The Kinsol Trestle

We took a walk to see the old train bridge, the Kinsol Trestle.
This will part of the Trans Canada Trail, which upon its completion will be the longest recreational trail in the world.
Imagine hiking across Canada!
You can read about BC's part of the trail at the website here.



There are many trestles like this around here, but this is one of the most spectacular, and is one of the largest in the world.


Located 50 k from Victoria, the Kinsol Trestle was finished in 1920. It was part of a railway built to service a copper mine, and carried a lot of lumber. It is 187.5 m long and spans the Koksilah river at an elevation of 38m high.

I wonder how they built this.



possibly raccoon tracks?



We have been having windstorms of over 100km/h. Many people were without power and lots of branches came down. You can see the windfall on the ground here

A Canadian Tree

We got our tree a week ago -
We saw a nice one that was a windfall from Grandma's house, but it was too tall.

(I can't make this picture flip around, and I really tried.)

Me and Dad went to the Canadian Tire down the road, and picked out a tree from there. "What kind of tree do you want?" they asked

I picked a Grand Fir, beacuse it smelled the best.
You can tell a Grand Fir because its needles are both short and long, just like the keys on a grand piano.



A Tree on top of the Cruiser is a beautiful sight. That's my Dad, on the right.


A Racoon came round, sniffing at the holly we cut down. They like to eat cat food.


And Voila, the decorated tree. We will wait until Christmas Eve to put the star on top.

The World's Largest Christmas Goat

Every year, the citizens of Gävle Sweden build the world's largest christmas goat out of straw. This is their Christmas tradition. Unfortunatley for them, almost every year the poor goat gets burned down. It burnt down again last year, so they put a web cam up and fire-proofed the straw, in hopes it won't be burnt down this year.
You can check to see if the goat is burning yet on one of its two webcams, here or here

The Goat's official website is here

Hermann's, the Movie

Hello everybody

I made a little movie of my gig at Hermann's for the people in Austria to see.
Hopefully you see it below:




If this doesn't work, you can just click here to view it on a separate page

Stacey

The Gig

The show at Hermann's jazz club with the Trio went well ~ I guess I didn't need to worry.

Some Videos are coming later

There's some Candy in my unmarked van, too..

As a woman Jazz musician I'm always doing the "duck-and-cover" from various creeps that hang around music venues. Tonight, there was a man sitting in the front row. I sat in with the band, and played a featured song with them, and then got up to go back to my table. He stops me. "I am a lounge singer... blah blah..." he says.. "you know, I have a huge grand piano in my house, you should come over and play it sometime." Like any little blonde girl in her right mind would go over to Old Weird I Want To Be A Lounge Singer Guy's house to look at his Huge Grand Piano. And like any self respecting Professional Musician would go over to any Old Weird I Want To Be A Lounge Singer's house to accompany him for free probably leading to writing free charts because he doesn't have any. "Do you have any gigs in town?" I asked him. Nope. It's strike three for this guy.. But my mind keeps thinking, maybe he is a really great musician, who am I to judge? I don't want to come across as a snob. I took his card. "Promise you will call me this week and come over and play my Huge Grand Piano" he says. "I'm a little busy, maybe I will call after Christmas" I say. "Yes, it's strange, I know, I don't have a phone number.."

Downtown Victoria

The Parliament Buildings of British Columbia, normally lit up in white, get a red and green santa hat for the holidays. The small boats had a light parade ~ They got decorated for Christmas, and sailed through the inner harbour. You can see them in the picture below.

Ink!

I got my name in the paper today, to the excitement of my Mum.
"You got ink!" she told me. I ran to the paper, and opened it to the entertainment section.
"Pianist's return a treat," the headline read. Wow, I thought, that's really a nice thing to say.. Then it goes on to talk about another pianist who's returning to town, who is way more deserving of the headline, and was one of my teachers. He appears in the encyclopedia of music in Canada here
They mention me somewhere in the middle - here it is for all those who missed out!

Map

I've put the map of my travels up top now, because some of the PC users couldn't see it. The countries I've been to are highlighted in red. At least the ones I can remember. With all the red it looks like the Communists are taking over the world...

Home Again!

I have been home for a week now, doing nothing, and eating everything I want to. This vacation will be a long one, 2 months, and I am wondering what to do with myself. Returning home is like switching worlds, and now I feel this is a world where I don't quite belong. I wonder, if I had never left, how I would fit into the world of land now. I have to remind myself to leave the house - I don't need a gangway to step outside, or an ID pass, just a coat and some keys.

My plan is to throw myself at the piano and practice like I always wished I had. I have many things to catch up on, and things to work on from my lesson with jazz legend Joanne Brackeen.

I have a big gig coming up at the local jazz club on December 19th.
http://www.hermannsjazz.com

I hope it won't be one of those times when I walk away wishing I had practised more. The solution: start practising!

Some of you have been asking where haven't I been. I made a map online, with the countries I have been to highlighted in red. I have been to 81 countries, which is 36% of all the countries in the world.

Which leaves me wondering: I've been to Quatar?? I don't remember that at all!


I put the map on the right near the bottom, it will get more interesting as we go to asia in the spring.

Progreso, Mexico

Progreso, Mexico is on the Mayan Riviera

Maybe it was the weather, but I wouldn't recommend this as a vacation destination







There were some things for sale,



Some knick knacks


Some eggs


And even kitchen sinks.


We had a birthday lunch for one of the guys in the band
Some shrimpy salsa,


And some diobolical jalapeno sauce and chips

Curacao

Curacao is one of the Dutch ABC islands, like Aruba and Bonaire
It has the cutest town of all the three, but not the greatest beaches.



A unique floating bridge connects the docking area to the town.

It moves to let ships past, and moves even with people on it, you just have to wait until it falls back in place.

This is a picture I took when stuck on the bridge, a bit confused






A floating fruit market on a canal, supplied by the boats behind it.

An oldie car downtown



A nice assortment of fruit - I bought a huge avocado.

Cozumel, Mexico

Cozumel is beautiful, despite having been wrecked by a hurricane recently. It is on an island, and is very tourist friendly, and there are no kids selling chicklets. Not that there's anything wrong with that. .

You can see the coastline is wrecked- It also washed the dock away, which is now rebuilt.



We are greeted by a Pelican


Whatever you do, don't cross that line...






We went to Playa Azul, which I remember as being nice.. but it was another windy day, and the rocky beach was too dangerous with the waves






We played some volleyball


And had a good lunch, this is lime soup


And Guacamole



Crows beg for scraps


And some scenes..