I'm coming back !

Yes, that's right. I'm going back to america ! In 15 days I will be on the plane across the big ocean and spend again 3 months in the states. This time no 12,000 miles cross country trip - I will stay put most of the time in Austin/Texas, one of my favorite places from my last trip. The plan is to get to know the music scene there, try to find people to jam and record with and hopefully play some gigs. And of course, learn more about america (I think driving a pickup truck might be a pretty good start, huh ;) I want to meet new people and make new friends, and of course spend time with the wonderful people I met on my last trip :)
I am really looking forward to be with my friends in Austin, last year we had such a FANTASTIC time... !

Amsterdam

But what happend since I returned from my trip last year ? Actually, not veeery much! Most of my music projects encounterd some obstacles, so I still don't have a cd with my band (but I have lots of new music written, so that's cool! and we made a pretty nice demo recording) but I did had a good time here in Amsterdam. Earlier this year I played a gig which took me two times 2 weeks to the french alpes - there I learned how to ski and I tell you, it's super fun ! I moved places 3 times since I came back (an old habit, moving is one of my favorite hobbys. NOT) and I spended quite some time in germany aswell this year. Hm, if I think of it this way there was actually a lot going on, haha!

Flower market in A'dam

Anyhow, I've been living towards this trip for the last 2 months, selling or giving away most of my stuff (it feels pretty good to get lighter), write tons of emails, organize my stay and my absence here and practising some blues guitar ;)
All in all I have a feeling that this time there could be some real change coming along with this trip - but let's go there first and see what happens! (Anybody got a greencard to give away ;) ?

Well well, this is gonna be an interesting time for sure. I decided to continue writing on this blog for all the people who are interested. There won't be as many posts and pictures as last time when I was travelling so much that I had a different story to tell almost every day - but I will travel around a bit for sure, and Austin might hold some pretty intersting storys aswell, I'm pretty sure about that! hehe. So keep in coming back and please leave me some comments !

And the pictures are some impressions from Amsterdam, this beautiful town in Europe where I lived for the last 3 years and I am once again about to leave to try my luck across the big ocean!

the last post

so, this will be the last post on this blog. The trip is over, I am back in Amsterdam and do what people do here ;)
America has left a deep impression on me and the plan is to go back to the US in 2009. I am not sure yet when exactely and for how long, but I will figure that out. Again, thank y'all for visiting this blog and if you want check out my new website/blog about me and my music go to: www.micha-schellhaas.com
Ah, one last detail that might be interesting. On my way from Connecticut to the south, the desert, California, the rocky mountains and back to Connectiut I drove 19.000 km. That's 12.000 miles. phew! ;)

see you soon!

Flashback: L.A./Venice Beach

So folks. I am back in Amsterdam since beginning of this week. And already the speed of the city has gotten to me... I have to find a place, make 2983 phonecalls and write even more emails, organize rehearsals and I also played my first gig this weekend. BUT I have a good feeling about all of this, I took lots of motivation and inspiration from my trip and I will try as good as I can to continue with this good energy (hehe, it's gonna be hard though when the rainy days come ;) There is a lot to do in the rest of this year, I decided to try singing in my rock band, so that we can finally start recording and putting an album together. Well, if it doesn't work I at least ruin my own music and not someone elses, hehe! But I will write about all of this, maybe here, maybe I will start another blog (because this is a travel blog, right) or get my website back up again finally...

ANYWAY, here are the pictures from Los Angeles! Remember, after L.A. I couldn't get my hands on a mac computer to access my Ipod and to upload these pictures... Well, here we go!

