Way out
November 3, 2003

I'm in London right now. For some reason, that seems kind of weird.

Right, so, when we last left off I was a few hours away from leaving Ireland and going to France (which I did). I began a 30 hour voyage the next morning, hopping the bus to Rosslare, where I took the ferry to Cherbourg. The ferry ride was a nice change of pace, although it was made a bit hectic by the 3 busloads of high-school girls that made up 80% of its passengers. The crossing was smooth and relaxing, although I greatly regretted not bringing some food with me once I saw the cafeteria prices.

Once in France, I took a complex combinations of trains and wound up in Redon, a small city in the centre of Brittany. I went there to meet up with Christophe, a Breton who had spent a year living in Montreal, who had been drawn to the town by a festival called La Bogue d'Or. It was a celebration of traditional Breton music that had "la chataigne" as its theme. Chatainges, which I believe to be horse-chestnuts, were roasted, brewed into beer, baked into bread and used in preserves that were all available for the eager gourmand to savor. There was also a fest noz (late night dance) featuring the brilliant Hamon-Martin quartet and a few less memorable bands. We camped behind the community centre (the only time on this whole trip that I used my tent, doh) and stayed for an excellent competition for singers, who fortunately were singing in French rather than Breton.

With the festival over, I went to stay for a few days with Christophe in Brest, probably the westernmost city in France. It really felt different to be in Brittany than it did to be in Ireland or the UK, but it also reminded me greatly of Montreal. I was feeling a bit rusty in my French, having hardly used it for a month and a half, but I managed to get by. And it was worth the effort, if only for the food.

Now, you can go to Ireland for a bunch of different reasons. You can go for the castles, to look up your family tree, to go pub hopping or to find some tunes (like myself). What you don't go for is the food. Overpriced, dull, greasy and just plain forgettable is how I'd describe Irish cuisine in general. The food in Brittany, while still expensive and by no means good for you, was a welcome change. It's quite ridiculously simple, in general: you have pig, lard, butter and potatoes. You combine them in many different ways, but any one of them has enough caloric content to keep you alive for 3 weeks in the artic. I really can't figure out why the Bretons aren't all extremely fat, honestly, as I've never eaten as much fat in my life as I did there in 4 days. But you don't tend to think about things like that while you're eating it, because it tastes really, really good.

I left Brest after a few days (and a trip to their amazing aquarium), probably in an effort to avoid acute heart-disease. Actually, part of the reason was that I wanted to spend more than a day and a half in Paris and the best train tickets were for sooner, rather than later. The rail system is simply a miracle of engineering and comfort, by far the best way to travel that I have experienced since I left home. However, once the sun goes down, you can't see a thing outside of the train, since they don't light up the tracks. As I pulled into Paris, I had only a vague sense of motion as distant lights glided past me backwards and no familiar landmarks made themselves visible to me. Under the cover of an unpleasantly cold rain, the City of Lights it was not.

Despite the fact that I left her in Edinburgh, it didn't seem the least bit odd to me when I met Joanne within seconds of stepping off the train. It seemed oddly right that I would end my vacation as I began it, hanging out with the Highland Avenger in foreign lands. We went straight to a session without even dropping off my bags and while there we met the guy who wrote the reel "Farewell to Tchernobyl". Actually, there were a number of people there that knew Isabelle Doucet and one person remembered the two of us from a trip he'd taken to Montreal some 3 years ago!

I spent the next few days staying with Joanne in her brother Paul's apartment. There were 4 of us in two rooms, but we got used to living in close quarters rather quickly. Since Paul and his roommate Jules are both vegans, I actually wound up eating a few vegan dinners myself, which was a nice change from the range of fried food that I'd been eating previously.

Despite my general tendencies to stay off the beaten path thus far, in Paris I was Super Tourist. Every day, I'd drag Joanne out to see a few of the famous sights. We saw the Eiffel Tower and l'Arc de Triomphe. Joanne refused to let me buy her a 3 euro coffee on the Champs Elysées, only to go off to a side street and buy one for even more money herself. We climbed up to the Sacré Coeur Basilica and wandered around Montparnasse. We even got into the Louvre on free museum day and saw approximately 2% of it over an hour and a half. To give you an idea of how large this museum is, there is a CASTLE on display inside it. And if that's not weird enough for you, consider that the castle is the Louvre itself...

