Out at the Blob

Just a few photos (that are also on facebook) of my last night playing gutiar at Blob, a really great bar here in Florence.


My good friend here Danny plays most nights as well. He was just playing around with a few chords after a song of his, right before I was about to start. I yelled at him to keep going and grabbed an electric guitar for what ended up being a nice easy jam.



Emily (a new friend I met just that night) and I make our way through "Dear Prudence".



Always good to have some support at the gigs.



That's about it. I'm off to more of Italy and the area for some traveling. School is out, and I hope everything at home is just fine.


Scott

Pasqua a Firenze (Easter in Florence)

As is probably to be expected, Easter in Italy is quite a production. The Vatican hosts one of the biggest and well known masses in the entire world in Easter, with literally millions of tourists church-goers piling into Rome. Florence has its own Easter tradition, one I was able to get a glimpse of this morning.

This morning I was awoken 30 minutes before my alarm by the bells of the Duomo (our main cathedral) bell tower. I live over two miles away from the church, the Italians were making sure the entire city knew it was Easter morning. Throughout the morning, the bells would ring for about five minutes straight. I couldn't make out a certain melody or hymn, it seemed the goal was to make as much all-out cacophony as possible throughout the entire city. Considering the circumstances of the day, I suppose that's appropriate.

So, after catching a 9:20am bus to the city center and finding one of the handful of espresso bars that was still open for the holiday (Italians take the Easter holiday to give themselves essentially a four day weekend. Few locals stay in the cities, most travel to the coasts for some time off at the beach), me and some friends made our way to the Duomo square, which was already quite full of people. We were part of the early group, things got quite full in no time at all.



The square as things just got started.






The 15th-century era cart that the Florentines fill with fireworks each Easter and then proceed to ignite in between the Duomo and the Bapistry.





Clearing out after the festivities.

I hope to add a video of the actual fireworks show later on today. I hope everyone at home is having a great Easter and eating lots of chocolate eggs. No Easter basket this year, but it's definitely a treat to be here in Florence for the holiday!


love to home,

Scott

Come se dice "Jazz Club"?

As I've told a few friends, one of my favorite places that I've found over here is the Florence jazz club. The catch is, the name of the place is, really, "Jazz Club". You don't get points for being subtle in Italy.

After getting my hand-held field recorder shipped over from home, I've been waiting for a good night to go and tape some live Italian swing. On a whim, I brought the little guy along with last night when I went out for a bit of apertivo (the Italian idea of a dinner buffet) and wi-fi exploitation (the internet in our apartment has recently disappeared). After heading down the street and down the stairs at Jazz Club, I happened upon a great 8-piece band getting everybody moving. Think Blues Brothers with a little less Dan Akroyd, a little more Mario & Luigi. Here's a little sample of my favorite body-mover of the evening:




So, hopefully some more fun recordings will surface, both of other acts and perhaps even myself? I have a few Minnesota friends coming to stay this week at our apartment and the school load seems to be winding down a bit. April in Florence looks like it will be a fantastic time. However, I have learned to avoid bargain-brand Italian laundry soap. A mistake you don't want to make twice.


un'abraccio to all!

Scott

Books

Here is a youtube link to a new song that I've written since I've been here, it's called "Books". That's my trusty, bright blue Italian guitar in the video. I've written two other songs since I've been over here and can't wait to get home and play them on my real acoustic guitar (even though this one has served me well so far) for old friends.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opvIkrLRlPc

(copy and paste that into a new browser. For time and space reasons, I decided not to upload it to both youtube and blogspot)

Hope you enjoy!



Scott

All roads lead to...

You guessed it, Rome. Here are some photos from my weekend trip to Rome, which included visits to the Vatican, a day at the Coliseum and Roman forum, plenty of Gelato and a bit of music in the streets.



Out at the Coliseum.



The Roman Forum and skyline.



The Pantheon. Rome has the Pantheon, Athens has the Parthenon. When you figure out a way to keep them straight, be sure to let me know.

Hopefully a couple more pictures and a video to share soon, until then, hope all is well!


best,

Scott

Jazz in Madrid Videos

So, here they are. The first video is from the very nice vocal standards group I saw at the Cafe Central. The next two are the fantastically complex quintet at Cafe Populart. These bands were a real treat for me on the trip. I've uploaded the videos via facebook, so unfortunately blogspot chops them to a thinner size, but then again, the music is what's important!