I stayed one week in Venice Beach/L.A. with Vikki. She was really great and took me out to lots of cool places and partys! Most of L.A. though is rather,... hmmm,... how to say... boring! It just goes on forever in the style you see in the pic above. BUT, if you are in the right company and you hit the good spots, it rocks!!! ;)

goin' crazy in Venice Beach

the pier at night

Venice Beach!

what I didn't knew, those palmtrees are actually an import... If humans would leave california untouched, it would actually be destert. But thanks to us L.A. has those cool palmtrees which follow the sun during the day with their crowns. Cool!

looking down from Hollywood Boulevard into the city

well, and this was funny (NOT). I did not see the sign that you are not allowed to park on the street from 2-6 pm or something like that. I went to check out a guitar shop, and after 10 minutes my car was already pulled up by this truck. They are fast there! Luckyly they accept credit card and for 150 dollar turtle got off the hook again, haha!
What totally helped me to overcome this oh so unuseful waste of money was that a few minutes later I played an 1964 Fender Stratocaster in the "Guitar Center Vintage Shop", which was in perfect condition and was defnetly one (if not THE) best guitar I ever touched. Problem: the beauty was 80.000 dollar. Gulp. Well, lucky me, there was another one which was slightly banged up, but same year and sounded EVEN BETTER to me. And it was only 64.000 dollar (yes, sixtyfourthousand). I will start saving tomorrow. Wanna donate? Ev'ry dollar is welcome ;)

and in the small back streets of Venice Beach you find those beautiful jewels of houses...
they are unpayable of course for people like you and me, hehe

on Abbot Kinney in Venice, one of the main streets

next to Vikki's house

on the beach at night...

... and during the day!

this wall is especially for graffitty artists. With permission you can spray here. Which is nice, the motive changes every few days!

buy your slippers and hats here

just outside (north) of L.A.

californian sunset

I could totally live there!

of course, there was one more thing to do...

... to see this!

the streets of L.A. at night

I am not done here yet,... there will still be more! So keep checking back!
By the way, thank you all for coming here and reading my stories. It was so nice to see that people checked every day! It really helped me to go on with the blog, and when I was somewhere alone I was thinking about that I am gonna post the pictures I took, and that like this I can share my travel with all of you - plus, I never felt really "alone" :-)

that's all for now, see you later!

Bye Bye America!

Alright, I am back in germany! Totally tired, because I travelled without sleeping and had again a full day in germany... That makes 24 hours nonstop, hehe ;)
But now things settle down and I have lots to do and to organize for the next few months here in europe. I will stay 10 more days in germany and then go back to Amsterdam, to pick up all my activity there. But first, check out my very last days in AMERICA...

from Connecticut I took the train back to New York City... a very nice 2 hours ride

rollin' rollin' rollin' ...

and I found my way to Brookly, where I would stay in the "Dharmatory" for the next 2 nights

Manhattan stays impressive, altough I have a different view on things, now after my trip. I think for my personally it would be a bit to hectic to live here, but it's surely fun to visit !!!

and Chinatown again

at the left side: Jon and Sam

the next day I met Jon who studies at the New School in Manhattan. He is a killing piano player and plays with quite some names in the city. We jammed a bit in the school, had some very interesting talks and then went for a coffee in this cool place. There we met Sam, a very charming girl from Montana :) (countryside girls rock!)

on Marcin's rooftop in Brooklyn, the day of my departure. It was a loooong day: waking up in Brooklyn, packing my stuff, taking the sub to Manhattan, discovering my VISA card was broken (I don't know folks, the damn thing wouldn't give me any money anymore! what's that! and I was about to pay my Kansas speeding ticket... eehhh. I suspect that the card is broken and that I have to get it fixed. Do you know somebody who can repair credit cards ?! ;) HEHE.
Well, then when I left from Penn station the train lost power in the tunnel and they had to drag us back to Manhattan and we had to take another train. I was super late for my flight but I made it. Phew!

flying high !

My dad picked me up in Frankfurt and we went straight to a german VOLKSFEST where I had original LEBERKNÖDEL and live music. It's diffrent than Texas for sure, HAHA! (Did you see "Schulze gets the Blues" ? After being up for 24 hours I finally got to bed... and I was dreaming about... AMERICA!

That's not the end of this blog yet, folks!
Come back and see more aftershock posts and pictures soon!

Driving Back East -- Part II

Ok folks, I did it !!! I am back to where I started... At the moment I stay with Tasso and Carlinde in Connecticut , but thursday I will visit New York City again, for the last 3 days of my stay. But first check out what happend on my way from Colorado back to the East Coast...