After a couple of crazy days, I bade Paris a fond adieu and boarded bmi flight 174 to London, which is where I am now. I have no idea what to do, but I've been trying for hours to figure out whether I should be insulted by the sign on the Underground that kept flashing, "This train is for COCKFOSTERS." In general, though, I'm feeling pretty aimless.

I suppose it's not a big deal, because in less than 24 hours I'll be on my way home, which I'm starting to look forward to terribly. I imagine that some of you won't even read this until after I get back, and I guess that I'm mostly writing this last entry for those of you who won't get to hear the story in person in a few days. As for those of you that will, you can stop me if you've heard it all before.

See you soon,

Mike

Timing is everything
October 23, 2003

They say that the secret to comedy is timing. It's apparently of some use in music, as well, but if it weren't for that I'd be considering a career change. Thus far, my timing has been excellent.

I arrived in Edinburgh shortly after receiving an email out of the blue from Joanne and I left again mere days before she returned to the US. I got to Dublin in the brief period when Gavin was there, too, and left just in time to catch a banjo festival just up the road. I arrived in Galway just in time for another festival, and confirmed Dave's arrival near my next destination. And just as I was about to head out to Limerick, I got an email from Darren Hurley saying that he'd just returned to Ireland from a long trip out of the country.

Darren Hurley is a bouzouki player that passed through Montreal a few times last year. He arrived in the summer and stayed for a few weeks at Dave's apartment, during which time we had numerous excellent sessions and tons of good fun. He had been eastward bound, and he came back through Montreal on his way back west in the fall, when I saw him again. (Proof of this encounter can be found at http://www.duhks.com/picpages/tunes.html). He's a bit of a world-traveller, but as luck would have it, he'd just come back from France. Where does Darren live? In Limerick, of course.

Which is how I found myself a comfortable place to stay in the city, as well as a host who was knowledgable as to the locations of the tunes within it. It was a relatively quiet few days as I got acquainted with Limerick (and Darren's roommates, Alan and Morris) and found out where the sessions were. On Friday, after some patient waiting, Dave arrived from the Shannon airport and set up shop with me, camped as I was on the dining room floor.

Our first night on the town was certainly quite memorable, though we had yet to realize that. We went down to Dolan's, a pub that also has a concert venue in the back area, for different reasons. I wanted to play in the session, but Darren and Dave decided to go check out the Sharon Shannon concert in the warehouse section.

Sharon is a lovely accordion player, one of the best known in all of Ireland, but I'd seen her before in Montreal and the 16 euro ticket price discouraged me from going. Of course, they snuck in without paying in the end, but how was I to know? After the show, the boys came back out to join the session and we had a grand old time. Despite the usual early closing of the pubs in Ireland (which kick you out shortly after midnight!), things kept on going until almost three in the morning. As the session ended, we realized that the band had been hanging out over in the next room of the bar, so we went over to join some of Darren's friends in that area. Darren provided the key to get in on the band's conversation by finding an envelope with some 500 euros in it, apparently the singer's wages, and returning it made instant friends out of us. The group was carrying on rather drunkenly, partaking of a sport that could only be called arse-fighting. It'd be tough to describe. Dave and I bonded with Sharon by discussing some Quebecois tunes that she plays and just generally watching the spectacle unfolding before us. When it was time to go, she gave us all great big hugs (especially me!) and we went outside, where she mooned us.

So we at least had something to talk about for a while.

Also in Limerick, it turned out, was one Cormac Cannon, a piper that Dave had met in Montreal. We'd spent a very brief afternoon considerably more time drinking after I left that evening. He wandered into a pub we were in, and we wound up hanging out with him for a few days before we left Limerick (he was there as a student in UL's traditional music masters program).

So Limerick was a pretty enjoyable place to hang out, but my time in Ireland was rapidly running out and Darren's house was starting to feel a bit full. Dave and I courageously struck out for Cork, where I decided to spend my last few days before heading to France. Turns out that Cork is a lovely little city, with two branches of the same river making an island out of the downtown area. It's got all the small-streets-and-old-buildings charm of smaller Irish towns, but the choice of activities that you can get in a bigger city like Dublin.

