Boston - where even the ducks wear ice hockey jerseys

I think Boston may be in the ice hockey finals - judging by the statue in Boston Common with a hockey stick and jersey, the 'B' flags everywhere, man holes painted up with the B logo, and the 'make way for ducklings' statues in the Public Garden also dressed up for ice hockey. Hopefully they win/have won.

I got the ‘Silver Line' from the airport, which is a bus that is FREE (if you take it to the city from the airport) and switches to trolley-bus mode halfway through, and then goes UNDERGROUND in its own tunnel like it thinks it's a subway train. I got out at South Station, found my hostel and went out to find dinner for the evening (salad, after my poutine experience earlier in the day). On Saturday my plan was to find a transit card (they're called 'Charliecards' here after the song where Charlie has to go around the subway forever because he doesn't have the extra five cents needed to get off), do some writing in a nice cafe, then go on the free Harvard tour setting off from the hostel. I did find a nice cafe (with macarons and olde timey decor), but could not find anywhere to get a Charliecard, and then went the wrong way in Boston Common and had to run back to the hostel, only to find the tour had been cancelled... I decided to do my own tour, managing to get a Charliecard at South Station and get the subway to Harvard.

There I found the reason for the tour cancellation - Harvard was having a reunion, so only guests were allowed inside Harvard Yard, the most historic part of Harvard. I hugged the fence and listened to the audio guide on my phone, and did manage to get into the Science Centre where they have IBM Mark 1, one of the first programmable computers, as well as walked through the only Le Corbusier building in America. I had lunch in a former lunch room (now a cafe, but the original tiles are still visible with flags of dozens of different colleges around the walls) and then got the subway back to the city.

It had been a beautiful day, and I only had a t-shirt and a scarf. When I emerged from the station, fog had rolled in, chilling everything in a cold wet mist. I rearranged my scarf as best I could and went for the Boston Tea Party Museum, which is on a pier off a bridge over the river. There I signed up for the museum experience, which started in a meeting house where guides in costume gave us our roles then held a town meeting to discuss the tea ships that had been prevented from offloading (I had a speaking part, about the Stamp Tax). We boarded one of the ships, with feathers to 'disguise' us, and took turns throwing tea overboard before exploring the (quite small) ship that would have sailed across the Atlantic two centuries ago. Back inside, we heard more about the afterrmath of the Boston Tea Party, including the first battles of the revolutionary war, with pretty cool hologram special effects. Finally, I went upstairs to the tea rooms to sample the five different teas they'd thrown overboard that night, and got a hot tea to warm my hands on the walk back to the hostel.

On Sunday I set off to the North End to wander through the old streets and find the Boston Molasses Flood plaque near the waterfront. On the way, I saw a film crew in the Financial District, the Old South Meeting House where the actual town meeting to discuss the tea ships was held, and got somewhat lost. It was a little early in the day for much to be open, and I ended up at Boston Public Market where I got some of the best coffee I've had in North America and a 'Nana's Apple Pie' crepe, which was excellent.

I got the Green Line subway to the Boston Public Library for their free art and architecture tour, and found that the Green Line is actually an underground tram, which is quite hilarious when you're expecting a subway train like the one I'd got to Harvard. It turned out to be the oldest subway line, which makes some sense. The art and architecture tour was very good - the Boston Public Library has some pretty amazing mosaics and murals, as well as the barrel vaulted reading room. After that, I found the Boston Legal building and wandered around Back Bay, which is filled with rows of Very Nice Mansions. All the while, I'd been rereading Magnus Chase (which is partly set in Boston) and I figured out sort of where his uncle's house is supposed to be. Finally, I walked through the Public Garden, which is full of flowers and little meadows and park benches around a pond. I was watching a squirrel on a tree when a passersby pointed to one of the benches and told me it's the bench from Good Will Hunting - so of course I went back to the hostel and watched Good Will Hunting to round out my Boston experience.

Next: taking the train across the States!

Nightingale Floors, Cats and Excellent Books

My flat has a nightingale floor (there's an awesome book called Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. Go. Now. Read it.). Around the front door and entrance hall, the floor boards creak and sing, I imagine to warn of any intruders - the boards don't creak anywhere else in the house. I have made it my task to cross this nightingale floor without it squeaking. Haven't managed it yet. Possibly my flatmates think I'm a bit weird, treading back and forth, back and forth and grumbling when I still can't find a good non-creaky spot.

I will succeed!

I have made friends with a Siamese cat called Jazz, who looked pretty confused when I followed him down our driveway and along the road calling here kitty kitty, but came around the next day when I managed to pat him in the back garden. I still haven't witnessed any rain in Sydney, and it's great to be able to sit out in the garden in the warm sun and not get sunburnt (this is what I like about early spring - warm but not 8min sunburn warm).

On Friday I found out that Untold (sequel to Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan), a book I was resigned to waiting for until late September, had actually been released in my territory. Having little to no self-control, I immediately got it for my Kindle app, made dinner (some self-control!) and sat down to read it into the night. It was excellent! It's fun to see characters and their relationships change over time, especially when they go the way you want them to (mostly). I knew there would be some Terrible things happening (that's what makes a good book), but those events were balanced out nicely by the good things. I can't really tell you anything about the plot because it's a sequel, but the first one is about an intrepid girl reporter in a sleepy village in England, who happens to have an ever-present imaginary friend and a long-suffering best friend who hates people in general and only wants to take naps. Good stuff, in other words.

