Ragnar Ök - a Swedish poet

I can't help it but to my ears the word Ragnarök just sounds like a name for a Swedish poet or other state-subsidised "artist". Ragnar Ök.

Anyway, in the past few days everything's gone pretty much as scheduled. The only surprise was how easy it was at the US embassy. After all the horror stories we had heard it felt more like a picnic in the park. True, the security check was tighter than at the airport, but really friendly and we were all in and out in less than an hour and today, only 24 hours after the interviews, most of us have already gotten back our passports with visas attached. Smooth, I'd say.

Back to the weekend. Once again we had to leave in the middle of the night. This time the flight was so early that there was no point going to bed since we were leaving Tampere at 2AM. To be honest I though that it was too early and that we would have to wait at the airport for hours. However, in the van Juho was checking his passport and I realized that I had left mine home. Me, the one who's always worrying about the others! Me, the perfect one! Puzzling. So, I called home before 4AM and asked Tiina to get up, find the passport and bring it to Hämeenlinna, which she did. Then we continued to Helsinki, she left back to Tampere and had a flat tire after a few kilometres. Difficult night.

We actually had three bands traveling together. Two from Tampere and one from wherever they come from. We had two Falchion guys with us and we met Kivimetsän Druidi at the airport. We flew to Frankfurt where we were two vans were waiting for us. We had something like 250 kilometres ahead of us so we prepared for the journey by stopping at Lidl to get those Breezer copies. Probably named "El-cheapo". I bought a whole box of 24 bottles. And some women complain that men don't think about their future!

Anyway, Ragnarök was normal indoor festival. Probably the nicest thing was to meet Týr again. And some other old friends as well. Vegetarian food was crap. Alcohol was plenty. Weather was shit. Raining most of the time. Early back at the hotel. And then back to Finland. The most interesting thing was to see if some KmD and Falchion members will be allowed to board the plane. It was close, but hey made it. Hooray!

Otherwise everything last week went like planned. On Sunday we had a pre-listening session for a few journalist and they seemed to like what they heard. On Tuesday we had the visa interviews at the US embassy. After all the horror stories we had heard we were a bit worried about it but after all it went really smoothly. True, the security check was tighter than at the airport, but the rest was a picnic in the park. The "third degree interrogation" went like this:
- "So, you're the bass player?"
- "Yes, I am."
- "How long have you been with the band?"
- "Since the spring of 2005 so that makes... umm... four years now."
- "Ok, your visa application has been approved."
It was pretty much like that for everyone.

We spent the Tuesday afternoon in the film studio in Helsinki shooting our part for the forthcoming video. It's going to be a bit different video. You'll see.

And now it's 7:30 on Monday morning and the coffee is ready.