Grateful Dead

I was traveling from the States with my friend RICKART (you know who you are) and we became friendly with a few other "Deadheads" That were traveling on the same flight. Leon from VA, and his friend (don't remember his name) Laura from CO & Dave from LI,NY. and a few others. We all kinda stayed in close contact with each other throughout. This was all before cell phones kids! Ric and I had a few hotel rooms reserved and we would all get together occassionally and party together. Ric had befriended a girl, Valeria, from Germany who was traveling the States prior to this tour and she said "look her up if he ever went to Germany". So we did. Just so happens that she lived in Essen which is the first show we went to once we got to Germany. She was in Berlin at the time but her family, Mom, 2 Bros, & an exchange student from Spain all came to the train station to meet us and take Ric and I back to there house. That just blew me away! How trustful they were. So hospitable! We never met them and they let us stay at their house and fed us. We were able to get them tix to the show in Essen too and they seemed to enjoy it. It was funny when the doors opened and we ran in to get position in front of Phill and we kind of were shocked at how small it was. Like the size of our High school gym back home. We all looked at each other and giggled like little girls. Amazing show! The next day we headed out for Berlin meeting up with our fellow American Deadheads spotting them whiz past us while we were getting gas. We quickly jumped in the car like Starsky and Hutch and finally caught up with them. There was so much stop and go traffic so we pulled off the Autobahn and tried to find a hotel but to no avail so we found a dirt road, drove down it and camped for the night. The whole time I kept wondering if the "gustopo" was gonna come. But they didn't. Next morning we headed out and met up with Valeria in Berlin where she was studying and she put all of us up in her apartment. 10 of us in her tiny apartment. She laid two mattresses on the floor for us and we all slept side by side like the Waltons. We had a blast that night! We only had tix for the 2nd night so we waited on line for the tix the next day at the box office. We were the first ones in line and we waited a few hours but as it got closer to sale time the crowd started accumulating and started pushing us against the wall. I kept knocking on the window, No splecken de Deutch, Telling them to start selling, at is was past the sale time. I was getting a little scared of being crushed to death. The woman who was at the window opened the blinds and quickly closed them again. I was kinda panicking at that point. I looked right at her and in broken German I asked her to start selling. She finally did. I may have overreacted but there was no where to go and it was a little chaotic. Germans know nothing about lines. But we prevailed with getting our tix for the show and we all got in. Whew! I can remember once we got outside there was a kid, a psudo-deadhead, that was wearing a suit with a blond ponytail carrying a briefcase that apparently had tix in it and he was attacked. He totally stuck out wearing that 3-piece suit. Dumb-ass! Not sure what happened, maybe he was scalping? They threw his case over a wall that looked down on a parking garage and it opened up and tix were floating down slowly. I felt bad for him but I wasn't going to get involved being in a foreign country. Momma didn't raise no fool! After all that "Strange Trip" we had lunch at an Egyptian Restaurant that made us pizza. Very different but tasty. We all went to the show and had a great time! We stayed at the hotel that night and partied all night. We had two days in Berlin so Valeria showed us around town. Now, just to remind you this is 1990. The wall had just come down less than two years prior so there was still lots of wall remaining. We all wrote stuff on it, collected pieces of the wall and went over to the East side a little. Kind of a funny feeling knowing what had taken place all those years. I wrote "GOD BLESS AMERICA" on the wall. Not too big as I don't want to offend anyone, but big enough that someone walking by it would see. After the second show in Berlin we parted ways again and started off for Frankfurt. This city is very artsy. The architecture is so ornate and beautiful. Trolly tracks in the streets and very "old world". If you wanted to cross the street you had to go to the underground crosswalks which were basically hangouts for the drug-atics and homeless. Nobody bothered us though so no worries. The venus at all these places were like tiny NYC theaters. Essen was like the size a gymnasium. Berlin was very modern and I think held the largest amount of people (2500). Frankfurt was the smallest venue by far. Reminded me of the Roseland Ball room in NYC. The next day I had to go home but my friend Ric ventured on to Paris. I should have stayed on because when I got back to work they laid me off due to budget cuts. Damn it!. Oh well. I had a great time in Germany anyway. A "Long Strange Trip" I will never forget! Peace All. =: )

Almost did not get in this night, got a ticket last minute and entered the ship. Set List 10-20-90 Jack Straw 1/2 Step Walking Blues FOTD BTW Jack-a-Roe Masterpiece Let it Grow Jam Box of Rain 2nd Set Eyes Samson Ship D.Star D/S D.Star Throwing Stones Not Fade enc. Sat Nite

i will get around to putting my photos up one day Bob - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Spanish Jam