Road Trip USA!

So we picked up our hire car at McCarran Airport and set off. Actually their system there is really good, you get on a shuttle bus at the airport which takes you out to the rental centre and then you go to the counter of the hire company you wish to use. It was really quick and efficient and in no time we were off on the highroads of the Southwest, heading off to Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon.

Hoover Dam, being our first stop, was actually pretty good. We took one of the tours there and got great views of the dam, which is just enormous, and watched a movie about the making of the dam, which was pretty impressive. The display showing the dam going up day by day on a time-release camera was very interesting too.

We were then back on the high road and literally 2 minutes later crossed the border into Arizona. Its funny how the road signs and so on change from state to state - in Arizona a sign helpfully informs you that highway littering will cost you $300 - in New Mexico it'll cost you $500 and in Texas $750. California? Don't litter there, thats $1000! Then there's the speed limits - mostly 65mph in most states we visited, although in Texas and New Mexico you could often do 75 - but in Texas and New Mexico they had special 'safety corridors' where if you were caught speeding there you would pay double. Like they were almost inviting you to speed everywhere else.

They mustn't have a "don't use your mobile phone whilst driving" rule here - because we saw lots of helpful signs inviting us to call 511 or so on for traffic condition updates - and in New Mexico they wanted you to text them if you saw a drunk driver! So, whilst the drunk driver, weaving all over the road, is causing great danger - you, on your mobile, weaving all over the road whilst texting to let them know about it - obviously isn't a problem. Hmm.

The driving conditions on the roads are pretty good too, the roads are well maintained and the service stations - well, they are something else. As you approach the servos you get signs about what is available there - gas, food, camping, Burger King, Wendy's, McDonalds etc - and in Texas we even saw a drive-through Starbucks! So of course we had to try that one.

But I digress and get ahead of myself - more on that sort of thing in posts to come... in the meantime, here we are in Arizona on our way to the Grand Canyon...

We pulled into our campground after dark and set up our tent by the light of the headlights... we didn't do too bad a job either, the thing stayed up. Sleeping in the tent was ok too, its a 3 man tent so we've got plenty of room, and at Grand Canyon village I managed to buy a 'boomer' torch which we suspended from the ceiling and it gave off great light... so tomorrow its off to hike the Canyon...

Viva Las Vegas

After our harrowing adventures of the evening before, once we made it to our 'hostel' - which really is a motel. We grabbed a couple of hours sleep and then it was time to hit the town! But first, breakfast. We stopped in the nearby diner and got unlimited coffee refills and a wierd thing called sausage and biscuit with gravy - which basically was a meat patty, some scones and a strange, thick creamy sauce - I promptly felt desperately ill afterwards! But then we set off for the town...

The Vegas "Strip" is huge. Absolutely huge. Its kind of like Orchard Rd, Singapore - huge boulevarde, huge department stores that you need to visit (well in this case, not department stores, but hotels and casinos) and incredibly hot outside. I was just melting, walking up the strip. We gave up and caught the 'deuce' bus - but the traffic was so bad we almost could've walked there quicker.

We went into a couple of the casinos, and to be honest, I was really quite disappointed. Rather than the glamorous look of the casinos in the Hollywood movies (read: Ocean's Eleven), instead you get tacky slot machines ringing out a constant C major arpeggio (which really gets irritating after a while). And if you go over to the roulette and blackjack tables, instead of your George Clooney types sitting there in suit and jacket, you've got Joe Blogs in t-shirt and thongs, two teeth missing and a fag hanging out of the mouth. Gross.

But we were in Vegas, so we had to have a little go - sorry Major, I'll be down the mercy seat when I get back. I didn't bet much. I spent $20 on the blackjack machine (not the tables) and had the good sense to quit when I was winning. I won a grand total of $13 - my meal for the evening.

We got tickets to see a show too - no, not a strip show - but Gordy Brown, impersonator. He was pretty good, but alas I didn't appreciate it as much as I would've, because we were feeling so jetlagged....

Got back to the hostel around 12.30am next morning and just crashed out again... after all, tomorrow is a big day.... we start our road trip...

Continental 484 to Las Vegas...

Oh wow, was this a flight fraught with danger and excitement!

