The Mail Brings Good News

Some days things just seem to go right - today was such a day. It began with the mail bringing three items of benefit to the Europe Trip. The first was our Income Tax Rebate, which will help finance this journey of ours. The second was some ECM CDs which I purchased used through eBay, and gives me some new music to listen to on the trip (including one by another Norwegian pianist - Ketil Bjørnstad, an interesting album called "Water Stories"). But the most significant item that arrived in the mail today was our new VISA cards. Since we had the trouble with the Italian Train website not accepting our MasterCard we decided to order a VISA card. We figured it wouldn't hurt to have two different types of credit cards in Europe, in case we were in a place that didn't accept our primary card.

As soon as I activated the VISA card I had to try it out, and specifically I had to see if it would make a difference with the Italian train website. So with my fingers crossed I went through the whole process, input all the data for Beth's tickets and then entered the credit card info. Without too much delay I was notified that the purchased had been approved. It finally went through! So I am relieved to know that Beth will be able to travel with me to Milan and back to Rome. Even though more than three weeks have passed since I booked my train tickets I was able to get Beth a seat right beside me on the one leg of the journey, and just a few away on the return trip (I'm hoping we'll be able to trade seats with someone once we actually get on the train - so that we can sit together). The other bonus of the VISA card arriving today is that I was still able to get the 66% discount (at least on the one leg of the journey, but even with the other leg I still managed to get a 33% discount). So in the end everything worked out pretty decently - though perhaps I have a few more grey hairs than before.

Another thing that arrived in the mail yesterday was an used book by the Danish author Isak Dinesen, which includes the story Babette's Feast. But I'll write more about that in another post which I hope to put together soon. Everything seems to being speeding up now, with just a little over four weeks until we leave. While much of the trip is in place there are still a few things to book, and a few details to work out. I anticipate that much will be happening in the next week or so. Stay tuned.

Anniversaries and Awards

This posting will have only indirect connection with our trip, but it has some things I would like to share with those of you who are following this blog.

This past weekend our family was in Brooks, Alberta to celebrate my parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary. Over the past couple of weeks most of my spare time was focused on planning and preparing for this big event (thus the Europe trip was temporarily put on the back burner). It was a splendid celebration, with over 200 family and friends gathering in the Tilley Community Hall for a meal, program and dance. Many laughs, a few tears, and lots of music filled the evening. The part of the preparations for this event that I personally enjoyed the most was looking through all the slides my Dad took over the years, it brought back many memories. I scanned the slides I thought might work for the program, then my brother James put the show together using a slick Mac program - it turned out great. Every child and grandchild (except little Ava) performed a musical number or dance in the program. Much to our astonishment when the program concluded (with a family choir singing an arrangement of "This Little Light of Mine") the crowd gave us a standing ovation. It made me feel glad to know that we were able to put together and present a special program to honour the wonderful people that my parents are.

At the 50th Anniversary Celebration Thomas (our son, representing the grandchildren), gave a little talk about how his grandparents always had such great food around, but also how they instilled in him a love of travel through all their stories and pictures from their many trips over the years. That got me thinking, perhaps it is partly from my parents that I have this desire to travel. So far the travel has primarily been limited to North America, but the upcoming trip to Europe has been something I've looked forward to for years. Ironically Thomas' first trip outside Canada or the United States may end up being cancelled or postponed. He is taking a Spring Term Class through Luther College at the University of Regina that was supposed to travel down to Mexico to study Food Economics in a couple of weeks. Due to the outbreak of the Swine Flu they may not be making the trip. Hopefully the Swine Flu problem will not spread too far, or be too virulent so that our Europe plans will be affected. Time will tell. If Thomas' trip is indeed cancelled I will feel very sorry for him since he was really looking forward to this trip.

Now that my parent's 50th Anniversary celebration is over, Beth and I can focus on our celebration (both the trip to Europe and some kind of party back home). I remember planning and preparing for my parent's 25th Anniversary the year Beth and I got married, and now we've reached that milestone as well. Time truly does fly.

