Dancin' in the streets

After almost 3 months I have finally got the courage to actually go out into the streets and play Footbag there. I have been thinking and talking a lot about this, since the day we arrived and I saw some jugglers on the street.

Here in Santiago, when they talk about a "street performer", it is a literal meaning. There are a wide variety of jugglers, fire twirlers and even sometimes acrobats. There is also this guy with these metal circles, and I don't understand how he gets any money at all.

Some weeks ago I was playing some Footbag just near the office where I'm doing my internship. It's just near the Bellas Artes museum, so there's a reasonable amount of people going by. I got talking to these guys for a while told me I had to play on the street corners, that I would be weighed down by all the money I would make.

So to properly introduce you to this segment, here is a video.

You thought it would be some footage of a juggler didn't you! Got you there. How about the "puffy shirt" on Mick Jagger. If you can't see the video, it's Mick Jagger and David Bowie singing "Dancing in the Streets".

So people always say things like "it looks like Riverdance" or "you must be good at dancing" and had a laugh at the end. They also say things like "you've got to much time on your hands". Nick Landes had a good response - "no, I've got too much time on my feet". So I am going to present a segment called "dancing in the streets" and hopefully it will be about my successful adventure in getting money for playing footbag. If not, it will be about the stories of misadventure, which make for better reading anyway.

So anyway, the corner right outside our window is a very popular place for performers, so today when I came home, I decided, this is the day. I packed a few footbags, and also one juggling ball. I hadn't really planned my performance at all, I just picked this day and I was ready.

The first round was TERRIBLE- I dropped it so many times, and decided I wouldn't even bother going into the crowd to receive any payments, as it was unlikely they would be forthcoming anyway. The whole concept is similar to monks begging for alms. When someone wants to make a payment, they hold their hand out the window, and if you don't see them they will beep their horn to get your attention.

So the next round I had developed my plan, only slightly further ahead. I decided to use two bags- one Elemental which has some streamers on it. I would begin with some big high kicks, and do tricks like ducking and spinning. When I inevitably dropped it, I would change to a Hania bag that I use all the time. This one is not really great for performing, but it's the bag I am most used to, so I can step up the difficulty.

My first payment was from a taxi driver. From my research- I really have been regularly watching these performers, seeing how many payments they get, etc. The most I have seen was 5, just the other day. Up until then, 4 was the best I had seen. Today, in my first day, I managed 3 in one go, which I was happy with.

One lady even gave me a luca (a 1000 peso note, worth about $2). I think she was hoping I would give her some change, but I used a trick I found stall holders in India use a lot, "no sir, I don't have any change". That was the truth anyway, as I had just begun.

I wasn't really sure how long to continue on for. At first I was thinking I should push on for one hundred attempts, but I would say I was getting more payments than I expected. I was also getting more tired than I expected.

About 30 minutes in, the traffic patterns seemed to change, often leaving me with no audience to begin my show. That was about 6:30, so I guess that's something for me to keep in mind. In the end, I packed up and came home, conveniently across the road. I counted my coins, which were mainly 100 peso coins. I had come away with 5,400 pesos.

That's about $10.80, which is not too bad for 45 minutes of effort. Next time I will have to continue my efforts. One thing I was a bit put off by, was having someone steal my little bag while I was in the street. I think the more money you get, the more likely that will happen. Today it didn't happen though, so hopefully that's a good sign for the future.

Francisca told me it's not something I can make a career out of. I'm not so sure she's right...

Way up in the sky, little darling

Hot Air Balloon Ride with Balloon Aloft

As a gift for our wedding, my parents gave Francisca and I a voucher for a balloon trip. I had never really contemplated doing one before, because it's a bit of an outrageous cost to do it yourself. We had tried to go one time before, but bad weather put things off. A couple of months have already gone by, so it was time to try again. I called up last week and they had no spots available, so I booked in for this weekend.

