and I are in our homestay in downtown Stockholm waiting for our fourth roommate, Adrian, to arrive. Will we take advantage of this Saturday evening in downtown Stockholm to absorb some culture and nightlife? Or will we continue to watch MTV dating shows featuring trashy Americans who will do anything for their 15 minutes of fame (or maybe 30 minutes if they don't get immediately rejected by Flava Flav or Tila Tequila)? Unclear.

Our homestay hosts are not staying with us during our few days here in Stockholm, but they were very kind to leave us plenty of food (in fact, they apologized for not having any food, but then opened the fridge to reveal more than enough food to feed us during our time here). Ricardo cooked us an excellent dinner of spaghetti and meat sauce with broccoli. I contributed by purchasing the meat sauce and watching MTV.

Stockholm looks beautiful. I'm excited to explore a bit tomorrow. The weather is much cooler here than it was in Rome and Geneva, so hopefully I won't be grossed out by my own body odor (a mix of sweat and smoked salmon) after a few hours of walking around.

Dan and I had a pillow fight last night. I won.