A Paid Gig and a European Juggling Convention

So, we decided we'd stay one last night and leave on Thursday morning. I went out for a busk at around 4...started playing a few Irish songs and was doing well. A guy stopped and listened to two songs holding a wallet and his phone in his hand. After a while busking you start to know the different sorts of people:

There are the groups of girls who'll listen for about 10 songs. These can either give you lots of money or next to nothing. They're good in that some people you watching means others are more likely to stop, bad in that you can't really take a 5 minute break while there's a crowd. Best way to deal with them is play about 5 songs then do take the big break; hopefully causing them to leave, but 5 songs being enough to warrant payment.

There are the families/mothers with small kids. The kids love the music and want to give money to the busker. These are great as they don't stay too long and it doesn't matter all that much what you play, once it's got a decent rhythm.

There are the elderly people, who don't generally give anything when walking past, but if they like the song they'll come back and throw in a few euro. That's always lovely as it catches you by surprise.

There are the Irish tourists, who give you a little money basically because you're playing an Irish song. Which is fine by me. Basically the same idea as playing Irish songs in Galway for the Americans tourists.

Then there are the oddballs. The ones you just don't know. They're usually hit and miss. For example, this fellow - I wasn't sure if he'd just walk away or give me a fiver. Did I mention I got given a 20 the day before? Just thrown in. Amazing. Anyway. He walked away, so I kept playing, but he came back. In broken English he said something about playing at his bar. He said "Chapeau" so I thought he just meant busking outside his bar, but I was fine with the idea - something different sure. So we walked over to show me where it was. He had an English speaking waiter working for him who did some translating, and asked me how much I'd charge for 2 hours. I was dumbstruck. I figured it's my first, better go low. So I said 40, he went to ask the owner and said that's fine, 40 + dinner. This while drinking a free pint. I was over the moon. Texted my dad immediately. My first ever paid gig. I mean I've been paid for juggling gigs and piano gigs, but my dream has always been to be a singer. I'd like to think of myself as a fairly decent writer, but I really don't know how to explain how happy I was right then.
I went home to bulk up my Irish songs - I only play 5 in my busking set. I put together a 2 hour setlist and went back to the bar. It was much less busy than I expected - maybe 4 or 5 tables of people outside. But feck it. They gave me another pint and I started. After one song the waiter said I should put out my guitar case. Awesome. Even though there were only a few tables every one of them came over and gave some money, 2-3 euro each. About half way through the owner of the creperie across the road brought me a crepe. One of the tables nearby bought me another beer, and just at the end of my set walked over and handed me a tenner. It was surreal. Afterwards the bar asked me would I play again on Saturday. Right then I wished I wasn't going to the EJC. Juggling is fun, and I love the people at conventions, but I do wish I could have stayed. But there'll be more bars. Afterwards I sat down and they asked what I'd like to eat. I didn't understand the menu so I asked for whatever the waiter liked - he brought me a steak. With chips and crisps and bread and pepper sauce and jaysus it was amazing. They then offered me dessert, pushed it on me even. So I settled for a small beer for dessert. This on top of paying me. Man they were cool.
I was on top of the world when I went back to the camper. I got an icecream on my own to celebrate and sat down to wait for the Parisian girls to arrive to the beach - they'd gone for pizza. It was a fairly uneventful last night, just chatting and walking between beaches and drinking beers. But it was nice. They're a cool group. Very like us in ways - it's a pity we don't speak French..

We spent Thursday morning/afternoon getting ready to leave. With a stop in a supermarket we didn't actually leave La Rochelle til 7.30pm. Oops. I decided I'd drive us the whole way down - Dara still needs someone to sit next to him so I figured I'd rather do a big drive now and get to sleep for the next two. It wasn't too bad. Tricky to find a juggling convention at 1am when it's not actually open yet (and so not all that well signposted). But we got in eventually and parked in a nice spot under a tree.
It's pretty cool here, the convention officially starts today and there are about 5000 people here. As big as a small music festival. Lots of practice halls, stalls and 6 tents for shows. We just got drunk last night and caught up with Brendan and the rest of the Irish crowd. It's so awesome to speak with fluent English speakers again. You miss speaking fast/using slang in every sentence. It's so hot though. Sweating pretty much all day. But at least it's also like a convention in that you can be topless pretty much all day.
Think I'll stop there, will be here for the next week so I'll write a big proper EJC post at the end with all the scandal!

