Cowgirls rule

Time is going fast. Too fast. Our car, a 'Chevy Malibu' is doing a great job...including his air conditioning and the cruise control. I just realized my last post is written in San Diego...that's a week ago. We performed at the Hot Java Café and met the most incredible harmonica player . He had hands like shovels but he knew how to use this tiny instrument. Wow. Next stop was Flagstaff, Arizona. I guess I said it before, but I love to say it again: the most exciting thing (besides playing our songs :-) ) is the friendliness of the people we meet. My brother Matti (who ran so fast that he won the silver medal at the European Junior Championships 10.000m...yes, that one) stayed in the most wonderful host family you can ever imagine, from 2005-2006. He spent a high school year in Flagstaff, a nice college town with railroad tracks that cut it in half. Even though Matti is back in Berlin now, the family let us stay at their house for a couple of days. We relaxed, enjoyed the nice landscape and the animals and felt so welcome.

'That's the day when we were dreaming
of the day we're gonna take a ride
to place we can build a home
with two sheep and apple trees
and a front porch with two rocking chairs
so that everybody sees
that your hand fits in mine...'
(Photographs)



Now I'm sitting in café in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a wonderful small town (in spite of all the tourists, like we are :-) ). And again...it's incredible how nice people are. Nico is the administrator of the dutch americana.pagina.nl and he knows that great bass player, Susan Holmes. She offered us a place to sleep, just like that, without knowing us personally. I mean...we could be serial killers.
When I was taking a shower this morning I definitely had the most stunning view I ever had while I was cleaning my hair. Hills, mountains, sunshine, blue sky, cactus, plants we don't have in Europe... and I was thinking about yesterday, when we went to see Susan play with the Santa Fe All stars, a bluegrass band with a guitarist/lead singer, another guitar player, Susan on double bass and the best mandolin player ever. That girl is amazing. Sharon Gilchrist grew up with two of the Dixie Chicks and has been touring with Tony Rice and Peter Rowan, THE bluegrass guys. Sooo...can you imagine how glad Jan was when they asked him to play a couple of songs with them?? I figured out how to import the movies I made with my camcorder (simply with a fire wire cable....), so I'll post a short impression of this performance later.
They even gave us space to perform two Markowski songs which the audience apparently liked :-) So even though we won't play a real show in Santa Fe...we are so glad we came here!

By the way...that doesn't mean that ev-e-ry-thing is only great and wonderful. But I guess that's part of the deal :-) Brainwash Café in San Francisco 'lost' (?!) their microphones and one speaker (they couldn't care less) and we couldn't have played without the other band's sound system. Red&Black in Portland...nice place, but crappy sound system as well and nobody who helps setting it up. One food item and one drink, no money. Flipnotics (Austin) where we're supposed to play on august 9 still doesn't have 'Markowski' on the event calendar and the guy who confirmed the booking in February doesn't work there anymore...we're waiting for an email or phone call right now...I hope they understand that they cannot cancel our show (rescheduling is impossible due to hotel reservations and tour schedule). So yes, there is a downside, too...no 'American Dream' so far...but hey...the audience seems to love what we're doing, we meet new people, enjoy the good Mexican food and we're really looking forward to our show in Eddie's Attic (august 18) in Decatur, Georgia!