Driving staight east from colorado you enter the great plains... I had a 26 hour drive ahead of me, which I pulled of pretty much staight, with only a few naps in the car. By the way, the dentist in Colorado Springs gave me a root canal, and everything seemed to be fine at first, but yesterday the tooth (or better, the nerve or whats left of it) started to give word again. Grrrr. This gets annoying. Anyway I am pretty fine and in a good mood, and I will have it fixed again if it needs to back in europe.

open sky all around... the landscape was fantastic!

but after a while, well. As you see there was not much to see, hehe ;)

driving towards the rising sun

at about 1.30 am I pulled over to a rest area. I made myself as comfortable as possible and got some sleep. At 4.30 a good friend from Nashville called me and we were talking on the phone for quite a bit. It was super fun and I was awake again. So I continued driving and I saw this beautiful sunRISE...

I passed a few citys, this is Kansas City if I remember it right. The drive was great but also veeeeery long I tell you. Well, 2600 km is a serious distance!

one of Rob's Z's

Well, but I made it and at the end of the 2nd day I was back in West Virginia at Rob's and Linda's house! We had a good time talking about lots of things, playing guitar (watch this: http://www.youtube.com/v/oRtXRusvWtc me playing Rob's 1957 Gibson 175. WOW what a guitar... !!!!!) and I took the Gibson 345 I saw on my first visit. I will enjoy this Instrument a lot !!! We also took a ride in one of Rob's Z's!

After spending a day in West Virginia I drove off again the next morning towards upstate New York. I wanted to visit another Buddhist Retreat place there. But on my way I crossed some interesting parts of Pennsylvania... First the battlefield in Gettysburg. That's where the last battle in the civil war was fought...

and today they preserve the battlefield and turned it into a huge memorial area

and then I entered the amish country. They live without machines and electricity...

amish farms

next day I spended at Khenchen Rinpoches house. A very nice place were you have the chance to take some time off and meditate. And if you have questions there is Rinpoche to answer them!

prayer flags

the last drive

and in the evening I would start my last long drive, back to Connecticut to Tasso's and Carlinde's place. After 2 1/2 hours I was there. I knew there was meditation weekend so there were people at the house, but the surprise was that Tass and Carlinde just got MARRIED that day!!! Wow, what reunion! We were so happy and had a great party... (one of the highlights: I remember in the middle of the night we started running around the table making monkey noises.... ahem. we did quite some rounds actually, hehe)

Tass and Carlinde... I didn't catch them in there wedding outfits, but let me tell you they both looked awesome !!! (well, they still do in their normal clothes, haha)

I will post more news from back in NYC, so check back for my final reports !!!

The Buddhist Retreat Center in Colorado

For a long time there was a search going on for a suitable piece of land to have a north american Diamondway retreat center. Now the land is found and the work will start there in spring!
I tell you, this is really a good place... I went up there together with Jesper, Charlie and 3 other sangha members (plus kids of course!) from Colorado. You have to drive for 2 1/2 hours from Colorado Springs to reach this beautiful and remote piece of land. But see for yourself:

there is one cabin standing there now. It needs some work and upgrades, but it´s a good start!

standing on the porch you have this amazing view

the property came with 2 heavy machines. fun fun fun... !

many things need to be discussed... the water supply, the septic system and so on

we had a cloudy and rainy day up there, but nevertheless lots of fun exploring the huge property

from the land you look upon a great plaine which was formaly a lakebed. On the other side you see enourmous mountains, they are as huge as the mont blanc...

and this was supermega fun: there are also 3 ATV´s that belong to the property!!! we had such a blast driving them around!

Jenny is having fun! ATVing kicks ass!!!

the cabin again

and the beautiful view upon the mountains

that´s the closest town: Salida. Very nice old downtown area. Also a good place for Kanuing and Rafting. By the way you can do incredible hikes and climbs around here too!

the local bar. This place is gonna like us, hehe ;)

(and we will like this place back)

to complete the all American mountain experience there was a car show going on in Salida on sunday. Pretty cool! ;)

So, this morning I had my root canal done. Phew, it was about time. It´s still gonna hurt a bit for the next days, but that´ll be healing pain and it´s gonna be allright. My next move is to drive back to Rob´s place in West Virginia. Is pretty much a 24 hour drive, so I will drive as much as I can tomorrow, sleep in the car and then drive the rest! Check back for more news!

