Blog
Festival of the Sea
19th August 2011 | Juliet
Cascais Friday…………The soundcheck is beside the seaside. The beach is packed out with sunbathers and swimmers. We are backstage where it’s decked out like an Ikea showroom, with just a stone wall between us and the lapping waves of the Atlantic. A small bar sits in amongst the Klippan sofas, piled high with limes hinting at Caipirinha action later.
The soundcheck works like a free gig and children and locals set about getting down, dancing about on the mostly empty pit area, sunbathers looking surprised. Later there’s the gig. Tim’s Portuguese relatives are here.
There is dancing everywhere. People are all around on the old houses opposite, across the bay people hang off balconies under the moonlight peering down. The gig begins with Tim and Larry aboard a fisherman’s boat…
Queima das Fitas, Coimbra, Portugal
13th May 2011 | Larry
Burning of the Ribbons
13th May 2011 | Larry
The soup today is . . . . . . well, a bit boring to be honest, I’ve had better out of a Batchelors packet but hey ho, at least Andy is back with us so that should spice things up a bit. His leg, now out of plaster, is held in a stylish black PVC and Velcro bootee which he quickly disposes of before he hits the fabulous pool, like a man possessed, upon our arrival in Coimbra.
The temperature by the pool is a lot hotter than anticipated and I’m short on summer T’s, damn the iPhone weather app!! The hot dust bowl of the gig had to be hosed down by the local fire brigade before they let the crowds in.
We are here to close a student festival that’s held every year at the end of the classes but before the exams in August. Tradition dictates that thousands of black-cloaked pre-graduates have to swamp the streets of this slightly mundane Portuguese town and party like mad till dawn for seven whole nights!! ‘Will they have any stamina left for us?’ we wonder.
We needn’t have worried, the crowd were more than up for it. Under cover of the midnight firework display Tim and I sneaked out into the audience to serenade them with Fred Astaire from the salubrious Super Bock beer tent (Should I ask for sponsorship? Product placement?) and after that it was all systems go, right through to the last chord of a stage-invaded Laid.
The Manc crew left hours after the London lot so I missed all the commotion at the airport in Porto. Certain members (who shall remain nameless in case they serve me with an online super-gagging order which are very fashionable right now :-) )realised that they had left passports and mobile phones at the hotel, well over an hours drive away – runners were dispatched and all was good . . . eventually.
Santiago Street Art
4th April 2011 | Larry
The street art in Santiago and Valpariaso was simply stunning, here is just a small sample of what we saw.
Mad Mannequins
4th April 2011 | Larry
As well as having very exaggerated posteriors, Chilean mannequins’ faces I found somewhat disturbing.
Chilean Sights II
4th April 2011 | Larry
Tomorrow we head home
4th April 2011 | Larry
For the last day of our stay we head over to Valparaiso to see how it compares to the European splendour of Santiago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valparaíso
The difference is dramatic, we leave the splendour of the W Hotel in the posh bit of Santiago for a cheap but characterful B&B in the heart of the Templeman area, one of Valparaiso’s many hillside communities. It’s a higgledy piggledy, ramshackle but incredibly colourful community of artists’ studios, great restaurants, funky little bars and even more graffiti than in Santiago’s Barrio Bellavista.
We enjoy a whistle-stop walk around town enjoying the sights, sounds (and smells!!) of this charming place and end the night drinking ‘porno sours’ (a pisco sour variant) in a cool little art bar, tomorrow we head home :-(.
Chilean Sights I
3rd April 2011 | Larry
Coffee with legs and the Barrio Bellavista
3rd April 2011 | Larry
Those of us left head out to see Santiago’s sights downtown and while looking for coffee and a money exchange we bump into one of Jules’s friends from Brazil, what are the chances huh?
She too was here for the festival and her Spanish comes in very handy as we try to find a Chilean oddity called café con piernas or ‘coffee with legs’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Café_con_piernas
The one we are directed to is NOT one of the more conservative ones we’d heard of, it’s dark and a few patrons are having some very personal attention from the ‘waitresses’ ;-) … it’s not what we are in the mood for this early in the day. The sun, the Barrio Bellavista and the metropolitan park are calling us – the legs can wait till later, we graciously exit.
The Mercado Central is a fabulous structure ripe with the smells of the seafood for which it is famed. We have a beer in its grand atrium as our waiter explains how the ornate iron structure was made in the huge iron foundries of Birmingham and Glasgow and shipped to Santiago in the 19th century.
www.worldreviewer.com/travel-guides/market/central-market-in-santiago/15377/
We cross the river and the architecture changes dramatically, we are entering the less salubrious Barrio Bellavista with its small streets, cheap clothes stalls, Chinese slot machine emporiums, strip clubs and brightly coloured graffiti covered walls and doors.
The cheap clothes stalls have a strange array of mannequins with bizarre faces and HUGE booties to emphasise the tight jeans that are the fashion here, nearly all the models are presented bum forward.
The street art is of a very high standard and everywhere I point my camera I’m rewarded with one great image after another. Whilst I’m dawdling immersed in photoland Dave finds an interesting doorway that leads to a magic workshop run by the lovely ‘Magic Twins’.
They are friendly, welcoming and show us around their Harry Houdini inspired props and tricks. When they find out who we are their eyes lit up, as they explained that they too had performed at the festival, just before us.
They had watched our show and were as overjoyed to meet us as we were intrigued to meet them. Life is as sweet as it is strange . . yet again!!
The events of the beer and pisco fuelled evening that followed shall stay in the seedy but beautiful Barrio . . . forever ;-)
Lollapalooza Chile, Santiago
2nd April 2011 | Larry