Parisians, Knives and A Lovely Singing Voice

18th July
Yesterday I spent the whole afternoon trying to get rid of coins. We'd sorted them out into 10s, 20s, 50s etc, and so thought it would be a simple matter of going to a bank and changing them....failing that, into a bar and changing them...as bars love change... failing that, going into a shop and changing them, as shops love change. Nope. Nobody likes change. All the banks have signs with coinbags on the door and an X through them. The bars were all immediately completely disinterested (and quite rude). The shopkeepers weren't rude but still no interest. Closest I came was a casino, which agreed to change them after hesitation, but only if I had my passport with me. I'm not sure if this was a bluff, knowing that I'd hardly be carrying my passport - or if they really do need a passport ID just to let you in to change some coins? Strange. Anyway, still have the coins. Need to find a supermarket with the self service checkouts and buy groceries with 10c coins. Haven't found one in France yet though. They're quite behind on some things..
Afterwards we all went in for a busk. First time all of us at it since Rennes, so that was nice. Went really well too - I got 60 and Finbar got 50. Dara/Alex's show didn't go as well as the previous night but still easily enough to cover his third of groceries etc. I'd like to be hitting 50 average between the 3 of us a day - only been doing this 3 weeks so enough for groceries/living expenses/fuel is fine for me. So over 120 is great. Dara went home to sleep and I went into an Irish bar to watch some jazz violin/play a few Irish songs while Finbar went home to leave his art stuff in the van then come back in (which took 2.5 hours from when I left him. He says he didn't leave straight away, which I believe, but even if he left an hour and a half later that's a bit crazy!). Met a cool guy in the bar named Rommy who we met again later on the street and offered us a trip on his boat. He was hammered though - hope he remembers that! We went down to the beach again, this time to meet some couchsurfers. It was fun - all fairly fluent English speakers, which was very refreshing! There were a couple training two alsations on the beach so I spent most of my time watching that - very cool. They had them chasing eachother around and stuff and it looked kinda violent/bad between the dogs but then the owners would say something and the dogs would stop, run back and sit down. I'm guessing they're to be police dogs or something.
I was wrecked though so we went back a little after 4, after agreeing to go to one of the girl's birthday parties on Monday.
Today I'm hoping to get some stuff done in town - a wifi dongle so that I can have internet anywhere, some hand sanitiser as while we have showers nearby, keeping your hands clean is basically impossible when you deal with so much money and shake so many wino's hands on the street. Maybe an icecream. Keep meaning to go to the aquarium as it's meant to be great here. But it's Saturday and even the carpark here is packed full of campers. Methinks Monday. Toodles.

24th July
A while since I wrote in this. Tsk tsk David. You should keep your blog up to date. Let me think...Sunday..ah yeah, I decided it'd be my day off so I went into town and found a park. It was lovely - spent a few hours on my own writing a new song and reading my kindle. Parks are so invaluable when it's so hot - never really appreciated them for that purpose before. I felt like I should do something before dinner though, so thought feck it - I'll do a quick hour. Got 25 and considering it was my day off I decided to spend it on a pizza and beer out. Finbar joined me; we went to a restaurant near where we're parked. I got a calzone.. I guess I haven't technically eaten a pizza since coming to France actually, always calzones...but they're just so good. We got a giant icecream and went for a walk afterwards, and coming back through the beach we saw that there were a few groups with guitars drinking and playing. Figuring it might be a chance to meet new people, we got my guitar and Finbar's camera and went for beers beside the sea. After a while one group of girls came over and invited us to join them. They turned out to be really cool, easily the best English speakers we've met, it's great, don't need  to worry at all when talking, but still get the foreign-ness of them speaking French lots of the time, with the advantage of they don't speak Irish. So we've been hanging out with them every night since. The second night got pretty messy. I'd had a bad night busking - made plenty of money but I was down two strings and a peg by the end of it, with the music shop closed that day. But with a box of wine on my bike it all became pretty good pretty fast. It was the aforementioned couchsurfer's birthday on the town-beach in La Rochelle so we went along, though with the group of 7 girls and us we were a bigger group than the actual birthday party. Oh - I forgot to mention they're all singers. They do really nice covers together with harmonies and everything, so half the night is spent singing. Which is fine by me. One of them has a really really lovely voice too - I've asked her if she'd like to write a duet but dunno if it'll happen with us leaving in the morning and all our time with them spent drinking. But anyway, that night we ended up coming back to our beach to get our cognac from the van, at like 5am...a guy came along who was a bit of a French knacker and had a knife in his hand, and a bottle of whiskey in the other. It was a bit surreal as we were quite drunk so he really didn't scare us...he just wasn't believable enough. Just holding a knife out in his hand. Why? So after a few minutes we all just got up and left. He didn't follow. We decided we'd try and sneak a free breakfast at the girls' hostel. Wasn't a good breakfast and we're actually making well enough money to buy nicer breakfasts but hey - gypsy lifestyle. We met a mentally disabled (is that what we say now?) woman who is apparently a convicted pedophile. Bit scary. She was weird. Luckily we don't speak French, so weren't half as weirded out as a girls. A few went off to bed while us hardcores went to one of the room where the girls decided to dress me up in their clothes. I really must stop agreeing to such things.

By 10am everyone was absolutely wrecked so Finbar and I stumbled home for a few hours sleep. I also forgot to mention, it stormed that night. Luckily we just missed getting wet, but Finbar had left his skylight window open for air - his bed was soaked when we got back. So while I passed out Finbar made up the spare double bed (gotta love a 6 berth) and slept for the day.

No rest for the wicked David though - I had a guitar to fix. So after a few hours sleep I made my way in and through my broken French and the shop guy's broken english I managed to get my parts. Took me a few hours to unstring, clean, re-pin, change the bridge, and restring the guitar, but now it's so very tasty again. I brought it to the beach last night but was super-careful not to get sand on it this time. Hope it's alright. Anyway - we spent an hour or so discussing a tax system for the van. See we're all coming from different standpoints at the moment - Dara wants to create artsy things for the sake of art, isn't concerned with money as he has his savings, Finbar wants to paint on walls for no-money, but wants to make lots of money also for other less artistic reasons.. I want to play music as much as possible, with the aim of being a pro-musician, the money being an indicator of how I'm doing. This gets tricky in the van - until now we've been putting all of the money into the communal jar, but say if I make 20 euro in an hour (Easily enough to more than cover my third of everything communal) - should I just stop working? I don't get any of the money afterwards anyway..and what if I made 60 euro, can I not work for the next two days? So we've agreed on a sort of a tax - 10 per day and an extra tenner per 50 euro above 40 euro. Eg I made 55 last night, so had to pay an extra 10 on my original 10, giving me 35 euro personal profit. Or beer money. I don't like the system too much - it's not very nice mathematically and doesn't really encourage profit. But maybe that's for the best right now.