Cafe Central:







Populart #1:





Populart #2:





Scott

While I was in Europe

All this great music is happening in the states! I've gradually accepted the fact that I missed 7 (yes, 7) doable Umphrey's Mcgee shows. Phish reuinted this past weekend in Virginia for three fantastic shows, their first together in almost 5 years. Meanwhile, Joshua Redman (fantastic tenor saxophonist) and Brad Mehldau (perhaps the best "new" jazz pianist touring) are both headed to the Dakota jazz club in the middle of my Minneapolis neighborhood. Closer to Saint Cloud, Mister is playing electric shows, which can only lead to trouble (of the best kind). Here are a few scenes I wish I could have been a part of...

Night 1 of the Phish reunion.


It's good to have these guys back. I can't wait until I finally make the trip to Wisconsin for two nights of the best improvisation based rock on the planet.



The line for Umphrey's McGee's three night run in Minneapolis. Trust that I would have been at the very front the entire weekend.


That's it for now. I'm not really regretting being here instead of in the states......it's just times like these that try my soul...


best love,

Scott

Grab a cup of coffee, this is going to take a while...

Where to start? My past week in Europe has been one of the most rewarding, exciting, and hectic of my life. Four major cities in 9 days, 5 flights, three train trips, and way too many bus shuttles. Add in two big-city Metro lines and plenty of walking and the miles really add up. Here's the schedule of how my last week went:


Saturday February 28th: Leave Florence around 5pm, fly from Pisa airport to Paris Beauvais airport, shuttle to central Paris, taxi to hostel. Finally "in Paris" at about midnight!

Sunday March 1st: Full day in Paris.

Monday March 2nd: In Paris until roughly 3pm, leave for a flight out of Beauvais to Madrid. Arrive in Madrid at hostel at about 11pm.

Tuesday March 3rd: Full day in Madrid.

Wednesday March 4th: Fly out of Madrid at roughly 4pm, arrive in Barcelona/Girona airport, shuttle bus to central Barcelona (arriving around 6:30pm). Stay in Barcelona until 3:15am (yes, only about 9 hours!), go back to Gerona.

Thursday March 5th: Continued from Wednesday, fly out of Gerona for Eindhoven, Netherlands, arriving shortly before 8am. Take train from Eindhoven to Amsterdam, arrive at hostel a little before noon. Rest of the day in Amsterdam.

Friday March 6th: Fully day in Amsterdam.

Saturday March 7th: Fully day in Amsterdam.

Sunday March 9th: Take a train out of Amsterdam back to Eindhoven at about 8:30am, fly from Eindhoven to Pisa, finally get back to Florence via bus at a little past 4pm, back in my apartment at almost 5pm!


There are so many things about the trip to talk about but I'll share some of the most essential and most interesting tidbits. First off, the entire week let me prove to myself that I can succeed at flying all over the world. The flight here to Italy was my 3rd real flight on a plane/from an airport ever, so making 5 flights in 8 days was a great learning experience, albeit a bit exhausting! I'm only a bit let down that the practice of stamping passports has seemingly all but gone out of style. I would have accumulated a good collection, hitting four counties over the course of the trip. But I digress...


Paris:

Paris was everything it was made up to be. Romantic, quaint, beautiful. Great food (croissants won't ever be the same), amazing things to see, and a general feel of beauty. The Eiffel tower was fatastic, as I expected it to be. I wasn't hit with a deep moving sensation when I visited the tower or the Arc de Triomphe, yet it was kind of a validation, succeeding in seeing things that had always been out there and at times seemed unattainable, almost mythical. To be able to stand in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and lean against its physical cement supports, right where steel meets earth, it felt almost necessary. I've done it, and now I can get on to other things.

Aside from the big landmarks and fantastic food, just walking around the streets of Paris felt like a sightseeing trip on its own. The Champs Elysees, Boulevard Saint Germain (which the old main street of my hometown is named after), and little side alleys in between reminded me at all times that I was in Paris. I have seen their art (we spent a few hours at the Louvre, Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo among other priceless pieces were all fantastic), eaten their food, ridden their subways and (at least tried) to speak their language. I can only say good things about Paris and the French people. Here are a few pictures from the French portion of the trip:


The Notre Dame cathedral. Mass was actually ongoing as we and many other people wandered around the inside. Two sopranos that sang portions of the mass had some of the best voices I've ever heard.


Coffee and a croissant at a nice little cafe. Picture "The Sun Also Rises" but with much less alcohol...




Art at the Louvre.


So after a few long and expensive bus trips and other flight, I found myself arriving in Spain.