Mostly, my time in Cork has been notable for the fact that I've spent it with Dave. Actually, I've spent a good deal of money in addition to time, but I have some reading material and a brilliant T-shirt to show for it, so it's not the end of the world. We've done many of the same things that I was doing earlier, but they've been much more fun for the moral support. So now Dave has had a taste of the last 4 weeks of my life, which has been a little bit homogeneous despite my constant roving.

All of that's going to change pretty soon, though, as I board the ferry to France tomorrow. Dave has stepped onto the bus back to Limerick and I'm possibly one session away from ending the nonstop string of reels that has been my vacation thus far. Not to say there won't be any music, as my next destination is Brittany, where I'll be meeting Christophe Lemenn for a Breton music festival. Go figure.

So the itinerary at this point is that I'm taking the boat to France tomorrow, the train to the festival site, then it's about a week in Brest. After that, I've decided to spend a few days in Paris, mostly because I'm in the neighbourhood. And before long, I'll be back home once more.

At least then I won't have to pay 3 euro an hour to update my webpage.

Mike

Do you come from a land down under?
October 14, 2003

For every man, woman and cow in the west of Ireland, you will find approximately 4 tourists wandering the streets in search of old stone buildings. It's quite unbelievable, there's probably enough of them here to start their own country. Much as I'd like to claim independence from the herd, it's hard to deny that I'm not one myself. But I'm trying to learn to blend in...

Galway was the first place that I visited to be flooded by tourists. Certainly, the core of the town is nothing but boutiques and expensive restaurants as far as the eye can see. You have to walk downhill, or just strike out in a random direction for a while before you will find anything that resembles a more functional city. Of course, the vast majority of the tourists flock to the pubs, so I didn't spend very much time free from the company of westerners.

But maybe westerners isn't the right word, really. In fact, while I've met a number of Americans and even the occasional Canuck during my travels, the vast majority of people that I seem to meet come from Germany and Australia. In particular, hostels everywhere are littered with Aussies and the rarer Kiwi, who apparently all come to Ireland because it's one of the closest English speaking countries to them in the world. They can also get working visas easily, so they come over in droves to set up shop for a year or two before returning home.

Honestly, my travels have been better for them, since they give me english-speaking neighbours in my dorm room to hang out with. There have also been a few francophones here and there, though their numbers are considerably fewer. And I haven't seen any in Ennis so far...

Right, so...Galway. Galway is an outstanding city for music, with ridiculously good players to be found in 3 or 4 pubs every night and afternoon. There was a festival happening, too, which brought in a number of celebrities to mix things up. I've managed to rub elbows with a large number of well-known (and extremely talented) players in recent days. I snuck in to see the tail end of a Lunasa concert with a bouzouki player that I'd met the day before. I heard half of the famous Fleur de Madragore set, followed by a few pieces where they were joined by Joanie Madden and Sharon Shannon (both of whom played the whistle!). The next day, the piper, fiddle player and guitarist were playing a session in a bar, though I didn't join in. (Note to Peter: Donogh Hennesey always plays that way) I not only saw Frankie Gavin play, I got also got an apology from him after he stepped on my foot. Sadly, Arty McGlynn was nowhere to be found, despite being on the bill. I did, however, meet up with Isabelle Devaux there, which was rather unexpected.

I also got some tunes with with Sean Ryan at his usual Sunday session, and it also seems like the concertina player that I found on my first night in town was from the band Cian, a longtime favorite of mine. Of course, none of this compares to the three hours that I spent in a small session with Kevin Crawford, who is a very friendly person and suprisingly not too intimidating to play with. I don't doubt that it will be one of my favorite memories from this trip.

But, you have to move along eventually. After 8 days, I decided to check out a bit more of the country before Dave arrived, so I went off to Doolin. Doolin is a tiny village in county Clare that is composed of nothing but B&B owners. The three pubs fill up nightly with a group that must be 90% composed of tourists. As far as I can tell, people only come to Doolin for two things: the pubs and the Cliffs of Moher.

