Having just returned from Russia I recalled a really cool set of photos I saw on the web last year. They're full colour photos taken by Tsar Nicholas II's court photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii in 1907 - 1915. Quite spectacular. I tracked them down again in the Library of Congress' web site, and here they are.

Last night I went with Anne to see Austin Powers in Goldmember, which was a lot of fun. I particularly liked the little subtle jokes mixed in with the broad humour, that showed a lot brains went into this movie. Plus since Mike Myers is a local boy (born and raised in Toronto) there were a couple of nice Toronto jokes as well: a little CNN-style newsbar at one point said "Toronto named best city in the world" and "Maple Leafs win Stanley Cup". Who could ask for more? If you smiled (even a little bit) at either of the other Austin Powers movies, let me tell you this one is a must see, and my favorite of the three.
posted by Tom at 12:40 PM | link | (0) comments

Thanks to Patrick, Molly and Paul I realized this evening that I'd skipped a day in my diary. I'd actually written it down, but forgot to copy it up to the Internet when I got to Helsinki. I've now posted it, but backdated it correctly to the right day. For your convenience, then, is the link to the missing day in Tallinn.

I'm back now and have almost got over jet lag. I've fallen easily into my normal at home laziness, playing a lot on the computer (Warcraft III at the moment, which came out while I was away). I did get some important errands done yesterday and played tennis with Dave this morning, so I'm not feeling like too much of a slug.

The big news in Toronto this week is the Pope's visit to town, along with 250,000 youths from around the world. A lot of the downtown streets were more or less closed yesterday for a staged version of the Stations of the Cross, which started at City Hall, went along Queen to University Avenue, and went up University to Queen's Park for the finale. Quite aside from the traffic disruption (which I have to say was actually pretty nice for a pedestrian living downtown) the most visible sign of the World Youth Day conference are the hordes to youth not actually in Exhibition Place but wandering the streets. They're all pretty clean cut and I haven't heard of any kind of incidents, but it's pretty weird to run into hundreds of people wearing exactly the same one-shoulder backpacks. It's a pity the weather hasn't been better for them: it's been humid and rained a couple of times in the last couple of days. Still, I guess that beats 35 degrees and smog warnings.

We had a Riesling tasting at Molly's last night, which was fun and had interesting results. We weren't all unanimous in our opinions, but the general feeling was that the Ontario wines hold their own with the best, and are at the very least very pleasant and very useful wines, which would go well with food. In fact we pretty much all thought that the best wine overall came from the tiny 13th Street Winery in southern Ontario. I really liked the German wines the best after that, though the Ontario Cave Springs wine was nice, too. The Alsace Riesling was very disappointing and we ranked it clearly last.

This evening Joyce and Ian had a little party to celebrate their engagement. Joyce's ring, an elegant thin gold band with a nice single chunk of diamond, was on display. Paul and Kelly came, though tomorrow Kelly's off to Vancouver for a couple of weeks and Paul's back to NYC (via a bus to Buffalo, the poor guy).
posted by Tom at 11:56 PM | link | (0) comments

I'm home!!!
posted by Tom at 8:24 PM | link | (0) comments

Thursday, July 25, 2002 07:30
Location: SAS Lounge, Helsinki Airport
Weather: Overcast

Well, the trip's basically over so I guess this will probably be my last post about it for a while. I've been negligent in writing even my paper copy of the journal the last couple of days, so I may have to gloss over some of the details.

First, a general impression of Finland. Man, this country is a lot like Ontario. Well, the trees, rocks and wildlife are a lot like Ontario. And the lakes. And the highways and farms. Not so much the Finns themselves... and forget about the language. Although since most Finns seem to speak excellent English, I suppose the language isn't an issue anyway.

Monday we did a bus tour of Helsinki. The weather was scattered cloud, but with rather more cloud than sunshine, and most parts of the city seemed dull as a result. Helsinki's an interesting place to get a sense for what could have been done in Canada. Most of the oldest buildings were wiped out in various fires over the last few hundred years, so the city is really very young: our guide said the oldest surviving buildings were about 200 years old. The downtown area is a jumble of Euro-standard six and seven story commercial and residential buildings (i.e. high ceilings, rickety elevators and no air conditioning) along with modern monstrosities easily the equal of those in the new world. With a population of 600,000, it's smaller than Toronto but has a far more appealing geography, low rolling hills with water on three sides. The government buildings and arts facilities are rather more subtle and reserved than most of the other capitals of Europe.

We stopped in the cathedral square to get our first look at the building where we would perform Monday evening, a beautiful structure that towers over the surrounding city, with massive orthodox-style minarets tiled in green and tipped with gold. From there we strolled down to one of the market squares, where fresh vegetables, flowers and fish were lined up for inspection, along with postcard and souvenir vendors. The harbour next door boasts some of the largest cruise ships I've ever seen.

Driving through some of the park land further south on Helsinki's peninsula, we stopped at the Sibelius memorial, a jumble of disconnected organ pipes suspended in a natural park setting. Finally, we drove around to a park museum, an island connected to the mainland by a pedestrian bridge, which served as the bucolic setting for a number of traditional Finnish homes. On the far side of the island we ate a wonderful smorgasbord lunch in a romantic wooden hall.

After a rest and changing into our concert dress back at the hotel, we went back to the cathedral for our sound check. Since we hadn't sung in four days, but especially since the orchestra improved with every bit of rehearsal time, we ran through the entire Requiem, getting a sense of the acoustic, much more lively and responsive than the halls in Russia. The interior of the cathedral was a stark white, but the organ pipes in a small gallery across from our risers were capped with gold, brightening up the overall impression.

Between the sound check and the concert we took a number of group photos on the steps of the cathedral and then broke to go find a quick snack. A cafe across the square served up freshly squeezed orange juice and excellent coffee, and I had a delicious vegetarian wrap, largely filled with chickpeas. The concert was a great success, probably the best performance of our tour, and we had an excellent audience. We left on a high, and went back to the hotel to consume more of the blackberry vodka.

On Tuesday we had another great buffet breakfast and checked out of the hotel to drive to Lahti and Heimola. In Lahti we stopped for an optional tour of the new Sibelius Hall, a 1,250 seat concert and recording hall completed in 2000. It's a fabulous building, built largely of wood but incorporating some marvellous modern tricks to make it a very flexible space. The outer walls are a metre thick, wood filled with sand to provide total sound dampening, important for a hall that is to be used for recordings. Inside, echo chambers can be used to provide a cathedral-like sound, but acoustic doors and curtains can be opened and closed, raised and lowered to adjust the sound to a great extent. With the curtains down and the doors closed the hall becomes a chamber music space. Those of us on the tour sang briefly on the stage and were quite pleased at the result. The total price of the hall: 20 million Euros. Compare that to Roy Thomson hall, which cost $ 80 million to build and is currently undergoing a $ 20 million sonic refurbishment... (And ok, so Roy Thomson seats 2,500, but still...)

After a lunch in Lahti's market square we continued our way to Heimola, or rather to a hotel set in some woods 35 k from Heimola. We checked in, and had time for a short swim in the pool before changing and hopping back on the buses to go to Heimola for our final concert. We had a very long and winding road to get there, about 70 minutes, which was pretty but for some of those in the bus, rather nauseating (lots of ups and downs). Before too long, though, we were there.

Our sound check, though, was not to be. The concert venue was an outdoor amphitheatre, covered by a fixed heavy tent-like roof but open to the wind at the sides, and the orchestra, annoyed at not being told they would be outside, refused to play the sound check, citing humidity concerns. The choir lined up and ran through a couple of pages of the first movement a capella to get a feel for the space (zero reverb, of course, but surprisingly good at channeling the sound to the audience) and then took a break. Our subgroup ("les six" as we'd come to be known) walked into town and found a liquor store to replenish our supplies, and a grocery store for water and snacks.