Madrid:


Madrid instantly had a different feel to it. A bit rougher around the edges, Spain brought a new interesting change of pace. While the weather while we were there wasn't quite ideal, museums full of priceless art (very little of which I was able to photograph) and bars packed with fantastic music made it possibly my favorite part of the entire week. I'm working on getting videos uploaded to the internet but rest assured, there is fantastic jazz happening in the Spanish capital. It's fairly concentrated, easy to find and impossible not to enjoy. The first group I came across was class all the way. Performing vocal standards in English, I was able to nurse a bit of Jameson whiskey (don't worry, I kept it to one glass) and enjoy tasteful piano and guitar solos for nearly two hours.


The first place I got to, Central Cafe in Plaza el Angel, Madrid. It was nice to be able to walk for two minutes from my hostel and wind up at the front door. (video hopefully soon).





I moved on to a place called Populart. This cafe was a bit less upscale, but the music was much more my thing. The band did fairly complex, progressive-tinged originals with great Spanish vocals over the top of a traditional guitar quartet setup. I couldn't understand it, but I appreciated it completely. Video of this one soon as well.


The rest of my time in Madrid was also fantastic, but finding such great jazz in such a convenient and cheap location was a huge highlight of the trip for me. I've only been out to see live music a handful of times while here in Europe, and the Spaniards did not at all let me down. A special note, you can get eggs for breakfast in Spain. You can't in Italy. I took advantage of this.


Barcelona:

This was a terrible experience of busses, planes, a quick dinner and soccer match on tv, more busses, a cold station, and very little sleep. I've decided to not say in the future that I've been to Barcelona, the few hours I spent there did not give me any sort of idea for what the city was like. I'm contemplating deleting the pictures I took there as well. No use complaining now though, I eventually made it out of Spain and onwards to....



Amsterdam:




Amsterdam was the city I was looking forward to most before the trip began. Not only did we have the most amount of free time to just be in Amsterdam, but it has always been interesting and beautiful to me. Honestly, the best part of the Dutch city for me is just the look of it. Thin buildings all in a row, four or five stories tall along a bit of sidewalk that ends in a murky canal. You can't help but walk down the street in slightly chilly weather here and picture yourself as a budding poet or modern artist. Call it snobby, call it silly, call it pretentious, but I wanted to get to Amsterdam just so I could walk around and just be.

Aside from walking and thinking about how to start my first novel and scheming up a way to land an apartment somewhere between the art galleries and red-light district shops (everything they say about this city is true, everything), my travel companion Kristen and I treated ourselves to the Van Gogh museum. Never being all that informed or enthusiastic about his work in the past, I came in with an open mind and left with a lot of respect for a man that started painting in his own way just to pay the bills. While I preferred a lot of the big-name attractions at the Louvre and in Madrid's Prado and Reina Sofia, seeing a collection of art all by the same person turn into a sort of artistic biography was a welcome change of pace. Add a couple of rented bicycles and a night-life that really stretches the constraints of what "night" is and Amsterdam secured a place in my heart. I'll make a point to return, next time with a pack of close friends.

So after a lot of time (and money) spent in Western Europe, I'm back in Florence. I thought for a long while about how odd it is to be coming back to my comfort zone...in Italy. The city has never felt more like home and I'm very thanful to be in a place where I at least somewhat know the language. I hope all is well with everyone back home, I am thinking of you often! Hopefully I can fill out this post with some more pictures and videos soon and I plan to have audio recordings of music (both other groups and a bit of my own) headed down the pipeline quite soon!

love to all,


Scott

And you thought the STIMULUS package was difficult...

I've come to share the story of a fairly cliche overseas shipping experience.

Coming over here I was impressed with myself and the foresight of my packing for the semester. I didn't go overboard on clothing, had remembered contact solution and had plenty of band-aids for blisters inflicted by new Italian leather shoes. However, after joining a very convenient gym, going to many fantastic musical performances, and missing the comfort of a PB&J, I decided it was time to email home for a package of various things. Just a few workout shirts, my hand-held portable audio recorder and a jar of Skippy was all I really wanted...

Leaving Saint Cloud on February 14th and getting to my school in Florence on February 19th, the five day interval was very smooth in comparison to shipping experiences with friends of mine here. Mine however, had the honor of traveling roughly 4760 of the 4775 miles in its trip, sitting for a day just a 20 minute train ride away, retreating back to the northern outskirts of Milan (over four hours away now), coming back to the same 20-minutes-away spot, and then finally arriving safe and sound. In the process I had to fax a declaration of the contents of the package and a copy of my passport to prove that which was in the box was indeed my own. Getting a new bank card shipped overseas is apparently more trouble than you would expect.

