Thursday, 11.September 2008.
I wake up before Becka, so I take a shower and shave in the meantime. I finish packing my things and she's still asleep. I knock on the door and wake her up to say goodbye. She asks me to take a photos of the three of us (puppy included) so I do. We hug goodbye and by half past ten I'm on the road again.

This is Becka and her puppy in Becca's living room.

The weather kind of sucks. It's rainy, so the whole trip through Kansas, Missouri and the bottom of Illinois is kind of boring.
I drive through St. Louis and think of my colleague Allan, an American of Croatian origins, that I was supposed to share apartment with 3 years ago. He didn't have the papers so the landlord kind of freaked out and we had to give up that apartment. In hindsight I can't tell if was for better or for worse, because I found a way better and cheaper apartment, but definitely worse roommate. So I guess things evened out somehow. Anyway, Allan is from St. Louis and I've never actually been there, just drove through it on my very first trip to the US in 1996.
I don't stop in St. Louis this time either. I just get stuck in the traffic jam for a little while and then cross the border into Illinois.
Tonight I'm seeing Scott and Emily in Louisville, Kentucky.
Scott is the guy from the beginning of this story. I met him in New York City in a restaurant and figured out I had booked his band 12 years ago in Rome. Remember that part?
Emily is a girl I met in 1999 when my band played her apartment in Chicago. Emily and Annie lived in that apartment and set up that show. The next day the whole bunch of us went to Fireside Bowl, where our second Chicago show took place. It was also our last show with Fire Season, whom we shared the tour with, but that's another story.
I get to Louisville quite late. I think I lost another hour by crossing umpteenth time zone, so I get there around 10 pm.
Emily is at work until 12 pm. I have a couple addresses of record stores in Louisville, so I try to get there. In the process I call Scott and we arrange to meet in one of them. He lives nearby so it takes him 15 minutes to get there.
It's good to see a familiar face after a while. A pat on the back and we hop into my car and drive to some pub in the German part of the city. We run into several Scott's friends, order a few drinks (I try the Louisville's own Ale81, a soft drink similar to Ginger Ale. More info at www.ale8one.com) and have a good chat. One of his old buddies is there and he was in the band when they played Rome. Sometime between midnight and one am Emily joins us and we goof around and talk about music, politics, crushes on Punk Rock girls, Las Vegas, ex-girlfriends, and wild times in general.
















Scott, myself and Emily in Louisville, Kenntucky.











Around 2 am it's time to split. I drop Scott off by the record store and then follow Emily to her place.
She's got a pretty cool place all for herself. It's got one bedroom, a living room, a hall, a kitchen and a bathroom and it's quite big for one person. I'm amazed by her record collection. It ranges everywhere from Lookout bands to Dead Kennedys, from Clash to Los Crudos. She admits some of the records ended up in her collection after the split with a boyfriend. However, I go through her records while she's going through her photos.
She doesn't manage to find the photo of us in Chicago, but in turn she finds a highschool photo of my friend Kim Bae. Kim, for those who don't know her, was the columnist and photographer for one of the best Punk zines Punk Planet and we were roommates in Rome back in the summer of 1998 when I moved in with some friends in order to finish my university thesis and she moved in as well, right from Chicago.
I can't remember when I fell asleep, but Emily and I kept talking through the night (and probably kept the neighbours awake) until we could see first sunrays coming through the shades.