Last night was fun, back to our beach again for another evening of songs and drinking games. And running around in the sand games, and laughing games. Lots of games. We all went back to the van for pasta. The van doesn't really fit 10 people..

Fun times though. Finbar facepainted half the girls, which was a bit pointless considering it was like 6am so we were all going to sleep a few minutes after. One doesn't think of such things at times like these though. I think there were complaints about the noise - the police arrived in the morning and asked us to move some stuff into the van and were generally grumpy. They asked how many were in the van, but of course Finbar replied 2 truthfully, which threw them off. I guess they presumed it was some kinda party campervan. So they didn't ask us to move or anything, just better not do it again tonight.

Off to Toulouse tomorrow I think - EJC 2013 time. Looking forward to finally doing some juggling. And not-busking should leave extra time for music too :)

Over and out!

Night Swimming

18th July, 2am
Today was a good day. I got up and went to use the Wifi in the nearby restaurant - in order to accept my new friend Maxim's friend request on Facebook, and arrange to meet him. I had to order something, and was feeling a little naughty. So I bought a waffle. Don't judge me. You'd get a waffle too. You naughty little thing. I know what's in your head. Chocolate. Always chocolate. Well you can't have any chocolate. You haven't worked hard enough for the chocolate. Go run a half marathon, then come ask me for chocolate, fatty. See what I say. I'll say no. You can't have any chocolate. You're too fat.
The waffle was pretty good. I used a little internet then went to read on the beach on my own. Been taking lots of alone time lately - when you're living with two others in such a confined space you'll see enough of eachother automatically, so it's nice to go off on your own whenever you can. At 4 I went off to meet Maxim in town. It was so very hot. So very very hot. Must have been 30 degrees...at least where we're staying is beside the beach so there's a nice breeze. In town it's just ridiculous - If you're in the sun you start sweating. Simple as that. So we walked around alot and chatted. His English wasn't perfect, but good enough, and it was nice to talk to someone new without having to have the whole half-trying-to-speak-eachothers-languages-as-neither-of-you-are-very-good-at-the-other's-language thing. Town did look much less busy than the festival period, but it didn't look too bad. Still as busy as the other cities we've been to. So when Maxim left I went for a busk. I did a little on a shop street and it went really well - gonna try that again tomorrow. Did two little stints so as not to annoy any shopowners. Nantes style. Then I went to MacDonalds.
MacDonalds isn't cheap in France. It's not really that cheap in Ireland, but we have the Eurosaver menu. They simply don't do that in France. Which makes it a pretty bad deal. I spent like 7.50 on a meal that wasn't that nice at all. For a tenner I could have gotten a lovely pizza in a restaurant in town. I know better now sure. Think if it goes well tomorrow I'll treat myself on a busk break, from the busking money. Don't tell the guys.
The point of MacDonalds is they always have free wifi. It didn't work for me though, so it was a pretty fruitless excursion. Oh well. I went back to town and found a spot to start a proper busk, at around half 8. It went great. Today was the first day I broke 50 euro in total. I dunno if that's a thing with buskers, but it was big to me. I'm hoping to average 20 euro a day in general (taking into account a day off, so 25 when working), so making double was absolutely awesome. I was on a high when I stopped. It was around 10.30 so I figured I'd check out some other street shows before going home. I've been talking to a juggling/dance group who're touring around too a bit, so I sat down with one of them and we watched it. It's cool to hang out with other buskers. Makes you feel like you're part of a sort of a club. Even though it's a club anyone can simply join. But I guess it does take something to put yourself out there, open to judgement..
I went home then. Finbar spent the evening getting his advertising graffiti canvas ready, so hopefully he'll be able to bring in something tomorrow. Dara tried to find a nice traffic light set but there were none good enough. Wish he had brought the amp in and tried to busk a little though. Personally, I'd be happy if we all just did 2-3 hours busking a day, then no matter what money you bring in it's okay. Or if you don't want to busk you do 2-3 hours work on the van, or some other project which benefits us all. If it doesn't change by Toulouse I'm definitely going to ask the guys for this, or to sort of each put 10 euro in for groceries/campsite each day, then any money we make after that is our own. I could have gone out/eaten out every day in La Rochelle so far if I'd kept the money. Fine if it averages out eventually, but if it doesn't it seems terribly unfair. Luckily they're my best friends, so I'm sure they'll understand. I'm only not bringing it up yet as I don't want to be pushy or create tension. I can do 10 more days of this - it aint so bad. And if it fixes itself by then, perfect :)
19th July, 2pm
Last night was great. Drank a load of wine with Finbar in the camper, while Dara tried a little streetshow with Alex. We went in and I busked a little, Dara made 20, which was awesome, so I stopped after 40 minutes with a tenner and we went off to drink. Felt much better about everything straight away! We met the French girls and played Kings in their apartment. It was fun, though the language barrier is so tricky until you're all drunk enough! Then it was down to the beach to swim. Swimming at night is so amazing. I forget about it every time. It's just so peaceful out there....I dunno if it's just me, but does the water move less at night? Anyway, it was lovely.
Today is a day for changing all our change into real money, so I have a big bag of coins and a mission :)