The final concert was to an audience of a couple of hundred. For the first time, we weren't too hot: indeed, we were actually somewhat cold, since there was a breeze off the water at our backs. But it all went very well, and before long we were filing off and past our evacuating audience into a single-story hall up the hill where we had a celebratory/farewell dinner with the orchestra. For all their dodgy dealings (to whit, not knowing the music, starting rehearsals late, insisting on finishing rehearsals on time, playing out of tune & too loudly, asking for extra money) we'd had a good time performing with them and were happy to buy them some drinks and share some food. A couple of the trombone players (the worst of the bunch) managed to get a kiss from Laura, our soloist. To Ngaio's delight, they came back to ask for a kiss from her as well. The rest of the orchestra stayed in little groups, munching their food and chatting only to each other, but they responded with pleasure when approached.

Finally we bid them farewell and borded the buses for the trip back to the hotel. This time we took the direct route, and cut the travel time in half. Back at the hotel we had a last boozy night of "Les six" and polished off a bottle and a half of vodka before calling it a night at 1am.

The next morning (Wednesday) we packed up and had a late breakfast, checking out of the hotel at 11am for the trip back to Helsinki. We stopped for a while at a motorway rest station (which had really good coffee) and pulled up at the Ramada Presidentti again at 1pm.

The afternoon was free, and after unpacking I split from the rest of the group to go check out the Museum of Modern Art, nearby. It's appropriately modern structure had five levels connected by free-standing ramps and staircases, with smoothly effective sensor-activated sliding doors separating the exhibits. It wasn't bad, but there really weren't that many different things to see: some pop art, some clever tricks with two-way mirrors and time-delayed closed circuit televisions, a room where a keyboard launched visual images instead of sounds, and some clever Finnish allegorical works that I didn't understand at all (and couldn't read the explanation of either). Still, it was a good way to spend a couple of hours.

Following the museum I took a last wander around the downtown area. The Esplanade, a main shopping avenue with a park running down the middle, was packed with people enjoying the afternoon arrival of sunshine and a free jazz concert in a small bandshell at the far end. I wandered down, poked around the dock area, walked up to the Russian orthodox church and took some photos. On the way back towards the hotel I stopped in a couple of stores to try and find some of that famous Finnish design in an easily portable form, but everything looked either large, kitchy, or like I could get it at Ikea back at home.

Back at the hotel, we gathered at 7:30 and walked south along a lake, passing a concert hall and the new opera house, both set attractively next to a lake in a park threaded with pedestrian and bicycle pathways. The restaurant was a gleaming work of art itself, low and stereotypically Scandinavian in its pale wood and bright steel construction. We were greeted on the way in by one of our tour guides, who handed out roses. Inside, a glass of pink champagne was compliments of Perform America, the arts tour company who'd planned the trip. We had a wonderful meal: a fresh salad, an entree of salmon and tasty potatoes and beans with a cream sauce, and ice cream with chocolate sauce for dessert.

We walked back through the dusk to the hotel, where we gathered in Howard and Maggie Dyck's suite for one last bash. Since I'm flying home by a separate route from the rest of the choir today I said my goodbyes as the evening finished, and returned to the room to pack. Yet another great trip finished, and for my leave of absence, a great way to cap it all off! To everyone who came along or who otherwise made my 10 months off a wonderful experience, THANK YOU! It's been a great year.
posted by Tom at 2:15 PM | link | (0) comments

Monday, July 22, 2002
Location: Brasserie restaurant, Ramada Hotel, Helsinki
Weather: Cloudy & warm

On Sunday morning we got up late and once again hit the breakfast buffet. I felt in no hurry to get out and see Tallinn, but packed up by suitcase and spent some more time on the hotel's comupter and wrapping up my Estonian postcards. As we started to assemble in the lobby, I had a quick game of chess with Lanny. By the time we finished our group was loading the first bus, and I had to scramble to get my suitcase from the Left Luggage and get out. The first bus had already left and there were too many people for the second one. We piled luggage into the seats at back of the bus and left a dozen people behind in a thin drizzle to wait for the first bus to get back. Fortunately the port was only five minutes away, so they weren't waiting long.

The ferry terminal was a zoo. Apparently this is the end of a Finn holiday week, so thousands were streaming home, all apparently taking several cases of Estonian beer back with them. There were long lineups to clear the border exit controls, and it was very hot, but before long we were through and bording the ferry.

The m/s Romantika was huge and very modern. Nine decks included a sun deck, a casino and nightclub, a large duty free grocery store, five or six restaurants, two car decks, a sauna facility, and hundreds of cabins. Our package deal included a buffet lunch, and we started there. The buffet was massive and suitably Scandanavian, with huge platters of smoked salmon and pickled mackerel, prawns and breaded crab. We gorged ourselves on pork chops, salad, nasi goreng, ice cream and a wonderful chocolate mousse, fresh fruit and more.

For most of the rest of the crossing we sat in the breeze on the sun deck. It was overcast, but the air was still warm and despite the wind I felt comfortable in short sleeves. The 3 1/2 hour trip left enough time for a stop in the duty free, where I picked up chocolate and a surprisingly expensive bottle of blackberry infused vodka.

We pulled through the outer islands of Helsinki's harbour. The spires of the old town rose up to the right, while the left was dominated by an immense port with cargo and shipbuilding facilities, massive cranes and row upon row of container storage warehouses. The town seemed quite flat, set on gently rolling hills.

We were picked up by new buses outside the terminal and had a 15 minute drive to the hotel. In the dull light Helsinki was less immediately impressive than St. Petersburg and Tallinn. Our hotel, right downtown next door to the railway station, was not new but was nonetheless comfortable. Unfortunately Lanny and I were assigned a smoking room that reeks heavily.

After a brief pause to unpack, our little subgroup -- Lanny, Brian, Ngaio, Mary Jo and her father Carl, and me -- got together in the lobby, got a couple of maps from the front desk, and headed out to find a bar or cafe for dinner. I'd surrepticiously packed a sandwich at the breakfast and lunch buffets, so I didn't really need anything else to eat, but after the journey we all needed a drink.

The area around the rather impressive railway station turned out to be pretty ugly and most of the stores and restaurants were closed. We finally found a small Tex-Mex bar and had beer, cider and nachos. Back at the hotel we broke open the blackberry vodka (which was lovely) and taught Ngaio to play Hearts (which she picked up very quickly). Yet another great day...
posted by Tom at 8:47 AM | link | (0) comments

[The missing post! Forgot to write this one up at the time...]

15:50
Location: Sun deck of the ferry m/s Romantika
Weather: Overcast & cool

Saturday morning we got up at 8 a.m. and went down for a wonderful breakfast buffet in the Hotel Viru's restaurant. I delighted in a hardboiled egg and some tasty meatballs, along with a couple of glasses of reasonable orange juice and a cup of strong coffee. Leaving the group, I went down to the lobby to write some postcards and continue working on the diary.

At 9:30 we assembled and split into two groups for a walking tour of Tallinn's old town. Our guide was a young man with a gentle deep bass voice, rather unsuited for a large group as it didn't carry very far, but he was very nice and knowledgeable and had some very witty lines so he was quite acceptable.

Tallinn is a very pretty town. At least, the city centre where we walked is very pretty. Set on a hill, with the town hall and a couple of churches lifting spires up to the sky but otherwise a consistent three to fix or six stories in height, the town features an elegant market square, quaint alleyways, a robust but not overbearing set of walls, and a fresh pastel paint scheme. It's a popular holiday spot for the Finns, with lots of little boutique stores selling local arts and crafts, including glasswork and woolenware, woodwork and pottery. We pointed Howard and Maggie in the direction of the one of the antique stores that feature the type of orthodox gilded icons they collect. [They later went back and had some successful shopping!]

The tour wound through the downtown, stopping for short visits into two very different churches, the Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevski Cathedral, opposite the parliament building (Toompea Castle), and the Dome Church, Lutheran, just down the street. The guide told us that the parliament has 101 deputies and almost 30 political parties, since it only takes a couple of thousand signatures on a petition to start a new party. (The joke is that any three Estonians will be members of four political parties.) From the old fortress' viewing platforms we had a great view across the city and the port, and we took some pictures before walking down to meet our buses.

