This is a journal, with 210 photos, about a 16 day trip to Europe in 1991, but written in 2009. I remembered as many details and stories as I could. The photos were taken with old-fashioned film cameras!
There were 33 of us, a college jazz band (with some additional "friends of the band"), headed for a performance eventually at the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on 5 July. We were:
LEADER-- Bill
SAXOPHONES-- Becca, Brian, Captain Rob, Dave, Derrick, Ian, Laura and Tony
TRUMPETS-- David, Greg, Jason, Scott, Tim and Toni
TROMBONES-- Dave, Dave, Kim, Rob and Roy
RHYTHM SECTION-- Mike, Mike, Patti, Sam and Wendell
VOCALISTS-- Gwen and Susan
"FRIENDS OF THE BAND"-- Marilyn, Me, Sylvia, Tammy and Wendie
On Delta Airlines, we flew from southern California on the morning of 24 June, changing planes (after a long layover) in Atlanta and landing in Frankfurt around 8:30 a.m. (local time) on the 25th. Upon landing and collecting our luggage, instruments and other band equipment, we picked up our four vans and one sedan which we would use to get around Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
We discovered that the maps we brought were not easy to read and so we got lost going from the Frankfurt "Flughafen" (airport) to the hostel, also in Frankfurt. We also discovered that German "Benzin" (gasoline) stations do not automatically come with a "W.C." (water closet or restroom), as they do in the U.S.
We finally stumbled upon the front door of the hostel, located next to the Main River, around noon, only to find that this was the time of day when they were closed until 2:00, if memory serves me. So-- this was our opportunity to eat lunch and taste our first German beers. We were not disappointed. As a matter of fact, I was never disappointed with any of the beer or food (outside of the hostel meals) that I tasted during this whole European adventure.
This was my first experience with hostels and it was not all that pleasant. Breakfast and dinner were provided by all the hostels we stayed at and included in the price, so we saved a lot of money, but ate a lot of sparse breakfasts and boring dinners. Dinner at this hostel was no exception. The restrooms and showers were very clean but communal. Sleeping arrangements were 8 (possibly more) people in a dorm room in bunk beds. I'm a light sleeper, so only my sheer exhaustion caused me to get enough sleep to keep going. Unable to get any sleep along the way, I had been up for something like 30 hours straight!
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