Cliffs or no cliffs, the landscape is quite beautiful around Doolin. Doolin lies in Clare, on the west coast, and it is an extremely rugged place. Oliver Cromwell, noted for his humanitarianism, claimed that there wasn't water enough to drown a man, a tree to hand him or soil deep enough to bury the body. He's right, at least on the last two counts, as the rolling hills are largely treeless and the ground is unbelievably rocky. Out by the ocean, it's a miracle that you find anything growing on it at all, as it seems to be nothing but jagged rock underneath the thin layer of greenery. It was quite impressive down by the ocean, and of course, the cliffs are not to be missed. They tower some 700 feet over the ocean below, although their beauty is a bit muted by the throngs of tourists climbing around the edges. I strayed fairly far off the beaten path and managed to get away from the hordes, walking down to where the cliffs taper off a few kilometers away from the tourist centre.

Two days, though, was more than enough time to learn all there is to know about Doolin, so I set off to Ennis. Ennis is a smallish town (though it dwarfs Doolin easily) that is famous for its music. Great numbers of musicians live in or near the town and there are, of course, nightly sessions to be had. I went to a few that were OK and one that was great, where I got a chance to play an old Rudall and Rose flute that was being played by a fabulous flautist from England. Other than that, it was hanging out with some folks from the hostel and wandering the streets. In fact, my stay in Ennis would have been pretty uneventful, were it not for the apparition of one Junji Shirota.

Junji is a Japanese man that I first saw in Longford at the banjo festival. He apparently brought bluegrass music to Japan and he certainly plays well enough to live up to this claim. What I didn't realize until later was that he is also an excellent guitarist; he played a set with Paddy Keenan on pipes and it was quite nice.

At one point, when I was in Galway, Junji stuck his head through the door of the pub where I was playing some music. He wandered off shortly, but I ran into him again at the Crane when I was at the session with Kevin Crawford. We talked a bit then, and he wound up wandering into another session that I was at the next day, too. I figured that I was done with him, but last night when I walked into the pub, he looked up and greeted me. I briefly thought that we were following identical itineraries, since I understood that he was going to Cork soon (like me), but he's actually returning to New York today. Still, it was fun while it lasted, and it's not everyone who can say that they met the most famous bluegrass player from Japan.

So today I'll be heading off to Limerick for a few days. I'm hoping to check out the university that I once thought I'd go to, just to see what the fuss is about. I might also have the chance to meet up with Darren Hurley, a bouzouki player that I met when he was passing through Montreal. If all goes well, it'll be a nice couple of days and then I'll be meeting up with the world-renowned Mr. Dave Clark, so I guess my days of travelling alone are more or less behind me.

Well, that suits me fine.

Mike

Grey skies are gonna clear up
October 2, 2003

It's stopped raining. As far as I can tell, this is probably because I went out and bought myself an authentic Irish brolly. I'm very excited to own one, as I've never actually had my own personal umbrella before. But, of course, since I bought it there has been absolutely no rain, so I've yet to have a single opportunity to use it. Ireland should really thank me.

So everywhere I go, the sky is clear and blue. Bussing through the country from town to town affords me the chance to see some stunning scenery, lush green foliage and a postcard sky. I remind myself to look up from time to time as I wander the streets just to newly appreciate how amazing the sky here is. I don't know what it is that makes it different, it just is. Come see for yourselves.

Right, I believe that I left off in Dublin. Dublin was awesome, all things considered, with tons of sessions all the time and great weather for the duration of my stay. I managed to stay away from the dangerously well-stocked CD stores, so I had enough money to hop on a bus for Longford after a few days. Despite Gavin's consistent warnings that nothing good ever has or will come from Longford, it was too hard to resist the call of... the Johnny Keenan Banjo Festival.

I found a nice little hostel to stay in that just happened to be packed with festival goers, as well. Banjos were played in the dorms, the kitchen and the back lawn. As we plunked away on our tenors (though many people had brought 5-strings, they shall be punished for this in the afterlife) a woman approached and asked us if anyone knew how to play the mandolin. I told her that I figured that quite a few people in the immediate vicinity probably did and the girl sitting across from me said that she had been hoping to buy one for a while. The woman went back to her house and returned with an old round-backed mandolin that she then gave to her, saying that it had been in the closet for 30 years and needed playing. I was a bit jealous, but I already have a mandolin and I've no place to haul one around with me for the next 5 weeks. Still, that was pretty cool.

