Posts Tagged ‘music’

We had arranged our flight so that we arrived in Hong Kong during the day – unfortunately the only such flight was a red-eye, arriving at 7:45 in the morning.  Since we knew we’d have to wait before the hotel that we’d booked would let us check in, we hung out at the airport for a while.  It turns out that HK airport is really useful!  There is fast internet there (we uploaded hundreds of photos), a post office (for sending our souvenirs and gifts home), food and air conditioning.  We ended up spending a few hours that morning just getting organized and relaxing.

View On The Bus

Afterwards, we took a city bus to downtown where we found our hotel with only a little trouble (imagine a small sign underneath construction scaffolding in an area with hundreds of small signs) and laid our bags down.  The hotel was just what we wanted – a room with air-con in a great location and relatively cheap.  What we hadn’t expected was the size!

Trying to fit in the bed

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JAZZ!!!

As we walked around Prague we saw so many signs for live jazz that we knew we had to get out and see some.  And we met a very cool Dutch couple and an Irish guy at the hostel who wanted to come with us!  The first night we were there was a Sunday and so I went online to try to figure out what was going on in the town.  The internet in the hostel at that time was slow enough to be completely useless, so we ended up just marking some places on our map and heading out on the town.

We dubbed it the “Jazz Crawl” and aside from the company and the chance to see the famous clock strike at night time (there is no trumpet player at night) it was a jazz failure.  We went by about 5 different possible places.  Three of these were closed because it was Sunday.  One was expensive enough that we didn’t want to pay for it (although the music coming out of the doors sounded pretty good).  The one place where we actually heard a little jazz was called Jazz Republic and as far as I’m concerned gets a mixed review.  The music was just okay.  The atmosphere was pretty good except that even though they advertised it as free you could only get in for free if you sat in a tiny area at the back of the room where you couldn’t really see the band very well.

We decided to try again the next night and to abandon the “Jazz Crawl” concept.

Justin did a little research and our Dutch friends paid attention while they were out walking around and we all came to the same conclusion: Jazz Dock was the place for us.  And it was.  We were there while their summer workshop was going on, which meant that every night the workshop teachers and students would have a giant jam session.  It cost a little to get in, but very reasonable and the place had a great atmosphere.  So great that we went back for a second night in a row.  We had an amazing time, heard some great music, and loved getting to know our new friends.

If you’re looking for jazz in Prague, definitely check out Jazz Dock!

We landed in Berlin’s TXL Airport without a hitch after passing through Latvia’s hugely expensive Riga airport. The first sign that we had that life is different in Berlin is the convenient Contact Lens Dispenser, right on the way out of the airport! Neither Hazel nor I had ever seen such a thing so of course we were required to buy some contacts for me right there on the spot. Hopefully they will be usable during snorkel and scuba dives later in the trip!

Contacts!

After some currywurst in the airport, we were refreshed enough to try to find our new hostel: Main Station Hostel. You would think that this hostel would be right next to the main station in Berlin (known as Hauptbanhof) but in fact it is a small distance away from a rather secondary train stop on one of the city lines. Oh well. We found it after about 30 minutes and were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the hostel. The bunk beds were solid – no shaking – and the lockers were more like little closets. But the best part was that our 8-bunk dorm room was divided into 3 sections: a bit by the door with 6 beds, a bathroom, and an intermediate room with a table, some lockers, and only 2 beds! So we were able to have a a semi-private room there. We were both still exhausted; running around Helsinki with friends is a great way to visit, but it does take up a lot of your energy to do so much cool stuff, and we still hadn’t had a chance to do absolutely nothing for a while after Herrang. So we more or less went to bed straight away.
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I just have to start this post by saying that I completely neglected my camera for this part of the trip. I think it was because we were staying with friends and family and were so busy enjoying their company that I didn’t even think to get it out! So this post will be light on the photos. I’ll try to make the writing extra descriptive, but I’m not sure that will make up for it!

We had an easy bus trip from Durham to Oxford and even though it was raining when we arrived we had no trouble finding another bus to my aunt’s house. She has always been very encouraging to me and on several occasions has had chats with me that have very much helped me figure things out or see things more clearly, so I was really, really happy to see her.

She took us to a high table dinner at Brasenose College (Oxford University) and we had a wonderful time! Before she mentioned it to us, I did not even know what this event was, or even that it existed, so I’ll try to explain and people can chime in on the comments if I have it wrong. The colleges at the university serve dinners for the students and staff and it is an opportunity for everyone to meet up and share a meal. The high table is at the end of the hall and is where the professors and lecturers and their guests get to sit. There is a formal seating arrangement and they serve you amazing food and wine and you get to meet all kinds of people who you might not otherwise meet.

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Hazel decided that for my birthday she would get me a nice night out in Spain – complete with Flamenco Dancing!  This has been something I’ve been really into since I saw a show in Ithaca back in 2005.  So I was stoked!  It turned out to be the perfect evening.  We started out the night at the restaurant “El Buey” – a favorite Hazel found on SpottedByLocals.com, a site that’s half TripAdvisor and half blog with entries by locals from the area.  We love this site!  Anyway, back to our date.  The specialty of the house is cook-it-yourself OX!  They bring 1kg of ox tenderloin sliced thinly (along with patatas fritas of course) and ceramic plates heated to a really high temperature.  Meat goes on plate, and voila!

El Buey

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We had a fairly easy flight getting to Madrid from NYC and a very easy trip to our hostel on the (very clean, very spacious) metro.  The time difference and lack of sleep on the flight caught up to us though, so we took a nice nap for a couple of hours.

Since then we’ve managed to have some tapas (delicious!), wander around a bit, plan the next day or so (think we’ll head to Toledo and we’re going to see a flamenco show!), and see an incredibly awesome live jazz show just two blocks from where we’re staying!  We’ve also been pleased because even though the language here is a little different than in South America it seems like we can understand people pretty well and they can understand us.  So all in all, Spain has been good to us in the first 12 hours we’ve been here.

Awesome Jazz in Madrid!

We headed south from Los Vilos, past Santiago, to the city of San Fernando for the 2011 Fiesta de la Vendmia.  This was the second year this festival occurred and it showcases wines from the Colchagua Valley, which is considered one of the best wine regions in Chile.  We had a blast!

We stayed for two nights in the town at the Hotel España, which was a slightly bizarre place, but not in a bad way.  Half of the interior of the hotel was filled with giant plants and greek looking statues like a strange indoor mini-plaza.  It was a bit shabby, but a nice place to stay and an easy walk from the square with the wine festival.

The festival itself was really well put together and the wine was absolutely awesome.  There were booths all around the main square with the wineries in the middle and all kinds of delicious bbq and ceviche and other tasty foods around the outside.  There were even booths from a couple of local breweries.  The bbq was done over large piles of coals and whole animals were cooked at a time – pork and lamb.  The air smelled like delicious roasting meat, wood smoke and red wine!

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