Catching Up: Brandi Carlile and Friends at the Hollywood Bowl

I love Brandi Carlile, and have since the early 2000s demo CD days. I also hate going to the Gorge, and have since... I don't know... birth. So because the Gorge Amphitheatre in George is always Brandi's closest tour spot these days, I only ever see her play if I jet off someplace, and I'm always on the lookout for destination shows. Which meant that I couldn't pass up the opportunity in the fall of 2023 to go check out Brandi and a mystery set of 'Friends' at the legendary Hollywood Bowl.

I flew to Los Angeles on Friday the 13th, which cursed me with a very long and hassle-filled process to get an Uber at LAX, and then opening my luggage at the hotel to find that my shampoo had come unsealed and leaked all over my toiletry bag. Oh wait... That's not Friday the 13th, that's just a normal travel day.

The show was on Saturday night, and since I was staying just down the road from the Hollywood Bowl, I had the whole day free before it was time to walk over. But I lost all interest in LA tourist activities roughly 3 seconds after Debbie Reynolds lost her hopes of opening a Hollywood costume museum, so I spent the day sitting in my hotel room watching sports. All three of my preferred teams won their games (New Zealand in the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals, University of Washington football, and Montréal in the NHL), so as I headed out the door for Brandi and friends, I was ready for a winning night as well. 

I was correct, sir!

The Hollywood Bowl is amazing visually, and sonically, but -- at least down in the lower bowl where I was -- the setup was unexpected. That section is broken into little 4-seat boxes with fold-away tables, and most people were set up with meals and full sized bottles of wine, sitting facing away from the stage like they'd just come down for a nice dinner al fresco, rather than a rock 'n' roll extravaganza. Weird. At least they all packed up their pic-a-nic baskets and turned their chairs around when the music got started.

Anyway. There was no opening act, so when the time came, we got straight into Brandi and the band for a few songs, then they started bringing on the aforementioned friends, one at a time. As each guest artist came on stage, they'd do a song or two of their own with Brandi Carlile Band backing them up, then join in to support the next act. Not all of the guests were people I was dying to see, but I was really happy for Allison Russell (who sang my favourite of her songs, Requiem), Wendy & Lisa (friends of Prince!), Annie Lennox (Mon Scotland!) and JONI EFFING MITCHELL, who was the queen of the encore, seated center stage in her throne while doing three of her songs with the entire previous group.

 

It was a couple hours of joy, but seemed to go by in a flash. At the end, we all sang Joni Happy Birthday, for her upcoming 80th, and then I wandered back down the road to my hotel, completely in awe of the night I'd just experienced.

I had also planned to go see Samantha Bee's menopause-themed one woman show in Hollywood on Sunday night, which -- along with my canned rosé while enjoying Brandi's show -- might've garnered me the award for Most Middle Aged Lady Long Weekend Ever, but it ended up being cancelled. Oh well, I was tired of all the winning anyway. It was still a great time, and way more than worth the trip.

Catching Up: Rugby on the French Riviera

Fun fact about me (or sometimes not so fun, depending on their results): I've been a Scotland rugby supporter since the late 1990s, long before I ever visited and fell in love with Scotland, or got engaged and then un-engaged to one of its citizens, or made Edinburgh my second home. And as part of that fandom, I've gone to watch Scotland (along with a couple other teams) in every men's Rugby World Cup since 2011.

So for RWC 2023 in France, I followed the same routine as every previous tournament and booked tickets to a few games over a couple weeks, strategically placed to allow me to travel around a bunch of different parts of the country. But because I had to do all this ticket planning 1.5 - 2 years in advance, by the time the tournament came around, I'd realized that my travel stamina had greatly reduced during lockdown... I can now only stand 7-8 days on the road, max. After that, no matter where I am, or what I'm doing, or how attractive I find the guys in the sporting event I'm watching, I'm perpetually cranky. I don't want to be anywhere in the world but at home with my cats. So I decided to nix the fortnight of games and concentrate my trip on a part of France I hadn't been to before, sold all the tickets I'd bought except Scotland v Tonga in Nice, and set out to enjoy several days on the French Riviera.

Nice

With a sore back from 20+ hours of travel, a 9pm arrival at the hotel the night before, and a forecast including thunderstorms and apocalyptic rain, my first full day in Nice was mostly spent in the hotel, in bed, watching a bunch of Golden Girls episodes for about the 745th time. Ah, well... the middle aged traveler's heart wants what the middle aged traveler's heart wants. Luckily I mustered a little youthful vigor for the next two days, and spent them both out exploring the town. The first day, I just took a wander out to see what was near the hotel with no agenda, and ended up walking in circles, passing by the path that would have taken me back multiple times, completely losing my sense of direction, for hours. Welp. At least I got outdoors.

