Don't you love a good road trip, I know I do but before, we have to cover the musical month of June, the month began with the red hot chili peppers, the show was kind of ok, the problem was the sound distortion, the music was clear but the words were not, if a didn't know the song, then I couldn't make out a single word, very annoying, I recognized 6 songs and sang along as I like to do, but I didn't hear most of the song, I kind of made up the gaps in my head. Toronto weekend came after and I already wrote about that part, next came my first ever bike ride to work, its 10 each way, 50 minutes, not bad for a first ride, there is a shower there and the weather was nice, few ups, few downs. I also found that there is some sort of class every day at noon, so for the last month , I have been training every day, at work! We do 10 exercises , a minute each with 15 seconds break, then repeat the whole thing for a total of 3 times. Each day the exercises are different, 2 days for strength, 2 for abs and one for cardio. Still not in good shape but feeling improvements in push up, pull ups, abs and my calf muscle, that didn't feel right for a while now, feels normal again, awesome.
In mid June, Aerosmith came to town, this band was my 2nd band ever (well my first, since Michael Jackson is not a band) I saw them in 94 in Israel, reached front row (you didn't have to buy expensive tickets then, just push…), got the T-shirt , which I wore again for this show, but it was in the same venue as the chili peppers, and in similar seats. Stephen Taylor was running around , doing his crazy thing, but we could barely make out the words, big disappointment, so we decided to cross out the Q as a possible music arena, shame, they do have lots of shows. But still , 7 songs recognized, and again singing out loud, the parts I knew were fun fun fun.
Meanwhile , the 1st session of the summer semester just ended and I had to do 2 more presentations, the 1st is already on face book, from 2 weeks ago or so, I will put the other in few days, again the nerves, it's amazing that I cannot shake the nerves away, I feel I am getting better, probably since I repeat the presentation to myself out loud so many times that I kind of know it by heart, without truly memorizing. Wouldn't it be nice not to be nervous at all? I am waiting for my grades to come in, hoping for another A.
Alla found yesterday that when you go under the bridge , your Google map app, turns dark, not sure if from being underground effect, or from lack of reception, we needed the road map, since we went on road trip.
Our 2nd , nonconsecutive trip to Michigan. We woke up yesterday at six, packed quickly and headed on out, nibbling on hummus, 3 hours later , we reached Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. This has become our place, though it is 3 hours away, I went for a Malaysian cinnamon and butter sandwiches, I think Malaysian cinnamon is much better then Indonesian cinnamon, and my co tripper decided to repeat the Toronto experience by getting some weird veggie things with mushroom, avocado, hummus , and other none meat things. We also got some fresh bread and good brownies. After that we went to the next door farmers market, just to walk around and around to digest till I got around to the car and we headed for the arboretum. 4 years ago, this was our 1st trip, and then we went to this town, ate at Zingerman, went to the arboretum (and also went dancing at a crazy place,, see blog from the past) now we repeated it, except the dancing part, perhaps I should have asked Alla if you want to dance. It was much hotter now but the arboretum is green with some common regional wild life (chip monk , squirrel and deer). But we did get the see a deer pooping, not a sight often seen, or one we care to see again.
We just crossed the maummy river, in Toledo, this is a huge river, and I never even heard of it!
OK back to Michigan, we finished our 5k hike or so and went to an important land mark, IKEA, lucky my car is not a van, or it would be an expensive visit (long tables), we did get smaller items… sigh of relief, after that we got our hotel , quick shower later and we reached the Palm Palace. 2 weeks after Toronto, but we cannot skip a good middle eastern place. This restaurant has mixed reviews, without much time to choose and no other similar food in this area, we opted to go and came out with mixed results. Good fresh OJ, great Pitta's , good Garlic sauce, decent humus (yes , this is Alla's 3rd humus of the day, only 2nd for me..), OK fake Shwarma ( not on the spit, but in a fryer), but beggars can't be choosers. We didn't have much time so I asked the waitress, help me Rhonda, and she did speed up our meal. We hurried up, for our main reason for this road trip, the Beach Boys!
This is their 50th year tour, including 3 of the original band (2 have died) and unlike the previous two shows, this venue was outside, the front parts are covered and grass behind, where we sat. and now the acoustics was how it should be. I had no idea they had so many songs, it seemed like they could play forever, and well most of their songs sound similar, and we like it, even songs we don't know, and there were plenty of them , were enjoyable because you can hear the lyrics, and sing along to songs you don't know. Lots of beach balls were flung to the air and the crowd played along and flung it back and forth which adds to the fun. A freaky guy in short jeans and suspenders runs around cheering the crowd, not sure if he is a roadie or just insane, but he appears harmless. There is no cloud in the sky, clear blue skies , the heat has passed mostly and we just sit there singing. I had no idea I knew so many of their songs, seventeen songs! , for me the more I sing along the more fun I have ( oh , I almost forgot, the Aerosmith preview band was cheap trick, a 2 hit wonder band, with the mega hit, I Want you to Want me!!! Awesome song), the beach boys played for over 2 and a half hours, which is impressive since they are in their seventies. I really liked this show and every time I thought they had no more hits, they gave good vibrations and surprised me with one more, if you can, go to this show.
Almost forgot part 2, we also seen the blue man group, this month, highly recommended!
After the concert ended, we returned to the hotel and I went to sleep till 10 AM.
We enjoyed the brownies from the day before as we headed north towards Vassar, a tiny town surrounded by lovely green fields and red barns. There is no real reason to come here, unless you go to the renaissance fantasy fair, we almost missed the tiny entrance, but as we came in we were surprised, the entire festival was in the woods, which was great, since today was crazy hot as well. This is a medieval fair , and many guests dress up as well and it is a lively experience. Sword fighting, lots of interesting arts and crafts, original food, and lots of music. We watched a show with dancers flinging various things with fire, fire fan, fire rods, this wasn't a super impressive acrobatics, but still very nice. Then we tried archery, it was harder than the last time I tried, got one in, Alla tried some wench dresses and tried a robin hood hat on me (not for me). Alla decided to braid her hair, princess style, looked real cute, then we tried the black rat meat. It was beef, btw- steak on a stick, very good. The dragon cider was carbonated cider. The Irish music was nice, we watch a black smith make tiny blades, the worse magician ever, a giant (on stealth) playing a Viking and over all having a great time. 3 hours later we left this place and headed for Frankenmuth. We visited this little Bavaria a few years ago, in the winter, it is much better in the summer, the main street is full of color, German music is playing everywhere, live accordions, lots of fudge stores, souvenirs and food. The nice thing is all the houses look Bavarian style, even a Marriott hotel , has spires which add to the feeling. We walked around, then stopped at the Bavarian Inn for a wiener schnitzel. This place has very nice shops, including a German cuckoo clock shop. 2 hours and an ice cream later we left this lovely town and now we are driving back home
Its almost 9, now in my car, we have an hour or more to go, we finished our excellent thriller audio book- "the snow man", recommended and now have something not as good, well they all can't be great one's
maybe we will see a movie later, the night is still young
Cheers
p.s this blog is full of many song titles from the 3 bands, who can find them all?
No comments:
Post a Comment