It was an early start, making the 5am call to check if the wind was ok, I expected it was probably going to have the result where we went back to sleep, but we were on. After the coldest ever May 6, May 7 was slightly warmer, at just -3 overnight. By the time I got to scrape the ice of the car, it was probably only slightly below zero.

Our meeting point was at the Hyatt Hotel, we headed there, then we went to check out Weston Park as a possible launch spot. A test balloon was sent up, and seemed to head straight up, with not much drift to take us anywhere. The balloonists were slightly concerned about the fog, but after sometime of waiting in the cold, some more time of waiting in the truck with the heaters on, the thumbs up was given.

We drove further into the park itself, and all systems were go. There were quite a few balloons going up that day, but in the end our one was the first to go up, and the last to land. Our pilot Richard had 20 years of flying experience, and he seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

Once we were away, which was 2 hours on from when we actually met up, we shot up quite quickly, straight above the park with views over the lake and the Arboretum. What's currently mainly dirt, it will be a very different sight to behold in 10-20 years time. We could look down and see the rowers on the lake, they were also off to an early start.

There's not so much control of where you can go in a balloon, but our drifting took us right through the inner south area of Canberra. After floating around for a while, it looked as if we would be landing in the fields in Deakin, near the mint, but then we went up again, over past Manuka and towards Narrabundah. It seemed at one stage we would be landing on the fairway of the 5th on the golf course, we came so close to the ground that I was able to grab a leaf from a tree, but then we were up again, bound for the model plane airfield.

Yes, Canberra has a model plane club, and yes, they have their own airfield. We had to land west of the Monaro highway as to avoid any air traffic coming into the airport, but also to avoid landing in the jail, as they may become suspicious this vehicle with no steering may be used as a getaway...

Once we finished up with the balloon it was on to the Hyatt, firstly for champagne, then on to breakfast. As we had been up in the air so long, the breakfast was about to finish, so I'm not so sure it was as good as it could have been, but we talked to some of our fellow balloonists and enjoyed our meal

London- Day Two

A few weeks back I went to London for a short while. So far I have only written about my first day.

My second day in London, Dan was up super early to go to work. At the time he was working as a demolition man, kicking holes in walls, smashing things with crowbars and the like. He said it wasn't as fun as it sounded. As I was leaving London though, he was lining up a new job, setting up tents on the festival circuit. Free entry to massive rock festivals doesn't sound like such a bad deal.

Anyhow, he got up at the crack of dawn, I thought I might get up soon after, so I could make the most of my first real day in England. At midday I stirred. It was good to get a good rest, and this probably got me over any jetlag.

After having some troubles entering the country, I thought it may be time for a cleaner look. I had walked by a barbershop the day before, so I went to see if I could get a haircut. “No appointments necessary” that's what I like to hear. The shop seemed to be run by a Polish family, we joked about the fact that no English people lived in London, and I was served a cup of tea during my time. Unlike the barber I went to in my youth, they didn't talk about guns and fishing, or ask me my thoughts on the current topics of the day. Back then, I normally kept quiet. My views seemed to be regularly the complete opposite of old Reg, and I've read the man from Ironbark.

Looking about ten years younger, I stepped out into the streets of London. It was still fairly cold, though at least it wasn't raining. I didn't really have a plan, I just thought I should go around and have a look at things. I went into the newsagency and bought an Oyster card, these are the cards used on London transport, so I felt almost like a real Londoner each time I swiped my card through at the station, just like everybody else.

I got on the tube with no particular destination in mind. Looking at the stops, I decided on Notting Hill Gate. I walked around Notting Hill to see if anything of interest was around. I entered a few record stores, seeing if I could find a street press, but most of the places sold second hand jazz records. I don't really know anything about jazz, so they didn't occupy my interest for long.

I kept walking and went into Kensington Gardens, a large park adjacent to Hyde Park. I was interested in taking a look at the palace there, but the entry fee was fifteen pounds. In 2000, they decided entry to most of the museums in London would be free. I decided I would be better off sticking to the free places and kept walking.

