Baños
Unos, dos, tres, quatros. Si. Non. Por favor. Graçias. ¿Cómo estás? Buenos días. Cafe con leche. ¿Dónde está el baño? That’s pretty much it; after that, my Spanish drops right off. So I get a lot of practice saying, “Lo siento. No entiendo. No hablo español. ¿Habla inglés?” (“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. I don’t speak Spanish. Do you speak English?”) Continue reading
I had one job on this my second trip to Ecuador: to find the perfect beach town for Shannon.
What a great job, right? Continue reading
There is no shortage of beautiful images in Ireland. Far too often they’re spotted while driving in the car, with no time to capture the moment, and so it must remain a memory within, not to be shared. Continue reading
Six weeks would never be enough time to see all of the Ireland I want to see; nonetheless, six weeks is plenty of time to get my fill of country roads and little towns that are really villages and villages that are better described as a petrol station at a three-way crossing. Then there are the cities – we spent four days in Dublin, three days in Cork and a day in Galway – but for the most part, we were on those country roads, hopping around from one small town to another, hugging the coastline as much as we could. Continue reading
“Coney Island” by Van Morrison
Experienced to the hilt by Van’s fans on November 23, 2014, in our caravan through County Down Continue reading
This trip to Ireland in 2014 is different in so many ways than our visit almost two years ago. Yes, we’ve been to a few new places this time, and yes, the weather has been kinder to us, and there’s no question that driving a stick is completely different. Continue reading
A whirlwind trip through Cape Breton Island, off the tip of mainland Nova Scotia, is not the way to experience one of Canada’s most scenic treasures. But whirlwind is what we chose to do – a glorious four days of breath-taking scenery at the height of the fall season, with nature doing its very best to entertain us from sunrise to sunset. As a bonus, we’d timed our visit to coincide with “Celtic Colours,” Cape Breton’s annual music festival – 10 days of Celtic music featuring musicians from near and far. Continue reading
A Town Called Paradise
It’s September 21, 1998, and I’m sitting in my seat at the Halifax Metro Centre; Van’s getting close to wrapping up the show and is singing “Send in the Clowns.” He interrupts himself to shout out, “If you’ve been watching the news today (which I hadn’t), you know, don’t bother, they’re here,” and though I’d missed today’s breaking news, one imagined the reference was to the Bill Clinton having sex while on duty headline of the day. There are clowns all over, and Van had been dealing with a few of them himself the last few days. Continue reading
Days Like This
The idea of a group of otherwise normal adults communing over the cause of one man’s music is a bit of an odd notion, at best. A harmless one, but still a bit odd. And it poses a bit of a dichotomy. On the one hand, listening to the music is a solitary endeavor – it doesn’t matter how many people are around, whether it’s at a concert or sitting in front of a computer, the music isn’t a collective thing, it’s an individual thing. At a concert, I simply tune everything else out; it’s not hard to do. Continue reading
Mud-splattered victims
I flipped over the page of the April 13, 1997, issue of the New York Times and there it was – a full page ad announcing the Guinness Fleadh – that’s a flaw, not a flee-duh, and a fleadh means festival in Irish – on June 14 and 15, and big as bold, there’s Van’s name, headlining both nights of the Saturday and Sunday festival. Continue reading