Autographs and Florists

La Rochelle has been great fun so far. I've been busking in the evenings as it's far too hot during the day. With the music festival there's huge foot traffic so I've been doing well each night. Just playing on my own at the moment - Finbar's trying to facepaint but not having much success (I think he should switch to the graffiti canvas stuff), while Dara seems to be sort of down and not really doing anything at all. Maybe he misses Anna, not sure. He'll need to come out of it soon though - Alex suggested the two of them juggle together today to busk but Dara didn't follow up on it, so it was only me that brought in money again. I'm okay with it to a point - Finbar's figuring out what to do, and the original plan was for Dara and I to do street shows. But not to do anything at all is a bit much. I'd say the two of them would have pulled in tonnes yesterday, it was mobbed...  I dunno. It sounds more ranty than it really is - it's starting to get to me a little but I'm still holding out hope that they'll start making some and then I can take a few days off - I've busked every day pretty much since we left.
The living is pretty easy here though. Staying free in a car park beside the beach. It's full of campervans so it's quite safe, and there's a shower about 30 seconds walk from where we're parked. Not as nice as a campsite, but for absolutely nothing you can't really complain. Plus it's pretty damn awesome to get up and walk 30 seconds until you're standing on a beautiful beach full of people. The heat is crazy, so it's hard to work during the day - I've been reading lots and sleeping. Properly living for the evenings. Routine is usually to get up around 1 or 2, hit the beach for a swim, then I practice a little/or do whatever chores need to be done, before busking in town in the evening. Been drinking every night here since we arrived. Today a really nice gay couple (and both florists, awesome!) offered to buy me a drink after I finished so we got a beer and walked around the city, they showed me lots of nice old buildings. Two of the other nights we were hanging around with 3 french girls but they don't really speak English and aren't all that much fun, so I'd rather make different friends if possible! It's been completely legal to drink on the street during the festival period - we haven't even entered a bar since arriving, but apparently there's none of that anymore from today.
Lollibop have moved to a campsite - the police came along and told them you can't have tents here. It's definitely good though - the confined space was starting to get to us on both sides I think. And we were a little annoyed that one of them took tonnes of our wine one night. Like I'm all for sharing, but literally downing like a third of the big bottle, when that was our only booze we brought in, and on my birthday...it was pretty uncool. Different mindset, I guess..no hard feelings though, and we'll probably still camp near them until Toulouse. You're always gonna get some problems when you try to fit that many people in a small space. It's funny though - now that they're gone the van feels huge. So I guess it was good overrall :)
I'm currently lying in bed typing this - it's raining outside. First drop since we left. It's a nice change. I can hear the festival pretty loudly too - might have to wear ear plugs. Would have liked to have gone and paid in but the forty I made tonight will have to go on groceries etc. Was a funny night actually - a big group of like 12 year old girls all asked me to autograph their arms. Never done autographs before. Guess I'm getting famous.. My voice is definitely improving lots though - I could never have imagined me playing on a street fully acoustic a few weeks ago...now it feels natural. So I'm very very happy about that. :)
With the festival ending tonight it might be too quiet to make anything from tomorrow. But it is lovely here and free to stay so if I can make anything at all we might stay another few days. Then maybe Bordeaux on the way to the EJC. I've barely juggled at all...probably less so than at home even. Juggling is fun, but I really, really do want to be a famous musician. So you've gotta prioritize, I guess, right?

Campsite Superstars and a Beach Holiday

The campsite gig was very strange! We arrived up expecting a group of kids, but there were none really. There were a few pottering around after getting their facepainted but no real crowd, and no real sign of a crowd starting. So we messed around for a while and Lollibop did their car-mime act to just us, really. When we lit up the fire a few adults came along, and we had a fun night playing lots of music and stuff, but it was really strange. But hey, we got two nights free out of it.
Went busking again the next day. Nantes was good for busking - about 30 a day on my own. The others didn't manage to make anything at all though, so it did get a little tiring for me. With the free campsite the money I made was actually enough for all of us, but it's a mental thing. Like living with someone on the dole. Oh well - hopefully there'll be a town where I can't busk for some reason and they make the money instead. Then it's the easy life for David.
We did one more show for our last night - to get it free again. This time we didn't expect a crowd, so we did it near the restaurant instead. I think they enjoyed it. We packed everything up in the evening in order to avoid a similar fate to Rennes, and to my great surprise we left the campsite only an hour behind schedule. It was great. We drove down to La Rochelle, stopping in a big e-leclerc to buy a saucepan and stock up on food. We're currently staying in a car park next to the beach. It's nice - free, showers nearby and couldn't really be any closer to the sea. Funny how you'll often pay the high prices to rent an apartment near a beach, but now we just...park there..
We also bought 10 litres of wine, so that evening was spent quite drunk. We had lots of fun singing songs outside the camper and walking in. Then Finbar got far too messy though so I spent the rest of the evening minding him. Ah well - shit happens. Had no idea of the way home, so spent literally 4 hours walking around. Good exercise.
Yesterday was my birthday. It's also Bastille day though, so we figured we should try to make some money from the tourists. Dara and I went in and did okay, about 25 euro for an hour and a half or so. It's a pity though - I make about the same whether I play on my own or with the cajon, so if Dara can make any money at all doing the traffic light juggling show, it makes far more sense for us to play separately.
The three of us decided we'd get dinner out, as my parents gave me some money for my birthday - may as well treat ourselves. Had some amazing pizzas and crepes. It was really good. Too good. Now I want to eat good food again. Just ate a steak in a restaurant. It's still kinda my birthday. Don't judge me.
The party was really good last night, we just drank on the street going from gig to gig. It's a big music festival called Francofolies here at the moment. Music on every corner. We must have danced at every single location. Just the three of us, dancing the night away. We made some friends and all walked back to the camper, where some of us (not me!) swam at dawn. It was a good evening. Hard to blog about properly though, as I'm terribly hungover. I'm not even gonna spell check this right now. Later. Bye.