I should probably get back to looking for jobs and studying (I'm enjoying being back studying. Learning things is good!). Have a good week!

Book #21: Brazil - The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Round the World Wednesday! Is it still Wednesday anywhere in the world? No? Oh well. Today is Honorary Wednesday.

The Summer Prince is another of those books that evokes a place so viscerally that you think I want to go there, even if the 'there' is a few hundred years in the future, a parallel world or some undefined historical time. So, I'd like to go to Brazil now. I want to see Palmares Três, the jewel on the bay, the pyramid city of lights. Though possibly not with the bloodshed that goes with it.

The book is set in Brazil at least four hundred years in the future, where everything is life and death, love and hate, moving forward and holding back. The main character, June, is a young artist in a city ruled by grande women, where anyone below the age of thirty is not taken seriously. Every five years, the populace elects a king, and after a year of his rule, he chooses the next queen and is sacrificed. The system is quite logical, really - someone who is about to die is less likely to be swayed by politics.

It's an election year, but not just any election year. This year the king will be a waka, under thirty, and his sacrifice will serve only to continue the reign of the incumbent queen. He will have no true power to choose another queen, but for a year he will be the most priveleged of the youth of Palmares Três.

June votes for Enki, and is ecstatic when he wins. She's already half in love with him, but Enki falls in love with her best friend Gil and she's not quite sure where she stands. She throws herself into making Art, recognising that Enki is as much an artist as she with the way he moves and influences the crowds. They become collaborators on sensational projects, and Art is at its best when it creates a sensation. Or a revolution.

Enki is hurtling headlong towards death, but he is the most vital character in all senses of the word. He helps June understand what's important, and the reader along with her.

Palmares Três is most desperately, incredibly alive, with its dancing wakas and ritual sacrifice. I love the way Johnson communicates that, with the blocos and the graffiti and the secret ninja art projects. I also love the way she weaves Portuguese into the text, making it clear that English is a foreign language to her characters.


Any books you know and love that are set in Brazil?

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival

...and on that Friday, the heavens opened and the rain fell in great fat splotches and ran in rivers through the streets, and umbrellas were nothing against the onslaught, and Kathmandu jackets were soaked and clingy and hair plastered wetly against the face...

The rain wasn't quite that bad, but it was definitely a relief to get inside and walk around the Aotea Centre in the dry. My Friend Who Rocks and I decided to go early and see Words Out Loud (mostly because we wanted to be sure of getting a seat for the following YA writers reading event), but really enjoyed the poets performing their visceral, thought-provoking works. There's something incredibly engaging about the spoken word, and ideas coming straight for you from the mouths of passionate speakers (Courtney Meredith, Miles Merrill, Ken Arkind and Carrie Rudzinski).

After we'd been blown away by poetry, we were treated to readings by Paula Morris, Kate de Goldi, Libba Bray and Patrick Ness. Paula Morris read some very creepy scenes from her ghost books Ruined and Dark Souls, set in New Orleans and York. Kate de Goldi read a few passages from her ACB of Honora Lee and had everyone giggling, and then Libba Bray demonstrated her amazing ability at accents and voices with Beauty Queens. Lastly, Patrick Ness read the first chapter or two of a very new book that didn't even have proofs yet, and left everyone hanging, knowing we can't find out what will happen until the book's published.

And then it was back out into the rain, which was more drippy than pouring by then.

Amsterdam Day 3: Anne Frank Huis

On the first day of 2013, we slept in a bit, but not too much because we wanted to beat the crowds at the Anne Frank Huis which opened at midday. Unfortunately many other people had the same idea, and so we spent an hour and a half waiting in the cold to get in, comparing the purpling of our fingers and staring up at the clearing sky. Why could it be dry today, and not last night?

The wait was worth it, though. We thought they were only letting in groups of twenty or so at a time (hence the long line) but really the line moved slowly because the house was absolutely full of people. Despite this, the atmosphere of the place was amazing - very quiet, with everyone looking at the stories and relics of the secret annexe's inhabitants and being respectful.

The house was Anne's father's office and warehouse, and Anne and seven other people shared a few rooms at the back of the building for two years until they were betrayed by an anonymous tip and sent to concentration camps. Of the eight, only Anne's father survived the war, and went on to publish Anne's diary.

You start out in the front rooms, where the warehouse and offices were in Anne's time. Only the office workers knew about the annexe's inhabitants, and Anne, her family and the others had to be careful the warehouse workers didn't hear them. There are photos of the office staff and Anne standing in these same rooms, and it's surreal to think of them there. You climb some very steep stairs and after a few more rooms, you climb behind the bookcase and enter the annexe.

First is the room in which Anne's parents and sister slept, with curtains shut and light dim. The rooms are actually larger than what I'd thought, but if you consider eight people living here for two years in very little light without going out, and without being able to make noise for fear of discovery, it was probably incredibly claustrophobic. Next is Anne's narrow room that she shared with one of the other inhabitants, still with her pictures of film stars and art pasted on the walls, and then the washroom with its basin and not much else. The stairs to the upper floor are even steeper - they take about as much floor space across their rise as they do across their width - but above is the main living room where two more people slept at night, and then Peter's small room with its ladder up to the attic and the window where Anne and Peter used to look out at the world.

