More Provence

Provence is one of those rare places that lives up to the cliches. It is just as full of great food, poetic landscapes, and old-school charm that you think of when hearing "Provence".

Yes, there are some run-down towns (Apt) with graffiti and boarded-up windows; a few traffic snarls; and you can imagine places being overrun with tourists when the weather is nice.


But the rolling hills and amazing little shops of fine foods, oils, and fragrances (yes, I said "fragrances" - sorry, the place got to me) and head-turning scenery all more than make up for it.

The fog in Saignon

Same spot, 10 minutes later

Art shop in Gordes

Provence Day 1

The guidebooks will tell you that the sun shines over 300 days a year in the Provence region of France.

From the airport to Avignon

I, however, will tell you that we happened to be there on four of the other 65 days of the year.

And yet...and yet. There were enough holes in the clouds and moments of light to really enjoy every day of the trip. The small villages/hamlets (not sure what the difference is, but saying "hamlet" somehow sounds at once more appropriate and more pretentious) were of the melodious sort - Bonnieux, Cassis, Avignon - and the less so - Apt, Gordes (the "es" is silent). I expected Gordes to be full of lumberjack-jacket-clad Canadians.

Staying in a small dot on the map called Saignon - technically defined as a commune - you're instantly transported back a few hundred years. The houses are cobbled together haphazardly, so you 're never quite sure which path leads to your front door. Renting a place is quite affordable, with a very spacious 2-bedroom place with stone walls going for 500Euros/week, split-able between friends even.

From there, it's a series of day trips to various town markets and wine regions throughout the day.

The next few days will showcase some of the region, with pics taken between the raindrops. It ended with a night and a day in Marseille. So tune in this week for more. A bientot.

The view from Saignon

Provence

Highlights from a 4-day weekend in Provence coming soon...

Queen's Day 2011

One month ago today, I experienced my second Queen's Day in Amsterdam. The first one would be tough to overcome - I was amazed by the parties on every street, the floating nightclubs filling the canals, and mostly by the exceptionally positive vibe of it all. 500,000+ people come into the city for the day each year, all, it seems, happy to shake off the winter chill.

And so it was once again, at least to begin with. We toured the street markets - essentially a city-wide garage sale, where everyone rolls out a sheet and sells anything from cupcakes to designer clothes. Great start, sunny day, crackling with promise.

The slow walk towards the Jordaan neighbourhood was similarly enjoyable. We saw the early starters around 1pm floating past, once again with jaw-dropping sound systems and everyone decked out in orange.

The mood - mine anyway - quickly went south though. I saw my first (and hopefully last) boat-on-boat violence. It's not clear what started it, but one guy jumped from his boat onto another, obviously with bad intentions. As he began getting stomped by the partiers who were a little less than enthused about his arrival, one of his mates stood on the bow of his boat arguing with the others on the invaded boat. A pretty massive punch followed, and the recipient staggered back on hands and knees to the deck of his boat, bleeding from the mouth.

Nothing like an incident like this to cut the party vibe short. Vodka, orange juice, good friends and some street-boogying helped shake off the sting later, but it took a few hours. My orange-tinted bubble had burst, unfortunately, with seeing that nasty dust-up.

The entire day can be summed up in a photo essay.

You can see how there might be some potential for conflict on the waters.

This is a transit ad - a pretty cool inside joke for Amsterdammers. The word "bezet" means "reserved" or "set aside", and in the days leading up to Queen's Day, you'll see sections of sidewalk all around the city marked with tape and this same word. This is done by anyone who wants to sell their wares as mentioned above.

So here... this guy's palm is reserved for a Heineken.

A royal breakfast

The trick to walking around the streets isn't finding food or drink - there's plenty everywhere, and in every tasty variety. It's where to unload these items throughout the day.

Which brings us to this guy. This enterprising fellow works at this building under construction as a mason during the week. He decided to make a little (ok, a LOT) of cash on the side on Queen's Day. For 2 Euros a pop (or a poop), one enters the unassuming doorway to this place. You then line up - women patiently, with men able to go to a nearby wall - for the one port-a-potty on the premises.

