11/5/15 day 6: Balingen, DE

Up at 9am again for breakfast at the Vogelgarten. Another beautiful day in Germany. Tina was once again in good spirits and she greeted us all warmly and brought hot coffee to the table. After breakfast Tommy hit the road back to Baienfurt. We will see him again on Saturday.

We said our goodbyes to Tina and made the short drive to Balingen. Back up past the Stuttgart airport and down 27 through SW German countryside. We spotted a huge castle on a peak in the distance and as we got closer realized it was a huge structure so we decided to play tourist and make a pit stop. Turns out it was Burg Hohenzollern, the ancestral seat of the King of Prussia, which is a sprawling, beautifully restored 1000 year old castle.

And like any good German castle there was a little beer garden and restaurant in the courtyard.

This castle also does a pretty bad ass Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) in the courtyard and they had already begun to bring in the small wooden huts that are used to sell Christmas trinkets and Glühwein leading up to Christmas.

Back on the road after our castle excursion and rolled up to the hotel in Balingen around 230ish. We reconvened at 4 to head over to the club. Not before locking myself out of my room without a shirt on. Thank god I was wearing pants. The lady at the front desk who helped me unlock my door was mildly amused.

We hopped in the car and fired up the GPS and realized the club was literally the next building over. So we decided to walk over. Balingen Stadthalle is a beautiful new complex of buildings that has a couple performance spaces and a fancy restaurant.

We met Dominik our young sound guy who was still putting the finishing touches on the PA as we arrived. Loaded in and sound checked and walked to the adjourning restaurant for dinner. We had a regional specialty called Maultaschen which are basically steamed dumplings. It was tasty!

Set started at 8 and we mellow rocked the faces off of 50 people. We even had some friends roll up from out of town. Everything felt nice. We started the show with Barrelman in the audience and I think that set the tone nicely. Played an encore and then hit the merch table. We noticed a bunch of folks knew the tunes and were singing along and turns out a bunch of people had seen us on previous tours. It's happening...!

Walked home after the show and got caught up with our friends who traveled to see us Sabine, Ralf, und Virginie. A solid night made better by good company. Thanks for making us feel welcome.