It's so strange to think of everything that went on in these rooms, both the day-to-day living and the final day when the people were taken away. The rest of the museum shows pictures of Anne at all ages until 13, when the last photograph of her was taken. It seems incredibly sad that we can read her words but not know what she looked like in those last years, and that there is a 'last photo' of her that shows her at such a young age. Another section talks about discrimination, and trying to figure out the right thing in a world that has so many different ways to define 'right' and 'wrong'. The Nazis thought what they were doing was right. Many people today who do terrible things think the same.

By the time we left the museum it was 3.30 and we needed food. TOWSR wanted more chips (a dependable gluten-free lunch) so we went to Febo and I tried out the hamburger vending machines. The burger was actually pretty good - I guess they replace them lots and they spend less time in there than they might do in McDonalds warmers. Next we tried to find chocolate, and despaired of ever finding a proper supermarket (where do Amsterdammers buy their food from? Do they eat out every night? We are unsure). And lastly, back to the hostel to warm up...

 

Amsterdam Day 2: Library, Begijnhof, Schuttersgalerij and 2013

Last day of the year!

The hostel has a cat, and I think it likes me. It was asleep outside our room when I left for breakfast this morning, and it only bit me once when I tried to pat it. And then it followed me down to breakfast!

We tried for the Anne Frank Huis this morning, but the line looked about an hour and a half long so we went to our next stop: Amsterdam public library.

This is an awesome building, seven floors worth with beautiful views out over the city and cool bookcases. The children's section has lots of curving circular bookcases, one that has a second level that you can climb up to via a spiral staircase, and a giant polar bear. All libraries should be like this. We had some frites for lunch, and then wandered through the city and looked at the shops and the tulip stalls and found a post office. There's an amazing bookshop called the American bookshop that winds up for three floors, and just behind it is the Begijnhof, a courtyard surrounded by pretty buildings that was once a home for Beguin nuns, who wanted to live a nun's life without taking the vows.

The Amsterdam museum is right next door, and has a free gallery with huge paintings and photographs and an amazing carpet along the floor representing all the different nationalities that live in Amsterdam. I found the New Zealand square and enjoyed the paintings of guardsmen and orphanage women, and the gigantic 17th century wooden statue of Goliath.

After that it was back to the hostel for dinner, and to wait for the New Year celebrations to start. We'd been hearing explosions all day, and it turned out that these were small sort-of-hand-held fireworks that people kept letting off in the street. Lots of car alarms accompany the bangs and crackles.

It began to rain about nine o'clock, and we weren't sure if the promised street parties were going to happen. We stayed in the hostel's bar until about 11.15, then wrapped up and umbrelled up and forced ourselves out into the windy wet street (have I mentioned Amsterdam is very windy? It's like being back in Wellington). We'd ended up in a group of New Zealanders and one Nederlander (who had party horns, which were really useful) and found a spot beside the fairy-light bedecked outdoor ice rink under some trees. Fireworks were going off everywhere, including in the road in front of us, and the path to our destination Liedseplein turned out to be much like an obstacle course, dodging people, fireworks, broken glass, bikes and large puddles as well as struggling to keep the umbrella up and away from people's eyes.

By midnight we were soaked and freezing, but everyone was jumping around and whooping and wishing Happy New Year and throwing still more fireworks around. With the number of bangs and the strength of them (as well as the sirens from ambulances and police) we might have been in a war zone. We wandered around for a while enjoying the festivities, then went back to our hostel for warmth and music and dancing.

Happy New Year to everyone! Hope it brings excellent things :)

 

St Johann im Pongau: Days 3 and 4

We've been having a nice relaxing week in our little Alpine town, the One Who Speaks Russian and I. The hotel has a spa and a swimming pool, and there is a supermarket across the road with a good supply of chocolate. We have books (lots of books) and a few movies, and a beautiful view of snowy mountains out the sliding door. Also, have I mentioned,

IT IS COLD?

It's not a wet cold like you get in London. This is a crisp cold, hovering around minus ten Celsius and diving to minus eighteen at dawn, before the sun has had a chance to warm everything up again. On Tuesday we went out to find the McDonalds (wifi), and had a bit of an adventure trying to find a way across town and the river that was open to pedestrians. They only clear some of the footpaths of snow, and I'm sure in some places the roads are supposed to be higher speed so don't actually have footpaths, but eventually we saw the sign and slogged towards it through pristine white snow or grey mush, depending on whether we were following an actual path or not. The snow in some places is as deep as my knee.

Our internet at the hotel came with a five hour limit on it, so it was nice to be able to sit and check emails and things without worrying about the time. As we were walking back up the hill, a little old lady called us back and insisted on giving us lollies, which was very nice of her. When we got back to the hotel we sat in the spa for a while, and then retreated to our room for dinner.

Our little bar fridge doesn't have quite enough room for my sparkly red bowl of salad, but I've found a better solution: leave it just outside the sliding door in the day time, and it's perfectly crisp in the evening - not actually frozen. So I've been calling the balcony the fridge.

On Wednesday I spent most of the day determined to finish a book, and went out to see the local church just after the sun had dropped behind the mountains. The slopes were luminous, and the Christmas lights strung all around town were sparkling in the dusk. I didn't actually get in to see the church, but I had a nice walk anyway, taking pictures and watching the chairlift take people up the mountain. TOWSR and I had considered skiing, but neither of us has had much practice, and thought the expense and likelihood of broken bones probably wasn't worth it. Especially as my foot has only just healed. I'm keen to try skating on Friday, though, if the rink is open...