Highly illegal, and more than a little unsafe, with open pits in the ground and hundreds of drunk people coming through the door all day. He also sold beer, for those waiting a while, for a tidy 300% mark-up. He willingly told me all this as I was fascinated by the smarts and cojones involved.

For reasons which I don't understand, he insisted on taking shirt off when I asked for a photo for my blog. And for other reasons which might explain his lawless rebel mentality, he also insisted he show me his tattoo. Which would NOT have served him well if the cops happened to wander by and break up his little operation.

What a small-town mason in the Netherlands has in common with N.W.A. I'm not quite sure.

Amsterdam continues to amaze.

P.S. - Dude, it's "tha". Represent, homeslice.

Some of the stuff for sale on a sidewalk. "Beer" is actually "bear", though at first glance it's a pretty advanced kids' book.

Huh. Alf made it across the Atlantic. Remarkable.

The day winds down with a mellow, peaceful de-boarding for many boats near Utrechtsestraat, with a bubble machine adding a nice touch.

The Finale

Eurovision wrapped up last Saturday, with a 3+ hour bonanza live from Dusseldorf that featured 25 performances from 25 different nations.

Aside from the 20 qualifying countries that emerged from the previous week, some of the heavy-hitters (read: best bribers) received an automatic berth in the finale. The Big Five of Spain, Italy, Germany, UK, and France were all given a pass for some reason. I'm sure there was a good one - I just am Eurovisioned out, so you may need to look it up yourself.

What followed was an anti-climax of Eurovisionary proportions. The 20 qualifiers all repeated the exact same song that got them there, and the Big 5 failed to connect with the audience.

Noteworthy by its absence is a live blog of the event here, similar to the festivities earlier in the week. This was mainly due to A) the presence of friends at our place, where it would be pretty antisocial to be glued to a laptop for three hours and B) the fear that there wouldn't be much new to say.

So... fast forward to the end, which turns out to be the most dramatic part of all as people from all over Europe call in (the phone lines open even before the first song is sung) and award their collective points to their favourite countries. It's also the most politicized contest in the world, as it turns out. The IOC seems squeaky clean by comparison.

Blocs of countries located near each other reward the most points to - well, each other. A total of 43 countries get to vote (including those that didn't make it to the finals), and each one has a celebrity from his/her home announce the point allotment. (12 being the maximum, 10 to their second fave, and so on).

Bored? Confused? Me too. Suffice to say that going through 43 countries takes some time. 42 individuals all spoke English, with the notable exception of France who felt it was their right to speak their own language. Quelles douches.

While my vote would have handed the title back to Germany - their winner from last year, Lena, sang this cool little tune. Understated, unlike 95% of the performances. A little White Stripes-ish even.

So who won??? Well, after being elbowed in the ribs to wake up, I rubbed my eyes long enough to see....Azerbaijan. Wha the? With a pleasant but tepid pop duet, they weren't in anyone's top 5 in at least one Amsterdam household.

My friend James (who studiously took notes throughout the event, to ensure he chose wisely at the end of the marathon) immediately suggested an oil-soaked conspiracy from the petrol-plentiful nation. The idea being that - as the winning country does get to host the event the next year, garnering huge exposure and tourist money - the Azerbaijanis somehow (oil) rigged the votes.

My outrage at this was fully tempered by my apathy; at this point, each pop song blurred into the other. Azerbaijan blurred into Slovenia which morphed into Greece. My ears longed for silence.

James' notes

I can safely go back to my normal, non-Eurovision life at last. Jedward from Ireland, the Moldovan madmen, the Isreali he-she, and all the others can all go home now, firmly embedded into my mind.

As for any predictions about who might become known to North American audiences, I would predict Eric Saade from Sweden and maybe the aforementioned Lena. It's unlikely that Azerbaijan will crack the Billboard charts.

But I now know that Europe can match North America - in some cases, far exceed it - in terms of both talent and total cheese.