You see, our flight from Heathrow was supposed to take us to Las Vegas via a short change in Newark, New York - but we hadn't realised that you are supposed to allow 90 minutes changeover between any flights. This is because you must clear customs at your first port of entry to the US, not at your final destination. I guess that kind of makes sense, although I am used to a much more sophisticated system whereby they just check your baggage fully through, and you clear customs at the final point. Anyway. We pointed out to the lovely gentleman (not) at Continental's desk at Heathrow that we only had 1 hour, and he told us we should've read the blurb and made a later connection. But lastminute.com sold us the ticket like that! Why do the airlines make available these tickets with these inadequate connection times if their own rules state that you must allow 90 minutes transfer time? Its ridiculous! But not as ridiculous as the security questions and checks at Heathrow before we even boarded the plane.

First of all, some burke comes up to us and tries to show us how to check in using the automated system. What, am I some sort of computer dimwit? Don't I know how to follow instructions on screen? Can't I read English? Clearly not, because he had to input everything for us - and the man had the typing speed of an elderly coffin-dodger snail. Couple this with the fact we were already running late because Agnieszka's tube had been delayed, and you can see I was champing at the bit to try and get on the computer myself and get through the stupid process quicker.

The stupid thing is, in order to check in you have to provide an address in the US. Big problem if you haven't pre-booked anything, but fortunately we had (one of the rare times we had done so). No problem, right? No - problem. Our address doesn't come up on the system (clearly if you're staying in Las Vegas they don't expect you to be staying in a youth hostel). But we type in the address, eventually the computer accepts it and we move on. Short of giving my bra size, time and date of last potty stop and all, the computer wanted to know everything about you. How ridiculous! Like they can really tell if you're a terrorist from all that...

Eventually we get through, and then its off for some last minute shopping before boarding the flight. That part of the journey was pretty uneventful, they had a couple of films but I can't really remember what they were, and I managed to have a little snooze.

So, we arrive in Newark and its 'all stations go' as we rush through the airport, picking up our baggage, scanning our fingerprints at customs, answer copious stupid questions about what we were doing in Syria (yes, the first thing the guy did was spot the Syrian visa in my passport and demand whether we had any family there, did I have something to bring in from there - like I would've kept it for a year anyway, right - that's how long ago I was last in Syria)... yada yada yada. They took Agnieszka off to some other dodgy queue, for no apparent reason - oh and we had to take our shoes off to go through the scanners even though she was wearing sandals - like you can conceal a bomb in sandals, right? But eventually we get through and we found our gate - with 15 mintues to spare.

We shouldn't have bothered rushing. They boarded us on time, but then the plane just sat there at the gate, for about 40 minutes - for no real reason. Then the captain informs us that we are number 25 in the take-off queue - so that takes another 40 minutes or so. By this point, I'm so tired I just nodd off in my seat, barely noticing when we finally took off - but briefly waking when we were in the air to hear the captain announce that we were returning to Newark. Why?

Turns out that there was a problem with the landing gear - it wouldn't retract or something - so we had to go back to Newark and change plans. This process took 2 hours or so, just sitting there in the airport, doing nothing - so by the time we finally left for Vegas, we were something like 3- 4 hours behind schedule. This meant that instead of arriving at 11.30pm, we arrived at 3.30am - and then had to figure out how to get to our hostel that no-one seemed to have ever heard of.

We eventually managed to get there via the airport hotel bus, but at a cost - $8 per person. Finally checked in and crashed...

Welcome to America - Land of the Free, Home of the Supersize

Well, we finally arrived in America after a very lengthy and somewhat harrowing journey - but more on that later.

The first thing that strikes you about the US is how huge everything is. If you go to the toilet, there's no chance of your hips touching the sides of the cubicle like they do in Europe, no, you could hold a party in there. Although for some strange reason, so far every toilet and shower that we've seen has got a huge gap between the door and the doorjamb - you can seriously fully look on in there and check out what people are up to! Now what's the point of that?

I ordered a coffee and a muffin when I first arrived at Newark International, and seriously, you could've fed a third world country on the blinking thing. It was mammoth! And in the supermarkets, they have so much supersize stuff - huge tins of soup that would probably feed 20 people or so, huge bottles of drink, huge everything. And in the restaurants, the portions are embarrassingly huge. No wonder there's so much obesity here.

