Music in the Streets

Street music is something I love - it gives a town or city a certain flair if there are musicians out in the streets entertaining others with their musical talent.

Street music can be seen - pardon me, heard! - in many places in Europe. It's something that just belongs to city streets and plazas, and it's not only for warm summer days when the living is easy. More often than not you find street musicians at Christmas markets all over Germany when the temperatures are barely hovering over the freezing point.

But I digress. Today I want to show you some of the street musicians we came across during our trip in Europe, mainly in Great Britain and Paris. There weren't that many in Hameln, Germany while we were there - probably because it was a regular week day and not a Saturday when there are more crowds. There also weren't that many in Amsterdam which surprised me a little bit.

However, this guy in Edinburgh played his beautiful bagpipe melodies even though it was raining and not many people stopped to listen to him. He was fully dressed in tartan and quite the sight.

In London, we met another bagpipe player in Trafalgar Square who tried to make his music heard in all the traffic. Not an easy job! He didn't seem to be very concerned though and kept his British calm.

Walking along the South Bank was quite the sound experience. There were so many street musicians, and sometimes their music mixed when you had just left one of them and approached the next one. It could be a rather interesting mix sometimes with all the different kinds of music.

These guys were also flirting with Kaefer while playing their joyful tunes. It actually was fun!

And he was my favorite.

The most music though you can hear in the long passageways of the tube, the underground transportation in London. The acoustics down there are fabulous and you already hear the music when you either enter the station from the street or when you disembark ("alight" as the English call it) a train. It's something I always associate with London.

Paris, on the other hand, didn't have much music in the metro, but there were tons of street musicians everywhere. A saxophonist at the Champs de Mars near the Tour Eiffel...

...and a guitarist at the Centre Pompidou.

Not far from him there was this a cappella choir whose singing we enjoyed a lot.

And so did this little girl while sitting on her dad's shoulder and holding the flowers (for her mom?). Isn't she adorable?

A cappella seems to be quite popular in Paris, because the same day we saw another choir who sang in a courtyard in the oldest part of Paris, the Marais.

Of course most of the street musicians we met in the Quartier Latin, where the university is found and life is loud and vibrant. The music was a broad mix of everything you could think of - I enjoyed walking along the streets and alleys and discovering new bands all the time.

Now let's get dancing, just like this old lady in this photo!

Threesomes (August Break 2014)

The prompt for the fifth day is - not five, but three. Well, I first didn't quite know what to do with that and I was toying with the idea of skipping this one. But when I looked casually through my pictures from Europe I found quite some threesomes. Here we go!

Rainy Edinburgh - but the red still stands out

Three sunchairs in St. James's Park in London on a brilliant summer day - it doesn't happen too often, so everybody was hanging out in the park. These sunchairs are not for free though; you can rent them hourly. St. James's Park is my favorite park in busy London.

Three lovely sheep in the beautiful English countryside. Sheep belong to Britain like tea and fish and chips.

Three Union Jacks along the Mall in London. They were already preparing for Trooping the Colour, also known as "The Queen's Birthday Parade", which took place on June 14th this year.

Three scooters in Paris - another great way to explore the city.

Three gelato cones by Amorino in Paris - they serve the ice cream shaped in the form of roses. What a lovely idea. You can see a short video about it here. 

And finally, three Adirondack chairs on the island of Spiekeroog, Germany. It's time to relax now and enjoy the summer. Please, can I have some Amorino gelato?

The Symbolic National Dress of Scotland (August Break 2014)

Today's prompt for the August Break is "pattern".

That leads me back to Scotland and their tartans. We all know about the kilts that are worn in the Scottish Highlands, we know that clans have their own tartans (and so do families etc.), we have seen pictures of the Highland Games where the participants wear tartan - so we are quite familiar with Scottish tartan.

Wikipedia defines tartan like this: Tartan is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven wool, but now they are made in many other materials. Tartan is particularly associated with Scotland. Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns. Tartan is often called plaid in North America, but in Scotland, a plaid is a tartan cloth slung over the shoulder as a kilt accessory, or a plain ordinary blanket such as one would have on a bed.Tartan is made with alternating bands of coloured (pre-dyed) threads woven as both warp and weft at right angles to each other. The weft is woven in a simple twill, two over – two under the warp, advancing one thread each pass. This forms visible diagonal lines where different colours cross, which give the appearance of new colours blended from the original ones. The resulting blocks of colour repeat vertically and horizontally in a distinctive pattern of squares and lines known as a sett.

At the Royal Mile in Edinburgh just below the entrance to the castle we could watch how tartan is traditionally made. First, we could see all the (pre-dyed) thread that is needed for making tartan.

Feeding the thread into the loom (these were all old machines), very noisy and smelly.

This is the actual loom - sorry, that this photo is so bad. The working loom was way back in the corner and you could only see it from above.

There were tons of scarfs and fabric, waiting to be made into something super beautiful.

Like this, for example - isn't it gorgeous? The dress is only £ 600...(or was it 900? I can't remember)

Better Than Its Reputation - British Food (August Break 2014)

I have decided to join in Susannah Conway's August Break again, but a little differently. She has offered an entire list of prompts that we can use or not. I will try to work along those prompts although this might not work for every day. And other than she supposed, I will not take a photo each day but use most of these prompts as an inspiration for telling you more about my trip to Europe.

Today's prompt is "lunch" - so let's talk about British food! We're not starting with lunch but with breakfast.
This is a Scottish breakfast that we had in Edinburgh - with haggis, black pudding, sausage, bacon and fried egg. It was pretty good, I liked both the haggis and the black pudding (blood sausage).