EuroVision Part Deux

Eurovision, part two. Watching from the couch here in Amsterdam, Thursday night promises more of the same - 80% fromage, 10% sexy, and 10% being music that you would readily admit to listening to.

1) Bosnia-Herzegovina kicks things off with a folksy tune sung by the oldest person in the competition, a graying, tweed-jacket wearing Bosnian-Herzegovinian. Sex appeal at its lowest point in the contest.

2) Austria - rights the sex appeal ship within seconds, as a very fit girl in a black mini-dress. These aren't your grandpa's lederhosen. The Whitney Houston-ish song (early Whitney, not crack-Whitney) is actually quite nice.

3) Netherlands - the "3J's" do a soft-rock ballad. I'm guessing the J's stand for Jan, Jeroen, and Jawnnn. Fittingly for the Dutch, it's pretty cheesy.

4) Belgium - no waffling here. Brutal. Singing A Crapella, about 8 men and women sing without instruments. A beat-boxing youth spices things up as background music, but it is not salvageable.

5) Slovakia - "The Twins" sing a soulless but nicely melodic song, shades of a Brit girl group from the 90's whose name thankfully escapes me. No, it's actually All-Saints. I feel shame, knowing this. Early front-runner.

6) Ukraine - Some kind of yelling power ballad, with a sand-drawing artist projected onto the background screen. Clearly a ruse to distract from the shoddy song. Insane in the Ukraine. So far all the songs have sounded roughly the same; sleep beckons.

7) Moldova - Bam! Wakes me up in a hurry. Trumpets, huge cone-shaped hats, a girl on a unicycle. I've had dreams just like this. Part-rap, part... sort of early Red Hot Chili Peppers. You know, I can't describe this any other way. Huge points for trying to be different though.

8) Sweden - by far the slickest, most professional act of the night. A boy band to the max. Very poppy, a little 80s techno, and pre-teen European girls are crying already.

9) Cyprus - Tonight, these countries are making my job tough. They are mashing up categories to make description nigh impossible. Eat me, Cyprus. That's all I got.

10) Bulgaria - More power-ballad, complete with fire effects and huge wind machines. I am not blown away. Their chances of making it to Saturday's finals are nil.

11) FYR Macedonia - Very FYR Macedonian.

12) Israel - Hmm. Not every day you see a post-op transvestite (now a woman) wearing a dress apparently made entirely of palm fronds. (In Amsterdam, however, it's every second day). Above-average doctor, average song.

13) Slovenia - Tonight is power-ballad night, it seems. Again, I need a shot of Vitamin Moldova to wake me up.

14) Romania - Accompanied by a spunky piano, a Mika-voiced Romanian sensation rocks the Eurovision nation. Actually, not really, but it was fun to write. Lose the pianist, I say. (That's what #12 said too).

15) Estonia - ANOTHER impossible-to-describe type of song. I think Jay-Z said it best: live bloggin' ain't easy. Call it Katy Perry, with more talent and some "doo-wop" thrown in for good measure. The song is called Rockefeller Street, and see if you can describe the style.

16) Belarus - sings a fist-pumping song that makes it seem that they are making fun of themselves, "I Love Belarus". Well, somebody has to. Next!

17) Latvia - these guys did a kind of nerdy rap pop duet. Actually kind of cool, enough so that they've robbed me of any mocking juice. Damn.

18) Denmark - like Sweden, pure pop, and a little sumpin sumpin for the ladies. The guy is wearing a backless shirt, which seems odd. So generous, he gave the back off his shirt.

19) Ireland - WOW. Ireland as a nation is likely cringing. Jedward, as they're called, are twins. And if you've ever longed for music that bridges the gap between Devo and the Spice Girls, well, tonight is your lucky night. They put the gae in Gaelic. Check their song out here. Warning: you will be singing the chorus all day.

No doubt a familiar position

Head to YouTube and enter any country and "eurovision" and you can check out any songs I haven't included here.

The finals go Saturday night, with 25 nations competing (France, Italy, the UK, and Spain all get a free entry, as does host country Germany). And then I can go back to never admitting that I watched every second.