Actually, the whole festival was really excellent. There were concerts and sessions both day and night, with some ridiculously good bluegrass and Irish banjo players all around. The highlights of the festival were Enda Scahill, an unbelievably virtuosic tenor player from near Galway, and Leroy Troy, the most authentic hillbilly I've ever met in my life. A hilarious showman with a number of startling banjo tricks, he could spin his banjo ZZ Top style on his lap and keep the song going at the same time. There was also a good show by Four Men and a Dog that included a banjo duet between Cathal Hayden and Gerry O'Connor (I can die now) and an entertaining bit where Paddy Keenan played Cathal's banjo along with Japanese bluegrass exponent Junji Shirota. So it was quite memorable.

After three days of banjo-hedonism, it was farewell to Longford and hello to drizzly Sligo town, a Cowansville-sized village that was largely free of tourists. Three days doesn't sound like a lot, but it's enough to see everything in town twice. The days were a little dull, but I did manage to make friends with a large number of the people staying in the hostel. Oddly enough, there was a really large contingent of Australians consistently staying in the hostel and I took to dragging them out to pubs with me when I went looking for sessions. Admittedly, it wasn't much of a challenge.

Still, Aussies or no Aussies, Sligo didn't have a ton to offer me, so today I took a trip down south to Galway. Galway is supposed to be something of a mecca for traditional musicians, and I'm starting to think it will quite handily live up to its reputation. I've been to one session so far, and the flute and concertina players there were among the best I've ever heard in my life. There's also a big festival starting up this coming Monday that will offer me chances to hobnob with Kevin Crawford and (sigh) Mary Shannon. I'm actually debating whether I'll go and catch the evening session right now, but I'll keep writing while I think about it.

So it's been some 3 weeks and a bit since I started travelling, and about 10 days since I got to Ireland. The country continues to astound me with its levels of friendliness and, above all, musicality. I'm not even sure that bad musicians exist in Ireland, or maybe they import them from North America or something. Everyone that I see is either as good as I am or far superior - it makes me glad that I didn't come a few years ago when I was greener, I'd have been too embarrassed to actually play!

Other than that, it's the trivial little things that I keep noticing. Like the fact that wide-mouth soda cans haven't made it to Ireland or the UK. Should I read something into that? I'm not sure. Also, drivers have absolutely no respect for pedestrians, unless you happen to be at a crosswalk, which they apparently worship. This is an issue for me, because there isn't always a crosswalk and Irish roads are miserably congested everywhere you go. Anything approaching a town will have a nonstop stream of cars streaming down all of its roads with very few gaps. And I'm not entirely sure that the Irish have discovered the stop sign yet.

Well, that's it for today. I'm installed in Galway and I'm not leaving for another week - thankfully, the hostel here has free internet access after 10 PM. Woo! Don't be afraid to write, now.

Mike

Note for Peter (Senn): The reason that I left Mullingar was that I was on a bus to Sligo and the stopover was only 10 minutes. Oddly enough, I have yet to regret it.

Anecdote
September 26, 2003

Question: Are people in Ireland really that friendly?

After a long day of playing afternoon and evening sessions in Dublin, I decided that I'd had my fill and left the Cobblestones bar. I'd been playing for 5 or 6 hours that day, but on my way out one of the musicians suggested that I check out Hughes pub, where there reportedly some pretty serious sessions. It was my last night in Dublin and it was on the way home, so I figured it would be worth a shot.

I found the place and stepped inside to find not one, but two active sessions.
I went into the front room and watched for a few minutes, but I didn't know the tunes they were playing and I was a little too tired to pull out an instrument and strike up. I decided to try to find a concert and another venue and headed out toward the river. I was two blocks from the bar when I heard someone behind me and turned around. Turns out it was one of the musicians from the pub and he'd come chasing after me when he saw me go. He was afraid that I'd been ignored by the locals and that I'd left because I had felt unwelcome. He was quite insistent that I should come back and play some tunes, but I explained to him that I was tired rather than insulted and that everything was OK. We shook hands, exchanged names and went our own ways. He invited me to come by Hughes again next time I'm in Dublin, and I think that I will.

So the answer, then, is yes. Yes they are.

Why does the Liffey run through Dublin?
September 24, 2003

Because it's too dangerous to walk. More on Dublin in a bit.