 

All hail the Paralympics! And Wicked!

Hello again! I trust you've all finished reading my holiday blog posts and are ready for some new ones? I continue to be slack after holidays - must be something about trying to write every little detail of a week and still actually holiday-make at the same time. Now I will attempt to write the details of two weeks into this post. Wish me luck.

Rundown of the post: Paralympic Opening Ceremony, Paralympic Swimming, Wickedness, Paralympic Athletics.

There looks to be a theme going on here.

The Paralympics opened on a clear Wednesday night in London, under a buttery gibbous moon. I hadn't realised that it clashed with my writing meeting on Wednesdays, but that only meant I was still in town at 8.30 for the start of the ceremony. I went down to Trafalgar Square with another writer, to sit in the crowd and watch the big screens. The square was filled with people sitting on the concrete, on the steps, and standing to the sides (you got shouted at if you stood in the middle and blocked the view from the stairs).

They started the count-down. Everyone yelled and cheered along with the screen. And then the Paralympics had officially started!

There was Ian McKellen reading from The Tempest, and many people, abled and disabled, who descended from the sky on wires and flew around the stadium. There were eyelash things that were like bendy poles with people tied on top and bouncing around, and dancing with umbrellas, and drums. Lots and lots of drums.

After the first part of the show, the athletes began to come out. I wished for the second time that New Zealand had officially changed its name to Aotearoa. It was getting late. I decided to stay until New Zealand appeared and then go and watch the rest at home, much closer to bed than Trafalgar Square and much warmer too.

I joined the Kiwi cheering, then ran for the Trafalgar Square Underground entrance (it was open! This is the first time I have seen it open! It's always been under refurbishment). I got home just as the speeches were finishing, and was able to watch the rest on the sofa with a blanket with my flatmates. Good thing, too, because it didn't finished until half past midnight.

I had tickets on Sunday night to the swimming finals, right in the Olympic Park. This was the first time I'd been to the Park, and I coasted along with the crowd from the tube station, past the giant mall and around to one of the main entrances. One of the games-makers was sitting on a high chair with a megaphone at the corner of the roadway, and made the observation that, if it were dark, it would be like the zombie apocalypse, with so many people shuffling towards him. Through the security (I forgot about that, and had worn lots of jewellery I had to take off) and into the Park.

I'd planned to do a quick walk around before my session, but a look at the signs told me that wasn't going to be possible. It was half an hour's walk to the other end of the park. That's how big it is. Instead I did a quick running-tour of the area between the stadium and the aquatic centre and joined the queue to get in.

My seat was up in one of the wings of the pool, so that I couldn't actually see the seats on the other side because the roof of the pool was in the way. It's a pretty good design, really - the two wings are temporary and will come down when there isn't a demand for a swimming pool with thousands upon thousands of spectator seats. I had a good view of the pool and the entrance for the athletes, though, which was great. It's very strange to see something so many times on a television screen and then to actually be there in person.

The evening was entirely finals, which was very exciting. The first four races all broke world records. I think the total for the night was eight world records and ten Paralympic records. The crowd was amazing, cheering and cheering and going crazy whenever a GB athlete appeared. For future reference, I think the best crowds are to be found in events with a finish line, because you can see in real time exactly what's happening. By the end of the night I was hoarse, but had seen a gold medal from Cameron Leslie and a silver from Mary Fisher. Awesome.

On Monday the One Who Speaks Russian arrived, tired but cheerful after a forty hour journey from New Zealand. I stocked her with supplies of chips and we started the two hour journey across London to my house (London is big).

On Tuesday we went to Wicked, which was absolutely incredible. It is a thought-provoking musical, with themes of prejudice and preconceptions and talking animals. I love the way it interweaves the story of The Wizard of Oz, so that you make connections every so often about characters' fates. The sets included giant cogged screens and a huge time dragon looming over the stage, the costumes reminded us of The Hunger Games (though of course Wicked came first) and the music and lyrics were great - especially the song entitled ’Loathing, Unadulterated Loathing'. I liked the ending too, more than I had in the book.

Thursday was our Paralympics day. We took supplies of chocolate cake, raspberries, popcorn and dinosaur jellies and sat in the stadium, another case of I-am-sitting-in-the-television-ness. The sun was blazing hot (The One Who Speaks Russian got amazing weather while she was here) and the crowds were huge. The most impressive event of the day was the T11 triple jump final for blind athletes. Imagine running at full tilt, then hop-skip-jumping as far as you can without being able to see. The crowd of eighty thousand had to be silent while the athletes completed their jumps, because they ran towards the sound of their coach clapping at the jumping line or the sandpit. The eventual silver-medallist had a show with velcro track pants, whipping them away like a matador as the crowd shouted OLĖ!

A few jumps went awry (an official by the track had to topple backwards twice to get out of the way) but mostly they were pretty spot on. There was also wheelchair racing, restricted sight racing, discus and shotput finals, and general running races. It was a great morning.

Edinburgh Day 5: Famous Cafés, the Castle, Ancient Civilisations, Translation Duel and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo

Wow I stuffed a lot into yesterday.

I started with breakfast (coffee and build-your-own banana and syrup pancakes) at the Elephant House, where JK Rowling did a lot of her writing for Harry Potter. I did some writing too. It's a nice place, with soft jazzy music and huge windows and wooden chairs and tables with a history. I'm actually there again now as I write the next day. What? I enjoyed my pancakes.