The second day, I made a real plan and went downtown on a tram. The trams and downtown streets were pretty easy to navigate, so I didn't get lost this time, but also didn't stay there long because it was sunny and sweaty out, and I didn't find anything that was all that appealing to me. I saw a big church and did some random shopping, but mostly just meandered around wondering why Nice is such a sought after luxury destination that sites kept offering me private jets as an option when I looked for flights. Never seen that before! I mean, downtown Nice was fine. It was like any other generic western European city, reminded me a bit of Milan, but with palm trees... that grew there naturally and didn't cause a giant controversy when placed there by an American corporation. Maybe the problem is that I'm much more of a city person than a beach person, and cities aren't really the point on the Riviera. Or given my other travel experiences, maybe I'm just not the right audience for... well, France.

But never mind that! Day four in Nice was rugby day! I'd purposely chosen a hotel away from downtown because it was easy to catch a quick 15 minute tram to the game, but that didn't make it a less busy or annoyingly crowded experience. I enjoyed singing Flower of Scotland, and was surprised to see the Tongans do a haka-like war dance before the game, but loved it nonetheless. I looked it up later, and found out it's called the Sipi Tau, and the current version was written in 1994.

Anyway. Scotland won 45-17 despite their elite ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, even in games where they're the favourite. Tonga's a fun team to watch. And I'm not a sports reporter, so that's pretty much all you're gonna get.

Side note: It occurred to me at some point on this day of rugby that I probably don't understand as much French as I think I do. I'm too out of practice speaking it to put a sentence together, but I can still understand a fair bit when it's spoken (unless it's in a Montréal accent - qu'est-ce que c'est?!), and I get even more when I'm reading and have time to process. So when in France, I always believe that I'm catching enough to know what's going on around me, but realistically... I probably have no idea.

Oh, also, I got asked for directions twice on my first day out wandering in Nice... when I was completely lost and had no business giving anyone directions. This has always happened to me, everywhere I go. The more things change, etc...

Monte Carlo

I used my last full day on the Riviera to take a brief trip over to Monte Carlo, since Monaco was right next door and all. It was much prettier than Nice, and waaaaaaaaaaaay snazzier, but I struggled to find things to occupy the short time I spent there. I'm not much of a gambler, so skipped the famous (or infamous?) casino scene, and I'm not a millionaire, so all the store fronts I passed featuring luxury goods and sports cars were regrettably out of my price range. A Lambo wouldn't fit in my luggage anyway. 

I'm normally happy to just wander and enjoy the scenery, but on the particular (very hot) day I chose to visit, Monte Carlo was hosting a big yacht show that closed off and blocked much of the waterfront. So this photo is a good example of pretty much all the scenery I got to take in. It did make me realize why fancy expensive flights to Nice are such a thing, though -- it's the closest airport to Monaco, which is where all the fancy people actually want to go. 

But as only a wannabe member of the Fancy People Club, after a couple hours in Monte Carlo, not buying a yacht, I had to hop on the hot, crowded train back to Nice, and fly home commercial the day after that. No vie fabuleuse for moi, just la vie avec les chats. 

And honestly? I'm not that mad about it.

Where We Left Off: Adventures in Checked Baggage

Picking up where we left off in my last pre-break post from Riga airport...

I ended that snowy Saturday in March 2023 huddled in my rented flat in Edinburgh, wearing every stitch of dirty clothes I had on me, because the place was colder than a jilted polar bear's shoulder, and my luggage was somewhere in Germany.

It all started with the snow bucketing down in Riga, which meant my plane took off over an hour later than scheduled, set to land in Frankfurt at the exact time my connecting flight was taking off. So I paid too much for too slow in-flight wifi to try to get a new booking set before we landed. But because my next plane was also slightly delayed, the airline would only allow me to change my flight after I failed to get off the crowded plane and run from gate A11 to B30 in the 8 minutes I was expected to have for transfer. 

Turned out I had more like 15 minutes, and Bill Nye-level* speedwalking skills, so I just made it on to the plane before the boarding door closed. 

But unfortunately my checked luggage didn't move as quickly as I did.

When I landed, I had a text from the airline that my bag had been rebooked on the first flight in the morning, and I should talk to the staff at my destination to have them deliver it to me upon its arrival. But Edinburgh airport isn't all that big or busy, and the place was practically a ghost town at 8pm on a Saturday. There was nobody working in the baggage hall where my suitcase didn't arrive, no staff at the luggage help desk, no one there representing the airline. So after spending about an hour alternately wandering around looking for anyone wearing a vest from Menzies (the luggage handling company - no luck), and calling the phone number listed for baggage help (which just rang and rang 63 times, every time I tried), I gave up. 

