I was doing a search in our video footage files and came up a clip I shot several years ago and proceeded to forget. It was a rainy day aboard Peter Deilmann Cruises Mozart, a luxe riverboat the plies the Danube...which is really blue at times and quite beautiful. I fixed my camera on my cabin window and watched scenes along the riverbank dissolve before me. The vocal of Strauss' Blue Danube was recorded by Frieda Hempel in 1907.
As a Monty Python fan, London in my
minds eye is a city of silly walks: eccentric lopes, tortured
tangos and Teutonic goose steps. It is really quite opposite that, in fact.
That's why the Pythons were funny. Last week in London, Pat and I
settled into an apartment off Fleet Street and toured old London by
foot. I admit that I now live in a place where the only crowds are
formed by geese, which the local authorities are employing dogs to
break up, but I do spend a fair amount of time in places like New
York, Bangkok, even Delhi, so I am not a weenie when it comes to
huddled and non-huddled masses. But walking in London this time
around was culture shock.
The
Scandinavians
like their summer nights. There aren't so many of them…but they can
become intense. The bandstand at
Tivoli Gardens in quirky Copenhagen is a place for an early evening jam.
I grew up with Danes and Swedes and Norwegians. The Danes were always the
most fun. The Swedes and Norwegians told long jokes. They had great punchlines
but it took a Finnish winter to get there. Of northern European cities,
Copenhagen ranks as one of my favorites. But, if you really
want to stay up late, you have to go north.