This same past weekend, while the Anniversary party was happening in Brooks, a different kind of gathering was happening in Nipawin, Saskatchewan - it was the annual gathering of the SCMA (Saskatchewan Country Music Association). Jennifer Jade Kerr was at this event, partly because the CD I produced for her was nominated for a couple of awards. I found out today that her album "somehow it always does" won for Gospel Album of the Year! Though this recording really isn't a country album, it has enough country elements to have been considered by the SCMA. Jennifer is a great singer/songwriter and it was a pleasure working with her on this recording (which took almost 3 years to finish from conception to completion). Since last September Jennifer has been working in a Lutheran church out in Kelowna, BC - so I don't get to connect with her very often, thus it was nice when she stopped by for a visit today (bringing her award along with her for me to see). So even though this event has nothing to do with our Europe trip I simply needed to share this exciting news with all you folks. If you would like to check out Jennifer's music visit her website: http://www.jenniferjadekerr.com/

To wrap up this post I want to point out that we are less than 5 weeks away from the beginning of our travels. In the coming weeks there will be a lot of finalizing details, figuring out what to bring and what not to bring, fretting over whether or not we have forgotten anything. We will be sure to be posting more often in the coming days. So check back often. By the way, we gave our mini-laptop a test run this past weekend when we traveled to Brooks and back - it worked pretty good, though we need to get used to its smaller keyboard. I look forward to using it to type up blog entries throughout Europe and sharing them with you. Thanks for being along for the ride.

Sometimes the Internet is Not Great

Most of the time we have found the internet a great tool for planning our trip. It has allowed us to check things out in great detail; everything from transportation schedules, to things to see in specific locations, to reviews of accommodations. Most of the time when I have booked accommodation or transportation or purchased tickets over the interenet things have gone very smoothly. But there have been exceptions to that, most recently our frustration with purchasing a train ticket in Italy. Actually I have my train ticket, I've been trying to purchase one for Beth. Here's the story:

The day after we arrive in Europe we will be heading from Rome to Milan in order to take in an opera at La Scala. After reading some cautions about the Italian Rail Website not always accepting non-Italian credit cards we decided to try booking through that site anyway, simply because we could get 60% the price of a regular ticket that way (by purchasing our tickets at least 30 days in advance). When going through the system it wouldn't let me by two tickets at the 60% off rate, so I thought I would buy one, then do the process again and buy a second. I put in the information for myself, and then the credit card info, and was pleased to discover that everything went through. Excellent, I thought! Then I tried to purchase a ticket for Beth, but when I got to the credit card stage it rejected my purchase. I tried later, same thing. I tried a different card, same thing. I waited until the next day and tried again, same thing. I tried from a different computer, same thing. In the end I've tried pretty well everything I can think of, and so far nothing has worked out. If you've been following this closely you will realize that what this means is that so far I'm the only one with a train ticket to Milan!

I even tried submitting a question through the customer service portion of the Italian Rail site, but the online complaint form wouldn't allow me to post (partly because it was in Italian and I must not have been filling in something correctly). The final insult in this story is that I decided to simply phone the telephone number given for ticket purchases from abroad... and even that didn't work! Instead I got an automated message that said it did not recognize the number I was calling from and then it hung up. This whole scenario has been one of endless frustration. We have one more attempt, this will be using a different brand of credit card (Visa versus MasterCard) hoping that the change in brand might finally work. If worse comes to worse we will need to purchase a ticket for full price at the train station in Rome (and probably sit apart on the trip to Milan and back). To add a postscript to the story, I even tried to cancel my ticket - but because of the restrictions with this 60% off special I couldn't even do that.

We had a similar experience with trying to purchase tickets to the jazz festival in Kongsberg, Norway. Fortunately through the help of the Jazz Festival folks there and a customer service person at Billettservice (the Norwegian equivalent of TicketMaster) we were able to get that problem sorted out eventually.

Besides these frustrations (which probably have more to do with trying to use a domestic credit card internationally) the other problem with the internet is that sometimes you get too much information. For example in doing some research about getting around in Rome I came across some websites that talked about how the taxi drivers in Rome are notorious for ripping off tourists (by overcharging them, or by taking longer than necessary routes to get to destinations). On this one site I read story after story of taxi extortion. Probably the reality is that once and a while a few bad eggs in the taxi industry in Rome cause these problems, but the majority of the time things are fine. But ever since I came across this site I find myself worried about taking taxis in Rome (even though we will probably need to do so at some point). Had I not come across the website I wouldn't have any of these extra worries heading into our trip. On the one hand, it's good to be informed, but on the other hand, it's often only the negative stuff that people tend to report on the internet and that skews the perspective to being overly pessimistic.

We've had to read online reviews of accommodations with a grain of salt as well, realizing that some people will find something, anything, to complain about, no matter where they're staying. If fact some of the negative reviews have actually been entertaining, they are so obviously the result of a personality issue, rather than the actual experience or accommodation.

