Fall...or Winter?

As I was walking to my German lesson, on Wednesday, I couldn't help but notice the beauty of fall. Fall is my favorite season.
Luckily, I had a my camera with me and took a couple pics.


















The next morning, I woke up and there was some snow on the ground. Winter is trying to shove its way in. Right outside my window:















The weather here in Swizterland reminds me of Portland sometimes: the sky can't make up its mind. It frequently changes. You never really know what you're going to get. And the weatherman are rarely right with their predictions.

Artist Party

It was that time of year again...another artist party was to be had.
This last Saturday, here in Basel, Switzerland, we all gathered and dressed "artistically" and created "artistic" hairdo's in.
My hairdo basically consisted of me flipping my hair over and hairspraying it like crazy. I look like I'm wearing a wig, but really it's just a back comb over and the hairspray fooling you.
You should have seen the looks that people were giving me as we were driving and then walking to the party! I felt like a rebel or some kind of misfit.
There were several other people decked out for the occasion:



















































There was music












Food














Drinks






And even some breakdancing! There was a breakdancer who came and did some breakdancing and painting simultaneously. I took a video:





It was a smaller turnout than last year, but sometimes smaller is better. :)
I had a great time.

Blue Like Jazz

While I was on tour, I re-read Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz". There's a specific part in the book where he talks about his experience attending Reed College which is in Portland, Oregon. He spoke of how beautiful the campus is and of how one night he was hanging out with a friend and they walked across the Blue Bridge...which he describes as , "a beautiful walking bridge on the campus that stretches across a canyon, fit with blue lights, which, when you look, at them with blurred eyes, feels like stars lighting a path winding toward heaven."
Right after the tour, I was scheduled to head back to Portland for a couple of weeks. While I was there, I played at a festival, spent time with my family and friends and tied up a lot of my loose ends from my 10 year stay there. :)
One particular night, I got together with my friend (and co-producer), Todd (or Mr. T as I like to call him). We went out and had some fabulous ethiopian food at the Queen of Sheba. Afterwards, we were trying to decide what to do. It was a beautiful summer night...perfect for walking.
"What would you like to do?" He asked me.
"This is going to sound really odd." I said. "Have you ever been to Reed College before?"
"Yes. I've played there before." He said.
"I just finished reading a book called 'Blue Like Jazz' and there's one part where the author talked about his experiences at Reed College. He talked about how beautiful the campus was and about this one bridge in particular." I hastily tried to explain. "The way he described it...well, it makes me want to go there, see the campus and find the bridge for myself. Do you mind?"
"Not at all." Todd said (because he's cool like that!) "Let's do it."
So, we went to Reed College, parked and started walking around to try and find it.
Donald Miller wasn't lying when he said how beautiful the campus is. There are several bridges and walking paths there. The landscape was really pretty.
We walked in the afterglow of the sunset and went in search of the bridge.















And we found it! The sky was losing light fast, so I took a couple pics quickly.

I love reading about places and then actually going there myself to see firsthand what the writer is talking about. It's just one of those things that I get some small satisfaction out of.
We came across another bridge too:


This one was lit in a way that felt like the sun was setting behind you and the orange glow was reflecting off of the railings.


It was a fun little adventure.

World Snack Tour

At the beginning of September, I went on a 2 week tour with a band named "Megalomania" and company. We had gigs in Switzerland and Germany. It was a first for me and there were a lot of new things along the way. I actually didn't really take a lot of pictures, which is a bit surprising. But we were pretty busy and now I totally get why artists who tour don't always remember which city they're in or where they were the day before. It gets crazy and becomes a blur all at once. There were a lot of great times and good laughs...even when things got frustrating or we were tired. We even had matching t-shirts made with the World Snack logo on them. So why World Snack Tour, you might ask? After a lot of the shows, we'd bring out a variety of different snacks and hang out with people and talk for a while. It was great!
I selected a couple of my favorite pics I took:





In Bern, Switzerland, we played in an old 70's disco room. This was during our soundcheck.


































Here we are in Freiburg, Germany...














To the left of me, you can see Micha's
shadow...he's playing hand drums with me.









During the encore, we'd all play and sing together. I forgot how great it is to play with a band.

Giselle

The highlight of my trip to Rome ended up being our last night. After all of us dressed up and had a great dinner, we went to an Italian ballet called "Giselle". This ballet was held outside among these old roman ruins.




It was the perfect, warm summer night.
The moon was out in its fullness, the stars were making an appearance and there wasn't a cloud in sight.











When you go to another country that you've never been to before, you always hope for something extraordinary to happen...to have at least one of those great memories that will stay with you for the rest of your life. The kind where you can say, "When I went to _____, I got to see________."
I love going on vacation and have something out of the norm happen...outside of all the sightseeing, museums, historic landmarks, shopping, wonderful food and touristy things.
I have been to several ballet productions before, but never like this.


After receiving our programs, we headed to the bar that was setup. One of the featured items they had were Ritz crackers! It made me laugh! I really wasn't expecting that.




Once we got something to drink, we found our seats and took in the set design along with the sounds of the orchestra warming up.









You could feel the anticipation.



My lil' sis and I.....happy to be there!











