Apocryphicity

This month was bookended by two concerts, one in Munich and the other in Glasgow. I don’t normally mention music here but I am not only a scholar and a traveller, I am also a struggling musician—that is, I struggle to play competently.

The first concert was by Michael Kiwanuka, a British singer-songwriter of Ugandan heritage. Like many British acts, Kiwanuka rarely plays in Canada, so this was our best opportunity to see him live. And he did not disappoint. The concert took place at the Zenith, a converted railway repair shop built in 1918. Going in, I did not have high hopes for the acoustics of the hall but I was surprised to hear that his nine-piece band (with three backup singers and a string duo) sounded crisp and clear.

The concert led into a weekend trip to Switzerland. We stayed three days in Lucerne and two in Zurich (okay, it was a LONG weekend). One of the days in Lucerne incorporated a day trip to Interlaken on a train with panoramic views. Upon arrival, we walked around Interlaken for several hours but somehow could not find the two lakes—so, lots of Inter, no Laken. The highlight of our stay in Lucerne was a journey up Mount Pilatus (if you ask my wife, the highlight was a traditional Swiss cheese fondu dinner). The weather was clear, so we had stunning views and watched some paragliders launch themselves off the peak to a soundtrack provided by two yodellers. According to …

The days are short now in Regensburg, and there is less activity on the streets. The only festivity to break up the routine is the eating of Krapfen (donuts) to celebrate Karneval or Fasching. The surge of sugar makes everything more bearable. But if you need something more to get through the Winter, you can also just . . . escape. So we headed to Malta.

There’s something comforting about Malta. The language is a combination of Arabic and Italian but plenty of English is spoken. The English influence is seen also in the traffic, with driving on the left, the red phone booths and post boxes, and the three-pronged electrical plugs. I felt surprisingly at home there. It is a land of forts, each one telling stories of the battles fought from their high walls. It’s also friendly, lively, and . . . cheap! I know we were there in the off-season, but the cost of our accommodations was a steal—and not because I booked us at an Ibis near the airport (we were quiet close to Valetta in a cosy boutique hotel). A bus ride anywhere on the island is a measly 2 Euro. And I was particularly chuffed at the 1.50 tea in the picturesque Upper Barrakka Gardens. We were delighted also in watching the feral cats taken care of by the city. We first encountered this practice in Cordoba, so it was no big surprise. But we were a bit perplexed about the free range chickens …

At the end of last month’s account of our post-Christmas vacation in Portugal, we were about to board a bus to Seville on New Year’s Day. After our previous two attempts to book transport were cancelled, we were not optimistic that we would be able to get out of Portugal, but we were pleasantly surprised to find the bus waiting for us. Alas, that pleasantness soon dissipated once we met our driver. He barked at all of the passengers, including two young women who were confused about where to stow their luggage and me when I asked about the bathroom (“Sem banheiro!”). With an eight-hour journey ahead of us, my bladder immediately started sending out anxiety signals. Fortunately, we did stop for lunch. Afterward, the driver yelled at my wife and I for eating on board (it wasn’t clear whether he wanted the food off the bus or us). But all of this aggravation was put in the past once we arrived in Seville. Coming into a new town in darkness is not ideal—it’s difficult to get oriented and we didn’t even know if any restaurants would be open. Fortunately, we found a tapas bar and discovered the low cost of alcohol in Spain (less than 30 Euro for dinner and three glasses of wine!). I was in love. We finished the night with a walk around town and enjoyed the bright Christmas lights still hanging in the streets.

Over the next few days we hit a few of the …

December was heavy with work (three presentations) and somewhat light on travelling (only one trip out of the city). Mind you, that’s all because we were in Regensburg for only a couple of weeks before heading home to Canada for the holidays. We also stopped in Lisbon on the way back to Germany.

First, the travelling. Ever since our doomed trip to Vienna in October (where we were “punched in the face,” as my wife likes to say, by torrential rain), we vowed to return to the city in better weather. On that first trip we had tickets to see the Vienna Boys Choir perform at the Theatre im Park but the concert was cancelled (they wear sailor suits, FFS; can’t they take a little rain?). So we booked new tickets for an indoor venue (the Hofburg Chapel). What could go wrong? Well, if my faculties were not ravaged by age, I would have suspected that a Sunday morning concert in a chapel would have meant we were going to mass. Religious rituals give this atheist the heebie-jeebies. Catholic mass in particular triggers my recovered-Catholic PTSD. But worst of all I felt cheated. I thought we would hear heavenly voices singing the songs of the season: “Carol of the Bells” or “All I Want for Christmas is You” or “Fairy Tale of New York” (imagine: 30 pre-pubescent boys belting out “You scumbag, you maggot…”). Instead we got hymns and antiphons. And we didn’t even see the choir. The chapel was …