So for all its advantages, there is also a downside to the internet. But rather than focusing on the negative, let me end this post with a positive comment about the internet. One of the things we look forward to while on our trip, is the ability to be in touch with folks back home while we travel. To be able to post updates to our Blog, to send and receive emails, and even to check on the scores of the Roughrider games while we are in Europe will be a very nice benefit of the internet. To enable this international communication to happen as easily as possible we decided last month to purchase a mini-laptop. Last week our little Dell Inspiron Mini showed up. It is tiny in size (and price) but has built in wireless and thus will be very handy to have with us. We have discovered that most of the transportation (trains, ferries and buses) in Europe have WiFi capability, thus we will be able to connect with the internet even as we travel around. So in the end we are far more grateful for the internet than frustrated by it, and we look forward to using it to enable you, the readers of our blog, to join us in our journey.

Discovering Gustavsen

Last week something arrived in the mail that I've been waiting for not so patiently. What finally came was tickets for the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Norway, and particularly tickets to a concert by the Tord Gustavsen Ensemble. I have mentioned Tord Gustavsen before in this blog, and catching a concert of his while in Europe was something that was high on my "hope to do" list. Before I write anything else I want to say how helpful the folks, particularly Kine, at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival office have been. It is through their efforts that we finally got our tickets (we were having trouble with the Norwegian version of Ticketmaster not accepting our credit card payment). However, all that's behind us, and carefully stored with all our Europe trip material are two tickets to the Tord Gustavsen concert on July 1st.

I would like to tell you the story of how I first came to encounter to music of Tord Gustavsen. It begins one day after worship when Phyllis Brock, one of our parishioners, gave me a copy of a CD that she thought I'd enjoy. She told me that her cousin in Norway had sent her this disc and she thought I would like it because it was kind of jazzy. Phyllis told me that her cousin's daughter sang on this recording, and it was a collection of old Norwegian hymns. I accepted the CD graciously but to be truthful I wasn't expecting much, perhaps because when in the past I've been given recordings featuring other people's relatives the music hasn't always been great. But so I could be fair, and so I could tell the kind and lovely Phyllis that I had listened to the disc I put it in my van's CD player on the way home from church. That short drive was all it took for me to get hooked. The CD was great! At home I put it on the stereo and listened to it for the rest of the day. I remember thinking shortly into listening "This sounds somewhat like an ECM recording". I wanted to read all the liner notes, and to have my own personal copy so I began to search the internet. Fortunately I came across a CD import store in the U.S. that had some copies of this disc which I ordered right away.

The CD of which I am writing is called "Dype Stille Sterke Milde" (Norwegian for "Deep Calm Strong Softly") and it features the SKRUK choir with the Nymark Collective providing accompaniment. The arrangements have a simplicity, and yet a depth about them. I discovered after I got my own copy and was able to read through all the liner notes, that a person by the name of Tord Gustavsen did all the arrangements and played piano in the Nymark Collective. I was so intrigued by these arrangements, and the quietly profound music which radiated from this recording that I decided to find out more about Tord Gustavsen. So I did an internet search, and the first page that came up was an ECM page about the Tord Gustavsen Trio. No wonder this recording sounded like an ECM recording, it was arranged by an ECM artist! Without hesitating I ordered a couple of the ECM CDs by the Tord Gustavsen Trio.

A couple weeks later they arrived and since that time they have never been far from my CD player. Eventually I added to my collection all three ECM recordings plus some other recordings that feature Tord Gustavsen. For example, one day I was searching YouTube for anything with Tord Gustavsen when I came across a clip of a live concert featuring the Norwegian jazz singer Silje Nergaard. She was singing an arrangement of Stings "If You Love Somebody" and the Tord Gustavsen Trio was backing her up. If was a very unusual, yet captivating performance, and Tord's Rhodes solo was simply awesome. You can watch it for yourself here (the keyboard solo really starts to cook at 3 minutes 30 seconds): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDC6DQDtCqI

So I now have some Silje Nergaard CDs, a Nymark Collective CD, and all three ECM CDs that feature Tord Gustavsen. I have become, as they say, a devoted fan. Ironically I discovered Tord Gustavsen a little bit too late to catch his only (to my knowledge) appearance in Canada. He was in Vancouver last year, but when I found out about that concert it was only a week away from taking place and it was impossible for me to make arrangements to attend. So rather than kick myself too hard for missing that Canadian appearance I made it a priority to catch a Tord Gustavsen concert when in Europe. When I began searching the internet for information on future Tord Gustavsen concerts I came across Tord's personal website which included an email address. I took a chance and sent an email asking about upcoming concerts. I didn't expect a reply really, I have sent a number of emails to recording artists over the years and seldom hear anything back from them - which I quite understand, I can't imagine trying to keep up with the volume of correspondence some of these people must get.