I had hoped to return to England a size or two smaller, on account of when you travel with Agnieszka, you only eat once a day - but at this rate, with everything being so fatty, so deep fried, and so big - there's no chance of that happening at all...

WSCM 08 Wrap Up

Oh wow, what a week it's been!

I've heard some absolutely amazing choirs, attended some fabulous workshops, and caught up with some old friends - it has been a brilliant time, really inspirational, and I've been so pleased that I got to be a part of it all.  That being said, I did also hear some choirs and attend some workshops that weren't all that... so here is my WSCM 08 wrap up:

Concerts:

My favourites were:  

Batida, who performed at the opening night gala with their funny skits about Hans Christian Andersen

Touche (jazz vocal acapella group)

Rajaton (popular and classical music acapella group) - their rendition of Abba's Fernando was simply brilliance.

Sunday 20th:

Workshops: 

1.  Keith Terry:  Body Music - this was so good I had to go and buy the DVD - thus beginning the punishing of my credit card...alas...  

2. Tone Bianca Dahl:  Communication - this was pretty good too although to be honest, I didn't learn anything new.  She was re-inforcing the use of common gestures to ensure the sound you want, rather than having to fully explain everything with words.

Concerts:  The University of Johannesburg choir were really good, but I didn't think much of Mikrokosmos.  And I skipped Key Cygnetures and Musica Intima because I wasn't really interested in a Kiwi group (and Art could care less about a Canadian one).  In the evening we saw the Svanholm Singers, who were an amazing male voice choir, and Ars Nova Copenhagen, who were also very good.

Monday 21st:

Workshops:

1.  Sigrid Johnson: Choral Blend.  This was sold out but I decided to go along anyway and see if I could get in, and I did - just!  I had to sit on a drum throne in the corner of the packed room!  This workshop again was nothing new for me - but it was really nice to have a refresher course on the different sounds you can get from your choir if you arrange the singers in a specific position.

2.  I skipped workshop 2 because nothing really interested me.

Concerts:  Art fell asleep in the Romanian Radio Children's and Youth Choir performance, and I fell asleep during the Anyang Civic Chorale Korean music presentation, but the highlights of the other concerts for me were definitely Rajaton, from Finland, and Voci Nobili from Norway.  Rajaton do a mix of jazz, pop, classical pieces - but the best one was their rendition of Abba's Fernando.

Tuesday 22nd:

Workshops:

1.  I went to the Eric Ortner masterclass for workshop 1.  In a way I wish I hadn't, I didn't learn anything new about conducting, that's for sure.  Basically he just had the workshop participants run through their pieces with Ars Nova, and then he would make musical adjustments - but give no suggestions on the conducting.  And he was quite awful to one boy, because he spent absolutely ages with another fellow who was doing some obscure thing that the choir couldn't actually sing, so they note bashed that a bit.  This left little or no time for the American fellow, who ran through his piece and then had Ortner tell him that he was a bit too young and needed to sing in more choirs first, gaining experience.  The poor fellow looked crushed - and he wasn't so bad, after all.  Then there was the other fellow who didn't even get to run his piece, I would feel seriously peeved if I was him!  I would've liked to have taken part in a masterclass but unfortunately I am now too old - TOO OLD!!!!  How?

2.  Vocal Rhythmic Music.  This workshop was really good, it was run by Touche, Vocaline and VoxNorth, which are all jazz or modern pop / rnb / hip hop acapella choirs.  I thought Touche's part was the best, they actually analysed the chords, whereas VoxNorth tended to show you how they "cheat" - using microphones and reverb to enhance the depth of the bass (even an octave doubler!).  But it was still a good workshop.