End of Rennes, Start of Nantes.

10.30am, 10th July 2013
Last night in Rennes was amazing again. We sang, had lots of dancing, lots of singing with locals. We met a lovely new friend Sven who bought us Belgian beer and was our translator for the evening. Also met some cool girls out for a birthday party who stayed for ages and even sang!

The next morning was all spent packing up the van etc. It took us ages as...well, I don't know why. The guys just don't seem to move very fast. And it is annoying getting past one another. We really need to have a list of things to be done when we need to move and split them up. But sometimes I sound too German. Das Collective.
We drove to Nantes, which took far longer than expected as it was difficult to leave Rennes on the correct side. I didn't mind though - I slept the whole way on my bed. Gotta love campervans sometimes. Dara and I went into the city to check out the busking spots while Finbar went to do a graffiti piece. We saw a really good singer with a guitarist and so hung around til the end of their set to chat. They were really nice. Told us we shouldn't use amplification without a license though, so think we're gonna have to go acoustic in this town. Though we'll probably try amp up anyway. Fuck it. I played a little bit on my own, just 20 minutes or so. Got  a few euro and a Canadian dollar, which I think is worth more than a euro, but gonna have to find a Canadian to make it into real money. Then we drank with some locals for the evening. It was really fun, but jaysus it was expensive. I spent a good 20. Got to talk to a deaf guy though, that was really interesting. Is it called talking to a deaf person? Signing?
Funny though, 20 euro is the least I'd spend on a night out in Galway, and yet now it seems like a fortune. Relativity's funny, huh?
It's coming up to 11am now, the lads are still asleep so I'm going to just go in on my own I think. Get some food and start trying to busk. I'm not really loud enough on my own yet, but sure feck it, it's practice, and if we can pull in ten or twenty each on our own, we're golden!


10.30pm, 10th July 2013.
That was a long day! A fun day, but man my voice is fucked. I went into town and spent a while hanging out near the castle and playing some of my own stuff to warm up, then set up on the main shop st. 10 minutes in the cops arrived, and I feared the worst, but they were really nice. They explained that it's fine to busk, once you move every 20 minutes or so - to not-annoy the neighbours. This is perfect though in a way - it means you can play your highest-paying songs in every set without annoying anyone. I played "Don't Worry Be Happy", "Stand By Me" and "Wonderwall" about a million times today. But they pay. It was my first time properly busking on my own without Dara or an amp and microphone, so it took me a while to get into it, but I spent about 3 hours in total. Had a nice day too, with lots of breaks - though my body is wrecked now. You have to sing so much louder, it really takes it out of you! I'm getting better at the evening time stuff too. You play 4 songs near where loads of people are sitting drinking outside in a bar, then you walk around with the hat. Then you move onto the next bar, and if you're me, you play nearly the same four songs. First time I used the hat it was the scariest thing I'd ever done. But it's how they do it here. I'm still quite shy - I don't want to impose on anyone, so I just walk around smiling with the hat not looking at anyone directly and people call me or stop me. That way at least I know they don't feel pressured or anything. Made 40 today - great! If we could make 60 between us a day we'd be doing perfectly. The lads didn't have as good a day though, Dara couldn't find any decent traffic lights in Nantes for his show, and Finbar didn't make it down til it was too late for facepainting - he's trying to arrange to go painting while he's here. When I went off for the evening busking session we agreed the others would see about getting us a show in the campsite, or teaching the kids juggling etc. Some way of staying for free. And they did it - we're staying free tonight and tomorrow night in exchange for doing a show tomorrow night in the campsite. Awesome. I'm looking forward to it, too - I like busking but my favourite part is when it draws a crowd. I love attention. 5 star campsite too, which is 8 euro each a night, so it's a big saving. Might try and do a little bit tomorrow for food or wine money but certainly easier than today - otherwise my voice will become like Tom Waits' (amazing) and my right shoulder will fall off (not amazing).
We may go to La Rochelle on Friday, we're waiting to hear about a festival happening there. Hold your ears.

Last day in Rennes

Today was a quiet day - I bought a battery for my guitar and restrung it, so now it's just fingers crossed that it works when we amp up tonight! Spent most of the day in the lovely park next to the campsite learning new songs and practicing. Finbar spent the day doing a piece (pics soon!) and Dara spent the day busking. Dara did amazingly, 25e on his first go! We're all very excited for him. Even if he could make half that he'd be flying - that means we can all split up during the day and get 3 different incomes now, then come together at night for the big one!
Finbar came along then and we got some ice cream:

Then I played some more music while Finbar got his dance on: 

We've moved the van just outside the campsite in preparation for Nantes in the morning. One more night busking in Rennes first - assuming the guitar works...otherwise I guess it's just wine...

Goodbye Rennes, you're the most friendly city I've ever been to.

An Amazing Park, a Broken Amp and a Crazy Night

So after some of the usual us taking ages to leave (I don't really know why it happens, but I really wanna fix it, I mean it takes us hours to leave every day!), Dara and I went to join the others in Parc Du Thabor. What an amazing place. I mean really, it's beautiful - I tried to take a few pics but couldn't really do it justice...but sure here goes anyway:

We couldn't find the others (huuuge park), so we sat down for a while and planned our street show some more. Alex spotted us and came over to show us where they were sitting. In retrospect it was a bad idea to move as we got nothing done from then on, but it was fun! We did some juggling:

I practised a few new songs for the night and Finbar painted a few faces, nearly enough to cover our camping for the night. We spent tonnes on groceries yesterday though, nearly 50 euro. Had to be done in a way - stuff like washing up liquid, salt, wine, wine, wine....we figured it'd be okay; we were ready to pump it on the street that evening.

