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Thursday, Oct. 23n

Best: Getting a tour of downtown Vienna. Chris, one of the promoters from the night before, and a local journalist who had interviewed us, walked us down tiny cobbled side streets that suddenly opened up into a large square that had a huge cathedral in the middle, towering over us. We also saw a Greek church and the only Jewish synagogue that had survived WWII.n

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Worst: Getting stopped and fined 120 Euro by the Austrian police for not having the right sticker in our car window. The sticker was a toll sticker for about 7 Euro that allows you to drive on Austrian roads.n

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Worst: Sketchy alley encounters. As soon as we arrived in Budapest, we knew something was weird. The main streets were closed off, and there were hundreds of armed policemen in the streets.n

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At one point we were in a small alley looking at our map when all of a sudden, five pissed-off-looking guys surrounded us, walking towards the van and blocking it. We were scared. Svante put his foot on the gas and slowly but firmly drove forward and the guys parted like the Red Sea and let us pass. Later, the promoter, Balazs (pronounced Buh-laj), explained that Budapest was celebrating a National Feast Day, and there were protests and riots in the streets that night. The men were probably rioters, he said.n

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Best: Daniel and Balazs. A boy named Daniel helped us get the show in Budapest by getting us in touch with Balazs over Myspace. We met him and his friend, Annett, at the After Music Club. She told us where to go buy a hair straightener, because Kim’s and my life were getting steadily ruined by not having a hair straightener for 3 days in a row. Daniel sang along to all our songs.n

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After the show, Balazs gave us our guarantee of hotel rooms and 100 Euro a band, even though we’d really only make him about a third of that from door money. He said the riots had kept people from coming, and that he’d made extra from a show the night before. He used to do much bigger shows, he said, but stopped because the pressure and stress “took all the joy out of it.” It was incredibly cool to meet a promoter with so much integrity.n

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Friday, Oct. 24n

Best: An awesome meal at the club in Crailshelm, Germany. It was pasta with a choice of vegetarian or meat sauce, and a big bowl of salad, all on metal chargers, like at a fancy restaurant. The owner of the club was a guy named Roman who was in his mid-50s, with a long, flowing grey beard and a commanding presence, like if Zeus were a rocker. You got the sense he was some kind of pillar of the regional music scene.n

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After we played, he laid out eight mattresses on the venue floor and yelled at all the people in the venue go to the back eating area to continue partying. Then he turned off the lights in the main room so we could sleep. n

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Worst: Roman yelling at us like a big, belligerent god for like, three minutes about how we needed to get to bed and be quiet and “respect our drivers” after the lights were out and we were trying to talk about the driving schedule for the next day. It was funny. Sarah said she was afraid we were going to get grounded.n

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Saturday, Oct. 25n

Worst: Getting up at 4 a.m. to get to Dutch Doom Days on time and getting lost near Cologne, Germany on the way. It cost us 45 precious minutes trying to get back on track and we were already cutting it super short.n

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Worst: Yoran accidentally stepping in human feces while we made a pee-in-the-trees stop by the side of the road, and bringing it into the van on his shoes without realizing it. Apparently it was a favorite bathroom stop for other Autobahn drivers. The gag-inducingly smelly poo got all over a couple duffel bags.n

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Best: Meeting Ola, the ex-co-owner of I Hate Records [the label that released Strega], for the first time. He walked into the equipment room in Baroeg (the Dutch Doom Days venue) where we were getting ready. He recognized me and Sarah and we gave him big hugs. He was the one who convinced his partner to sign us, even though we are to doom what Iggy Pop is to metal.n

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Best: The audience giving a collective startled motion when we crashed into our first song, “Christine.” “Christine” was probably a punch in the face after all the super-slow doom. But then people started to smile. n

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During the fifth song, we had some bass power problems and had to stop. Sarah and I sang “Isaac” and called it good. We were satisfied; it was the best set we played all tour, and five songs was enough for them to get the Main Idea. Ola stood in the front row and watched us live for the first time. After we played, Ola’s band Griftegard played; they were great.n

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Sunday, Oct. 26n

Best: Rotterdam pot. The Subrosa pot-lovers got to smoke weed at a public coffeeshop without worry of being stopped by cops. The weed was smooth, but not any better than the stuff they could get back in Utah. Weird?n

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Worst: What with repacking our merch and buying train tickets, there was no way in hell for me to make it back to the second day of Dutch Doom Days.n

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Best: Playing trivia games on the airplane. It was set up on a network so all the players on the plane could compete against each other. n

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Best: Running into Josh Joy at the Salt Lake airport, totally by accident.n

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Worst: Someone in Subrosa threw up on him/herself and someone sitting next to him/her while he/she was unconscious, after taking sleeping pills and that high-altitude complimentary wine.