Ah, back to the land of street signs I can read! It was really nice to fly into Gatwick and go through their entry system. Pretty painless actually. We landed in Bristol in the afternoon and met our driver Costa, who ended up accompanying us for the rest of the tour. We got onto a full-sized motorcoach with eight sleeper bunks, two lounges, a galley and small WC (no poopin' on the bus!). Refrigerator stocked with all kinds of "starter goodies".

We were welcomed into the UK by late afternoon traffic and didn't make it to Bristol until about 9pm; I had immediately scoped out my bunk and got set up for the long haul and took a long nap. Not necessarily the greatest idea, as you don't wanna be up all night either. Keeping a "normal-ish" schedule on a tour bus requires diligence.

The first night in Bristol we stayed at a Novotel and went out for a quick walk into town, looking for something to eat. We were all hungry and lucky to have found a cool Italian place who seated all six of us 10 minutes before closing.

The next AM, I got up at like 6am and was first in for breakfast. The hotels in Europe all have breakfast down to an art. It's not like in the states where they put out a small plate of eggs and a waffle iron... oh no. It's far more eloquent than that! These places we stayed went all-out on quality.

After loading up with some good fuel, I then proceeded to walk around the city and took a ton of pics. Bristol is a cool city, albeit it was a very gray day (I'm sure many are in that geolocation). But the cool thing about "gray places" is the amount of artwork that you happen to see everywhere. They've got a great selection of local artists doing their works. I'm always glad to see such sights.

So on this night, I broke my 17" Evolution crash; split it about 1", a tear right against the grain. I was killing it because I couldn't hear my kick drum. Bummer.