The gig at the Ellington and bambi visits– part 9

The show at the Ellington was lots of fun. It was set in one of the conference rooms of the hotel. The sound company also brought a bit of lighting to create some atmosphere. It was a track date, which means I am performing to tracks from my laptop. I missed having Clydene and Oliver with me, but I did get into it after the first couple of songs.
The German audience, not unlike the British, was very reserved at in the beginning, but once I had them up on their feet, they would not sit back down. They did not let me go without an encore and I sold a lot of CDs. Altogether I put this in the book as a very successful show.
Giovanni w nilsAs an added surprise, my Skype student Giovanni Broccolo showed up at the concert. He lives in Italy and I have been giving him guitar lessons over Skype from my studio in Los Angeles. He made the trip from Italy to Berlin and surprised me at the concert. How amazing is that?

Since the Amsterdam show was cancelled, due to the illness of the promoter, I flew directly to Munich the next day. Here I have a few days off, before I fly on to Mallorca for the Jazz Festival. I also noticed a booking mistake I made. I booked the first leg of my return to LA, (from Munich to London) for 10 pm flight instead of 10am. That would mean I would miss my connection to LA. And since it was a cheap flight booked through fly.com, I could not change it nor get a refund. I had to buy a new ticket and throw the other one away. What happened that everything got so stringent with the airlines? I find it outrageous. The lesson here is, to better book through the airline’s site, I would have gotten at least a partial refund. It makes me appreciate and miss Southwest Airlines even more. No fees for changing a booking. I think when I’m back in the States I should apply for becoming a spokesperson for them :o)

In Munich I like to visit my parents and yesterday I helped my Dad with the yard work. Garten arbeitThis morning Bambi stopped by to inspect my work, approved and ran off into the woods. My parent’s home boarders to a national forest.
Deer in back yard
I will take a few days off and write more from Mallorca
until then…..