Next I met some people at the Castle, and we wandered through looking at the cannon and the dog cemetery (it has headstones for the dogs) and hearing about the different layers of the castle and the sieges over the ages. The castle isn't the kind of singular building that's implied by the name - it's many, many buildings, with barracks and military buildings and chapels and restaurants (former cart buildings) and war memorials and shops and museums and the main royal buildings including the Great Hall and the room in which Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to James I/VI of England/Scotland. We filed past the Scottish crown jewels, which were hidden in St David's Tower during the War, and saw a musketeering display in the Great Hall, where two costumed musketeers demonstrated how long it might take to prepare a musket (a lot longer than you might think, watching musketeer movies).

At one o'clock they let off a cannon from the castle ramparts, so we joined the crowd to watch. A female soldier marched out and stood incredibly still as everyone jostled for position with their tartan souvenir hats. We waited. And waited. I was watching the soldier to be prepared for the noise when she triggered the cannon, but she never moved! There was a huge bang and about half the crowd screamed. I don't think I was among them.

After inspecting the whisky boutique, I wandered through a few creepy rooms in St. David's tower and realised I had twenty minutes to get down to Charlotte Square for my Book Festival lecture about the anthropology of the New World and the Old World by Peter Watson. It was very interesting, looking at how the natural resources and atmospheric tendencies of each group of continents could have affected the development of civilisations. It made me think a lot about how you could set up the environment of a fictional world to affect the culture - for example, the New World only had three species of domesticable animal, none of which could be ridden for any length of time. Not every world has to have horses.

(One of the things I find difficult when writing about my own imaginary world is remembering that most forests in the world have animals other than birds and insects in them. I'm too used to the New Zealand bush. The lecture made me think: maybe I don't have to have large animals in my world. But then I guess I want horses, and if you have horses it's likely that you have a few related animals as well. Sigh.)

I had to charge my dead camera and find some internet, so I gave in and went back to the hostel. You would not believe how difficult it is to find wifi Internet in Edinburgh. Lots of places say they have it, but don't. In other places I'd get on and nothing would load (that may have been due to my iPad playing up, I'm not sure) and in other places, including my hostel, you had to pay. The book festival did have free wifi in its garden, but that was mostly a refuse-to-load situation.

So back to the story! I had another talk at the book festival that evening, a translation duel between two English translators from the French. They'd translated the same passage from the French and spent the hour discussing why they'd chosen which word, and all the things you have to take into consideration when translating: tone, voice, meaning, jokes which may or may not be translatable... The chair warned us that they'd spent ten minutes discussing the placement of a single comma in the Spanish duel the night before, and we should get out while we could. Translating is really a lot more complicated than it seems.

And then, the last event of the day: the Edinburgh Military Tattoo!

I joined the queue on the Royal Mile to have my bag searched (didn't have a bag, so straight through :D) and climbed the cobbles up to the Esplanade. Every year they construct huge temporary stands around the Esplanade that cantilever out into space (didn't really think about it too much...) just for the Tattoo. I walked in under the end stand and saw the castle lit with dancing flames in braziers around the walls. It wasn't yet dark, but the effect was still magical and got even more so as the dusk came on.

I found my seat and sat watching some of the performers get their photos taken in front of the castle. The announcer welcomed everybody from everywhere and got everyone to sing happy birthday to everyone whose birthday it was. At nine o'clock an airforce jet flew over and the Tattoo began.

Kilted men (and probably women) marched out of the castle, across the drawbridge and onto the Esplanade. They kept coming, and coming, blowing their bagpipes and drumming and marching all in step. I counted seventeen rows of thirteen and tried to remember my times-tables as they marched up and down, moving in and out of one another and making impressive patterns. I really like bagpipes, and there's nothing like a full 221 people with bagpipes and drums. And this group was only the kilted population of the Tattoo - there were many more unkilted performers to come later.

My favourite parts of the Tattoo were the first bit with all the bagpipes, the Swiss Top Secret band and the Swedish contingent. The Top Secret band only had drums, but they were absolutely mesmerising. Their specialty was mexican-wave style manoeuvres, where they would all stop drumming or turn or start drumming very quickly one after another.

The Swedish contingent, all of whom were doing their military service and had only been in the military for a year, were very good at marching around in patterns and hoisting their rifles in time to music. At one point one of the soldiers dropped his rifle and I felt quite sorry for him - it was just lying there on the ground and he was doing all the manoeuvres with an air rifle (like an air guitar. Not an actual air rifle). Then the rest of the soldiers all fired their guns, and I realised the gun on the ground was loaded! Not with an actual bullet, of course, but a blank might still do some damage if you stepped on the gun. After that I was extremely impressed with how the soldiers managed to march back and forth over the top of the gun without touching it.

The night ended with fireworks and Auld Lang Syne, and then it took twenty minutes to get out of the stands. It was past eleven p.m. by now, but the streets were as full of people as if it were daylight. This happens every night, pretty much, in August - the jet flyover, the fireworks, and the huge crowds. I wonder what the locals think...

 

Edinburgh Day 4: Walking Tour, Censorship, Beatboxing and Ghosts

(I am writing this in The Elephant House! You know, the JK Rowling cafe! And feeling slightly self-conscious, writing... Out the window you can see the castle on its cliffs and a graveyard and an old school. Hmmm...)