Imagine my delight when Tord Gustavsen did reply. He told me he wasn't going to be playing much this coming summer because he was going to be on a paternity leave of sorts (he and his wife were expecting their first child in the early spring). Fortunately there was one concert that was happening during our time in Europe, a performance with his new ensemble at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival. Once I found out about that I was constantly checking the Kongsberg Jazz Festival website looking for an announcement confirming Tord Gustavsen's concert. This happened in March, and as soon as I could I set about trying to purchase tickets (a process which ended up taking much longer than it should have, but that's another story). Now I can't wait until July 1st when Beth and I will be sitting in the Kongsberg Kino (Cinema) watching and listening to Tord Gustavsen and his ensemble create some (what is sure to be) wonderful music.

One more part to this story - I wondered if the choir arrangements from the "Dype Stille Sterke Milde" CD were available. So I asked Tord Gustavsen about this in an email, and while they are not available commercially he has graciously sent me a few to try with my choir here. On Sunday May 24th, the last Sunday we're in Canada before our trip, I will be directing the Christ Lutheran Chamber Choir in a performance of the Tord Gustavsen arrangement of "Deep and Precious" (the English title). I picked this Sunday because we are also doing "Hosanna - a Jazz Setting for Holy Communion" that morning, thus I will have the right musicians there for accompanying the choir arrangement. If you are in the area you might want to come and listen - it will be at our 11 AM service. If you are intrigued by this choir recording that first got me hooked on the music of Tord Gustavsen you can get it through the internet here: http://www.cdroots.com/kkv-312.html

I would also encourage you to check out the Tord Gustavsen Trio ECM recordings (and yes, these were all recorded at the famous Rainbow Studio in Oslo of which I wrote about in an earlier posting). Take a moment to visit the Tord Gustavsen website where you can hear samples of his music and discover more about him for yourself: http://www.tordgustavsen.com/ And before I go there is one more thing I need to say: Thanks Phyllis!

Pentecost at the Pantheon

We haven't posted an entry for two weeks! But that's not because things haven't been happening, quite the opposite - too many things have been happening, most notably Holy Week - that wonderful but very busy time of celebration in the life of the Christian Church. In addition to Holy Week there have also been various family activities and responsibilities, and if that wasn't enough it's tax season as well! Since our last posting there have been a number of developments in our travel plans as well, in the coming days we will be sharing some of these with new posts... stay tuned.

Speaking of Holy Week, a little while ago it dawned on me that we would be in Rome during another major Church festival - that being Pentecost. I wondered if there was some unique Pentecost celebration we could take in while there. A little internet searching and I came across one that really sounds visually spectacular, the only problem is we may miss it by a matter of minutes. Let me explain: first with the event, and then with our circumstances.

The Pantheon is an ancient Roman building, dating back to the second century. It was originally a temple to the gods of pagan Rome (Pantheon is from the Greek word meaning 'every god'). In the early 7th century Emperor Phocas gave the building to the Pope Boniface IV who converted it into a Christian church known as Santa Maria dei Martini (Saint Mary and the Martyrs). This church continues to hold Mass in this ancient building. For the celebration of Pentecost it is the custom of this church to drop rose petals from an opening in the roof down on to the congregation below at the end of the Mass. Apparently local firefighters are given the task of climbing the roof and dropping the rose petals at the appointed time. One observer says it is like the tongues of fire descending on the heads of the disciples. I've attached a picture of the rose petals falling through the opening in the ceiling of the Pantheon (which I hope is large enough for you to make out the petals falling).

Now to our circumstance: Our plane is supposed to land in Rome at 11 AM. The Mass at this church begins at 10:30 AM (though apparently you need to line up at 9:30 to be able to get in). This celebration Mass is about 2 hours in length, which would mean the rose petals would fall from the sky around 12:30 PM. Our question is: How long will it take to disembark from the plane, get through customs, and get from the Airport into the city center? Checking on the map we've noted that the Pantheon is fairly close to our hotel (less than half a kilometre), but should we head straight to the Pantheon, with luggage in tow, hoping to catch the moment the rose petals start falling (realizing that at that point we would be relegated to the tourist zone behind the ropes). Or do we simply go to our hotel, check in, then head over to the Pantheon to see the rose petals covering the ground after the Mass (hopefully they don't clean them up immediately). We will be playing this by ear, it will all depend on whether the flight is on time or not, and how quickly we get through customs. It would be very cool if it all worked out, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

More certain is that we will be able to visit the Catacombs of Rome, and even doing that on Pentecost gives it a bit more significance. I will keep checking for other things to do in Rome that day, who knows what else might turn up - until a couple of weeks ago I never knew the Pantheon was used as a Christian church, and I had certainly never heard about the rose petals falling from the sky. We're already learning so much, and we haven't even left Regina yet!