Driving Back East -- Part I

Tuesday I left San Francisco. I wanted to spend a day at lake Tahoe, but the tooth story had cost me one day, so I had to drive straight through to Salt Lake City in one go. All the people in San Fran have been so nice, just as everybody I met during my trip has been super nice ! I consider myself very lucky that I have the opportunity to do all this and that I could make so many new friends!!!
Right now I am in Colorado Springs and I just had a great weekend with the sangha here, we went up to see the land that is going to be the North American Diamondway Buddhist Retreat Center. My tooth keeps on bugging me, I have a headache all the time and my jaw and face feels very funny. I have painkillers to make it easier, but you also get very sleepy and overall that´s not a condition I want to spend the rest of my trip with. So tomorrow morning I got another dentist appointment and hopefully he will have the time to treat me tomorrow. I am not looking forward to get a root canal at all, but if that´s going to make my trip better, please drill some! ;)
But first check out what has happend on the 3 days on the road to Colorado springs! I had an awesome time nevertheless all the tooth worries:

the mountains in California! You have to cross them on your way east and they are very beautiful... I heard lake Tahoe would be really amazing, and I think that lake right here can give you an idea of the landscape up there

after you pass Rhino you enter the desert again, with mountains to your right and left. I had almost forgotten how great that feeling is driving with an amazing view like that. It certainly felt super good to be on the road again and experience such a wide open landscape... wow!

Good music in your car, no thoughts in your head and you could just go forever!

I stopped at this place to get some gas. Do you see the nice grassy hills there?

and as the sun was setting I still had about 250 miles to drive to Salt Lake City. The sunset was nice! And just before Salt Lake City, you cross the salt lake on a kind of dam and man, the lake smells pretty strong, hehe! I couldn´t see a thing but you´ll certainly know when you get to the lake :)
In Salt Lake City Diana picked me up at a gas station close to her house. We stayed up pretty late and had some booze and talked about a lot of stuff. It was so nice! She would show me around the next day and we did some cool stuff together...

But first she had to go to work and until she was back I took a drive up to the mountains. They pretty much start right at the edge of the city

so within 20 minutes you are in the mountains!

and up there it´s fantastic. Another world right in front of your door!

look at this! wonderful! Then I drove down the other side and this was actually not so nice. Ski slopes all over, ski huts, hotels and apres ski bars. Not much forest left there and they were still building new stuff all over the place. Basically a pretty much destroyed landscape. But you know, that´s the way to get the dollars out of the mountains, right? I am sure skiing and snowboarding is fun but I feel more that just a little irritated when I see something like that...

later the day Diana took me on a tour downtown Salt Lake City

Mormones used to be the biggest part of the population. That´s their main temple downtown. I didn´t knew much about their religion at first. It turned out that the man have usually 8 wifes. One main one and 7 others. Not to bad, my first thought ;)
But then Diana told me some more and it´s actually a pretty funny religion, some twisted side branch of christianity, with lots of strange dogmas and beliefs. Somehow they are the chosen one´s if I got that right. ahhhh... ok, whatever! ;)

we climbed up a hill to watch the sunset from there. Pretty adventurous climbing by the way! We could overlook the whole valley. That´s Salt Lakes captiol!

and when it gets dark the whole valley lights up... It looks just like a sea of lights...
but we had to find our way down there and couldn´t wait until complete darkness

we went to shoot some pool and had some drinks afterwards!

next morning I was on the road again, this time towards Colorado Springs! I had to drive through the mountains on interesting an curvy roads

around Price there are those cool rocks. I think Price Canyon is pretty famous, I wonder if that is what I came through. Looked fantastic for sure!

and again, open plains and mountains to the side, cant´t get enough of that!