I never really understand what happens to the morning. I wander around, and then suddenly it's time to go to something and it's nearly the afternoon. Yesterday I went to look at the Half Price Hut, where you get Fringe tickets for half-price, got myself a thick magazine book with 375 pages that lists all the Fringe shows (there are that many), and went up to the Royal Mile for a walking tour at 11am.

The walking tour was pretty good, going around a few closes on the Mile and explaining such things as punishment for small crimes in the middle ages (nailing your ear to a post), gardyloo (watch out, there's nasty stuff a-coming out the window) and the national animal of Scotland (a unicorn. No one mentioned you were allowed mythical creatures!). Some of these stories I'd heard before, but it was much more real when you could look up at the windows and stare at the ear-post and think that's where they did that.

We also walked through Greyfriar's Graveyard with the memorial to Greyfriar's Bobby (little dog who never left his master's side) and heard about the names on gravestones that appear in Harry Potter. I went back later and found McGonnagal, Black and Thomas Riddell, but couldn't find Crookshanks.

At 3pm I had a talk about censorship at the Book Festival. It was incredibly interesting, with Chika Unigwe as the chair and Patrick Ness as the keynote speaker talking about how, today in a Western society, we more often self-censor than are externally censored. He put this down to fear of consequences and offending people, but also talked about freedom of speech and the courage to say something that might offend someone, but that needs to be said.

Then the floor was opened up to discussion from the audience, at least half of whom were authors at the Edinburgh Writer's Conference. People kept standing up and introducing themselves as China Miéville or Melvin Burgess (well, only those two did. No impersonators) and saying what they thought. It was a bit disjointed at times, with so many people wanting to air their views and not really reply to the previous question, but I think the general idea that came out of it was that people have the right not to be punished for saying stuff, but that everyone should always be arguing about what you should say. Another interesting point was that the backlash against political-correctness is often a way for prejudice and 'repugnant' views to sneak back in.

I hadn't realised that the event would last two hours, so by the time it was finished I had fifteen minutes to get right across town. Google told me it would take twenty-four minutes. I ran all the way, round the bottom of the castle cliffs and up along to my first Fringe show: the Vocal Orchestra.

I was a bit late, but they let me in anyway. The Vocal Orchestra are beatboxers and singers - beatboxing is where you make noises into a microphone that sound like music or drums (for those who've never come across it). If it's really good, it can sound almost exactly the same as the original music, but it's all done with voice.

The Vocal Orchestra are really good.

Among other things, they did Teardrop by Massive Attack, got stuck in a time machine and came out in 1723 (Vivaldi), had duels both musical and physical, and used the audience as an instrument (we had to sing notes according to our section). It was great.

I stopped back at the hostel to drop my bag off, and went to meet the ghost tour on the Royal Mile. We heard about the curse of the North Bridge, went up to Calton Hill where witches meet in front of the unfinished Parthenon, wandered through a graveyard with a very scary headstone (weathered to look like someone screaming) and took lots of photos to examine for supernatural apparitions. I got lots of 'orbs', but that was most likely dust caught by the flash. It's amazing how wandering around a graveyard in the dark can make you jump at everything.

 

Edinburgh Day 2: The Book Festival

My first event this morning was a talk with Garth Nix, but I wasn't quite sure where it was. My plan was to go to a coffee shop and get some wifi (the hostel only has it in certain places, and you have to pay for it) but then I took too long getting ready and ended up using the very restricted Internet on my phone and staring at a street map. Charlotte Square gardens is where the Edinburgh International Book Festival is held, and it's at the end of George Street, the main street in the New Town.

The New Town has a very regular layout, with statues in the centres of the main intersections and beautiful tall Georgian buildings lining the wide streets. I found Charlotte Square and wandered through the festival foyer into the main lawn with its statue and deck chairs, and the tent venues and temporary bookshops around the outside.

Garth Nix spent the first few minutes telling us that, yes, Garth Nix is his real name, showed us all his book covers and talked about the importance of persistence, or 'being too dumb to give up'. He's currently writing a prequel to the Old Kingdom series called Clariel, which will be out next year. He talked about taking ideas and things that resonate, and making good stories out of them, and how Hadrian's Wall had directly inspired the Wall of the Old Kingdom - he saw a photograph with snow on one side of the wall and sun on the other and it started him thinking... He's a very good speaker, although he does like shaggy dog stories.

I met up with a lovely lady for lunch and we had baked potato and salad in the crypt of a church by the botanical gardens, then wandered around the flea market in Grassmarket, looking at all the antiques and bric-a-brac. My next talk was with SD Crockett and Caroline Green at 5, so we arrived back in Charlotte Square for that and had an icecream before going in.

The talk was on dystopias and their popularity today and in the past, as well as their impact on the world. Crockett has written After the Snow, about a boy in a future ice-age UK, and Green's book is Cracks, set in a dystopian society with mind reading devices and a pretty messed-up ecological system. Many dystopias share the idea of a central lie, making the supposed utopia into a dystopia, and have vibrant settings with huge conflict, which is maybe what makes them so popular. They said it would be nice if dystopian books had an impact on the world through making people think, and this has probably already happened to some extent with some books.