So the Norman Mackay Ceilidh Experience played our first and only ceilidh up in Glen Finnan shortly after I sent out my first message. It was an incredibly harrowing experience for me, largely because we waited until the last minute to rent a car. Since I'm under 25, I couldn't drive a station wagon (which they call an estate car here), but a van was OK. This became much harder to understand once I saw the great beast, since it was a huge commercial delivery van with no rear window and it was about twice as much car as I've ever driven in my life. Of course, I started out by driving through the Edinburgh city centre in this monster, trying to stay on the left side of the road without sticking out of my tiny little lane. Almost got into an accident at my first roundabout, since no one saw fit to tell me that cars already on the roundabout have the right of way. Figured that one out quickly enough.

So it was an incredibly stressful drive up north, but very worthwhile nonetheless. I had a chance to see the beautiful Scottish countryside and get out of the city for a while at the same time. It really is a lovely place, with steep mountains and tiny lochs everywhere - and it even managed to be sunny for most of the drive up! Driving back was actually a cinch, and I wouldn't hesitate to commandeer another vehicle on this trip if it was called (and paid) for.

The rest of my stay in Edinburgh was really enjoyable. Edinburgh is a wonderful city, filled with culture, old buildings and people sending text messages to each other on their cell phones. The town is roughly divided in two, with the north part being New Town (which is actually quite old) and the south part being Old Town (which is ancient). Anyone who enjoys old architecture would be cheating themselves if they didn't come here, and anyone who enjoys sessions would do well to make the trip, too. I managed to find music every night of the week, barring the one when I didn't go out. Of course, to get anywhere in Edinburgh I had to walk up this great big hill to the city centre, so I'm probably in much better shape than I was when I left Montreal. Well, maybe not, but my feet are at least pretty sore.

It was Joanne's birthday on the 18th and to celebrate, we took a daytrip to Falkirk the day before. Falkirk is about 25 miles from the city and it's the home of the Falkirk wheel, which is sort of like a gigantic ferris wheel for boats. It replaced some 11 locks on a system of canals in Scotland and it's something of an engineering marvel, as it runs on the energy of 20 toasters! Anyone who is sincerely curious can ask me about it when I get home, I took lots of pictures because it's the sort of geeky thing that I like.

I also managed to get a bit farther by taking a bike ride down to Leith and the Firth of Forth, a sort of inlet from the ocean that's just above town. We saw tiny little horses that aren't any bigger than large dogs and then had a pint down by the ocean. The weather was pretty nasty, but then again, it always is.

In fact, I have to admit that everything you've ever heard about Scotland is true. It rains all the time (though it was actually fairly warm while I was there). There are sheep everywhere, at least in the countryside. You will see tartans and statues of scotty dogs and there is always at least one piper up on Princes street. They do have haggis, though I wasn't really brave enough to try any, and the fish and chips are lethal. One thing that took some getting used to was the slightly distant nature of the locals. As Joanne explained to me, they're actually quite nice, but they don't rush up to you and shake your hand when you meet them. It's a bit different from the world of constant hugging that I left in Montreal, but if you just bide your time they'll open up to you a bit more.

After 12 action packed days in Edinburgh, I bid a fond adieu to 13 Eyre Crescent and its residents and hopped a cheapie flight to Dublin. Arrived without incident on Monday at 6:00 PM and was met by my friend from Montreal, Gavin "I hate Ireland" Bennett. Gavin was so insistent that I not stay in a hostel on my first night that he paid for me to get a room at a small hotel in the city centre, right near Temple Bar. That was nice, but I've since moved into the Four Courts hostel, which is unsurprisingly situated across from the Four Courts on the Liffey.

I must admit that Ireland is thus far living up to its reputation as a pretty friendly place. In my first day of wandering, I managed to find two great sessions, where I was welcomed without hesitation. Otherwise, the random people and friends of Gavin's that I've met have all been quite congenial, so that part's a step up from Scotland. The record stores are better too, a bit less unreasonably priced and with far more concertina albums. I personally found a Conal O'Grada album that I'd been looking for for years and I'm quite chuffed.