The bus tour took us past some city fortifications below the old town, featuring the squat tower "Fat Margaret", destined never to attract her love, the castle's tower "Tall Hermann". From the old town and the port we drove east along the waterfront, then cut inland past some Soviet-style apartment blocks to the Song Festival Grounds. Here, a huge bandshell with hundreds of rows of seats holds some 30,000 singers during the annual Song Festival -- that's 2% of the Estonian population in the choir -- while 100,000 more crowd onto the hillside facing them for the concert. Really. They have pictures to prove it.

From there, we continued east to Saint Bridgedine's Monastery, a ruined catholic monastery whose walls have been recently reinforced to prevent further degradation but whose floors and roof are long since gone. Finally, we returned downtown and scattered from the buses. I was content to spend much of the rest of the afternoon at the hotel, updating my diary on the Internet and writing more postcards.

In the evening the whole group reconvened and walked back up the hill to the market square, where we had a great dinner at the Karl Freidrich restaurant. For a change from the beer my table ordered red wine -- Sangre del Toro, a familiar bottle much appreciated at home -- to go with our beef stroganoff entree.

Back at the hotel after dinner we assembled for martinis and wine in Lanny and my room, using olive juice sourced from the hotel bar to make Ngaio's martini dirty enough for her taste.
posted by Tom at 4:15 PM | link | (0) comments

Sunday, July 21, 2002 10:25
Location: Computer centre, Hotel Viru, Tallinn, Estonia
Weather: Hazy and warm

[Picking up from yesterday's entry, I was in the process of describing Thursday. This is why I need to keep my diary more up to date.]

We got back to the hotel right on time, but rather hot and sweaty. Rather than join the group hanging around the front doors, we scooted up to our rooms for a quick change of clothes. I gave myself a mini-sponge bath as a refresher but somehow Mary Jo managed a complete bath in nine minutes, which has to be some sort of record. Our respective room-mates (Lanny & Ngaio) hadn't heard about the schedule changes, so they were pretty happy we'd returned to the rooms, and though we were 10-15 minutes late getting down to the buses we weren't the last to arrive... Our group has got dangerously used to everything starting late in Russia.

We trucked downtown to a large restaurant named, I think, Mempono So. (I have a souvenir card from the restaurant but the name is in script and very hard to read.) There was a large room reserved for us, with about 25 tables for four set out. The centre was an open circle, and a stage was set up for a small band, and flanked with speakers. We settled in and had quite a nice meal. During the dinner, there were two alternating entertainments: a quintet of singer/dancers performing traditional songs and dances in the centre of the hall, with accordion, tambourine and wooden clappers on string for accompaniment, and the band, a woman singing Russian songs with a bass player and two synthesizer players, one playing "piano" and the other "percussion". There was free champagne to start, and we ordered (one round of) vodka shots afterwards to keep us going.

Although the entertainment was quite artificial, it was at least energetic and the dancers did a good job of pulling people in from the group to join them. When they finished their final set, the band starting playing waltzes, tangos, etc. and some (but by no means all) of our group jumped up to dance. Lanny, Brian and I were all feeling less than enthusiastic about dancing, but Ngaio managed to get us all up on the floor at least once. Dr. Mike went a little wild, which provided those of us not directly injured by his attentions a fair amount of entertainment. In short, we had a fun evening and retired to the hotel tired and happy.

Friday morning dawned in due course, and we finished packing up and checked out of the Pulkovskaya. We had three buses, with my card-playing gang piling into the largest, a fully double-decker. Once again, though, we'd been short-changed on the air conditioning department and sweated our way as we drove south towards Estonia. The drive was once again pretty dull, though we passed through a couple of interesting towns, providing a brief glimpse at a more representative slice of Russian culture than St. Petersburg's cosmopolitain population: generally older people, dressed more conservatively, and moving much slower. Far fewer signs of the impact of the western world, though still plenty of modern vehicles mixed in with the Ladas and farm tractors.

At the Russian-Estonian border we had five separate stops, each of them quite long: the first, to exit Russia, was made unfortunately exciting by the discovery that Mary Jo's visa had the wrong exit date, and had therefore expired the day before. She payed a 500R fine and was let go without having to complete any paperwork, but was quite distressed by the experience. Thereafter we stopped at a duty-free before crossing an impressive bridge over the river border between the two countries. On the left side of the bridge, two fortresses glowered at each other, the Estonian one sporting a single elegant tall square tower, while the Russian one was more squat but with several round towers of its own. On the far side of the bridge we parked for a while, without much explanation. Eventually we started up again and drove up to the Estonian border crossing, where we waited while the guards checked our entry visas and passports. Finally we stopped on the Estonian side of the border to change some currency before driving on to Tallinn.

On the way I looked for anything to indicate differences between Russia and Estonia, but they were quite subtle. There seemed to be slightly fewer cars on the roads, and rather fewer trees on either side, possibly a sign of a greater density of people. We passed a couple of smoking industrial plants, and a massive artificial hill of coal by a coal mine. The whole area around the mine smelled strongly of tar. There seemed to be almost no young people at all. Further on, as we came into the outskirts of Tallinn, we started seeing some more modern buildings, but there continued to be Stalinist-era block housing estates, and we passed a couple of ruined factories, one obviously destroyed by a massive fire and left an empty shell.

As we approached the centre of Tallinn, though, things started to change. The streets were cleaner and better paved, there were young people again, and the inevitable signs of capitalism -- advertising, MacDonald's -- indicated some recent energy. We pulled up at our hotel, a towering monstrosity built by the Finns (and apparently mostly filled with Finn tourists) and checked in. It was extremely modern and well-equipped, though the rooms were comparatively small. After a shower and change of clothes, we gathered our clique and walked into the old town to find some dinner.

The old town of Tallinn is beautiful, with fresh paint on almost all the buildings, fine cobblestones in the streets and alleys, and elegant churches. We walked up to the market square past dozens of restaurants and bars, and found the market in the process of packing up for the day. On one side of the square, the 12th century town hall sat huge and impressive, with a tall square tower capped by the town flag of blue and white stripes. In the square we sat in one of the six or seven outdoor patios and had a wonderful meal with the best beer of the trip so far.

Once again, I'm not up to date but will have to give up for now: I've taken enough time here, and there's a line up. More later!
posted by Tom at 3:56 AM | link | (0) comments

Saturday, July 20, 2002 9:14
Location: Lobby, Hotel Viru, Tallinn, Estonia
Weather: Sunny & hot

Falling behind in the diary is stressful: it feels like I have a terrible weight of recent wonderful experiences to commit to words before my sieve of a memory forgets all the details.

Thursday I spent the whole day at the Hermitage Museum with Mary Jo. We got in line a few minutes after 10, had some truly horrible coffee from a nearby vendor, and were in the third group of people to be admitted, at about 10:40. Once inside we were able to avoid the crowds by heading right, through the cloakrooms and into an Archeological exhibit area that had Russian artefacts prior to the 7th C. B.C., including some spectacular finds from a burial mound, such as a finely embossed gold shield and a mummified horse!

From there we proceeded up to the Impressionists section, which had an amazing collection of Van Gogh, Monet, Matisse, Gauguin and Kandynski. We broke for lunch in the rather bad cafe in the basement, and then went to the Large Hermitage building, through the Egyptian and Classical sections and up the Grand Staircase to the core of the collection, 17th and 18th century Dutch and other masterpieces from across Europe, presented in truly awe-inspiring rooms with soaring ceilings, gilded doorways, towering lamps and massive chandeliers, and marble vases and bowls.

After a few more stunning hours we had to stop for another break. Mary Jo was feeling a bit worn out so I headed off on my own and covered the second floor of the Winter Palace, which had 19th C. paintings and the Royal Apartments. Almost every room seemed to have a writing desk of ever increasing size and sophistication, many of them with clocks, mechanical music works and ornate gilded temple and castle models as decorations. The core of the Romanov apartments included a beautiful English-style library, oak-panelled and -ceilinged, with a huge array of massive books.