My last talk of the evening was Alain de Botton, in a packed main theatre. He was talking about his book 'Religion for Atheists', where he says that the secular world could learn a lot from the world's religions, and rejected 'the idea coming out of North Oxford' that religion as a whole is a terrible idea and should be scrapped. It was very interesting, and he made some good points including the secular world's emphasis on individuality and cool, dry education and the religious world's emphasis on oratory, community and beauty intertwined with life.

The sun was going down as I walked back to the hostel, casting beautiful silhouettes of the statues along George Street.

 

Edinburgh Day 2: The Book Festival

My first event this morning was a talk with Garth Nix, but I wasn't quite sure where it was. My plan was to go to a coffee shop and get some wifi (the hostel only has it in certain places, and you have to pay for it) but then I took too long getting ready and ended up using the very restricted Internet on my phone and staring at a street map. Charlotte Square gardens is where the Edinburgh International Book Festival is held, and it's at the end of George Street, the main street in the New Town.

The New Town has a very regular layout, with statues in the centres of the main intersections and beautiful tall Georgian buildings lining the wide streets. I found Charlotte Square and wandered through the festival foyer into the main lawn with its statue and deck chairs, and the tent venues and temporary bookshops around the outside.

Garth Nix spent the first few minutes telling us that, yes, Garth Nix is his real name, showed us all his book covers and talked about the importance of persistence, or 'being too dumb to give up'. He's currently writing a prequel to the Old Kingdom series called Clariel, which will be out next year. He talked about taking ideas and things that resonate, and making good stories out of them, and how Hadrian's Wall had directly inspired the Wall of the Old Kingdom - he saw a photograph with snow on one side of the wall and sun on the other and it started him thinking... He's a very good speaker, although he does like shaggy dog stories.

I met up with a lovely lady for lunch and we had baked potato and salad in the crypt of a church by the botanical gardens, then wandered around the flea market in Grassmarket, looking at all the antiques and bric-a-brac. My next talk was with SD Crockett and Caroline Green at 5, so we arrived back in Charlotte Square for that and had an icecream before going in.

The talk was on dystopias and their popularity today and in the past, as well as their impact on the world. Crockett has written After the Snow, about a boy in a future ice-age UK, and Green's book is Cracks, set in a dystopian society with mind reading devices and a pretty messed-up ecological system. Many dystopias share the idea of a central lie, making the supposed utopia into a dystopia, and have vibrant settings with huge conflict, which is maybe what makes them so popular. They said it would be nice if dystopian books had an impact on the world through making people think, and this has probably already happened to some extent with some books.

My last talk of the evening was Alain de Botton, in a packed main theatre. He was talking about his book 'Religion for Atheists', where he says that the secular world could learn a lot from the world's religions, and rejected 'the idea coming out of North Oxford' that religion as a whole is a terrible idea and should be scrapped. It was very interesting, and he made some good points including the secular world's emphasis on individuality and cool, dry education and the religious world's emphasis on oratory, community and beauty intertwined with life.

The sun was going down as I walked back to the hostel, casting beautiful silhouettes of the statues along George Street.

 

Margaret Mahy, the Olympic Torch and Horsies

This will be a double-topic post, catching up from the one I meant to do in the weekend but never really got around to.

I was very sad to hear of Margaret Mahy's death earlier in the week. My copy of A Lion in the Meadow has a very good picture of a lion drawn in by the lady herself, and I remember standing before the Wellington Library steps as a small child, entranced by her rainbow wig as she read aloud. I loved her picture books, especially Seventeen Kings and Forty-Two Elephants, and her books for older readers of which my favourite is Alchemy.

I keep hearing about how much people love The Changeover, and wondering whether I've read it or not - I thought I had, but maybe not. I must investigate further. I think I might have to have a go at reading all her books... And watching Maddigan's Quest and Kaitangata Twitch, which I never managed to catch for some reason. She will be missed! If you've never read any Margaret Mahy, go and find some now. It should be pretty easy in New Zealand, but you might have to search a bit elsewhere. She was incredibly prolific, so there should be something for everyone :)

Last Saturday saw the Olympic Torch relay come near me, so I woke up early and stared at the live video of the torch making its way through Greenwich, aghast at all the people who'd got up before seven on a Saturday to see it go past. Their commitment inspired me in the end and I dragged myself out of bed and out the door.

I wasn't quite sure where to go to see the torch, so I just ended up walking until I found the route and then walking a bit further until it seemed like I had a good spot. There weren't too many people at first, but there were quite a few kids waving torches they'd made themselves and lots of police stationed or coming past. My spot was right outside the entrance to the Royal Artillery Barracks, and I didn't realise how good this was until the horses appeared.

Horses! A huge procession of them, pulling carts with guns on them! Horsies with guns! And soldiers all dressed up in red uniforms! The procession strung out along the yard and the horses stamped and fidgeted a bit as we waited in the early morning sun for the torch.

First past were the sponsors, singing and dancing and giving out free drums and the smallest coke bottles I've ever seen (250mL). That was amusing, and I tried to decide how I feel about sponsorship. On the one hand, I think it's slightly evil that these huge conglomerates get to brainwash people all along the way, but on the other hand, they're running a business and they are making the Olympics happen, and I appreciate that. After the sponsors came the traffic jam of normal people who were just trying to get around on a Saturday morning. After that was a bit more security, and then the runner with the flame and his bodyguards!

Everyone cheered and waved flags and snapped away with cameras, and then ran to follow as he went past. There was a changeover right outside the Royal Artillery gates, with lots of good photo opportunities while they passed the flame from one torch to the next. The torches are very sparkly.