Other than that, the city is a nice enough place, but the weather's a good deal cooler than it was in Ireland. There are a number of interesting landmarks to see, the most prominent of which is the city's millenial spike. No one really seems to understand what it's for, but in the middle of O'Connell street you'll find a gigantic spike some 10 storeys tall with a few lights on top. The thing is hardly a marvel of architecture and it makes you wonder why it was a full two years late being put up in the first place.

Anyway, I'll keep exploring Dublin and I'll report back in a little while. I'm out of here on Friday to get to the Johnny Keenan Banjo Festival in Longford, then it's a whirlwind tour of the country over the next 4 weeks before I end up in Brittany. Can't complain, really.

I promise to have a Guinness before I leave the city, even if it kills me. Everyone stay good.

Mike

Mind the Gap
September 12, 2003

Greetings from lovely, temperate Edinburgh, where the steets are paved with bricks and the kittens are fighting on my bedspread. Just wanted everyone to know that I've made it overseas and have been keeping myself rather busy ever since.

I arrived in London at 9 AM local time after a sleepless night on the plane (my own fault for staying up to watch Finding Nemo, I suppose). A lengthy tube ride later and I was in the downtown area, a place which combines the energy and bustle of New York with the architecture of Old Montreal, except it's huge. There are people rushing every which way all the time and it's a fairly dangerous thing to stop moving for more than a few seconds. The traffic, of course, is all on the other side of the road, but the streets are so convoluted to begin with that you don't tend to notice so much. Thankfully, London crossings are frequently marked with helpful "look left" and "look right" indications - I'm assuming that I'm not the first tourist to nearly get flattened by an overenthusiastic lorry driver in this town.

I made it to the Victoria coach station, which is criminally far from the Victoria tube station. There I bought a ticket for a 10:00 PM overnight bus to Edinburgh and, mercifully, found a place to leave one of my bags. I then set about walking around the central London area, though I found the distances to be a bit much with my heavy banjo case weighing me down. Unfortunately, my jet lag kicked in as I was taking in some Van Gogh at the National Gallery around 5:00 PM. As I was afraid that I'd fall asleep in the museum and get arrested, I had to make my way back to the bus station and try not to nod off until it was time to go.

An 8 hour bus ride across the English countryside had me wishing that I'd followed Justin's advice and gone for the hostel on my first night. Well, live and learn. The sun rose as we entered Scotland, and I got to see some lovely hilly fields. It's a very yellow, green and white place, the latter due to the ridiculous number of sheep dotting the fields everywhere you go.

Pulled into Edinburgh at 7:00 AM with no one around. I woke up Joanne by calling her and she found me sitting on a bench and looking rather "homeless", in her words. She took me to the place where she's staying, which is a gorgeous apartment in New Town on a tiny semi circle known as Eyre Cresent (look that up on Mapquest, if you're curious). The apartment is nominally inhabited by three other people, but they're all away right now. As a result, I have my own room, as well as the run of the place. There are two hyperactive kittens here, very violent yet rather lovable. I'm deathly allergic to them, though, so I've taken the liberty of explusing them from my room.

One of the kittens is named after Norman, a hyperactive box (accordion) player that Joanne met recently. He came by for dinner, and he's an absolute blast - manic, funny and he plays at ludicrous speeds on his 3-row accordion. We went up to a session at the local pub, where there was not only cake, but also Cathal McConnell as well (flute player/singer from the Boys of the Lough). He told me that I was a good flute player and I've been quite content ever since then. In fact, while I had a hard time enjoying my first day in London, I'd say that I'm in quite a good mood now that I'm established in Edinburgh. It's not costing me a fortune to survive, I'm meeting people and playing lots of tunes and I've finally caught up on most of my sleep.

Which is good, because tomorrow it's back to the grindstone. Norman, Joanne and I are going to be playing a ceilidh up at Fort William (I think), which promises to be good fun. It'll also be an adventure, and while you might think that's because I'm playing with this person that I hardly know, you'd be off by a bit.

It's mostly because I'm driving.

I'll get back to you all in a few more days, should all go well. Take care,

Mike

(Note for Greg: I found not only two different CDs from Fagan and Kerr in London, but also a few Lenore compilations. There all quite expensive, but let me know if you want me to pick something up for you when I pass through London again in November.

Note for Nick: I found Jacqui and played the Tuq CD for her. She'll show me to the sessions when I return to London later on. She misses her whistle. She has your flute.)