I met up with Mary Jo and we started heading back to the hotel for what we thought was a 7:30 meeting for our celebratory festive dinner. We stopped on a bridge over one of the canals, where I bought a nice little painting featuring a couple of cats in dark streets. As I was finishing the purchase, Michael, Virginia and Marg passed and let us know that the meeting time was set at 6:45. (This had only been announced to one of the buses that had headed off for an optional excursion that morning, so it was rather poorly planned.) We were suddenly in a hurry.

More later...
posted by Tom at 9:29 AM | link | (0) comments

Friday, July 19, 2002 14:35
Location: The Estonian-Russian border
Weather: Slightly hazy, warm -- hot on the bus

We just left Russian and are parked while the Estonian border guards work through the stack of passports from our bus. Our three buses have been separated by the combined attentions of the Russians and Estonians -- the first bus probably has about 45 minutes lead on us at the moment, and the third is behind us somewhere.

On Tuesday night following the recording session we went back to the hotel, and made plans in the lobby to go downtown. Howard and Maggie were into joining us for some ethnic Russian or Caucasian cuisine, and their presence attracted a number of the rest of the choir who wanted to know where we were going and if they could come too. We eventually ended up with 17 who wanted to come, and having decided to go to the Cafe Adzhika, where I'd been on my own on Friday, we clearly needed to get a reservation. I managed to persuade one of the hotel reservations staffers to call for us and explain our needs, and within a few minutes we were set.

At 7 we started congregating to go downtown. As designated tour guide (my restaurant, my reservation, my guidebook) I sent an advance party of four to make sure our 7:30 reservation wasn't given up. Finally at 7:15 the last of the party assembled and we made our way. Getting 17 people, many of whom hadn't travelled on the subway to this point, to the right station and out successfully took some time. When we eventually got to the Adzhika our advance party had just realized they'd been standing right in front of the cafe, without realizing it, for five minutes. We followed them straight into the restaurant.

We had a wonderful feast: salads, a couple of vegetarian stews, cheese bread, the chicken with nut sauce, barbequed meat, stuffed vine leaves, and much more, all washed down with big glasses of beer. To finish up, we had coffee and a nut cake they quickly baked up for us. It was absolutely amazing, and ended up costing about $24 each, very reasonable indeed. Everybody was extremely happy and kindly toasted my success as tour guide.

On Wednesday morning we drove to Pushkin, about an hour from St. Petersburg, and toured the grounds of one of the grand summer palaces there, and we actually went through one of the other ones. They were incredibly large, with massive side pavilions, fine art galleries, and sumptuous furniture. But all of these riches had been restored by the Soviets after the war: the palaces suffered greatly from German bombing, as the photos they had on display showed.

Our performance on Wednesday evening was an unforgettable experience, sweating in our tuxedos with the pressure of the microphones on us. The first time through was a little rough, but Howard and the recording engineers had a couple of tricks up their sleeves: we performed encores of the fourth and fifth movements, providing them with an all-important backup recording of each for them. Once the performance was finally finished, though, the work wasn't done: movement six and part of seven needed to be redone as well!

After a lengthy delay, the theatre management agreed to turn the lights back on and the orchestra, most of whom were intercepted on the point of leaving for the subway, trickled back in and took their places. We struggled through another few takes, and finally the eagle ears of the audio engineers were satisfied that we'd done enough.

Back in the hotel, we congregated in the bar in the lobby for some well-earned beer.
posted by Tom at 2:55 PM | link | (0) comments

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 09:30
Location: On the bus
Weather: Cooler, sunny again

Oops. Missed two days of the old journal. Time to get cracking!

Monday we trucked off to Novgorod for the day and for our first concert of the tour. It's a three hour drive south of St. Petersburg, but it was a pretty dull trip, basically flat with trees and farms on either side. Our tour guide yammered non-stop on the way down, probably good info, to be fair, but not fully appreciated by our card-playing group, still tired from the night before. The bus was a quasi double decker with a small cabin stuck in the back below the main deck, where we sat for the trip. It was quite warm, and after a while we started noticing that the back smelled of fuel fumes, so we didn't feel all that well by the time we arrived.

We pulled into an Intourist Hotel in Novgorod, where we had lunch. We then drove to the Novgorod Philharmonic Hall for a dress rehearsal of the Brahms. It went really well. The orchestra has dramatically improved over the last few days, though the horns are still occasionally astray.

After the rehearsal we had a delay before a walking tour of the town, but I was so exhausted that by the time we were set to go I'd decided to bail out on the tour and get some rest. I'd made a lot of mistakes during the rehearsal and needed to get some energy back.

After a light snack (a banana, some bread and cheese, and water) we changed for the concert. Because of the heat we decided to skip wearing the tuxedo jackets, which turned out to be a great decision as even without them we were sweating profusely. The locals came out in force (tickets ranged from 15R to 30R, i.e. from C$0.75 to $1.50) and went very well.

We returned to the Intourist Hotel for another meal, then got back into the buses to go back to St. Petersburg. We got back to the hotel at 1 in the morning, and went straight to bed.

On Tuesday morning (yesterday) I had planned to get up and downtown fairly early, but was still very tired and had to do some laundry so I didn't make it out of the hotel until after 10. I was just leaving the driveway on my way to the Metro when one of our buses went by on the way downtown. They stopped to pick me up, and I hopped on. Mistake: it took over an hour to get downtown, versus about 30 minutes (including the walk) by subway.

I went to the Internet cafe and updated my diary, then walked back to the Shostakovich Hall (Bolshoy Zal -- "Big Hall") and on to a blini kiosk, Teremok, in a little park nearby. I had a delicious ham and cheese blini for 40R ($2).

Back in the hall our recording engineers were scrambling to get their equipment set up for our recording session in the afternoon. They'd been locked out for two hours in the morning, so had lost a lot of the time they'd planned on using to get everything set before our arrival.

The recording session ran into almost every conceivable problem, but was still judged a success. On top of our late start, we had some construction hammering outside, people walking through the hall, dishes clattering from the cafeteria overhead, a couple of delays for missing orchestra members, and finally a rain storm which ruined the last 20 minutes of recording time. We only completed tape for 3 of the 7 movements of the Requiem, so we're going to have to do a good job in the performance tonight!
posted by Tom at 9:52 AM | link | (0) comments

Monday, July 15, 2002 07:41
Location: Hotel Pulkovskaya
Weather: Hot, some high thin cloud

A fabulous busy day yesterday. We had a late start, but got to the Hermitage at 10:40 for a brief and somewhat frustrating guided tour. Absolutely impossible to get a good feel for the place in an hour and a half anyway, but being herded through by a tour guide didn't help. I'm going to go back on Thursday for a proper visit.

After a reather bad cafeteria lunch, we drove to our second rehearsal with the orchestra in the same hot stuffy rehearsal hall. They showed some improvement, but not much. Howard blew his top at the horns for consistently playing too loud, and announced to the choir that the Glen Buhr piece was cancelled.

Following our return to the hotel I met up with Michael, Virginia and Marge in the lobby to try and go see the Kirov Ballet. We metro'd down to Nevsky, but I'd got my ballet halls confused -- St. Petersburg has at least two -- so we had to pile in a cab to get over to the Mariinsky Theatre by 6:30. We started by lining up for tickets, but a young Russian with excellent English ended up selling us 3rd row orchestra ("par terre") seats for US$50 each (regular price > $100) and sneaked us in past the "face check". There's a dual pricing system in effect: Russians, and foreigners working or studying in Russia, pay only $23 for those seats.

Though we were nervous about being caught by the vigilant baboushkas, we made it in ok and enjoyed a fabulous set of three one-act ballets: "Chopiniana", "Apollo" and "Death and the Young Man". While the first was a very classical ballet with a large corps and just a couple of solo dancers (set to music by Chopin) the other two were much more powerful and gripping, both with a much smaller ensemble. Apollo danced with three muses (poetry, drama and music), while in the final ballet a young man danced with Death in the form of a beautiful but cold maiden, dressed in yellow with long black gloves, who ultimately led him to a scaffold and beyond to a nightmare underworld (Paris under a blood red sky). It was a fabulous show in a wonderful theatre.