Concerts:

The lunchtime concerts, to be honest, were not all that today.  Coro Camerata Antiqua de Curitiba, Brazil, sang sharp the whole time, Calicantus from Switzerland I think were pretty good.  The second half of the lunchtime concerts featured an Icelandic group called Hamrahlídarkórinn, who were pretty good, and the Taipei Chamber Singers from Taiwan.  They had done the morning warmup, and put everyone to sleep with their attention to the pronunciation of some silly train song, but boy, that had been a good idea because everyone had a greater affiliation with that number when they performed it in the concert.  Plus the tenor doing the high "whoo" of the train woke me up, which was a good thing.  In the evening we basically caught the tail end of Musica Intima, which was good.  We then headed off for a late night concert of Rajaton, who seriously rocked.  I really liked them!

Wednesday 23rd:

This was Tivoli Day, so that meant that all day there were choirs performing in the Tivoli Gardens.  In the morning Art and I headed into Malmo, Sweden, on the train, so he could tick off another country from his list.  We made it to the Tivoli after lunch, heard some good choirs, but boy, the Winneba Youth Choir from Ghana were soooo disappointing.  This is because their conductor insisted on using a crappy keyboard (and its crappy jam track) to accompany the choir.  It was rubbish, and really spoiled the good work the kids were trying to do!

In the evening it was the Danish National Girls Choir, who were stunning, and the Danish National Vocal Ensemble, followed by VoxNorth and Vocal Line.  Very good evening! 

Thursday 24th:

Workshops:

1.  Sing n Move, Let's Groove:  this workshop was very good but the girl, Sanna Valvanne, from Finland - wow, she had definitely had WAY too many happy pills!  She was just WAY too cheerful for anyone's good!

2.  The African Tradition: The traditional music of Burundi:  oh boy, was this a waste of time.  I mean, the presenter was very sweet, very lovely, but knew nothing of Burundian music, or music in general - he was a literature professor.  He tried very hard, but seriously, I would've been better off straightening my hair.

Concerts: at lunch we saw the Adolf Fredriks Flickkör, from Sweden, who I really liked.  The kids were fab!  The second choir was the Schola Cantorum Coralina La Habana, Cuba, who we had seen at Tivoli Day - they were ok.  A little 'pitchy' as Sharon Osborne would say.  For the second concert, we skipped the Ghanaian group, as I just couldn't bear to hear another poor rendition of that dodgy keyboard, and then we heard Conspirare, from USA, who did this absolutely diabolical Jazz Mass - and the conductor was there and stood up for the clap and everything!  Now the choir were fab, but the Jazz Mass was just awful... fancy admitting to writing that!  In the evening we heard the Magnificat Children's Choir, from Hungary, who were fabulous.  Really, really good.  Loved it.  But hated the Cuban choir who sang after them, they were sooo off!

Friday 25th:

Workshops:

1.  Anton Armstrong: Interpreting the African American Spiritual with Integrity: now this was one of the best workshops of the whole conference!  I had heard Andre Thomas talk on this 12 years ago, and I was especially interested to hear Anton's take on the whole thing.  Just fab, it was really worth it.  Packed out, mind, but soooo worth it.

2.  Freddy Lafont: Rhythms of the Earth: Latin America:  this is the guy from Vocal Sampling.  He showed us how to do all the different percussion sounds from Latin music, using just your voice (oh and hands, for clave).  This was just wonderful.

Concerts:  This afternoon we heard a Canadian kids choir, Shallaway, who wrote their own opera.  It was ok. And this evening we gave Conspirare another go - and I'm sooo glad we did.  They were just gorgeous, beautiful harmonies, glorious tone, fabulous energy, just lovely.  Loved every second.

Saturday 26th:

Workshops:

1. Bob Chilcott: Finding performance energy through rhythm:  this workshop wasn't so bad, but it wasn't brilliant either.  It was just basically an opportunity to sing through Bob's music!

Concerts:  I can't really remember the lunchtime concerts, but the Indonesians were on again, and they were wonderful.  Sooo colourful, so exciting, so glorious.  And then in the evening, after Art had had to leave because he had to go to Frankfurt to get his flight to Cairo, and then I ran into Laurie, well, then, we went to the Britten War Requiem. Oh my goodness, this was just awesome - huge choral and orchestral forces at the front of the Cathedral, and then they had a boys choir, 2 soloists, a chamber orchestra and an organ up in the rafters!  Wonderful, wonderful way to end a totally fabulous symposium - roll on 2011, and the 9th World Choral Symposium in Puerto Madryn, Argentina!