There was no photography allowed during the performance...but you know me. I snuck a couple pictures as well as a video:







It was a magical night...and such a great moment to end on.

The Last Supper

For our last supper in Rome, we decided to end where we began....at the good ol' Marconi Pub.














I had some delightfully delectable lamb, rosemary potatoes, garlic beans and a salad. It was the best!





We dolled ourselves up for the evening. I asked a passerby to take a couple pictures of us. Unfortunately, none of the them turned out. This was the best one of the bunch.

St. Peter's Basilica

After viewing the Sistine Chapel, we decided to head to the Vatican cafeteria for some lunch. When we finished eating, we tried to go back the way we came so we could see St. Peter's Basilica. Unfortunately, security wouldn't let us go back that way and we ended up having to go through the Vatican again just so we could avoid the long lines outside to St. Peter's Basilica!!! It was crowded in the morning...just think what it was like at 2pm! So we went as quickly as we could through everything we had already seen...and tried to navigate through all the people. Eventually we made it back to the Sistine Chapel and took the exit that would lead us to where we wanted to go. Finally, we were on the other side of the Vatican and at St. Peter's Basilica. However, we realized that we had lost one of our own! Trying to find someone at the Vatican is really like looking for a needle in the haystack. Luckily, after about 25 minutes or so, we were able to locate our friend.
The square of the basilica is huge:















I took a ton of pictures, but tried to narrow it down to some of my favorites.











































As usual, I took a video:

The Sistine Chapel

The Sistine Chapel was an interesting experience for me. When I made it there, it was completely crowded. The chapel is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. In some ways, I suppose I had romanticized the moment in my head. I wasn't expecting to have some profound experience, but I did think that I would have some sort of awe filled moment. It was difficult to really take it all in when there were so many people there and they were all talking. There were also numerous security guards milling about who kept shouting, "Quiet!" to the crowd and "No pictures!" A lot of people discreetly disregarded the no picture policy...myself included. How could you not? You're in one of the most well-known chapels in the world, you have a camera in your hand and you probably won't make it back there again. Why wouldn't you take pictures?
Some people, however, do not know the art of being discreet. There were people who got into a couple nasty confrontations with the security guards and had to be forcibly escorted out of the chapel...so perhaps you can understand why you'd have a difficult time really soaking in the grandeur of Michelango's work.












I eventually found my tour group and put my headset back on so I could hear about some of the details regarding the chapel. There were a couple things I was surprised to learn....Michelangelo painted a lot of the Sistine Chapel, but there were also other artists involved: Raphael, Bernini and Sandro Botticelli.



One thing I was not expecting to see was on the main wall of Michelangelo's Last Judgement. I couldn't get a picture of it without being obvious, so I'll just have to describe it to you. The mural consists mainly of people ascending into heaven on the left side and then people descending into hell on the right side. During the time of this painting, there was a certain Vatican official that did not like Michelango and heavily criticized him for how much nudity was in his work. Michelangelo responded by locking himself in the Sistine Chapel and then painted this particular official to be in the Last Judgement....directly in hell. He also painted donkey ears on him as well as painted a snake wrapping itself around the guy and then biting him in his nether-regions. When I saw this, I laughed pretty hard! Imagine being in a really sacred place, looking at the critically acclaimed work of one of the most well know artists in all the world....and all of a sudden you see a painting of some guy with donkey ears and a snake biting him in the crotch! Priceless. You can check out the picture at this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Judgment_(Michelangelo)
It's not close up...but it's found at the bottom of the very right hand corner.


I spent most of my time looking up...and got a cramp in my neck. :)
It was great to finally see something that you've heard about for years.

I took a short video of what I could:

The Vatican

We reached the Vatican just a little bit after 8am. To our dismay, a very very long line had formed already and we were told it was a 3 hour wait. While we were trying to decide what we should do, we met this lady who was in charge of a tour group. She told us that if each of us payed her $20 extra than the regular admission, we could completely bypass the long line and the 3 hour wait. It really didn't take that much convincing! We paid, waited for some other people to join our group and soon we were passing everyone else in line. For a second, you felt like you were apart of the "cool" group.
Everyone in the tour group was given headsets and our tour guide spoke into a mic to explain some of the individual art pieces within the Vatican.


We walked along through a couple of courtyards.






Everyone was taking pictures madly since there were so many statues around. I tried to keep it simple by taking pictures of ones that stood out to me.





Cleopatra







Apollo: Protector of the artists








We were told by our tour guide, that if you spent at least 1 minute looking at every piece of art in the Vatican, it would take you 12 years to get all the way through!
You didn't see one bare ceiling there. Each one was covered with some painting or carving or decor of some kind.






































Since there were so many people there, it was difficult sometimes to really take it all in.
I took a short video:




There were people there of all different ages, nationalities and religions. It was an interesting thing to all be brought together by this one specific place.















After a while, you start to get a little saturated by all the art you see. Things start blurring together a little bit. It was hard to not want to take a picture of absolutely everything, but I tried to take pics of things that I really liked. These are just a few out of the many:














Since there were so many people and so much art, I actually lost my tour group. Luckily we had all agreed to meet at the Sistine Chapel around 12:30pm.