Barge Pool
Although we’ve noticed extremely high water levels in the past couple of weeks, recent flooding throughout central Europe seems now to be easing. The city of Budapest was recently on high alert as the banks of the Danube broke after yet more record rainfall. Luckily for us, we seem to have missed the worst of things in a few places, the riots in Turkey just after we left, this flooding in Southern Germany and Hungary and scariest of all, we apparently just missed an incident near Regensburg where the road ‘exploded’. For unexplained reasons, a section of road burst open causing many cars to become airborne and tragically killing a motorcyclist. We saw the repairs being carried out on our return trip to the airport but only later learned of the severity of the incident.
The temperature today was a lot more comfortable, around 90 degrees F. but with a gentle breeze and majestic cumulo nimbus clouds forming in the distance. There was potential for some heavy weather on our short day trip out of Vienna to Budapest but as it turned out there were just a few heavy showers and some lightening on the horizon as we left. The locals cool off in the barge-pool..
Today’s show was a ‘standing’ show which prompted only a slight change in the setlist. The Budapest Arena is now quite familiar to us, like so many venues across Europe, and is a really well designed building. There is loads of space in every department and from the outside, it looks pretty cool too. Apparently the building has a unique fire safety design which includes a high tech warning system and a fire hydrant system that includes 3 high pressure water cannons. Understandable when you consider that the building was built in 2001 to replace the old arena which burned to the ground! The self-locking fire doors are a little unnerving however.
Trucks in the hall..
Pete sent me a great band pic he took in Vienna..
After a great show in front of what seemed like quite a young audience (maybe that’s why it was ‘standing’) we headed back to the plane and were soon up in the clouds looking out at the distant lightening, grateful we didn’t have to fly too near any storms. Liz served up a curry (2 in a row!) and we were soon descending into Vienna once more. The mosquitos which caused minor concern the other day weren’t as numerous and by midnight we were at our hotel. I suggested a trip across the road to the Stadtbrauerei Schwarzenberg, a home-brewhouse pub which served up delicious draught ales and stayed open until 3am. My weakness for great beer has got the better of me once again but you only live once, don’t you.