music – Lo Vedo Life

Rome

A February jaunt to Rome

A while back, I was talking with my friends Mark and Ro about visiting Rome together. They had spent the majority of their professional lives in the world of classical music, especially opera, and they have been known to take themselves off to this or that city in order to see one of their friends conduct an opera or a concert.

We talked about going to Rome together, and we finally made it happen in February. We saw their friend (and Ro’s former boss) conduct a concert there, and also had time for some excellent exploration. We all had lists of things we thought we’d like to do or see—or eat!—and we managed to check most items off the lists. Except—oops—I came home with a longer list than I’d left with.

Here’s the story of how we spent five lovely days in la Bella Roma.

Good craic in Donegal

Continuing from my previous post on Ireland, this post is about the 17 days I spent in Donegal, finding beauty, history and plenty of good craic (pronounced crack, meaning fun). I was based in Rathmullan on the dramatic and beautiful Fanad Peninsula.

Contents
• Fanad Peninsula, including a good story
• A day trip to the north
• A day trip to the south
• A day trip to see some beaches
• Places to eat, drink and be merry

Carnaval 2020

After all the great celebrations of Christmas and New Year have exited stage left, all eyes in Bize turn to the next big spectacle: Carnaval !

Poster — This year’s Carnaval poster, listing four days of events.

The theater
For our group, Lou Recantou, we meet at a variety of places to work on the elements of our Carnaval parade entry. To plan for costumes and shoes and jewelry and hair, we usually meet at Eliette and Claude’s house. For making flowers, we meet at Recantou headquarters, or Eliette’s house, or Pierrette and Jean Marc’s house, which is where we also do all the work on our parade vehicle.

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A flood, and what came after

The first sign was when my hair went extra curly. The next sign was when I had some paper to cut and fold, and the paper felt more like pie dough than like paper.

This was humidity, in full force. For a few days, we had some sprinkles of rain and light showers, and then suddenly one evening, the winds blew high and mighty, and the rain came down hard, fast, and steady. It was said that several months’ worth of rain fell within the space of three or four hours during the wee small hours of the morning.

We awoke the next day to a continuation of the bluster and the pounding, and then there was an email telling people not to go out on the roads, for any reason. I had a house guest, and I had planned to take her sightseeing. With the announcement of road closures, though, our day took a different path.

We decided to walk into town, and we set out from my house. We arrived in the middle of the ancient village and stopped in our tracks at the sight of a lake of water where the road usually was.

Oh.

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