Anyway, here are some pics:

Batida

The opening gala

Me and the Big Band (and the second dress!)

The Indonesian choir at Tivoli Day

It's A Small World After All!

Today I discovered just how small (and yet big) a world ours is.

Twelve years ago I attended the 4th World Symposium on Choral Music, in Sydney.  Their system was that for all the big concerts, you were allocated specific seat numbers - and so as a result, you always ended up next to the same people.  I thought they might've done that here, but that didn't.  Anyway, at that Symposium I was sat next to a lovely Canadian lady called Laurie.  We hit it off, and ended up at most of the voluntary concerts and workshops together.  At the end of the Symposium we traded email addresses, and then went our separate ways - me, to Brisbane (and then 2 years later to London), and Laurie, back to Canada.  And we managed to stay pretty well in touch by email for about 2-3 years, until one day, the computer I was using packed it up, and I lost everything - including my address book.  In those days I was using a computer-based mail programme, rather than an online one - so once the computer crashed, that was the end of it.  I lost touch with so many people that I had met on my travels who had become really good friends.  When I got a replacement computer, the email company I'd been using went belly up, and so I had to get a new address.

So anyway, back to the small world thing.  According to Choral Denmark, who organised the thing, there were between 3-4000 participants in WSCM 08, some 40 odd ensembles, and some 200 odd concerts.  So the chances of seeing anyone you knew was pretty slim.  Amazingly though, I ran into several people from Australia that I knew, including Paul Holley, who got me interested in choral conducting in the first place!  So that was really good.   I didn't manage to meet as many new friends this time as last time, because you weren't seeing the same people over and over, the thing was so huge.

Anyway, this afternoon Art had to leave the Symposium early because he couldn't get a flight out that would connect with his Texas flight if he stayed for the final concert this evening.  So this afternoon I attended the 2nd last concert on my own, and then tried to get into the masterclass presentation, but it was sold out.

As I turned away from the workshop ticket desk, a woman approached me with "You probably won't remember me..." but I did!  It was Laurie!

How cool is that?  Someone I haven't seen in 12 years, had lost touch with 10 years ago - and the sad thing is that she had been at the Symposium the whole time!  In fact, we worked out that she saw us on the first day, because she sat in the same row as us at the vocal warm up  - she had to scooch past - and she remembered Art.  And then we found out she had even been in some of the same workshops as me, but we just didn't see each other!

So even though it was almost the very end of the Symposium, it was so lucky that we managed to meet up again - we went and had dinner and then went to the final concert at the Cathedral - Britten's War Requiem.  The piece was absolutely awesome!

The next day Laurie's flight was mid afternoon, and mine in the evening, so we met up for brunch and had a good old natter - and most importantly, swopped emails and numbers again - so here's hoping we can stay in touch this time!

How small a world is it?

The Joys of Hostelling

Now I know that there are lots of advantages to staying in a hostel - well, actually, at the moment I can only think of one. The price. But recently, despite this dangly little carrot, I've begun to question what a 35+ something year old is doing in one.

The Sleep-In Hell, where we are currently staying, has been the starting point for this rumination. This is probably because it is the longest I've ever stayed in any one particular hostel (by the end it will have been 8 nights) and therefore I have had opportunity firsthand to experience over and over the disadvantages to the hostelling concept.

First of all, the dormitory. Now, in YHA hostels, or HI hostels, normally you get single sex dormitories. And normally I'm travelling with other girls, so that's not a problem. But in some privately owned places, like the Sleep-In Hell, the dormitories are mixed. And huge. We're fortunately in the small one (2 cubicles with 4 beds in each cubicle - but no door so you can hear everything they say in the next door cubicle), but tomorrow we have to move to the large one (20 beds, same layout with regards to the cubicles!). The disadvantages of mixed dorms are as follows:

