Crashing Down

Crashing Down

Hey Blogspot! Checkout this song that I made in Bordeaux!

France!

Hi everyone!

I've just come back from a most interesting and delightful visit to my Uncle Rick in Bordeaux! At the moment Yorkshire is in a state of haze and rain and snow drops. Spring is almost here, and I can't hardly wait for life to be in full bloom again. This winter funk is dragging like a strange brew.

Travelling with easyjet isn't actually that bad. However, the boarding of the plane is quite strange; it reminded me of a bus stop, everyone just goes in for a free for all battle to get a seat, but the reality of boarding was probably much more civilized than that. It's funny how the mind takes a thought and warps it into conjunction with the emotion of the event. The flight itself was nice and for the most part smooth with little turbulence. Way better than the flight I took from Seattle to Atlanta last August.

Upon arriving at the airport in Bordeaux the international atmosphere completely turned French. The part of me that had been immersed into Quebecois culture for a few years when I was younger began to engross me and my mind began to think up French words and phrases that I thought would flow from me smoothly and without hesitation, but the reality was quite different. Once outside, I recognized a man, a man who I'd only previously only met once when I was younger and then again recently when he came to visit. This man was my Uncle. Uncle Rick. A man with a million and one stories, a fantastic way of telling them, and a man with an unusual, interesting and rather fantastic life. My Uncle greeted with open arms. Two kisses, one each side of my face, as is the French custom. He tells his stories with a Tolkienish English accent, pausing and accentuating words for effective storytelling. He's great at it. Such a character. He has the look of my Grampcie, a look I'd really only known through pictures. Grampcie was my grandfather, I had only known when when I was little, and I took my first steps to him. My Uncle Rick has the same name as my Grampcie, Richard Merrin (Richard Merrin being a family name). It is almost like a fulfilled prophecy if the intention for the name was for looks.

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(A note about Grampcie) He loved the song "The Girl from Ipanema" by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Astrud Gilberto. Maybe this is the reason I love playing and listening to Bossa Nova. He was quite a religious man, responsible for the Healing mass in Manchester, and knight of the Holy Sepulchre, and also responsible for putting up and helping the late Cardinal Emmanuel Nsubuga while he stayed in England. Cardinal Nsubuga being an Ugandan who opposed and spoke out against the late Ugandan tyrant Idi Armin. My Grampcie had an amazing life. Maybe I should write a book about him one day.

From the airport we traveled to where my Uncle lives in St. Jean D'Illac. The first thing my Uncle made me do was to buy bread from the local bakery. This was a complete disaster. Not only did I ask them an existential question, by accident, when they asked me if I wanted the bread cut up, I forgot the said bread completely and walked out the door with just one baguette. I love bread, but that incident was just plain breadful. The next time I did that was better. I soon started to remember a lot of the French that I had learned in elementary school.

The place where my Uncle lives is seriously awesome. A lot of work was put into it.

He's a great cook too!

The Tuesday of the week I was there I went to an Irish open mic in the heart of Bordeaux with my fun loving French cousin Jean-Benoir (or Jb). It was so much fun. The Irish pub was as Irish as any Irish pub in France could be. The man who put on the open mic there was American/Egyptian but brought up in France, but could speak English and French fluently. I sang Barrett's Privateers, the old eastern Canadian sea shanty written by Stan Rogers, as well as my own songs (quite a different combo), and had the French all sing, stomping and clapping along. At the end of the night I said goodbye to Jb and his friends and hopped in the car with my uncle and my French aunty, and he took me on a tour of Bordeaux at night. It was one of the most beautiful cities in the world. A Napoleonic bridge, beautiful Cathedrals, city lights, the river, the discotheques. It was old, but modern at the same, like most European cities. Bordeaux is a special place.

While staying with my Uncle in Bordeaux I had the opportunity to do lots of travelling.

