Spoon Tickets already!

We got two notices for packages, and I have been working my butt off (sick children...11 hours yesterday alone!) so I only just got to them tonight. Well, I picked up one. For whatever reason, we got packages at two different convenience stores. Not very convenient, if you ask me.

A random aside about mail in Sweden: we pick the packages up at a store in our 'hood, and there are next-to-no post offices here. We get our regular mail and reklam through the slot in the door. Reklam = junk mail. Everyone else puts up a little sign on the door that says "Ingen Recklam Tack!" and the mailperson only gives them the important addressed-to-them stuff. When we moved in, we had an "Ingen Recklam Tack" sign under the name plate, but I took it off. I wanted to see what Swedish junk mail consisted of.  How else do you get the coveted Ikea catalog?!?  And it is how I found out that Sweden has Toy-R-Us.  Its been added to my list of weirdo American imports that are *everywhere* here, like 7-11 and TGIFridays.

So, anyway (I digress a lot) I picked up the package at the one tobak that was open after 6pm. Turns out it was the concert tickets we just ordered a few days ago, surprisingly soon from Ticketmaster! Ticketmaster GERMANY.  We are going to Berlin for Stu's birthday to see one of my favorite bands...they aren't coming to Sweden apparently.  Call me Eddie Vedder, but I hate, hate, hate Ticketmaster.  I hate having to pay their $12 per ticket "handling fee" when I print the damn things out at home using my own paper and my own printer ink (okay, it was usually my office printer and paper, but still, NOT Ticketmaster's.)  And the way shows sell out with them is suspect...I don't know how they allot tickets, but its not very democratic. In DC, I would far rather go to the venue at weird box office hours to avoid having to use Ticketmaster. And because I'm cheap.

So tickets for Spoon were 18 euro...not an awful price. And actually, unlike the US counterpart, Ticketmaster of Germany didn't have any extra BS fees, if you live there and can pick up your tickets at their Hamburg office (really?!?). We had to pay an extra 10 euro because we live out of the country, but they mailed them uncharacteristically quickly.  So all in all, we paid a whopping $70 for the privilege of seeing Spoon in Berlin.

But I'm excited anyway.  We had to travel to Norfolk, VA to see them after their shows got all effed up in DC in 2007.  Stu had to travel all the way to New Orleans to see them (okay, he got to see a ton of other bands at Voodoo Fest. And its New Orleans...any excuse, right? Seriously, for Stu, ANY excuse.)  We'll take Ryan Air's $20 r/t crappy seats, stay in a cheap hotel, and eat all the schnitzel, pretzels and giant German beers possible in that weekend to celebrate Stu's birthday.  In style.