When we got out of the ballet at 10:45 it was still incredibly bright outside. We were pumped from seeing such a great show, so we walked over to Cafe Idiot, just a few blocks away, for a late meal. We -- and especially I -- had quite a lot to drink. I ordered borscht, and the "small gentleman's kit" (a plate of herring, beets, gherkins, and small mushrooms) and a large mug of beer, but the kit also came with 100mL of vodka, rather too much. (Incidentally, the "large gentleman's kit" comes with a full litre of vodka -- and a taxi home. Really.) I shared some vodka with Virginia and Michael (Marge wasn't drinking) and drank the rest. Fortunately there was plenty of food to go with it.

We emerged into the twilight of 12:15, with only a quarter hour before the last subway train and no taxis in sight. We set off at a quick pace but it still took 20 minutes to get back to Nevsky Prospekt. By the time we arrived, the gates to the metro were closed and padlocked. What to do?

Lonely Planet to the rescue. Following their suggestion, we gamely stuck out our arms, palms down, to the passing traffic. Within seconds a Lada pulled up. I opened the passenger door and said "Moskovskaya Metro" to the driver, to indicate our destination, and flashed a 500 ruble bill to fix a price. He was pretty happy with that -- 500 R is about twice the going rate for that distance, according to LP -- so we piled in. As the map reader and best speaker of Russian, I got shotgun & the others crammed in the back.

We hurtled home through the nighttime streets, stopping once or twice to confirm we'd successfully communicated where we were going. I was initially thrown off by not reading my own map too carefully, but the driver had it right. Making more than a couple dangerous turns and merges into moving traffic, and at one point running a red light, he had us back to the metro station in about 40 minutes. A 10 minute walk from there, and our unforgettable night was over.
posted by Tom at 8:10 AM | link | (0) comments

Sunday, July 14, 2002 08:40
Location: Hotel Pulkovskaya
Weather: Hot & sunny

We had a long and quite tiring day yesterday. Our bus tour continued with stops on the north side of the Neva across from the Hermitage, a drive past the Peter & Paul Fortress and the Cruiser "Aurora" at berth, and a visit to a touristy souvenir centre called "Red October", which offered free coffee, tea, schnapps, and washrooms, in an attempt to entice us to buy without looking too closely at the prices.

We had lunch in a wonderfully bizarre restaurant called "The Pregnant Spy's Travelling Handbag", which had rooms with different themes, all over the top: a spy theme, a dungeon, and a cave. A bunch of us ended up in the room whose theme seemed the most popular: blatant sex, with a hint of violence. A very strange place, but we all agreed it had a lot of "character" and the food was good.

After lunch I walked back to the Field of Mars and through the Summer Gardens, with Brian, Lanny, Ngaio, Michael and a couple of others. At the entrance to the Summer Gardens I bought some lovely blakc and white photos of the city and some good postcards.

Then we worked our way back along a canal to Nevsky Prospekt, and after a quick stop to buy some booze, home to the hotel on the metro. I didn't think I needed a nap before the rehearsal, but apparently I did: I fell asleep in the room reading my book.

At 6 we loaded up on buses to go to a rehearsal hall to the east side of the city, a sweltering room under bright spotlights where we met our orchestra, the State Symphony Orchestra of Saint Petersburg. They were pretty disappointing: they clearly hadn't looked at the music before, and were missing a couple of key members of the brass section. Howard kept his cool admirably, but was clearly and understandingly irritated at their seeming inability to play quietly, and their frequent lack of ensemble. Hopefully they'll improve with a couple more rehearsals.

After the rehearsal we trucked back to the hotel and had a light dinner in the "steak house", which was fairly expensive but very tasty. I had blinis stuffed with mushrooms and chicken, which came with a small array of fresh salad vegetables, and a small mug of beer. To close the evening we went to Ngaio and Mary Jo's room for a martini nightcap. We were all too tired to be witty and turned in soon after.
posted by Tom at 8:56 AM | link | (0) comments

Saturday, July 13, 2002 10:00
Location: St. Isaac's Square
Weather: Warm & sunny

When I got back to the hotel yesterday the rest of the choir had arrived and was in the process of checking in. They all seemed rather shell-shocked, understandable since after an overnight flight to Helsinki they'd been bundled into buses for a nine hour drive to St. Petersburg. I joined the group for a late dinner. After a quick walk over to the Monument to the Glorious Defenders of Leningrad (opposite the hotel) we turned in.

This morning we piled onto the buses after breakfast and are touring the city. We stopped for "10 minutes" outside St. Isaac's Cathedral... Up to 25 minutes so far.
posted by Tom at 10:06 AM | link | (0) comments

7:46 (later the same day)

I had a great afternoon, mostly just walking around the city. I have a pretty good feel for it now. Having previously figured out how to navigate concentric canals in Amsterdam sure helped.

From the Idiot I walked up and along Bol Morskaya ul under the double arch and into Vortsovaya pl, a huge square dominated by the Hermitage opposite and the Alexander Column in the centre. Unfortunately, at the moment it's also dominated by renovations in progress for the city's 300th birthday next year: the column was covered in scaffolding and the street in front of the hermitage was ripped up by earthmovers. Still, a very impressive sight. I started taking pictures.

Along to the right, the New Hermitage building with its Atlantes--semi-clad musclemen statues holding up the facade--was mobbed by wedding parties. There were four there when I arrived, taking photos and videos, and as they started to move off more arrived. I took pictures of a few of them but it soon became clear this wasn't an unusual sight here, so I moved on, walking down the alley next to it to the Neva, which provided a nice view (and good photo op) of the front side of the Hermitage.

After a pause to consult the guide book and figure out where to go next, I walked east along the river and took the next right, back down to the canal. The Stroganov Palace was covered in scaffolding. Moving further along, I came to the set of bridges where the Moyka intersects the Griboedova, which provided a great view of the Church on Spilled Blood. Moving around that, I got to the Russian Museum. With an hour and a half before closing (but an entry charge of only C$6) I figured it was worth it and went for a tour.

I had a great tour of the museum. It has a lovely collection, and there were several pieces that struck me that I wanted to remember, so I bought their illustrated book to bring home. After all, it may be a while before my next opportunity to see them!

Emerging at 5pm, having walked for the whole afternoon, I had food on my mind. The first thing was to get some supplies for the hotel room. I found a supermarket, and picked up another bottle of water (1.5L only lasted me the day) and a bottle of wine, plus some Pringles and a box of digestives. I wanted to get cheese but thought it wouldn't be a great idea to carry it around for the rest of the afternoon in the heat.

Then I headed south, crossing a large construction project in Sennaya pl, to a caucausan restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet, Kafe Adzhika. I had a lovely meal of chicken with nut sauce (rather like a mild curry), a tomato and onion salad, a piece of bread and a big glass of wine, for about $4.

Finally, I headed back to where I am now, Quo Vadis, to update the diary again. Since the rest of the tour group is arriving now it may be a couple of days before I get a chance to head in here again. I found that going in this morning had been a particularly good idea: their prices double after lunch (but that's still only C$3/hr).
posted by Tom at 12:01 PM | link | (0) comments

Friday, July 12, 2002 12:50
Location: Cafe Idiot, nab reki Moyki 82, St. Petersburg
Weather: Hot, partly cloudy

Frankie is singing "I did it my way" on the cafe's stereo. Despite the Lonely Planet's warning, the Idiot is not packed with expats. Indeed, it's empty of customers, other than me, so far as I can tell. It's a curious place, all low ceilings, mixmatched furniture and atmospheric lighting. The decor is English country c. 1940 crossed with Parisian art deco. Pleasant enough, anyway.

I haven't made it to the Hermitage today despite my plans. This morning started a bit slower than planned (I blame the 3 hour time change from the UK) and I had to do laundry, buy water, etc. I finally set out just after 10.

Frankie's moved on to "New York, New York", but I reckon St. Petersburg is about as far away from Manhatten as a big city can get. It's as though Amsterdam was built on a Parisian scale, then moved to Vietnam. The roads are massive, but side streets along the canals are often literally more pothole than pavement. The weather is hot and humid, and the locals are dressed for it in thin shirts, crop tops and T's.