It all went wrong just when we set up to busk. The guitar wasn't making any noise. Man it was bad, I didn't know what to do. Then I tried to play just acoustic with the cajon, absolutely bashing the guitar and singing out, but inevitably broke a string pretty quickly. Finbar cycled home to get a string and new lead for me, so we sat around and hoped for the best. It didn't come though - the new lead did nothing to help. We thought the amp might have been damaged on the way in on the bike. That really hurt. 300e amp, it's not like we can just buy a new one, that'd be cheating. We said we'd go on though, and did about 30 minutes bashing out the guitar and singing loud, just played the fast poppy songs. A small crowd still formed, which was great, and seemed to really like it. We made about 10-15 which was okay. Some of them stayed around for the night and hung out with us too, great fun! 

The night got pretty crazy, we just stayed in the same spot and got into a million jamming sessions between us and Alex/Emily/Michal's group, I'll try put a snippet up here if it works...there were punks, rappers, breakdancers, and tonnes of drunk French people all joining in. It was definitely a night to remember. Afterwards we cycled home, Dara wore the GoPro headcam and we took some shots for the first video (gonna try and make a video per city). It's not very good for night-time stuff though, so we'll see if it turns out.

Today I took the amp out and messed around. The line-in works with my mp3 player so looks like it's just the guitar's problem, which is fucking awesome. Even if it is a broken pickup that's much easier to fix/replace than an amp, and it's most likely just a dead pre-amp battery. So David's very happy today. It being Sunday I can't buy a new battery til tomorrow so gonna have to live off savings today/tonight, but feck it - my fingertips hurt when I type even at the moment so best take a break from the guitar for a day anyway. We're gonna try and hit up a like and have some fun. Salut!

A Hard Day's Day and an Easy Night

6th July 2012 2pm

Yesterday went terribly at first. After some fun playing with the next door neighbour's pig,

 and fucking around to Sean Paul playing on the amp/figuring out the chords to "Don't Look Back In Anger", we headed into town just after 3 to busk. We walked all our stuff in using the big box with wheels so that we wouldn't have to come back later. Brought the guitar, amp, and 5 clubs. First we settled down to a spot up the road from the main square, where there were a few other buskers. It went baaad. We played a good hour, got about 2 or 3 euro maybe. People were stopping and listening and all, but just not paying. An old man from Madagascar came along and asked could he join in. He sang Let it Be and When The Saints Come Marching in. He was a terrible singer but it was fun to just play guitar while Dara drummed - could concentrate on mixing them rather than Dara trying to follow what I'm doing as we usually do. We decided to move to another spot. Went down to the others who'd done terribly too. About 6 euro between them. They went off for a break so we held the spot. Tried some juggling - just put music on the amp and ran our fire routine from body and soul. A few people watched but no money again. We gave up pretty fast this time - we were just demoralized. Finbar arrived so we moved the stuff up to the square and took a break to get some baguette/crappy cheap cheese. Gotta live cheap if you're not earning.
I decided to give it another shot and while Finbar facepainted Dara I did another hour in the square. There were a few crowds watching and clapping etc but no money coming in at all really. At the end of it I thought about what a girl had said to us last night - that we should really go around with a hat to collect money. There was a big crowd sitting on the museum steps watching the whole time but hadn't gotten up. So fuck it, I walked over, didn't say anything - I don't wanna be pushy. Just walked around holding my hat and to my amazement 4 people stopped me to put money in. It was awesome. Got like 3 or 4 euro extra. Small but sura. Finbar got 3 facepaints done too, so he made 9 euro. We were doing okay. Nearly the campsite covered and still the night ahead of us.
Next the music started in the square. It was awesome, 4 stages - 2 funky strange dancers on one, 3 girls playing sax on another, 3 guys playing trumpet on the third and the fourth was the conductor/electronic DJ girl pumping out the beats. It was pretty fucking awesome. We danced away for a little while then decided it was time to go set up as it was after ten.
We moved back to where we were the first night - the corner of the bars with lots of foot traffic. Man it went great. We went straight into it, had loads of crowds/videos etc. A girl came along and decided she'd help us, she picked up the guitar case and went to the crowd collecting money, then went around with the hat collecting. It was class. A homeless dude even gave us three loaves of bread. So much fun, only did an hour and we pulled in over 30 euro.

Need to document the actual playing more though - we need to bring the GoPro tonight and get videos people dancing. I wanna remember those moments.
Went back to the campsite and sat around the table drinking wine with coke (for a change) and counting our money/talking til 5am. Total count was 51 euro, putting us 30 euro up overall taking away campsite fees etc. Enough diesel to drive us to the next town. Obviously we'll need to make more as expenses will creep up, but given that we're just starting we're very happy to be making any profit.
I was on such a high last night though. I love performing so much. 3 years ago I could never have imagined me playing to a crowd of 20 people watching and dancing away at night on the street in France. It was amazing. It's funny how up and down it can go - at 7pm I was heartbroken; by midnight I was king.
Finbar blew all the savings shopping this morning. He did buy lots of things we need like salt/ketchup etc. But I do feel somehow that if it were Dara or I it would have been a tenner less. He likes the good food and whatnot. But I won't judge yet - if his facepainting kicks off he could well pull in as much as Dara and I together per day, in which case he can buy all the good food he likes sure!
Today is our day off - kinda. Dara and I need to learn some more upbeat songs as the night seems best for us with the cajon/guitar (I'd imagine me alone would be as good if during the day, leaving Dara to do something like facepainting). And we need to start working on our streetshow. So Finbar's gone to try make some cash for wine facepainting.
It's hard to believe it's only day 4. Think we'll stay another night or two in Rennes then time to move on. But seriously,