In the end I came away with extra clothing, peanut butter (it's incredibly scarce and expensive over here) some tea, a bag of m&ms, a surprising box of honey bunches of oats (thanks mom), a bank card, and most importantly, my audio recorder. I hope to be able to post audio of not only the music I'm going to here in Florence (I never knew there was such a great jazz scene over here), buy my own open-mic adventures. I'm headed to a club called Bebop this Monday night to play, perhaps Tuesday morning will offer up a bit of music for your ears?

That's all for now, I have a fun and fairly interesting trip planned for tomorrow that has a story behind it as well. Will keep you all posted.

Also, thanks Logan for becoming a blog follower, don't think I didn't notice you. I shall do the same for yours, which I have been enjoying.


Scott

It's long past check-in time...

Apologies for my blogging absence, the internet in our apartment appears to have singled out my computer as its enemy and so I have no way of getting online with my own laptop aside from here at school.

Not to worry, plenty to share over the course of this interlude between posts. Things are getting along quite nicely in Florence, I've been doing a lot to find places a bit more off the beaten path for American students and have found a few exciting things:

1-The Florence jazz club, which is called "Jazz Club" has a one-time members fee of 8€ and some of the most amazing musicians I've ever witnessed on either side of the Atlantic. I went last Wednesday night to watch the house band/jam session and was completely floored, even before the second song finished. One of the best jazz guitarists I've ever heard, live or on record, proceeded to lead his trio through many songs I've played dozens of times myself with Night Shift. The (fairly young) Florentine man left me completely speechless with his playing. I was also treated to a few great rounds of jazz violin and clarinet and even a tenor sax solo. No word yet on working up the courage to ask to borrow a sax, but I'll try and keep an eye on it...

2-Open mic night(s). I've written two new songs while over here and cleaned up/added to two other of mine. Throw in a few covers and I now have 10-12 songs to play on my own with my newly bought acoustic guitar over here. I played last night at a very American-ish bar called "Red Garter", it went really well. Hopefully I can fill out my set with a handful more of originals and be quite polished by the time I come back home. If I get enough friends to come out and see me, count on audio (and maybe even video) recordings of myself on this blog in the weeks to come.

3-Trip to Sienna. There really isn't much to say about last Friday's school-wide trip to the Italian city of Sienna. The pictures speak for themselves.






Frescos inside the Sienna duomo.


That's all for now, I hope to have plenty to share what with the musical things starting to pick up. Hope all is well with everyone at home, send me a comment or two and let me know!

from Italy,

Scott

Another weekend in Italy...

This weekend was quite busy for myself. After my roommates left early Friday morning for Rome, I went on a hike with most of my classmates on Monte Ceceri, a high mountain/park in the town of Fiesole, just outside of Florence. We were treated to great views, clear skies, and a dense green forest that made me feel as if I was walking around Colorado on an early May morning.


The view of Florence from the top of Monte Ceceri.


Saturday morning I left with a friend I've made here, Bethany, for Milan by train. At Milan we were treated to cooler temperatures, high fashion stores, and a gorgeous cathedral that most definitely rivals the one in Florence. Saturday evening we talked over drinks with two men staying in our hostel. Jimmy, a British man from New Castle is living in Milan and teaching English as a second language. He and I immediately found common ground, laughing heartily about Eddie Izzard and Coen brothers films. His friend, Mohammad, had been born in Tanzania, educated in Britian and America, and was now in Milan working on his own telecommunications company that specializes in calls from Europe to Africa and Asia. These men were not only genuinely refreshing and funny, but they had great viewpoints to share about the global economic crisis, our new president, and general current events in the past few years. I looked up at one point in the night and saw what was happening. A couple of Americans in their early 20s were talking to an Englishman and a Tanzanian in their mid 40s in a bar staffed by Chinese immigrants in the middle of northern Italy. Funny how that works out.



The duomo in Milano.


The inside of the duomo. Very very incredible.




This seemed like the place the Illuminati had their secret meetings...




Inside castle grounds in Milan.

So, although I'm a little sad to be missing out on some great concerts in Minneapolis this weekend, I'm very lucky to see and meet such great places and people. Hope to have more updates soon.

Scott

Pisa and Lucca

On the road to Pisa and Lucca. My first trip out and about in the Tuscay....


Aside from a very wet sky and the 5-Euro lesson on how to validate your ticket before you get on the train, there isn't much to share about my trip to Pisa and Lucca today aside from a few pictures.




Trust me, it's not as large in live as you'd expect.

This is in Lucca, a tiny Italian town in between Florence and Pisa.


The walls of Lucca are the most famous thing about the city. They've been standing since the 1600s.

