Andorra Pt.II: of uillean pipes and teeny jams...
EDITED: to add that Photobucket doesn't want to play the 'successfully embedding videos' game, so you'll have to wait till Florenci uploads his montage of the Ordino gig to YouTube, I'm afraid.
Stupid technology. >:(
Despite having set our alarms for a decadent 8am (;D), we were shocked awake at about 6:30am, by a boom of thunder so strong that it felt as though the house was collapsing.
Actually, technically speaking, I was shocked awake by the thunder. Florenci was catapulted into semi-consciousness by me grabbing him and yelling out in instinctive panic! Poor bugger.
He went back to sleep but it was close enough to our normal waking up time that I wasn’t able to, so I tossed and turned till 8am. Funnily enough though (and this just is how perverse the body and mind can be), when the alarms went off and Florenci got out of bed, I suddenly felt terribly tired and dragged my heels, so to speak, for a good fifteen minutes before joining him for breakfast!
This was the early morning view from out on the terrace. Lots of mist and fog, some of which looked like smoke. All a bit Lord of the Rings-ey at times, really!
Fog rolling over the hills and down into the valley.
Breakfast included the dinky little mini jams we’d bought at the supermarket the evening before, which made me inordinately happy (just for the record, my obsessive fascination with little dinky things is 100% my father's fault ;D)
They just look like normal jars, right?
But they're not! That's my chapstick next to them.
We also had coffee, as usual, though it required a bit more juggling around than our pot at home, as the one at the house there only made teeny teeny cups (reduced morning caffeine is not nearly as entertaining as reduced jams, for some reason... :D)
By the time we’d finished, the rain had stopped and the weather seemed to be clearing and we could even see the sun peeking through a few breaks in the clouds.
So we decided to go to Ordino, a nearby town, which the newspaper from the day before had advertised as hosting the annual Trobada Internacional de Buners, throughout the weekend.
According to the same article, a buner is someone qui toca la buna (who plays the buna) but what, we wondered, is a buna? Even Florenci, who is a native Catalan speaker, wasn’t sure. At first we thought it was a specific instrument but then, reading further, it began to seem more likely that it was either a category of instrument or a style of music.
Eventually, we found an article in that day’s paper which spoke of a variety of instruments that would be featuring in the festival, linked by one common factor; they’re all air-powered instruments that produce sustained sounds. So they’re basically all instruments with bags; the bagpipes, the Catalan sac de gemecs, the uillean pipes and the Galician gaita. The exception to the bag rule, apparently, is the Sardinian launedda and I’m not sure how that produces a sustained sound but I’m going to look it up as soon as we get back home to the internet!
Anyway, between only arriving at 2pm and the horrible weather on Saturday, we’d missed most of the trobada but there was going to be a performance by an Irish trio, in the town square at 11:45am, so we headed over to see if we could catch that. Because we got there early, we managed to get excellent seats at one of the outdoor tables of a café on the square. Despite occasional disappearances of the sun and some extremely ominous rolls of thunder, the weather behaved itself for the duration of the concert.
Anyway, they set up a little gazebo in the square in front of the town church, just in case:
The trio consisted of a lady called Emer Mayock (flute, uillean pipes) and two guys, Donnal Siggins (mandola) and Kevin O’Connor (fiddle).
Just for the record, I don't completely suck at photography; after a thousand tries, I realized that where I was sitting in relation to where Mr. O'Connor was sitting behind his mike made it impossible to get a clear face shot. So I got over it, took a few shots as best I could and settled back to enjoy his fiddle playing!They played a combination of traditional jigs and airs and also a number of pieces they’d composed themselves. It was really cool. At the end, they announced that they had some CDs to sell, so we went and bought one. Unfortunately, of the two CDs available, we later discovered that the one we chose doesn’t have any pipes on it, which was one of the main reasons I wanted a CD - aaarrrggggh! Never mind, it’s all great stuff.
I cannot stress enough how much I love the quantity and variety of free (or ridiculously cheap) artistic and cultural exhibitions, performances etc on this side of the world.