1. Boys. They smell.

2. Boys. They snore very loudly.

3. Boy Australians. Especially early 20-something ones. They have no consideration for others.

This was highlighted all too clearly for me the night before last. You see, unfortunately on that night, three of the four beds in cubicle one were occupied by young Australian male 20-something year olds, so their sense of hygiene is, shall we say, not very well developed, and in our cubicle, there were 3 boys plus me. So the smell of boy was very potent and woofy. One poor bloke actually noticed it himself and thought it was his thongs, so he went and put them outside - but trust me, it wasn't just his thongs! Now add to this mix the fact that poor Art has a little bit of a sinus problem at the moment which causes him to snore a bit. That's ok, I have my ear plugs, and my Zen, so I can block it out. And actually, the other night it wasn't Art snoring at all, but some other bloke in the next cubicle. But last night, the stupid young Australians in cubicle one just could not cope. First of all, when they got back, very late, poor Art was already off with the fairies, and these blokes were just being soooo loud, carrying on about their travel plans to Berlin because Denmark is soooo expensive (I have news for you boys, Germany isn't much better). Then when they finally settled down, and everything quieted down, Art's sinus problem kicks in a little. I get out my earplugs and I'm happy - but the Aussie blokes aren't. Their solution? To reach across between the cubicles (there's a little gap where you can touch the bed next door just near the window) and VIOLENTLY shake the bed in an effort to wake Art up. Now let me just point out, Art is a very deep sleeper - so they didn't succeed - but I'm in the bottom bunk, and they WOKE ME UP!!!! The inconsiderate so and so's! And then I couldn't get back to sleep!

So to make up for it, the next morning, when we had to leave the hostel at 7.30am for the conference, oh boy did I let them have it. I rustled all the plastic bags in my bag, unzipped and rezipped my bag several times just for the fun of it, coughed loudly and short of running my hair dryer made sure they knew in no uncertain terms that I was up and at 'em, getting ready for the day... and as I was leaving the room, I could hear one of them tossing and turning in his bed... serves the blighters right!

Whack For The Daddy-O, There's Lager In My Bra!

For the uninitiated, the title is a reference to an Irish song called "Whiskey in the Jar"...

Today Art and I attended a glorious afternoon / evening of concerts at the Tivoli gardens as part of the Symposium. As we had a half day today, we decided to head off into Malmö, Sweden (as Art wanted to tick another country off his list) for lunch. In the afternoon we went to several concerts in the Tivoli gardens including a nice little group from Cuba and a wonderful group from Indonesia (but more on those later). It was a lovely atmosphere, the Tivoli gardens is kind of like an upmarket theme park (dubbed as an 'amusement park and pleasure gardens' by the Danes), with lovely fountains, scary rides, ice cream parlours, people selling 'cheap' tat (but its really expensive), restaurants, a concert hall, rotunda and outdoor performance spaces. We had a lovely afternoon. The evening concluded with 2 concerts in the Tivoli Concert Hall, the Danish Radio National Girls Choir and the Danish Radio Vocal Ensemble, which were both pretty good, and then the fabulous jazz and modern music acapella groups, Touche, VoxNorth and Vocal Line. Personally of all these Touche were my favourite.

Anyway, you get the picture. We'd had a lovely time attending all these concerts, our ears were full of beautiful music, and so we got on the bus back to the hostel in pretty good spirits.

Unfortunately on the bus was an extremely drunk man with an unopened bottle of lager. He heard us talking in English and then started to sing some English songs, before staggering up off his seat as if to get off the bus, which was pulling into a stop. Unfortunately his balance was not all that, and he leeringly wandered over to the door which was right next to where Art and I were sitting, Art being sat closest to the door. The man reached up over Art's head to steady himself on the rail, and as he did so, lurched into it and smashed his unopened bottle of lager against the rail above Art's head!

Poor Art sat there, drenched in beer, covered in glass, and unable to open his eyes for fear of glass going in them and also because they were full of alcohol. He was completely saturated! He had glass all over his hair (lucky for him its short and you could easily pull it out), all over his face and arms, and the beer had soaked into his shirt, name badge and the book he was carrying. It was awful! I copped a little bit too, but no where near as much as Art - except for one unfortunate thing. You see, I was wearing a top with a low neckline - and I could feel straightaway lager and glass going down into my bra! But as if you can fish around in there on a public bus to get it out!

