Steini takes photo of mountain

Banff

Tourist town

There she blows

The mountains at last. A wonderful sight after the vast flatness

The audience and me

Jessica the other act

Mikey's Juke Joint - Calgary, CA

Golfing

First sight of Steini

Up at 3pm

Mmmmm

Blog hits

The view

There are even cycling touring books

Our own den in the basement

Features

Even nicer kitchen than Mario's

It's like a showhome

5 star couchsurfing

We each have our own bedroom

I'm going to Australia

Veronica Lake (in the excitement I forgot to take her photo), friend
if the stutters and ex- Amsterdam resident, I met at my shows here, is
moving back to Australia, to promotebandsandbookshows and wants to
help me in March. I was going to skip it and just do New Zealand
because I didn't know anyone, but this is a stroke of luck.

...money honey

Thunder Bay's best band...

Fans

I sold another t-shirt!

Kevin here got me on the radio and is going to try to get me in the
Calgary Folk Festival.

Dicken's - Calgary, CA

No one came because of the promotion.

Even worse than Steini

Our host Ellie and her father Kevin

Golfing

Back to school

I played on Calgary Student radio this morning. Early.

Interviews

I bought this book in Edmonton about a guy who cycles around North America as a mid-life adventure and to promote environmental living. I got it as inspiration for my tour next year.

What was surprising was that in each town he called up radio and tv and got on air to promote cycling. He was a forest gump kinda story, and wasn't even raising money for charity or promoting a book yet.

So with the miserable turnouts I've been getting it occurred me to try it for my own ends and I called local stations. I'd already mass-mailed radio a month before but it was too far before I now realise.

With the couchsurfing, nomadic life, the suits and the music, I realise that I do have a story, and surprise surprise I've already been plugged on Jack.fm and tomorrow I have an interview on CJSW the university station on the breakfast show and a television interview afterwards for Calgary TV.

It's that easy. The only annoying thing is that I've already been on tour for 10 weeks and only now had this idea.

A gloriously hot day in Calgary

Steini reading the blog for the first time

Mario cleaning our luxurious kitchen

The new Steini

After quitting smoking and running for 50 minutes

Surfing into the lap of luxury

Pools

Our host for the next three nights, Mario, builds swimming pools

Our hosts

The Calgary audience

Woweewoowee

The Edmontonaudience

Count them

Ambient triphop

My opening act in Edmonton

Tour language

Bands on tour, spending hours In a car, usually develop injokes and
catchphrases to keep amused, and now I have Steini i can too.

For example, tired this morning, Steini said he was feeling "too
Jasmine to shave".

We say left instead of right, after staying with Alex who said right
after each sentence.

And we picked up the phrase 'Man up' from the newspapers, which seems
to be Canadian for don't be a pussy.

I've also been on at Steini to throw in a few more German words like
Wunderbar and Achtung in restaurants.

So by the end we should have a pretty strange language.

A chat-up line might be 'Man up fraeulein, left?'

Fantastic

Great venue. Great sound. Sold out!

Just a shame I'm playing next door.

Speeding ticket

$150, but you don't have to pay if you don't go back to the state. A
good system. Except if you're 50 over the limit. Then it's $10,000 and
your car impounded for two weeks. That would be a ticket to remember.