I would imagine that that trio spent the afternoon thinking “Thank goodness!” and “Phew!” and things of a similar nature because that afternoon, not only did the rain, thunder and lightning return, they bought calamarsa* (hail) with them! We’d driven into La Vella, to get a few groceries and the rain had eased a bit but by the time we were halfway back to La Massana, it had come back in full force and we were being pelted with little chunks of ice!
But we were still so amused about the 4L bottles of Scotch blend we’d just seen in the supermarket, for between 20 and 50€ (depending on the brand), that were able to be philosophical about it all. :)
Boy, I wish we could take more than 2L of alcohol back over the border, just on principle. 4L for as little as 20€, in some cases - that’s less than you’d pay for a 750ml in New Zealand! And we’re talking good brands here, not some obscure budget variety.
I mean, alcohol is cheaper everywhere here than in NZ, for the same old reason as ever, but here in Andorra it’s insane. Anyway, we’ll resist the draw of the unnecessarily large bottles. However, our little treat to ourselves is that we’ll buy a bottle of Tullamore Dew before we go, as it’s nice to have a bottle at home, if we feel like having a whiskey of an evening. It runs at 12,95€ for a 1L bottle. Can’t argue with that.
After dinner, we watched the DVD of Persepolis that our friends Maite and Lisset gave us for our anniversary. It’s a very very good film, with really interesting, expressive and skilful use of various animation ‘special effects’. I really enjoyed it and I have to say that I’m not a little proud of the fact that we watched it in the original French, with Catalan subtitles, and I kept up with it!
The only real downside to the day was that all the rain had provoked my asthma a bit and I had an uncomfortable time of it, trying to get to sleep.
Still, we’ve noticed a world of difference between the muggy, stifling, sweat drenched nights in Sitges and the warm but comfortable nights here - definitely the right time to get away up here, despite the rain!
* I’d read a warning about this, on the weather page of the paper, and asked Florenci if that meant we were in for a rain of squid (squid in Catalan is calamar - perfectly logical conclusion, I thought!) He laughed about it but, in the end, we decided that that sort of thing probably doesn’t happen very often, outside of Terry Pratchett’s head...
Stupid technology. >:(
Despite having set our alarms for a decadent 8am (;D), we were shocked awake at about 6:30am, by a boom of thunder so strong that it felt as though the house was collapsing.
Actually, technically speaking, I was shocked awake by the thunder. Florenci was catapulted into semi-consciousness by me grabbing him and yelling out in instinctive panic! Poor bugger.
He went back to sleep but it was close enough to our normal waking up time that I wasn’t able to, so I tossed and turned till 8am. Funnily enough though (and this just is how perverse the body and mind can be), when the alarms went off and Florenci got out of bed, I suddenly felt terribly tired and dragged my heels, so to speak, for a good fifteen minutes before joining him for breakfast!
This was the early morning view from out on the terrace. Lots of mist and fog, some of which looked like smoke. All a bit Lord of the Rings-ey at times, really!
Fog rolling over the hills and down into the valley.
Breakfast included the dinky little mini jams we’d bought at the supermarket the evening before, which made me inordinately happy (just for the record, my obsessive fascination with little dinky things is 100% my father's fault ;D)
They just look like normal jars, right?
But they're not! That's my chapstick next to them.
We also had coffee, as usual, though it required a bit more juggling around than our pot at home, as the one at the house there only made teeny teeny cups (reduced morning caffeine is not nearly as entertaining as reduced jams, for some reason... :D)
By the time we’d finished, the rain had stopped and the weather seemed to be clearing and we could even see the sun peeking through a few breaks in the clouds.
So we decided to go to Ordino, a nearby town, which the newspaper from the day before had advertised as hosting the annual Trobada Internacional de Buners, throughout the weekend.
According to the same article, a buner is someone qui toca la buna (who plays the buna) but what, we wondered, is a buna? Even Florenci, who is a native Catalan speaker, wasn’t sure. At first we thought it was a specific instrument but then, reading further, it began to seem more likely that it was either a category of instrument or a style of music.