So that's all, I'm trying to plan out a trip to Milan next weekend, so I hope to have some more pictures of that as well. Also, I hope to add some photos of actual Florence, just waiting for the weather to clear up a bit.

Rainy and chilly in Italy,

Scott

Culinary Improvisation

One of the small hang-ups I've come to find while here in Florence is the lack of that one essential go-to thing in everyone's life. It can make the difference between lonesome emptiness and filling glee.

I'm talking of course, about the single man's best friend: the microwave oven.

While microwaves are very much available in Florence and not at all unpopular in Italy, our apartment is sorely lacking when it comes to them. Tonight, I met this problem head on.

If you've lived with me for more than a few days, you may be aware that if I can be around when cooked chicken meets BBQ sauce, I am usually a happy happy man. Having cooked extra chicken breast last night but with no familiar means of heating it up for dinner tonight, I set out to get myself a warm meal.

Enter: cooking pots.


Garrett, my roommate, made Brie one of the first nights we had in the apartment, so I got to work setting up the pot of boiling water with another smaller bowl/pot over it. With my chicken under indirect heat I relished in my shrewd think-on-my-feet idea.


The finished product, with incredibly cheap milk, incredibly expensive bbq, and incredibly small bread:


(and yes, that's Mantis on my computer background)


I'm hopefully headed to Pisa tomorrow for a fairly rainy run-in with the leaning tower. Should anything especially interesting happen, I'll be sure to post about it. Hope friends and family back home are having a good time. Keep warm!


Scott

Sometimes you only have to walk three blocks

I had probably my first truly remarkable experience here in Florence just a few minutes ago. True, the past few days of wandering around, eating great food, having a few drinks in bars and meeting a whole lot of people have been great, but this was just incredible.

My roommate Kevin thought he had lost his wallet last night after coming back from the center of Florence. He and Garret took a cab back to our place on a street called Via del Mezzetta, which is about a 20 minute drive from the middle of town. He panicked all day and eventually used most of all our phone cards to call home and cancel his credit cards, knowing he now really had no way of getting to his money back home, bank or credit. Long story short, the wallet turned up and we set off to thank the man who had found it and turned it in.

Expecting a short and awkward conversation with a man knowing little Italian, Kevin brought Garret and I along in order to have some sort of Italian know-how present. Steve came as well. When we got there, we found a welcoming old man speaking English in a British accent. He took no time in ushering us into his apartment and sitting us down for a chat. A chat that turned out to be an hour long talk, mostly about his life. This man, last name Ballerini, (I chuckled a little inside), was born in Florence to Italian parents, then moved to England for school with three brothers. This was in the mid 1930s. As WWII started, he joined the Italian air force, one of his borthers the British air force, and another brother the Italian army. After the war, he married an Italian woman and settled down in Florence, where he was a bus driver for 28 years. This man retired when he was 48 or 49 years old. That alone just blew my mind. With a great government pension and a lifetime buspass, he and his wife (married 63 years!) raised their daughters (now aged 57 and 63) in Italy and would vacation in America in the 1970s and 80s.

Having lost his wife in 2007, this man goes about life in the most admirable, picturesque way imaginable. He's up and to the cemetery at 8am every day to see his wife, out for a walk afterward, frequently to nearby villages to buy his preferred wine, and is overall leading a diligent, dignified solitary life in Florence Italy after a life that's brought him all over the world and among all kinds of people. Sitting there for over an hour, I was shocked when he told us he was 86 years old. He spoke and looked as if he was at least fifteen years younger. Expecting to find an ornery Italian crank, we instead landed upon a man who had lived longer than the four of us combined, with more stories to tell and people to remember than I may ever have. Signore Ballerini was a treasure, and I really hope run into him in the morning here near Via del Mezzetta.

This is why I decided to study abroad.

Scott

Inagural post, traveling, moving in.

So, to kick off this blog, I have just a little bit to share. I left MSP airport at around 10am local time on Thursday, finally getting to Florence at 9:25am local time, making my total travel time around 17 hours, but in reality nearly exactly one whole day, due to time zone changes. Getting off the plane at Florence was a joy in and of itself, going from -20˚ wind chills to near 50s was a great welcome from Italy.

After a somewhat terrifying and exciting taxi drive, Stephen, Tyler and I got to our apartment, on the second floor of Via del Mezzetta 4a, Firenze. The place itself is incredible. Very roomy and balconies with great views. The three of us had some quick spaghetti (my first Italian meal, who would have expected spaghetti?) and are currently awaiting Garrett and Kevin, our other roommates. I hope the frigid Minnesota weather has calmed down a bit, and I promise to have a bit more exciting news with the next post. That's all for now, ciao.

Scott