The subway, buried deep under the city, was easy to figure out. I asked for 10 rides, expecting an electronic pass card (used by most of the locals) but instead got 10 tokens. Well, that's some more flexibility to share with friends in the group.

Once downtown I walked along Nevsky Prospekt towards the Neva. The buildings on either side are tall and grand, though the stores are mostly familiar: Hugo Boss across the street, a coffee shop on the right. At the Moskovskaya subway stop was a MacDonald's (or rather íÁËÄÏÎÁÌÄÓ [you'll need cyrillic text installed to see that properly]).

At the Griboedova Canal (right next to the Nevsky Prospekt subway stop) I took a photo of the beautiful Church on Spilled Blood on the right, then continued on a short distance to an Internet cafe (Quo Vadis), which was so much cheaper than the hotel ($1.50/hour instead of $16/hr) that I had to go in and get the diary up to date right away. When I emerged it was almost time for lunch. Crossing the avenue I went into the Kazan Cathedral, a large building with a pleasing dome flanked by grandiose St. Paul's-esque colonnades. I followed a small stream of people going in a side door and found it was packed inside, with a service in progress. I gawked discretely at the ceilings and made my way back out.

I continued along the south side of the canal, crossing to the north at the pretty Bankovsky most pedestrian bridge. The buildings here were pretty shabby, and the pavement ripped up, but pedestrians were moving by normally and I had no sense of being in a "bad" part of town.

I cut up the next street to the innermost canal, the Moyka, and followed it around to the Idiot, which would have been easy to miss but for the clear building numbers.

Having finished a delicious lunch (mushroom soup, blinis and fresh grapefruit juice, C$19), and downed my complimentary shot of vodka, it's time to pay up and see some more of the city.
posted by Tom at 11:44 AM | link | (0) comments

Thursday, July 11, 2002
Location: Hotel Pulkovskaya, St. Petersburg
Weather: Hot & sunny

I made it! Zdrastvuytye! I had no trouble getting through the passport control and customs, and as my flight was full of Italian and American tourists I slipped under the touts' radars and made it to my bus with no problems. I got on the right bus, but at the wrong spot... The number 13 does a run through a nearby residential district between the stops at the arrivals area (where I'd just changed some money) and the departures area. In other words, I got a 10-minute tour, and then returned where I'd come from, before finally heading out towards the city.

Though the bus ultimately went to a metro stop, I didn't need to go that far. Instead, I hopped off by the massive roundabout around the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad, across from the hotel, the even more massive Pulkovskaya. Inside the hotel, the tour group-friendly English-speaking receptionists checked me in with efficiency and I made it up to my room, which is of bog standard international design. And yes, Molly, it still has the heated towel racks you remember.

A recap of the rest of the week so far:

On Monday, after another hearty breakfast (featuring, for me, my first black pudding -- not bad!) we left Durham for York. In no hurry, we stopped in Ripon for what we thought would be a quick visit to the cathedral. Unfortunately, in finding a car park Bruce (our only driver, dealing manfully with the left side of the road and the perils of roundabouts) ran the left front tire too close to a curb and we picked up a fluke tear in the tire wall. It held us until we got to the carpark, but there, the hiss of escaping air caught our attention and we realized the problem.

Since it clearly wasn't going to make much difference when we changed the tire, we carried on with our tour of the cathedral, a beautiful building. Then we got directions to a repair shop. While Stephanie bought the makings of a picnic lunch, Brian, Bruce & I exerted our manly perogative to sweat and changed the tire with the spare from the trunk. At the repair shop the tire was examined and a patch was ruled out, so we had to get a new tire, which Bruce ruefully but firmly insisted on paying for.

Not wanting to spend any more time in Ripon, we drove off on the new tire to Fountains Abbey. When we arrived, a helpful parks official whose car we'd been following pointed us to the main car park, but there was an admission charge to get into the grounds and as we only wanted a place to picnic we decided to stay outside and ate our lunch on a bench by the wall. The abbey itself was behind a low hill ahead, so all we could see was the top of the steeple, rather disappointing.

After lunch we carried on to York. The city presented Bruce with more driving challenges: after a lengthy series of roundabouts on the ring road around the west side of town, we finally got onto the A62 leading down to the turnoff for our country B&B, but there Brian (navigating) let his guard down and missed the turnoff. Some half hour later, we made it back to the turnoff and somehow onto the right B road to Sutton-upon-Derwent, where our B&B was found easily on the main street. It was very nice, though I think Bruce and Steph were hoping that "Manor Farm" meant we would be staying on a real farm, not a converted farm house just off a village high street. Still, it had a lot of character, a friendly landlady, and a great pub just down the road.

Tuesday we went into town, parked the car, and walked over to the Minster. There, we made plans to meet for 5pm evensong and split up. For Brian and me, the first priority was to get our train tickets. Then he headed off for a bus tour of the city, I found an Internet cafe, and eventually, my way back to the Starbucks. [See the previous post.]

After Starbucks, I met up with the gang for evensong and we enjoyed a lovely service, again right next to the choir. They had four counter tenors! Their sound was tighter and more evenly blended than the Durham choir, but here there were no hymns sung and no collection.

After evensong we made our way back to the Ouse (the river running through York--isn't that a lovely name?) and had a light dinner in a pub located in a converted wine cellar with lovely arched ceilings. Then we decided to catch "Minority Report" at the City Screen theatre, just down the street. We had an hour and a half before the show, so I headed back to try and check my email for a message from Colin & Licia in London. The Internet cafe was closed, but just down the street was a doorway leading to some stairs up to a tiny second-story bar which had free Internet terminals for patrons.

It also had a lineup. I got in line, eventually got a couple of minutes on the machine, and had, indeed, got confirmation of meeting Colin in London on Wednesday.

The movie, which I'd already seen in Toronto, was still entertaining the second time through, though the obviousness of the villain was if anything even more annoying than the first time.

On Wednesday we once again started with a huge English breakfast, and packed up the car. We took a meandering route to get to Leeds, stopping to try and see a huge church in Beverley. Unfortunately, it had been closed by a police detail in preparation for a visit by the Queen on Friday. We consoled ourselves with sandwiches and tea in a nearby teahouse, then set off again. In comparison to Tuesday the clouds had broken up and the rain had stopped, so we had a pleasant drive to Leeds, where Bruce & Steph dropped me at the train station and Brian at his conference.

Once in London, I made my way to Colin & Licia's apartment, which is in a wonderful location: overlooking the Tower of London! As arranged, I settled in at the Liberty Bounds, a pub conveniently located downstairs of their apartment, until Colin got home from work to meet me and let me in. I had an all-too-brief stay. They are superb hosts and I hope to get a chance to see them again soon. For dinner we walked through the docklands to a great Italian restaurant in Upping called Il Bordello.

At 6:45 the next morning (this morning) I was off again, heading out to Heathrow on the Underground. And here I am... in Russia! Just starting to think about tracking down a late snack before bed.
posted by Tom at 10:04 PM | link | (0) comments

Tuesday, July 9, 2002
Location: Starbucks, The Shambles, York
Weather: Rain

Starbucks' expanding domination of the world seems to have run into absolutely no resistance in the UK. The British, stunned by the concept of a store selling really good coffee and providing comfy counches with no limit to how long you can stay, have apparently given up on tea and joined the queue for decaf grande frappucinos with all the enthusiasm of new missionaries. It's a concept especially powerful in university towns like York, where on a rainy day like today the store is crowded with bright young things chattering gaily over cups, newspapers, and glossy catalogues.

I first visited York for my ex-girlfriend Anne Dutton's wedding, seven years ago. I came back a couple of years later and stayed with Victoria Thompson on my way south to France from Scotland. As Vicky was working part time as a York city tour guide, I picked up a fair grasp of the city, so my day today is basically tourism-free. After the important tasks -- booking a train ticket to London for tomorrow, paying some bills on the net -- I'm having a relaxing afternoon writing postcards, catching up on the diary, and listening to mp3's on my Jukebox.