I knew I was short on time because I had still 6 hours to go to Colorado Springs and it was already early afternoon. But Arches National park was on my way and I had to go and see it. And it turned out to be so fantastic that this is defnetly a place where I have to come back to with more time. But another adventure would await me here which I hadn´t expected at all !!!

that´s in Arches National Park. Amazing rock formations...

and just as I was driving there for maybe 20 minutes, the engine on my Ford started acting funny... First I noticed some uneven running and soft noises when I slowed down. It got worse and it wouldn´t accelerate so good any more. hmmm....

this is the Delicate Arch! It´s pretty huge!!! I only saw it from far away, I was worried about the car and running out of time. Shortly after that the yellow engine sign on the dashboard lit up. Aha, I thought. Real trouble! I looked it up in the manual and it said it´s most likely that the engine is missfiring and you should get service immediately. Sure, I only was out in the desert, there´s plenty of car service around here! Hehe. But I could still drive and actually I could take TURTLE on its last offroad desert trip...

another arch on my way out. So impressive! I have to come back for sure. The best would be a bike trip in fall or autumn when it´s not to hot. Combined with camping and hiking. Should be pretty awesome. Anybody interested?

and my TOM TOM was leading me out of the park on this dust road which had a lot of turns, bumps and loose sand. A feast for any daring 4wheel driver!!! You can do funny hops and slides and you can pick up quite some speed on the straight parts. It would be Ford TRUTLEs last adventure, at least with me behind the wheel

more crazy rocks on my way out

the dust road dropped me off pretty close to the highway and I had about 80 miles to go to Grand Junction/Colorado. The engine was running more and more unsteady. I looked up the closest AVIS dealer with my TOM TOM and could find one at the local airport. PHEW !!!!!!!
I already had prepared myself be stuck out on the highway. I just could make it there, and as I had to restart the engine to park the car at the AVIS lot, it was running super funny. No way I could have driven much more. I don´t think it´s a big deal, most likely just dirty spark plugs. But I didn´t have any tools for that anyway...
I was surprised how easy it was to exchange the car at the AVIS office for another one. They didn´t even look at it... Lucky me !!! ;)

But here we go: I left my Ford Escape behind that drove me 8000 miles in the last 7 weeks. And I asked for the smallest car they had, which was a funky grey Ford Focus! Its right next to TURTLE in the picture above...

bye bye Turtle!

and hello cutie! I think I´ll call this one SPEEDY ;)

on the road again in Colorado

SPEEDY is doing an awesome job and I just love her fuel efficiency!
(see, the TURTLE was a big 4wheel drive guy. SPEEDY is a nice little lady, hehe)

At 11.30 pm I arrived in Colorado springs. More from here soon! I have to go to bed now, for tomorrow I will have my first ever root canal. Yeeeahhhh! (think positive think positive) Let´s hope the dentist can treat me tomorrow, he wants to check on the situation first. I say let´s drill buddy!

hoi! just to let you know, I am fine and on the road again. Today I am in Salt Lake City and I will be in Colorado tomorrow. More pics soon !

ok, I went to the dentist today because I still had the strong feeling I should go. Well at first it didn't look so bad, just a little piece of the tooth was fallen off. But it was one which already had a filling, and as the doctor started working on it (after it took 3 injections to numb me haha), the filling came out by itself, and it revealed a hole in the tooth which goes till down to the nerve.
Hm.
SO, he fixed it for now, but if it still hurts tomorrow I will have to get a root canal (WURZELBEHANDLUNG) right here and now. Otherwise I have to get it when I am back in Europe, anyhow there's no way around it...
This one consult was quite pricey already and I hope my dutch ensurance is covering all of that. But its better than being somewhere out in the salt desert or the mountains and then the tooth would fall apart, right?
Let's see what happens tomorrow...

more San Fran stories...