Luckily Edinburgh's my second home and I could stock up on all the sundries and accoutrements I'd need to live there for a few days within the allotted time of a game show shopping spree. But not at 9-10pm on a Saturday night. So I grabbed a couple essentials from airport shops, and headed out to the aforementioned ice-cold flat, to complain out loud to no one for a couple hours as I waited for the radiators to kick in so I could finally get some sleep. 

Meanwhile, Lufthansa was really great with providing me details about the flight my bag was on and when it was arriving, which was useful, since at this point my only option was to go back and try to collect it myself. So the next morning, I did enough shopping to get me through the day, then headed back to the airport, arriving right as the plane with my luggage was landing. If all went to plan, I could grab it quickly and still get to Scotland's Six Nations rugby game that afternoon, which was what had brought me to Embra in the first place.

But what's that saying about human plans and laughing deities? Yeah...

When I arrived, I found a Menzies guy right away, who was really helpful, but told me that even though the bags would be off the plane in 10 minutes, they were so busy and understaffed that it might be an hour or two before anyone would have a chance to get away and bring my bag out to me. So I could either leave and make it to the game that Scotland was likely to lose to Ireland anyway, and spend my evening back at the airport on a wild luggage goose chase, or wait and probably not make it to Murrayfield. I decided to stay put.

There's not much to do or many places to sit in EDI airport, so I drank some coffee, ambled in circles (getting in my steps, yo), and just kind of hung around near the exit of the baggage hall for what felt like 97 hours, until I finally saw the same Menzies guy come out the door pushing a cart overloaded with bags, including mine. I followed him, and when he saw and recognized me, he stopped to get me my case back. 

My bag was on the bottom of the cart, so as he was in the process of unloading to get to it, an older English man in a business suit walked past all the people who were waiting, stepped between me and the baggage guy like I didn't even exist, and started shouting about nobody being at the desk to help him with his lost luggage. Menzies Dude was very apologetic, explained that they had staffing issues, and that he wasn't the person who could get more staff anyway. So English Male Karen (what are they called? Nigel? Colin? I'm going with Colin) yelled the same things a few more times, along with some red-faced demands to see the manager. But there wasn't any management working ('cause duh, it's Scotland on a Sunday!), which set him off even further, and he continued his high-decibel bellyaching for at least 5 more minutes, repeating his list of entitled complaints while all the bystanders stared in disbelief and Baggage Man just looked tired. 

Eventually Colin was satisfied that he'd done enough shrieking, turned, and walked away, with no resolution. Total tantrum, complete embarrassment, accomplished absolutely nothing. Typical Colin behaviour.

When he finally left, I got my bag and thanked the baggage guy profusely, because he really had been super nice and helpful, and should not have had to listen to that jerk's tirade. There's not enough money in the world to pay what people in service industries deserve for putting up with his kind of nonsense.

Anyway. With all the delay, I didn't make it to the game, but I did watch all but the first few minutes on the BBC... Didn't miss much, Scotland lost. I wasn't surprised.

*Not the Science Guy, the Almost Live recurring character, for anyone not familiar with 1990s local Seattle pop culture... which is probably everyone other than me.

Bon Voyage?

I'm currently watching giant snowflakes blow sideways past the window of an airport lounge in Latvia, awaiting my flight to Edinburgh. I started my current travels in London a week ago, cancelled a side trip to Lithuania to stay there longer, and have just spent 3 frozen days in Riga, where I saw my beloved popstar Robbie Williams again. 

But I purposely haven't published anything about any of it because... I don't know, y'all... Maybe the blog is over. Or maybe I'm gonna switch to a substack?

This blog has never had a ton of readers, but it's still been useful to me, because it's been a pretty comprehensive, and easily accessible, travel diary. It is much better at retaining the details of past adventures than my middle aged memory. But when the pandemic put me on a nearly two year forced travel break, my habits got broken. Now I only bother to write about my trips maybe a quarter of the time, and it's rarely in real time. Plus, ever since I left Twitter, I don't get much traffic when I do post stuff, because that was the source of most of the clicks. And I don't have a replacement for that. 

I don't want to lose my own set of travelogues, but it's hard to motivate myself to polish it up for public consumption when there's no public consuming it. So I'm thinking of modernizing, and while it won't fix the nobody reads it excuse to skip writing, at least switching to Substack would make me feel like I'm in the 21st century. And maybe change would be motivation?

So yeah, this may be goodbye to the blog and hello to the newsletter. Or maybe I will just let inertia win and stay here... 

I'll decide soon, but now... I've got a flight to catch.