The next runner set off, and the Horsies with guns followed dutifully behind, along with about half the people who'd been watching (including me). It was a great atmosphere, and I can't wait for the opening ceremony which I'm sure will be even better.

Gridlock London, Spider-man and Comic Books

I know, I know, I haven't done a blog post in a while now. I have been trying to figure out the best way to get to work when they close half of a major tunnel for the Olympics and it backs up the traffic so that my bus takes twice as long to get to the tube station. The transport for London people were kind of helpful - they've supplied us with walking maps of the area - but even with the traffic I think walking would take longer than the bus. I could take the train and change to the tube at London Bridge, but London Bridge is pretty much my most hated train station and they've made it even worse at the moment by closing off the direct route from train to tube. Now you have to go out onto the street, around, and back into the station if you want to get on the Underground.

Ha. Rant over.

Another reason I may not have posted recently is that I have been watching Spider-man. I really like this movie. I have seen it in 3D, 3D-moving seats, and er, twice in 2D. It's free, okay?

I get like this with some things. You may remember my Merlin posts from last year. So I've been trying to figure out what I like about it. Secret identity? Check. Good acting? Check. Minimal plot holes? I think I've found them all now, and they don't bother me too much. I prefer the oh-we-can't-be-together ending in this version much more than the Tobey Maguire ending, which I thought was a bit unbelievable and faintly annoying (oh, I love you so much I'm going to stay away from you out of the amazing moral awesomeness of my heart. Come on. It's cliché). I also liked that Peter Parker wasn't that stereotypical geeky guy who always gets picked on - the character development was great. You can really see that pre-spider bite Peter could become Spider-man.

My slight obsession with the movie got me thinking about comic books, and why I love comic-book style stories but not comic books. Or manga or graphic novels. I feel I should like them. I like art, and I like stories. Graphic novels have both. So why can't I get into them?

Maybe it's because I feel I have to study the pictures in depth and really appreciate them and so I never get into the flow of things. Maybe I miss the description of books, and my brain isn't satisfied with pictures (though I did love the Hugo Cabret book, which is half in words and half in pictures). Whatever the reason, my brain just doesn't click with them. It's the same with video games. I like driving games and the flying bits in Spyro and Harry Potter, but anything else and I get bored.

I guess lots of people can't get into books the same way I can't get into graphic novels.

Oh, and by the way, if you can get to watch Spider-man with moving seats, do it. It's awesome. I thought it would be a bit distracting, but I missed it when I watched it again without the seats. I kept expecting to feel the explosions or rock back when Spider-man's swinging, and was disappointed when it didn't happen.

Is there a particular medium you get bored with?

 

A week of books and movies

Hello all! I thought you might like a bit of time to read all the Turkey posts, but I'm back now! I've been having an entertainment-filled week, so I will report on that.

First, Rock of Ages. I went in with low expectations due to reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but it was amazing. I felt like dancing out of my seat but thought it might annoy the people behind me, and also considered hands-above-the-head clapping, but dismissed it for the same reason. My flatmates also liked it, and we shared our guilt over the fact that none of us have been to the stage show, which is probably better and has been showing in the West End for a while (this is a common conversation, also undertaken after seeing War Horse and Mamma Mia). The story of Rock of Ages was perhaps a little well-worn, but it's a feel-good musical, people, and the songs were pretty awesome. And the dancing. Especially loved the Alec Baldwin/Russell Brand duet.

Next up was Snow White and the Huntsman, which I enjoyed though found myself distracted by outside thoughts every so often and had to remind myself to focus-on-movie. It's a very pretty movie, though I thought the Snow-White-as-chosen-one thing was a bit random. Was this because she's not so much a chosen one in the original story, or some other reason? Do I just have a thing against chosen ones? I like Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker. Is it a boy/girl thing? I hope not. I get the feeling the chosen-one stuff was weighted more towards the end and not introduced properly, though that might just be because I didn't notice it towards the beginning. Anyway, I didn't mind too much, and enjoyed the motion-master effects of the seats in front of me, especially the explosions (they have motion-master seats in my local theatre!).

Final movie of the weekend was Men in Black 3, which I loved. They have so many little by-the-by jokes in their world building so you're laughing much of the way through, and then there's a twist at the end that I thought was really well-done but won't say anything about. Definitely recommended.

And in books! I finished Garth Nix's A Confusion of Princes, which was hilarious and addictive. I loved the voice of the main character, and the fact that the MC is already guaranteed (and feels entitled to) an extraordinary destiny rather than the normal-character-finding-extraordinary-destiny trope that you see a lot.

I think I am using too-many-dashes.

Moving on to the next book (yes I have seen/read this many things this week. I am catching up on my entertainment): Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star. This is a Jack the Ripper ghost story set in modern London, and seriously freaked me out, especially as the next door neighbour has recently started making loud banging noises in his back garden at 11 o'clock at night which may or may not be the sound of bodies being dismembered. I really enjoy reading books set in London while in London, because sometimes you know the places you're being shown and get a little thrill of recognition (this happened with the last Cassandra Clare Infernal Devices book too - she describes an alley that I walk down almost weekly!). Anyway, The Name of the Star has lots of awesome things to recommend it: ghosts, London, murder investigations, evaluation/criticism of the media, boarding school, brave heroine, secret lives, disguise, the Tube... So, yes, it's good. Go read it :-)

Have a good week!