Ferries, Pigs and Rennes

2am, 4th July 2012
I left my family at about 11am. It was harder than I expected. My parents and sister made a big deal of it, which was nice, and made me a little emotional. Though being me I made sure not to show it at all. But my grandparents. I'm not sure they realise..I've been seeing them a few times a week for the past 15 years...now the next time I'll see them for more than a quick visit home will be when one of them is really sick or even dying. I try not to think about that. Cus I'm not coming home. This isn't a holiday. It took far longer than we had planned to load up - packing our whole lives away. I didn't really feel excited at all, which was strange. Three years planning - what's essentially become one of my life dreams. What I've talked about near every day to someone for the past 6 months. But it just didn't seem real. It wasn't until we had picked up the others, loaded everything and I had driven to Rosslare - it wasn't until the ferry started moving from the port that it hit me. It's really happening. No turning back now. Now I'm sitting in the bar onboard at 2am, all of us drunk on rum we snuck in and drank quite blatently (Hey, gypsys now, right?). Now I'm curious. I don't know what's going to happen. But my life is going to change and develop more in the next year than the last 5. Or last 24? I hope so. I think so. This sounds far too over-dramatic. But it isn't. This is fucking crazy. This is the dream - and I'm going to start living it right now.


2am, 5th July 2012
The sleep on the ferry was pretty abysmal at first. I left Finbar and Dara at the bar at about 2am - the others had gone to sleep about an hour before, on mats they'd borrowed from the children's play area. I intended on doing the same - apparently they made a comfy ground-mat. But I was stopped in my tracks while carrying one over to where the others were sleeping by a member of staff who explained in the voice of someone who isn't being paid enough to deal with this shit, that the mats were for the kids. So I put it back, he informed me that I could sleep in the reserved seating area though, which was nice. I had seen the reserved seating option when I booked the ferry months back. Was tempted to get one, too, given that we weren't getting a cabin. But thank god I didn't. Jesus it was horrible. I had two of them and slept across as I saw others doing, but it was so very noisy. They must have been right next to the engine. I managed about an hour's actual sleep, and stayed there til about 8am when I gave up and got up. Found Dara in the corridor wandering like a zombie, so the two of us went cruising for a better place to sleep (get it, cruising? Didn't even mean that. I'm amazing sometimes. Only messing. All the time. David All The Time.). After about 30 minutes we found a bench area in the bar that was now unoccupied (they had all been taken at bedtime). It was perfect. I didn't care that there were people walking and talking and sitting near us the whole time we slept - I got a good proper 4 hours sleep. It doesn't sound nice at all, does it? I guess it's all relative. I remember being on a ferry as a kid, and finding the cabin so very horrible. The cabin would've been like a five star hotel that night. Proper tasty.
We found the others after we woke up and played some ninja on the helipad. Man that game is fun. No good at it yet though, compared to Alex/Emily. But we'll get there. Thought of an idea last night of how to busk with it too. It always draws attention. So we're gonna play it for money - every round only happens when someone puts money in the hat. Guess you'll hear more about that if we actually do it. Alex has already applied to electric picnic to do it though.
We eventually docked and after lots of waiting around we got into the camper and got ready to leave. It was pretty cool driving out. My first time on the right hand side of the road...it was surprisingly easy in a left hand drive vehicle though. Took to it without much hassle and we started driving to Rennes. After twenty minutes we found our first Carrefour and stopped for bread and cheese. Amazing. Filled a baguette full of camembere and blackberry jam. So good. Ate two of them between three of us. Hadn't eaten since yesterday really, in fairness. Finbar got an 11 euro fry on the ferry. He's gonna find it hard to get used to this lifestyle I think.
We got back on the road and only stopped when we were basically inside Rennes. About 10km outside the town, the skies opened to a lovely clear blue. It was pretty magical. We were in France. We live in France now.
We found a campsite (The only one in Rennes apparently) and after some humming and hawing due to the relatively high prices, we booked in. Spent the evening drinking some wine and chatting. Though I didn't really want to drink much - I want to get into this performing malarky properly. And I want to have a clear head and be healthy. Finbar wanted to get drunk and Dara didn't really mind, I think. So I felt a little bad, but there's plenty of time to get drunk when we're making lots of money.
We all slept in (though I kept waking up due to my blind being broken, so it gets very bright from dawn!), til about 12. We cooked up our intended dinner from last night (kind of a potato/courgette/sausage stew) and showered etc. By the time we were ready to go to town it was nearly 3 I think. Gotta get better at that too. We all cycled in, Dara with juggling stuff, me with a guitar, Finbar with face painting gear. We found a spot and set up. It went terribly at first. Made about 8 cent, and no-one was watching at all. We didn't really know what we were doing in fairness, I was just kinda playing chords while Dara fucked around. Finbar decided he'd be better off going back to the campsite and getting his graffiti canvas stuff ready for tomorrow so that he could busk with that (which, he never actually got around to doing I think...that guy..)...Dara and I met Alex etc and found a nicer spot to busk. It was roasting so after about 20 minutes Dara had to take a break, which worked out really well in the end. I just played music, and people started listening. Some kids stopped to watch and at points I had a little crowd of children. The money was weird, we did okay in general but not well on average - a few 20 cents and fifty cents. Then one group of girls about my age stopped for ages and were looking through their purses, I gave up on them when I saw them passing money between them but then one put in a fiver (they were obviously pooling together). That really got us going. We'd made our first proper money. There were two boys watching for a bit with their father, obviously tourists - he put a fiver in too. Great. So we made about 13.50 in total, about an hour and a half I guess, an hour of that being music. Dara found a fiver on the street a few minutes after we finished up, so we counted that too.
I realised Finbar had the keys to my bike so we contacted him and asked him to cycle them out to us (annoying for him, but in fairness I brought my keys, he simply didn't, so I gave him mine when he decided to go back). We bought two baguettes for dinner but couldn't find anything else open, so when we got back we ate them with kind of boiled eggs (we put water in the frying pan and cooked eggs in them, no oil or butter you see...it was alright), and tomatoes. Healthy and cheap sure. And pretty good, in fairness.
Dara and I set up the instruments for an amplified show (amp, mic for me, cajon for Dara), and we practiced in the campsite for a bit. My hand was already cramping so I was a little worried about busking, but I didn't say anything. A few kids and a mother came over with chairs and sat to watch us, which was pretty cool - I felt bad for ending a song or two later, but it was getting late (coming up to 9) so I wanted to hit the city. We left a little after 9 after lots of messing trying to get our instruments onto our bikes. We cycled in and checked out the spot we were at earlier, the other group were there and said they'd made about 40, but it seemed pretty quiet at this stage. So we scouted out some more and settled on the terrible spot from earlier, as it now had lots of footfall and hey, we had an amp. It was really slow for the first hour but picked up. Had a big crowd dancing near the end, though my hand was so very very sore. A few people took videos, lots of people came up and said they liked it, and we even got a gin and tonic each from a guy's bottle instead of money. Met some artists who live in kinda commune too, we might check that out tomorrow, would be cheaper than here and fun, will see what Finbar says. That kinda stuff is pretty cool. A dancer came and improvised some dance in front of us too. We made 23.7, though 10 of that was from one drunk guy. We felt kinda bad as he wouldn't have done it if he weren't drunk but fuck it. It was a really fun evening apart from my left hand being about to fall off now. Good practice too, considering Dara only knew like 3 of the songs on the drums before tonight...basically paid to practice in a way! I was really happy that people seemed to enjoy it. I know they were drunk and all but in Galway it's mostly just the songs you pick that makes you money...we had a crowd staying for a few songs at a time. We even sold out and played wonderwall, which was easily the most fun, as they really fucking loved it. It felt really good. Who knows, maybe my voice will be good enough someday. I'll keep dreaming.
So all in all the trip's going great so far. We're just learning how to busk but are making money. I know Rennes is probably the best city to busk in, so it'll get far harder, but fuck it, it's fun :)