The driver was extremely helpful, wouldn't move the bus on til he could see Art was ok, and then gave him an incident report slip so he could register it in case CCTV on the bus enabled a clear picture of the drunk (as if!). The other passengers were most helpful too, and extremely concerned - but I do think that part of it was that they didn't want us to go away with a poor impression of Danes, as one bloke kept pointing out "It was just an accident. He didn't mean to smash the bottle, he wanted to drink it later..."

But we were very lucky not to have been injured...

Clumsy in Copenhagen

Today I did a really dumb thing.

Just today? I hear you ask. Ok, I know I often do dumb things (ask my sisters about the time I jumped in the canal at South Bank on my way to dinner with Mum and Dad), but believe me, they're not always as spectacular as this.

See, the hostel where we are is a little way out of town, so we have to catch 2 buses (or 2 buses and a ferry) to get to the Symposium at the Opera House. As the conference starts everyday at 8.45am with a big sing, and as if you want to guarantee your place in a specific workshop you have to daily book your ticket for that workshop (so they're all taken very early in the day) we have to leave the hostel around 7.30am to have a hope. Now here's the thing: just who is awake at 7.30 in the morning when on holidays? Seriously?

Then there's something else I need to explain before I get to the heart of the story. In Copenhagen, there is a strong culture of cycling. As such, there are specific cycling lanes set up on every main road. The only thing is, they are in between the footpath and the main road, so if you want to get on the bus, you have to cross the cycling path. And the other problem is, the footpath is upraised from the road, and so is the cycling path - but it is lower than the footpath - so there are 3 levels. So, the bus pulls over at the stop (but can't drive up onto the cycle path), you step out and down on the cycle path, narrowly avoiding cyclists and so on (actually that's not true, they're pretty good at stopping for you at the bus stop), and then have to step up onto the bus - if the bus is pulled right over at the edge of the cycle path.

But this morning it wasn't. This morning the 5A pulled up a few inches away from the edge of the cycle path - close enough to look like it was right there in my peripheral vision, but far enough away for me to miss the edge of the bus, and totally fall on the ground in between the cycle path and the bus. I went over faster than a load of lemmings off the side of a cliff! Smack down on my ankle, and then straightover on my other leg - and then I couldn't get up! Art tried to pull me up but I couldn't put any weight on my ankle at all, and had to be half dragged onto the bus! Meanwhile the whole bus, plus the entire population of Copenhagen (well, those awake at that time of morning) were just gawking at me and trying to stifle a giggle or two...

Fortunately though, feeling came back fairly quickly to my ankle and I hadn't seriously hurt myself - no hospital visits required - so I was eventually able to walk around relatively easily at the conference later in the day... but oh boy do I have a real doozy of a bruise developing on my ankle... not to mention the one on my pride...!

Art and the Dreaded Orange Shirt

My mate Art is from Texas. Ordinarily that would not be a problem, however, as I have discovered recently, all Texans have an extra gene. This gene requires them to 'loud and proud' proclaim their inherent 'Texan-ness' to the entire world. This proclamation most often, for Art, takes the form of a bright, burnt orange t-shirt with "University of Texas" or other similar things Texan on it.

This really shouldn't be a problem, I mean hey, if you want to look like a walking Terry's chocolate orange, well hey, go right ahead (sorry Art, I know that sounds a bit racist - but then, everyone's a little bit racist!). But the problem is we are surrounded by lots of Americans who, the minute they see Art's shirt, make a beeline for him and then sidetrack him into 30 or so minutes of time-wasting conversation, when I really just want to go back to the hostel, or go get something to eat. For example, on Saturday, Art pulled two little old ladies sitting next to us in the restaurant, then there was the bloke who gave the Texan 'nod' to him in the street... then on Sunday, the workshop presenter Keith Terry came over and just had to shake Art's hand when he spotted his shirt in the room, then two blokes in the hotdog queue for lunch had to have a chat, then a Beverley Knight lookalike (she wishes!) cornered him in the foyer and tried to invite herself to dinner - and then at dinner yet another American woman muscled in on the conversation - all because of this flamin' shirt!

Oh well, I thought to myself, tomorrow's another day, he won't be wearing that shirt again... and then I found out he has 5 of them with him on this trip! Aaaaaaaggggghhhhhhhh, give me strength!