Eventually, we found an article in that day’s paper which spoke of a variety of instruments that would be featuring in the festival, linked by one common factor; they’re all air-powered instruments that produce sustained sounds. So they’re basically all instruments with bags; the bagpipes, the Catalan sac de gemecs, the uillean pipes and the Galician gaita. The exception to the bag rule, apparently, is the Sardinian launedda and I’m not sure how that produces a sustained sound but I’m going to look it up as soon as we get back home to the internet!
Anyway, between only arriving at 2pm and the horrible weather on Saturday, we’d missed most of the trobada but there was going to be a performance by an Irish trio, in the town square at 11:45am, so we headed over to see if we could catch that. Because we got there early, we managed to get excellent seats at one of the outdoor tables of a café on the square. Despite occasional disappearances of the sun and some extremely ominous rolls of thunder, the weather behaved itself for the duration of the concert.
Anyway, they set up a little gazebo in the square in front of the town church, just in case:
The trio consisted of a lady called Emer Mayock (flute, uillean pipes) and two guys, Donnal Siggins (mandola) and Kevin O’Connor (fiddle).
Just for the record, I don't completely suck at photography; after a thousand tries, I realized that where I was sitting in relation to where Mr. O'Connor was sitting behind his mike made it impossible to get a clear face shot. So I got over it, took a few shots as best I could and settled back to enjoy his fiddle playing!They played a combination of traditional jigs and airs and also a number of pieces they’d composed themselves. It was really cool. At the end, they announced that they had some CDs to sell, so we went and bought one. Unfortunately, of the two CDs available, we later discovered that the one we chose doesn’t have any pipes on it, which was one of the main reasons I wanted a CD - aaarrrggggh! Never mind, it’s all great stuff.
I cannot stress enough how much I love the quantity and variety of free (or ridiculously cheap) artistic and cultural exhibitions, performances etc on this side of the world.
I would imagine that that trio spent the afternoon thinking “Thank goodness!” and “Phew!” and things of a similar nature because that afternoon, not only did the rain, thunder and lightning return, they bought calamarsa* (hail) with them! We’d driven into La Vella, to get a few groceries and the rain had eased a bit but by the time we were halfway back to La Massana, it had come back in full force and we were being pelted with little chunks of ice!
But we were still so amused about the 4L bottles of Scotch blend we’d just seen in the supermarket, for between 20 and 50€ (depending on the brand), that were able to be philosophical about it all. :)
Boy, I wish we could take more than 2L of alcohol back over the border, just on principle. 4L for as little as 20€, in some cases - that’s less than you’d pay for a 750ml in New Zealand! And we’re talking good brands here, not some obscure budget variety.
I mean, alcohol is cheaper everywhere here than in NZ, for the same old reason as ever, but here in Andorra it’s insane. Anyway, we’ll resist the draw of the unnecessarily large bottles. However, our little treat to ourselves is that we’ll buy a bottle of Tullamore Dew before we go, as it’s nice to have a bottle at home, if we feel like having a whiskey of an evening. It runs at 12,95€ for a 1L bottle. Can’t argue with that.
After dinner, we watched the DVD of Persepolis that our friends Maite and Lisset gave us for our anniversary. It’s a very very good film, with really interesting, expressive and skilful use of various animation ‘special effects’. I really enjoyed it and I have to say that I’m not a little proud of the fact that we watched it in the original French, with Catalan subtitles, and I kept up with it!
The only real downside to the day was that all the rain had provoked my asthma a bit and I had an uncomfortable time of it, trying to get to sleep.
Still, we’ve noticed a world of difference between the muggy, stifling, sweat drenched nights in Sitges and the warm but comfortable nights here - definitely the right time to get away up here, despite the rain!
* I’d read a warning about this, on the weather page of the paper, and asked Florenci if that meant we were in for a rain of squid (squid in Catalan is calamar - perfectly logical conclusion, I thought!) He laughed about it but, in the end, we decided that that sort of thing probably doesn’t happen very often, outside of Terry Pratchett’s head...