2.15am, 5th July
Walked down to reception to write this blog (been keeping it offline but no internet where the camper's parked). The inefficiency is starting to get to me already. I had wanted to get up early but agreed on 10. Dara's alarm went off but Dara didn't get up, we were meant to practice all morning and head into town for the day busking. I did some workout, went to the supermarket to buy us food for the day, and collected money/paid for two nights down at reception. I've warmed up my voice and put the instruments in the box and been good to go for a good 2 hours. But we're not ready to leave yet - Finbar is cutting Dara's hair. I mean it's fine to cut Dara's hair and all, and it's not Finbar's fault as he's not coming busking either. But couldn't he have got it cut in the morning? Or if you do sleep in (And we all do sometimes), could we not leave it til the next morning? I'm not gonna say anything just yet, give them a few days to get settled in, but we need to get far more efficient if we want to do anything other than make money and doss around. And quickly. I wanna see France, not just live!

And So The Trip Begins

It's mad. I've been planning this for three years. Not directly....not even passively most of the time. But it's always been the plan. Finish college, work to save up money, go live in a van with Dara. Only now we have Finbar too. It's really weird that it's happening tomorrow. I mean it's proper fucked up. I'm genuinely quite nervous that we'll break down or something on the way to the ferry. After all this, to not-leave tomorrow would be so awkward....we couldn't come back...
These past few weeks have been amazing. Busking, Galway Juggling Convention, Body and Soul festival, and generally being unemployed.
Leaving makes you think about everything you take for granted. I've seen my grandparents nearly every day for 15 years now, I'm really gonna miss them. Friends are tricky too. I have some amazing friends. Except for you. I don't even like you. Did I say goodbye to you? I meant good go fuck yourself. I hope you think I was being sincere. I hope your memories of me filled with teddy bears and candy floss - when in reality I'm not even leaving; I'm going to spend the next two years camped outside your house, ringing you anonymously at various times and hanging up just before you answer. I'll also leave twenty euro notes around your garden though, to aid you in your life. Encouraging you to succeed, so that one day, one day you'll have enough money to buy a castle. And when you move into that castle, I will wait just long enough for you to get settled. Then I'm going to burn your castle down. You won't know it was me, because you'll think I've been in Europe for the past 10 years. But it was me. Remember that.
So here it starts. All posts from now on will be full of me complaining about the others and our lack of money. Or crazy adventures. Who knows. I just hope it's good enough material to write a book about. Cash cash. Think we're gonna drive down to Rennes first. Why not..
Goodbye Galway, hopefully see you at Christmas if not sooner :)