Catching up on the diary properly -- filling in all the details from the weekend, for example -- is going to be hard, but I'll give it a crack.

Saturday, Bruce, Brian, Stephanie and I checked out of the Thistle Hotel and took a cab across town to a (misnamed) Thrifty Car Rental. After a lengthy wait we got a very fancy new 4-door Volvo, into which we crammed our considerable luggage and our various sizes of frames, and settled in for a long drive.

We stopped for lunch in a small town's hotel, where I harrassed the young restaurant's only waitress with unreasonable requests for clotted cream with my scone and a real cappucino, and Bruce downed four small, expensive bottles of Coke in quick succession (with the predictable result in terms of afternoon stops).

Back on the road, we crossed over the causeway to the Holy Island. it's flooded in high tide, but the tide had peaked earlier in the day and was on the way out, so there wan't any issue. The Holy Island is basically small and flat, but for a little castle on a raised mount at the southeast corner. The Lindisfarne Priory (and tourist-oriented village) is at the southwest end, and we spent a couple of hours going through the ruins and looking around the little museum.

When we continued on, it was to complete our drive to Durham, where Steph had booked us into a bed & breakfast. We had a little map and pretty clear directions, but the area turned out to be quite confusing (basically two street names for opposite sides of the same street) and we drove past it twice before finally parking and finding it on foot. It turned out to be a lovely place with a comfortable room on the ground floor with two twin beds for Brian and me. Before dinner we shared some of Steve Billow's abandoned Famous Grouse in the B&B's back yard, looking out towards the cathedral and down towards a cricket game in progress.

At dinner time we wandered downtown to find a restaurant. The downtown area was full of young Durhamians in Saturday night finery (i.e., the girls as skimpy as the chilly weather would allow, boys wearing jackets to put around girls) and a few policemen were casually keeping a weather eye on the crowds. Stephanie spied a nearly-concealed restaurant sign and we followed doubtfully down an alley and down some steps, where we found a surprisingly large and surprisingly good Italian restaurant.

Sunday morning dawned without the forecasted rain. Indeed, the sun came out later in the morning and we had a beautiful day. We started it off with our first massive English B&B breakfast. Bruce & Steph set out to catch Matins at the cathedral. Brian and I, not so single-mindedly committed to devoting the day to the church, wandered downtown again where we found the Durham Summer Festival in full swing. We watched a history market being set up in the Market Place--a leather worker, scrivener, an apothecary, and a very uninterested-looking donkey in an impromptu stall set up against the wall of the Church of St. Nicholas--and then walked into the Town Hall, where some designers were exhibiting and selling metal-, glass- and woodwork, as well as ceramics, chocolate, etc.. Finally, we walked up to the Palace Green outside the cathedral, where a huge tent housed a gift and craft show, and smaller external tents housed an Anglo Saxon encampment. In one corner, a fenced-off area held some 20 falcons, hawks and owls, blinking on perches and spreading their wings to catch the sun.

At 11:15, we went into the cathedral to attend the Communion service. Given the immense size of the place almost any normal congregation would have seemed small. This one probably numbered a couple of hundred. The choir of boys and men did a nice job of the familiar Byrd Mass for 5 voices, but didn't sing a motet or anthem. All the same, it was great to hear music in the cathedral's wonderful acoustics -- inspirational, even.

After the service we were looking around the church, considering whether or not to go for coffee in the Priory Hall, when Brian pointed out we were missing the falconry display outside. We hurried out, and were in time to see a hawk flying through a line of people, under their arched arms. Following that, a falcon gave a breathtaking display of diving hunting speed, rushing over our heads at the lure being swung by the birds' trainer, and an owld showed off its beautiful, nearly silent flight. To close the show, a turkey vulture walked around hunting hamburger under overturned cups and harassing the trainer's assistant. In short, all a lot of fun.

After the display ended we were all hungry for lunch, so we headed back to the cathedral's cloister and found its small, busy cafeteria. We didn't have a lot of time before the 3:30 evensong, so we stayed on the church grounds, marvelling at the stained glass and the impressive ceilings. For the evensong we sat in the choir, that is, behind the altar, under the organ pipes, and next to the choir.

Back at the B&B, we finished off the Famous Growse and then walked down the street for an excellent fixed dinner for four at an Indian Restaurant.


Ok, that's enough. If you're still with me, I'll try and get Monday's details down some other time. And (sigh) I guess I should talk about today, too!
posted by Tom at 3:20 PM | link | (0) comments

Monday, July 8, 2002
Location: Manor Farm Bed & Breakfast, Sutton-upon-Dorwent, Yorkshire
Weather: Grey

Just a quick note to keep track of the passing time. Hopefully I'll have some time to come back and fill in some details. Let's see:

Saturday: a drive with Bruce, Stephanie and Brian from Edinburgh to Lindisfarne on the Holy Isle, and onward to a little B&B in downtown Durham, on the top of a hill with a nice garden and a view of the cathedral. Dinner in an Italian restaurant down by the river.

Sunday: Diem de deum, or something. Up to the cathedral for morning mass, then watching a falconry demonstration before a cafe lunch, then back to church for Evensong. An excellent Indian restaurant for dinner.

Today: driving to Ripon, looking around the church, then fixing a flat tire and buying a new replacement. Picnic lunch outside the entrance to the Fountains Abbey. Finally on to York for the B&B and a pub dinner.

Aphorisms of the day: "Don't drive on the curb." and "Get off the fucking moterway."
posted by Tom at 7:32 PM | link | (0) comments

Friday, July 5, 2002
Location: easyInternetCafe, Edinburgh
Weather: Sunny for most of the day, now high cloud.

The last day of the first choir tour!

The french restaurant didn't work out yesterday (we didn't have a reservation, they were petite, and fully booked) and we wandered for quite a while before finding something (a) open, (b) with an appealing menu, and (c) not full. This proved difficult, but we eventually came across a new wine bar restaurant named "Grape", occupying a renovated bank space (very high ceilings, so no smoke smells) with a simple, tasty menu. I had an uninspired pesto chicken penne (very short on pesto, undercooked penne, but lots of chicken and pine nuts at least) and a large glass of an extremely delicious cabernet sauvignon/malbec.

After dinner we rambled back to the hotel, but I broke off to go to a bank machine and got distracted by an extremely beautiful sunset lighting up the sky to the north. I wandered around taking pictures for a little while, then got back to business, got my money and headed home. Back in the hotel we had an impromptu party in Craig and Susan's room involving a bottle of gin, then I turned in to get some rest.

This morning was generally lazy until about 11, when I left to make my way up to St. Giles for our warmup at 11:30. I stopped en route at the internet cafe (unlimited use for a week) so I had to walk quite swiftly over the north bridge and up the hill to the cathedral, but the warmup started a few minutes late anyway so it wasn't an issue. St. Giles turned out to be dark and atmospheric inside, quite lovely, with an unusual layout: the altar, choir stalls and organ were situated in the centre of the church at right angles to the main body, so that our audience sat on our left and right rather than in front of us. The acoustic, though, was excellent: both responsive, letting us here the other parts easily and not too cluttered, but also (from the larger open spaces beyond the choir) reverberant and rewarding when we got loud. We had one of our best concerts of the trip, ending on a high point.

After the concert we wandered down the Royal Mile to a bar restaurant with an few outdoor tables, which we quickly occupied. It wasn't directly in the sun, but we enjoyed being outdoors and not freezing for a change. I had a lovely pint of Belhaven, a local cream ale, and a chicken pot pie topped by a completely excessive amount of puff pastry. After lunch I followed Bruce & Mary on an ill-fated expedition to find a deep-fried Mars bar -- the shop was closed, possibly by the health inspector -- and then poked around an extravagantly expensive map store before heading to the National Gallery with Anne, which turned out to be the destination for many of the rest of our group as well.

After a couple of hours in the Gallery we were kicked out (it closed abruptly at 5) and went and sat in the sun in the park, reading books. Eventually the clouds rolled in and we gave up and started to go back to the hotel. I split off partway to come back and make a final diary entry from Edinburgh.