The breakfast in our farmhouse bed and breakfast in the Cotswolds looked like this - fried egg, sausage and bacon like in Scotland, but also baked beans and mushrooms, plus grilled tomatoes (the tomatoes in Scotland weren't grilled).

Both to go with tea, of course, served in a beautiful pot. Oh, that is tea with milk - the only way I can stomach tea (I am not a tea drinker - except on the British Isles).

While in England we often skipped lunch and had a real cream tea instead - sinfully rich! Scones with clotted cream and jam - heavenly!

If you don't like tea there's always the option to have a latte instead.

Which leaves us with dinner. Most of the time we had our dinner in a pub since we really like pub food. You can have traditional fish and chips,

served with beer of course (this is a pint of bitter).

In Scotland the Geek tried Haggis which is so much better than you would think. Haggis is a savory pudding containing sheep's pluck; minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally encased  in the animal's stomach and simmered for approx. three hours. As you can easily see, we had a different version, but it was still Haggis, and most people cringe when they hear of it - probably because they've never tried it. This was the first time that I tried Haggis as well, and I thought it was pretty tasty.

Kaefer had bangers and mash.

while I ordered the Shepherd's Pie.

In England we enjoyed food like steak pie

and seafood platter,

all accompanied by a pint of bitter.

Rinda's Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt

Just like last year, Rinda organized another photography scavenger hunt this summer. It usually lasts from June 1st to September 23, and she has come up with 21 items we can hunt for during that time (2 items can be substituted). It was a lot of fun, and except for one item I found all of them during my trip to Europe.

So let's start, shall we?

1. A sign welcoming people to your home town

Well, this was the first item I had to substitute, because our town doesn't seem to be very welcoming. What a pity. I have a kite instead - we flew this kite a couple weeks ago on one of our local beaches when friends from Colorado came to visit.

2. A garden gnome

These garden gnomes live in a shop window at the Marché aux Fleurs on the Île de la Cité in Paris.

3. Birds on a wire

When I woke up in our farmhouse bed and breakfast in the Cotswolds I saw these birds sitting on the wire. I have no idea what kind of birds these are, but perhaps some reader from England can help me out?

4. A group of tourists

That was easy! I just had to choose. I decided to feature these tourists in front of Buckingham Palace. Perhaps they hoped to see the Queen - the flag on top of the palace told us she was home. (Perhaps they were hoping for Kate, William and George who do not live here.)

5. A rack of post cards

Again, I could choose. I loved this rack in rainy Edinburgh.

6. An urban street scene

I loved the buses in Edinburgh. Let's rephrase that - I love public transportation.

7. A rural landscape

Is there anything better than the Cotswolds? 

8. A tattoo on a person

I took a picture of this guy and his girlfriend/wife while fastening a lovelock on Pont de l'Archevêché in Paris. Only when I looked at the photos at home did I realize that he has this big tattoo on his arm.

9. A bakery

Cornish pasties are very popular, and I was happy to find a Cornish bakery up in York - quite a way from Cornwall!

10. A photo bomb

Oh my! That is something you can hardly plan for. However, I have a teenage daughter who loves to play photo bomb! And usually when I least expect it (which, I guess, is the point). Kaefer thought it very funny that she jumped right in front of my camera when I wanted to take a picture of Stanway House in the Cotswolds in the beautiful evening light.

11. A horn

York is the place to go for finding horns! When I first read the list I thought that this certainly would be an item I had to substitute, but I found it on our third day in Britain!

12. A mascot

No problem during World Cup in Europe - this one is the mascot of the Dutch national team. Of course it's an orange lion.

13. A sunrise

Didn't happen!!! So I have to substitute it with a bird house - just like the garden gnomes I found these ones at the Marché aux Fleurs in Paris.

14. A parade

Now, this was tricky. I actually didn't see any parade. I witnessed a demonstration in Paris, but does that count? So I had to get creative. Here's the poster for the upcoming Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Edinburgh Castle, an annual summer event. I had seen it back in 1988, and it was certainly a lot of fun and a great atmosphere!

15. A juggler

Again, this wasn't easy at all. Instead of a real juggler I took a picture of this guy "juggling" a ball under three pots, changing it all the time. Someone then has to say where the ball is - you have no chance to pick the right one. These guys want to get your money - and they do if someone is stupid enough to "play". You always find them in touristy areas like the Eiffel Tower.

16. A sign in a language other than English

This sign was in front of a café in Hameln, Germany, telling the customers about the rooms in their very old building. The sign is made from wood and the text is burned into the wood.

17. A lamp post

Aren't these ones just wonderful? They are in front of the Louvre in Paris.

18. A water fall

We didn't see any waterfalls during our trip, so I opted for this fountain in Trafalgar Square in London. The water is falling quite nicely.

19. A public garden

This is the Ernest Wilson Memorial Garden in Chipping Campden in the Cotswold. Wilson was a plant collector - a very fitting memorial for him.

20. A bus with a picture painted on its sides

Voilà - sightseeing bus in Edinburgh. Later I saw similar ones in York and London, and even in Paris.

21. A photograph of you with something representing the season

Those are always the most difficult-to-get photos. But here is one, taken by the Geek. Representing the season: I'm wearing a dress, sandals and I'm sitting in front of a fountain in Paris. Yeah, summer!

So here we are - 21 items in almost as many days! It was a lot of fun working on my list - yes, I always carried it with me. Thank you, Rinda, for another great photography scavenger hunt. I hope there will be one next summer!