Southampton

April 20th
Southampton

Still here, with still little sign of returning home soon. Today started with breakfast, followed by a walk to the mall where we wasted some time walking around clothing stores looking at everything we can’t buy due to weight restrictions on our baggage. So after we were amply depressed, we went to our usual café to get online. I discovered two things this afternoon online: First was that a train pass to London costs way more than I’d expected, about 60 pounds, or $100 for a roundtrip pass. This will probably kill all hopes of going to London. And second, I found out that one of my friends from an older ship, Igor (who I called James because I thought he looked like James Bond), was stuck in Gatwick, an airport south of London. He can get a train pass to get to Southampton for just 10 pounds, so hopefully I can hang out with him one of these days.
We returned to the hotel for lunch, which the company is now providing for us, so that’s nice. And lunch was followed by the highlight of my day, some good old-fashioned busking.
For those of you not familiar with the term, busking, in my case, is playing my sax somewhere in the city. I decided to try it out in a park near the hotel that


And that’s where my post stopped when I picked it up again in May 19th. So I guess I’m a month late in finishing this up, but I’m going to do my best.

The busking went fine and it was an interesting experience. Oddly enough, the majority of people who gave me money looked like they had the least to give, and the business people in suits and ties never stopped once. I played for about 90 minutes or so that afternoon, and then again on the next day, to make about 30 pounds, or around $50. Not bad for being able to stand out in a park on a nice sunny day and practice.

Both evenings consisted of dinner at the hotel and internet late at night after that at some pub, the only place we knew of that had internet and was open till midnight. So the days weren’t too eventful, slightly dull with a bit of sax mixed in, but we did have gorgeous days to walk around, so that was great!

I think one of those nights had a jam session going on in town. It was held at a bar and ran like the usual jams I go to in the states. I grabbed my sax to go play, and after all the egomaniacal guitarists got done trying to impress everyone, someone who cared about music finally invited me up where the sax became an instant hit. One guy brought a keyboard, dressed like a hippy on LSD, and had me play with him on some strange almost funky grooves. He was a nice guy despite the description, and gave me one of his pins after we were done, which reads “Cosmic Troubadour” and has a rainbow on it. Strange night.

The 22nd consisted of John and I going to London (Thanks John for buying that train ticket for me!), where we basically walked around a lot. We saw the important sites while making our way through the city and then back again to our train station. The highlight, however, was finding a great saxophone store, where we were able to just play great, new horns. The guy who was helping us gave me a reed to use, a $600 mouthpiece to play, and their most expensive horns. It was a super nice place and a really fun way to spend part of our day. I ended up buying a t-shirt and book just to show my appreciation.

We thought about hitting a jazz club, but it’d mean that we’d miss dinner at the hotel and have to spend tons more money in London, so we made our way back to the train and returned to Southampton in good time.

The next day was our flight home, a Friday, which we didn’t get the details for till Wednesday. So 5 days later John and I were both on our planes back to Chicago, where he then continued to St Louis. And there ends another ship adventure, one with a strange volcanic twist on the end. As always, thanks for reading the blog, and sorry for any delay that caused concern for me being still stranded in England! Take care, Cheers, and till we meet again!

I did make it home

Just in case anyone is still wondering, I did in fact make it home, I just haven't finished posting those blogs I've written.

Anyway, my current project is starting to teach music lessons online live, using webcams and lots of cool software. I'm posting a link to my site here because I think it helps my rankings on Google. Check it out if you get a chance!

http://www.playwhatyouwant.com

Thanks!