some surreal moments in music

Trip Quips

Most surreal music moments

1) Meatloaf playing as the background muzak at a low keyed non touristy hotel pool in northern Greece.
2) Waking up to Zorba the Greek blaring over the ship’s speakers on an over night ferry from Bari, Italy to Greece
3) Serenaded by the Russian army band posers in front of the hermitage museum. Such music classics as “home on the range” ;”Yankee doodle dandy”; America the beautiful” etc
4) Russian marching band playing Sousa marches as we had are passports inspected in St. Petersburg”
5) Star Spangled Banner being played before touring Chatherine the Great’s digs. (I’m sure you get the idea….think I liked things better before détente got started).
6) Having an old Pontiac pull up next to me on the cobbled streets of mid-evil Talen, Estonia blaring the thumping rap of Vanilla Ice (subwoofer hanging out of the back of the car window. Comforting to know that misguided rebellious taste is not uniquely American. Bad taste unites nations….think john Lennon could have (or may have) written a song something like that…imagine it.
7) Speaking of Lennon….the graffiti wall under the Charles bridge that spontaneously appeared and continued to reappear after Lennon’s assassination as a tribute. This is the bridge that connects the medieval town of Prague to the castle. Not to worry, newly found capitalism immediately sprouted café’s and souvenir shops to pluck any remaining sheckles a tourist may have.
8) After viewing a “once in a lifetime performance” (or death performance as it is the final resting place of the former king) of Vivaldi’s four seasons, Pachabel’s cannon in D, a Mozart ditty at St. Georges Basilica at the awe inspiring castle (check facts) watching the musicians literally scatter to run throughout the town to meet up with other musicians at various venues. Learning later that many of them make more as street performers during the day doing your classic in a cup rendition of classical top 40.
9) On the streets of Vienna watching a woman literally roll up a piano wearing a formal gown plopping down and whipping off Rachmonanov (sp) and others.
10) Woman playing classical clarinet in the middle of one of Vienna’s squares with a boom box playing the orchestral accompaniment.
11) Rendition of toccata and fugue in a fabulous church and Gdansk on an organ(s) remastered in the 1800s with organs pipes and connections from centuries earlier. Trumpet players and angels appeared from the organ pipes as dictated by the composers.
12) Alleged authentic gypsy musicians playing Cher (Gypsies, tramps and thieves) in a sit down eatery in Budapest. Several of the patrons bestowed gifts of coinage presumably for lessons. Food aside: when waiter questioned as to the non existence of paprika in a “traditional authentic meal” the response was that most (read American) do not like spicy food but would get me a side of the house paprika sauce. (this falls into the category of never trust your guide books too much).
13) Mozart and Washington seem to be kindred spirits. They both seemed to have slept and thrived in many places. Washington got his likeness on the dollar bill while Mozart is hawked by every choclatier this side of Salzburg.
14) Watching classically trained Russian musicians play the ever timeless Abba on traditional instruments on the pedestrian promenades in Bergen. Noting you could buy a Russian/abba cd for 40 bucks….capitalism has spread.
15) Running into a rock and roll festival in Stravanger under the bright sunlight at 10 pm.
16) Walking through a seemingly empty fishing village in southern Crete at about midnight and running into a Greek lounge act playing the Greek dentist song, “fillings, nothing more than fillings….”
17) Walking through Sorrento after a long day in Naples and finding a street Brazilian mariachi group singing Righteous Brothers “you’ve lost that loving feeling”…possibly breaking the world acoustic trauma record in sheer numbers of available patronage to offend.
18) Looking for a place to sleep before our morning ferry ride out of Crete to the Peloponnese ...found a small fishing village having a town festival… greek dancing and fish bbq on their pier….needless to say we never did find a place to sleep that night.