Snow

It’s snowing in Boston today. Just a dusting, I think. But enough to make me brush off the windshield of my car.

I bet people on the roads are going to be idiots on the drive home.

Back home

I made it safely back to Boston. I hope your postcards all showed up and gave you a laugh. I kept a running journal of most everything I was doing, thinking or drinking — including a running mustache tally. I took over 300 pictures between Zurich, Munich, Amsterdam and Dublin. Most are uploaded to my machine at home, but I haven’t posted that many. Mostly because the Flickr upload tool sucks. Keep your eyes on the photos on the right, however, because they’ll be changing over the course of the next day or two. I’ll start excerpting some of the thoughts I had on the trip right here.

Keep your eyes open.

Out The Door

I’m twenty four hours from vacation. Let me restate that: twenty four hours from getting out of Boston and bumming around Europe for two weeks. When I booked the trip, it seemed like it would never get here. Now it’s here and I’m… doing laundry. The backpack that I’m going to be living out of is still empty and I have to change some money.

But it’s time to go on the trip.

I get into Zurich 8am Thursday morning. Then Munich for the Oktoberfest. Then Amsterdam for, well, Amsterdam. I catch a flight to Dublin for Guinness, Jameson and Joyce. Then I fly home.

Two weeks without a phone or reliable internet access. Two week without work. Two weeks without Boston. Just me, a backpack, a passport and a stack of travel information. Here’s hoping to meeting everyone in Europe – hopefully I make a few travel buddies.

I’ve got to get going. I’ve got to finish packing. I’ve got to prep my liver for the liters of beers I’m going to be drinking.

I’ll be back soon. I’ll post an obscene amount of pictures when I get home.

Good News

So I was surfing around some travel sites today, willing the work day to finish up. I happened to land on Orbitz.com. This was a good thing. Just for fun, I put in travel dates.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear? A flight to Zurich, Switzerland and a really cheap fare.

I did some quick fact finding. The first Keg of Oktoberfest will be tapped Saturday September 22nd in Munich. Eurail Youth Passes for 6 days of travel in two months to four countries cost $340.

Then things really started to take shape. The countries you travel between have to be touching. What touches Switzerland? Well, Germany of course. What touches Germany? The Netherlands, you say? Isn’t Amsterdam in the Netherlands? Oh, there’s a ferry that will usher me from Amsterdam to Ireland? It won’t cost anymore? Dublin it is.

And there you have it. September 19th to October 1st: Philly to Zurich. Train from Zurich to Munich. Train from Munich to Amsterdam. Boat from Amsterdam to Dublin. Fly from Dublin back to Boston. Not exactly planes, trains and automobiles. But I’ll take planes, trains and…boats?

And that’s how you do a European Vacation.

Andrew Bird at Northwestern University 5/14

Before I got into town, my friend Maggie told me that she had landed a batch of tickets to see Andrew Bird put on a VH1-style- storytellers concert at Northwestern and would I be interested in going? Uhm, of course.

I haven’t listened to much of Andrew Bird’s music, so I tracked him down on MySpace and checked out his latest album, Armchair Apocrypha. I thought it was an interesting album. If you asked me about it before the show, I’d recommend it, but I don’t know that I’d go out and spend $12 on it.

After the show, I was read to jump on iTunes and download it.

I used to play at Pick-Staiger Concert Hall while I was in high school. I was constantly amazed at the acoustics and how easy it was to hear other people playing. It only holds 1100 people, so the idea of hearing such intricate music in that venue was half of the draw.

Neither Andrew Bird or the Hall disappointed. I was sitting 11 rows back on the left hand side of the stage. I’m pretty sure that Bird heard the muffled burp that I let out half way through Why. I’m not joking.

His stage set up consisted of a glockenspiel, electric guitar, violin with two looping rigs and two giant victrola looking horns. Each of the victrola horns was hooked up to a separate violin rig and altered the sound not so subtly. One of the horns kept the melody. The other had two horns pointing opposite directions and spun in front of a microphone. The effect was to completely destroy the sound that Andrew Bird had previously looped.

It made the music sound very Phillip Glass-like.

After an hour, Bird took questions. I found out he grew up in my home town. He likes coffee and tries to tour in an environmentally friendly way. After 15 minutes of questions, he played a three song encore and closed with Weather Systems.

In that space, with that sound, it was amazing.