Home > On Tour > Jungle Adventures > The Europe Tour 2000-2001 > Birmingham, England
	Birmingham, England London, England <<<   Sheffield, England >>>   The trip to Birmingham started off quite well, despite the rain. We stopped about halfway for food at the only place open at this time of night (England is not known for it's 24-hour services). I thought we were just picking up something and going, so I grabbed a couple of sandwiches and started to head back to the bus. That's when I noticed that half the crew had gotten full breakfasts, so the stop would be a long one. I think about an hour later, we got back on the road. Now walking back to the bus it seemd like I was in a hurricane. The rain was driving at me through wind that was almost blowing me the opposite direction I was trying to walk. It turns out that the worst storms to hit England in 13 years were this night, and we had left London just in time, because London was flooded everywhere the next day. That brings up another interesting point, something that happened back in London that didn't even involve me, but all the skaters. I heard that management wouldn't even get the busses to come to the arena to pick them up after the show the last day. We had been taking trains or walking every other day, but on the final day, it's normal for the busses to pick everyone up. They said that the busses couldn't get to the arena (the crew bus made it, why couldn't the skater busses?). Anyway, back to the point. The skaters, with all their clothes, bags, and skates, were forced to either walk 20 minutes or take the train then walk 10 minutes through the pouring rain. None had anything extra to wear since all their luggage was packed, so I think many of them had to take the bus trip soaking wet. Yet another happy-fun Feld moment. So anyway, my first day in Birmingham started after only 3 hours of sleep. I got up to go see Warwick Castle with on of the girls I roomed within London (Renee). We asked the hotel desk how to take the train and they told us that due to the storms the night before, the trains were probably not running. Well, we headed that way anyway. Halfway there, we asked someone where the station was, and they, too, said taht the trains would not be running. We discussed whether to just do something else for the day or give the trains a try. We headed to the train station and fortunately trains were running, although on restricted schedules. But we made it to the castle in a normal amount of time anyway. Now words cannot even explain how astounding this place is. First of all, it is big. Second of all, it is beautiful and detailed. Third, it's been there for almost 1000 years...but you'd never know it. We covered every nook and cranny of the castle over about 4 hours. One of the most interesting facts, was that The Earl of Somethingorother and his family actually lived in this castle up until just 22 years ago. We saw the area they lived in and, let's just say, they had the life! We returned back to Birmingham and decided to walk around downtown a bit, but finding that everything was closed, we went back home, and I went to bed! I awoke about 10:15pm and went across the hall to the Halloween Party already well in progress. I had searched my bags through and through, but could find nothing to make a halloween costume from, so I went as a Sam. Luckily I was not the only one. The party was really fun, although because it started so early, it ended fairly early. I was one of the last to leave at 12:45am! Load-in was supposed to start on Tuesday at 4:00pm, but because the ice floor wasn't ready, we couldn't start until the next day. So I spent the afternoon and evening wandering around the shopping area. Wednesday marked our first one-day load-in with this show. Many of us were really nervous whether it could be done. Thus we were to start at 6am. Yuck. I made it to the lobby at 5:30am and found that we were supposed to walk to the arena. Uh, NO!! I'm sorry, but I'm not walking 25 minutes through the cold (not that cold, but cold enough that I didn't want to walk) at 5:30 in the morning so that I can go to load-in. No way, I called a cab, and had a few others join me. Well, although the walkers swore it was a 10-minute walk, our cab arrived 10 minutes after they left, and arrived 5 minutes before they did, with a 10 minute ride (for the mathematically uninclined, that's 25 minutes). So I was already warm, and sitting comfortably, when the rest showed up. You're not gonna catch me walking that far for Feld. Since the riggers had been in the the day before, they pinned a bit of the truss together, which helped. Now, this actually turned out to be the fastest load-in to date! Within 4 hours, we already had every moving light hung and tested (this is usually a 5-6 hour process). We took the grid up to trim within a total of 7 hours (normally 8 hours...we could have cut a lot more off, but some problems kept us down). Wednesday night's show was plagued with small problems that the audience wouldn't have noticed, but we certainly did. It was kind of expected with the rush of a first one-day load-in, but next time, we'll know to take care of a lot of those things. Thursday marked a pretty miserable day out early on, so I didn't do much. When the sun finally peeked out around 1pm, I decided to make my way out for some lunch. Before long, though, it was raining again so I headed back. And yet another show, The next few days were pretty dull, being show days and such, so I won't bore you with any of those details. Monday marked another full day off. i honestly don't think I did anything nearly as interesting as the previous day off (since I am writing this part weeks later, I am being forgetful!). I think all I did was go out and shop or something. Ahh! Monday night I went to see Roat Trip with Renee. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it for anyone who loves "stupid" comedies. I thought it was a riot, and I was hurting from laughter by the end. The rest of the week must have been pretty normal, because I really don't remember any of it. I thought that load-out would go extremely fast in this building, but because of trucking difficulties, we slowed down quite a bit, and ended up taking even longer than usual. But the good news is that the final show was an early show, which meant we finished load-out early and could get to the next city at a decent time. So anwyay, after that was over, we collected our belongings and boarded another bus for the short trip to Sheffield, England.