San Francisco is a city with a thousand faces and has wonderful sights all over... In the past couple of days I've seen so much here and made lots of new friends. For example I met Ron, who used to be a professional bass player for 30 years and he played with musicians like Robben ford and John Lee Hooker. Not bad! And now he's buddhist, hehe. See, we'll get all of you eventually!
We jammed 2 nights and were hanging out in his hot tub. Sweet!
The whole week it has been kinda foggy weather but today on my last day it's clearing up... But I am home right now planning the rest of my trip (and I just broke a piece out of a tooth of mine, so tomorrow first thing in the morning is gonna be seeing a dentist). I have a little less than 2 weeks left to drive back to Connecticut. On the way I will stop in Nevada city, Colorado and hopefully Arches national park. Also I will visit Rob again in west virginia and spend a day with Kenchen Rinpoche in upstate new york.
So, lots on my plate for the next 2 weeks, let's see if it all works out! But first some more from San Francisco:

I was cruising through the city the other day when I came across this nice view... that's San Francisco for you!

and this was an exiting story:

I was driving through downtown and stopping at a red light, when another car smashed into mine from behind... BAM! wow, I was thinking 'ok, here we go... damn, I was making it all the way over here without a scratch on the car and now THIS.... grrrrr'
But it got even better when the other car turned into the street (I was already stopping and about to get out) and TOOK OFF. So, the other car was running away!
Well, what to do... I could see the other car was pretty banged up at the front. I had no idea about mine, the only thing I wanted to make sure is that the accident gets reported in an official way, since mine is a rental car and the other person was clearly responsible for running into me while I was stopping at a red light.
Ok, so I got back in and followed the car! It was an older Honda, so no chance against my Ford "Turtle". Soon I was directly behind the Honda and started honking and giving signs to stop. But no way... I had to follow the car on the freeway! I stayed very close (I mean very close) and honked and waved. I drove alongside the car and saw a black woman inside, she was giving me a sign to follow her. I didn't like this at all but what can I do. She got off the freeway the next exit and after a while she was stopping and finally getting out of her car.
Well, I was kinda opset of course, I mean come on! But she said she has no ensurance and I was not even sure if the car was hers at all. She seemed pretty confused and overall not in good shape. Poor lady, but I insisted to make this official. When she went back to her car to get her drivers license she drove off again!
Allright then I thought, I followed her again (back to the freeway) but I was making a picture of her car to get the license plate and I was calling 911. Damn it, where are the cops when you need them! ;)
Well, after a while on the phone the 911 lady convinced me to give up the car chase (by the way, I felt like in a bad movie... all that car chasin' and taking pictures and so on, HEHE). She forwarded the information about the Honda and the driver to the patrols in the area. So maybe they found her later. Also following a the car was actually not so smart, I mean who knows who's inside... And since you can buy ammunition in the supermarket and guns around the corner... !
(ok, thats NOT the case here in San Fran a friend told me, but still...)
Anyway, so I got off the freeway and filed a police report downtown. And I finally had time to check out the damage at my car. And surprise, almost nothing! The rear bumper took the hit and has just a few scratches in the finish that's it. Let's see what the rental car company thinks about this! (I think I'm gonna paint it over and try my luck, hihi)
All in all it took 2 hours, and it's a real american crime story, isn't it ;) ?

the other day I went to Berkeley to Glenn Cronkhite's house. He makes very fine handmade instrument cases (gigbags) and I orderd one for the West Virginia 345 a couple of weeks ago. Glenn used to be a drummer himself and played with lots of big names, for example with John Abercrombie... It was a very nice experience to meet him and by the way, he is into Buddhism aswell and for years he was hosting the Dalai Lamas medical team in his house when the Dalai Lama was in the bay area. Isn't that funny!
But his cases are really the best, if you want to get a case for your drums, your bass, your horn or your guitar that lasts forever and is super protective, call Glenn!!!

Chinatown! Karolina was showing me around....

Alcatraz

the Oakland brige


there is this girl in Amsterdam who told me that she left her heart in San Francisco...

well, good news for you D.
I found it! You only have to come over and pick it up ;)

it's waiting for you here ;)

the fog is lifting today

and again Alcatraz as seen from Morgan's rooftop!


Tomorrow or tuesday I will move on. Wish me luck with finding a dentist!
(later that day I decided to wait to get my tooth fixed until I am back in europe. Let's see how it goes!)