by Pete

Thursday November 23 2006

The plot has become thick and sticky. We are still hurtling towards Bari courtesy of our new found friends (unfortunately the chocolate is no longer forthcoming, however). The van has a hole in the radiator which can’t be fixed until friday.. Two days from now. So Enrico is somewhere behind us in ‘a very small car’ and we still don’t know how this is going to pan out. We only have half our gear, we don’t know if the bass will fit in the loan car, and i don’t think that there is even a good solution to how to pick up the van and our gear on Friday as we will be miles from this part of the world by then. The possibility currently being investigated is that we’ll catch a train or bus to Florence, and Enrico will wait for the van. In all our years of touring, it will be a first for us to try and get the bass on public transport. But desperate times call for desperate measures!
We just had a grand prix style, super fast pit stop at a service station to use the toilet. We are already 1.5 hrs late, and are still 1.5 hrs away. One thing that i love about Italy is that, despite the fact that we are in the middle of nowhere, and that we only had seconds to work with, we still managed to get a couple of pizza slices far far better than the average aussie fare, and one of our new friends still made the time to buy some packets of ‘orrichette’ which is pasta typical from this area.
The journey continues. The reality of yet another run of shows without all our normal gear is starting to sink in and dampen our mood. Thankfully my suggestion of leaving most of our luggage/clothes etc with the van was quashed. Fluffy hair is one thing, but dirty socks for 3 days would simply be too much to bear.