Our final group activity is our farewell dinner tonight in the hotel. Tomorrow morning about half of the choir head back to Toronto while the rest of us split up to various destinations in Scotland and England. I'm headed to Durham, thence to York, with Bruce, Steph and Brian. Next Wednesday I head down to London, and Thursday I'm off to Russia!
posted by Tom at 1:29 PM | link | (0) comments

Thursday, July 4, 2002
Location: easyInternetCafe, Edinburgh
Weather: Solid cloud cover, occasional showers.

A tiring but fun day walking around Edinburgh. This morning after a typically heavy Scottish breakfast we assembled in the lobby and made our way up to the castle for a tour. We scattered a bit on the way, stopping to distribute fliers for our concert tomorrow on the way, and didn't make our way into the castle until 11. Once in, we picked up audio tours, included in our group entry. But I and several others had been to the castle before, so after an hour or so we gave up on it and headed back to the Royal Mile.

There, Susan, Craig and I had an excellent pub lunch in a charming little pub just off the Mile before I met up with Anne to walk out to the Museum of Modern Art and the Dean Gallery, which neither of us had seen on our previous trips to the city. Both museums were free, but neither was particularly large so we were able to see everything at both in the space of a couple of hours. Of the two, we both enjoyed the Dean Gallery's collection the most, which had a collection of Dadaist paintings and a visiting show of Scottish paintings on loan from the National Gallery of Scotland, which is currently under renovation.

We walked back downtown, stopping at an extremely excellent Waterstones bookstore where I somehow managed to buy four books. Since I haven't put a serious dent in the only book I brought with me from Canada yet, I can't see how I can possibly read four more before heading back, so this seems to have been an error, especially since I still have £15 in W.H. Smith gift certificates in my wallet. Doh!

Tonight we're meeting Susan and Craig again for dinner at a french restaurant, but haven't got any plans beyond that. I'm feeling like I should get some more sleep...
posted by Tom at 6:00 PM | link | (0) comments

Wednesday, July 3, 2002
Location: easyInternetCafe, Edinburgh
Weather: Mostly cloudy, scattered rain showers

I'm going to have to make my posts shorter... Not enough time to make it to internet cafes as frequently as I did on the Mediterranean trip. However, I'm pleased to have found this place, which has sold me unlimited time for the next week for what now seems a very reasonable £5 (after the exhorbitant £1 per 12 minutes in Oban!).

Monday night a group of eight of us headed to the Waterfront Restaurant in Oban where we had an excellent seafood dinner. It cost a lot, but hell, we're on holiday.

Yesterday we got on an early ferry over to the Isle of Mull, where we boarded our bus for a scenic trek across the island to the far side. On the way, the weather gradually improved and when we got to the ferry crossing at Fiannphort the sun was out. We boarded a small ferry for a very small trip across the water to Iona, a lovely little island with a single village, and a very famous Abbey. There we attended a short ecumenical service for peace and then sang a concert, which went quite well. It was a lovely setting. Afterwards we had a few group photos and then wandered the island for a while before retracing our steps back to Oban.

Back in Oban I went with a group of 9 others to India Palace, a restaurant with decent indian food and abysmal service. We enjoyed the food, and didn't enjoy the techno soundtrack that they refused to change.

This morning we got up early and after breakfast loaded up for the trip to Edinburgh. On the way we stopped at the Famous Grouse distillery in Crieff for a tour that was somewhat educational but involved forced exposure to rather a lot of expensive advertising. Their cafeteria fed us a very good lunch -- I had haggis, tatties and neeps -- and we continued on to Edinburgh. After checking in at our (last!) hotel, we slowly got ourselves organized and headed out to check out the town. After stopping at the tourist information centre, we rambled aimlessly over to St. Mary's church where we met Bruce and Steph and admired the stained glass and classic proportions of the building. We walked back into the middle of town and found a place called Mussel Inn (yuk yuk) where we had, surprise, 1 kilo buckets of mussels and surprisingly good coffee.

Tomorrow is Edinburgh Tourism Day. Our tour package includes access to the castle, so I think we're all going to troop up there in the morning, though I've already seen it and so has Anne so we may duck out quickly and head to some art galleries. Friday we have a noon hour concert in St. Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile, and our final group dinner is that evening before most of the rest of the choir heads back to Canada.

I have to say that we've all been very pleasantly surprised by the food here. The hotel food has, predictably, been heavily into starch and grease, but in general there have been a lot more salads and vegetables than any of us were expecting. It would appear that Scotland's palate has become more sophisticated (and much healthier) in the last few years.
posted by Tom at 8:32 PM | link | (0) comments

Monday, July 1, 2002
Location: Hotel Alexandra, Oban
Weather: Rain for most of the day, now starting to clear.

Oban is a lovely little seaside town, built along a long stretch of windey coast up against steep hills. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon yesterday and had a quick rehearsal in St. Columba's Cathedral, whose acoustics quickly seduced us. It seemed almost effortless to sing there, and the building rang with harmonics so tuning was easy as well.

After the rehearsal we checked into the hotel, next door to the cathedral, and had some down time. Katherine Hill graciously agreed to give up her single room and swap places with Jay, so she and I moved our bags into one of the hotel's outside "apartments", essentially motel rooms out the back, but large and well-equipped. After a brief unpack I put on my raincoat and headed into town through a light drizzle. Most everything was closed, but I picked up a bag of gummy bears and a small packet of turkish delight in a candy shop.

Back at the hotel we assembled at 6:30 for a group dinner, which was adequate, and then trooped back to the cathedral in our concert dress. The church was quite cold, and several in the choir were not suitably prepared, but I had a black sweater over my shirt and was fine. We had a decent and appreciative crowd, and we all enjoyed the concert a great deal. Several group photos were taken afterwards, but as I didn't have my camera there I'll have to get a copy from someone else.

After the concert, Katherin retired early but I stayed up for a while to drink scotch and play Scrabble in the lounge with Anne, Susan and Phyllis, Jill's mother. Susan won again, despite her continued protestations about lack of skill. Once again I came last, which was disappointing but which I put down to lack of sleep.

Speaking of which, I had no trouble at all sleeping last night. Katherine didn't make a noise, and other than some early light through the curtains at 5am, there wasn't any form of distraction and with my face mask (Air Canada issue) I was able to sleep through until the alarm went off, a major relief.

Today was our free day. The original plan had been to climb Ben Nevis, but we aren't especially close to it and with the inclement weather had some fears that it might actually be dangerous, so Stephanie and I made plans to go to the island of Ferrera, opposite Oban, with Susan, Craig, Anne and Katherine.

We hiked through the town, over the railroad tracks at a bridge, and along the coastal road south towards the Ferrera ferry, in a light rain. After some time and two miles we came to the ferry, announced on a placard. As it instructed, we flipped the sign over to the reverse side, painted black, which in due course brought the ferry (a speedboat) over from the island to pick us up.

On the island we had a lovely but wet walk south to a tea shop, another two miles from the ferry, where we rested and warmed up with soup, fresh bread, scones and tea. After a short detour past a little castle (sadly scaffolded for renovations -- it would have been a fabulous photo op otherwise) and some highland cattle, we continued on the road past the tea shop, which looped around most of the island before cutting back across to the ferry. There was significantly more mud, though generally less rain. We passed some memorable sights: a particularly muddy section where Susan discovered her shoes had no treads (by slipping into the mud); a wonderful cottage above a little bay, beside a circle of trees around a little meadow; a hilly section that Craid and I stormed up, then were passed by Stephanie, running; and a farm with ponies standing across the trail who came up to say hello, rubbing their noses up against us and looking for food.

Back on the mainland, Steph and I headed up a path leading to a highland trail back to Oban, while the others opted to continue back along the road we'd come on in the morning. At first, their choice seemed the wiser as we had to cross a very swampy field, but then our path got drier and eventually became a lovely laneway that shortcutted our trip so that we arrived back in town at the same time as the others.

The first priority was hitting the pool and the steam room. That done, we're now off for a nice seafood dinner.
posted by Tom at 6:16 PM | link | (0) comments