My uncle took me to Cap Feret, a beautiful sandy beach stretching along the Atlantic coast for hundreds of miles. I traveled across the Pyrenees mountains over to Spain and across the northern countryside. I went up the coast to the beautiful cities of St. Jean de Luz and Biarritz. These cities were home to the most fantastic beaches. A must for vacationers. I went to Lourdes and explored the spiritual place where the metaphysical Our Lady descended into the material world to tell a peasant girl about the beautiful eternity beyond our realm with the promise of everlasting life for the peoples of our world. I drank from the ever flowing stream that Our Lady had brought into existence from the Grotto at Lourdes. It was the quite possibly the purest water I had ever had. I am definitely not one of these crazy radical Christian/Catholic people, but I do respect the kind of level of spirituality that exuded from the place, and for the most part I could feel it too. It was an interesting experience.

Saturday came and I found myself in a neat little pub in the center of Bordeaux with Jb and his friends. I found myself playing the guitar, singing old classics, drinking strong local beer, chatting up, effortlessly (haha, nope :P), to a girl who might have been a bit too old for me, and talking to an English guy with jazz guitar degree. Quite random, but a lot of fun nonetheless. Thanks Jb.

We left the place with a buzz. It was 2 am. One of Jb's friends relieved himself on the street (I think a common thing in France?). Jb had a balloon to test his alcohol level, and passed. Thank goodness.

We made it back to Jb's place and stayed up till 7 am recording music. We woke up at 9 am, had a good espresso (lots of great coffee, and lots of fabulous wines were had during my stay :D), and I was whisked off to the airport. I was not hungover, and for that I was quite glad.

Had a good easy jet flight to Luton airport and then stayed at my cousin, Richard Merrin's, house for the night. Now I'm writing this in Northern Yorkshire, Sale Hill Farm, Camblesforth. I hope you enjoy! And stay classy, Internet.

I fell in love with France and I want to go back at some point.

-Beni

Snow is cool

Hello everyone!

It has definitely been a bit since my last blog, but I will try to remember as much as posssible. I write to you from Lille in the north of France. It is quite snowy here, and it feels like its Christmas. I haven't seen snow since last April and it, oddly enough, warms my heart to see it. Yesterday my travelling companions and I went to the great Canadian ww1 monument at Vimy ridge. It was an amazing memorial. Scenes at the memorial depicted allegorical figures representing humanism and the eternal struggle for good over evil. The tour guides at the site were all Canadian, and all in there 20's it seemed, so it was great to be around some Canadian youngsters again. The tour that we went on took us through an underground subway (that the soldiers used for communications and safeguard) and trenches (that were civily restored). It was quite an educating experience. The day was a cold one, but we just felt lucky that we didn't have a battle to fight, ha ha. The land was scarred by artillery bombardments and mines, there were craters that looked like grassy dried up ponds, and there were warnings everywhere, in english, saying not take chances with the land that was guarded by electric fences. This land was bound to be garnished with undeactivated mines and other explosives. Newly planted trees were everywhere, but we made the rationalization that the planters had probably detected the explosives before they had planted them. We made our way back to our car and drove over to gates of the old Canadian cemetaries. After parking the car (in an awkward place might I add) we walked over to the bigger cemetary. The frost was in the air, snow blowing in our faces, we opened up the gate at the walled cemetary and walked in. Row by row the headstones seemed to wonder into eternity. The ages of the men who had died there instilled sorrow into my soul; 16, 17, 18, up into the 20's and 30's. These men payed a hefty price for their country, and at that moment I felt honoured to be called a Canadian. The headstones were toned in gleaming white marble. They deserved it. I remembered a painting I had seen at the Canadian war museum in Ottawa, depicting thousands and thousands of ghosts haunting the ridge. The place felt a bit spooky. These men were doomed to a devoid cause, doomed to Vimy and the empires they faught for. War is hell, and it always has been.

In the time since my last post I have mostly just been travelling around, biking, hanging out, writing music, just the usual stuff. Once again I am glad to say I that I went. And I think I'll be staying in the UK for a while longer. Then again, it all depends.

Thanks for reading

your pal, Beni Beattie