The park was quite nice, it probably would have been more pleasant if there was sun shining, but I had a jacket on, it was spring I was sure the weather would clear up soon enough. It didn't. On the other side of the park, I came to the Royal Albert Hall. I'm sure there's been plenty of big bands to play there, but I know Cream played a reunion show there around 2006. That would have been a pretty amazing show to attend. Dad actually has a tape of that in his car, I listen to it sometimes when I go to visit. I took a photo, but didn't bother going inside. Just around the corner there are numerous museums.

First stop was the Science Museum. I was hoping for a Questacon-esque experience, a really fun, hands on place, but it was more just what the title implied, a museum of scientific stuff. There were some good exhibits, especially one that concentrated on what the Muslim community brought to Science over the years. There were also millions of screaming kids there, which made the experience much less pleasant. At least it was warm in there.

My next stop was just a few doors down the same street at the Natural History Museum. I went to a similar museum in Vienna last year, which I found a bit weird, so I wasn't sure if I should bother with this one. Entry was free, and it was nice and warm, so it was a good decision to enter. Not only that, but the exhibits were excellent. Apart from the animal type exhibits similar to what I had seen in Vienna, there was a lot of focus on things like earthquakes, volcanoes and movement inside the earth's core. I didn't really know anything on these subjects, so I actually learnt something from this visit.

Back out into the cold, and I wondered, where to next? I saw a sign pointing me in the direction of an underground station and headed there. I grabbed a bit to eat in some cafe, and got on the tube at South Kensington to get off at Westminster. Oh, here we are, this looks familiar. This was the place for some famous sights of London. I thought about taking a riverboat along the Thames, but in that weather, there was no point. I took a few touristic photos, then went by foot along the river.

I found some signs pointing me in the direction of the Imperial War Museum. I headed that way. I crossed the bridge and headed for the museum. I assumed it wouldn't be that far, that was incorrect. It seemed I walked quite a long way through the cold, and each step it seemed to be getting colder. I was reading Down and Out in Paris and London at the time, and I wondered how these characters got through the winters if this was Spring.

Eventually I was at the museum, they had an interesting exhibit about the different spy divisions within England, the whole exhibit seemed to question whether these agencies should exist at all in what is a time of peace. They also had the usual assortment of tanks, planes, guns etc. On the top floor there was a holocaust section, I was heading up that way, but decided I couldn't stomach that kind of thing and headed back out.

I found a tube station at North Lambeth after a bit more walking, I got out at Charing Cross, I decided to check out the National Gallery. You know that feeling you get when you've done too much in one day, a feel of being overwhelmed, I felt like that. I wandered through the galleries, paying vague attention, it was basically a waste of time me being there, but once again, it was free and it was warm.

Liking the idea of seeing some more of the monopoly board, from Trafalgar Square, I walked up Pall Mall in the direction of Oxford Street. I got on a tube eventually and went back to Dan's place. I got out of the station and walked confidently in the direction of his house. I thought I remembered what it looked like, but on arrival, I wasn't so sure. For some reason I hadn't written down the number of the place, or committed to my memory. It was number 14, that's the number of my house I lived at when I was a child, and the number of my Grandma's house. I wouldn't be forgetting that one again. One of the Kiwi guys came outside “hey, Dan'smateDan”. I was “home”.

That night we went out for a meal at an English pub in Shepard's Bush, a couple of stops away on the tube. Fulham were up against Atletico Madrid in the Europa Cup final. There were some people watching the game, but it wasn't packed. Fulham lost in extra time, the Fulham fans looked completely despondent. From years of watching the Canberra Raiders, I knew the feeling.

Dan wanted to show me how stupid these “Australian pubs” were, so we went over to the Walkabout, just round the corner. It wasn't so crowded on this particular night, but as the night on, people arrived in big bunches, which I assumed were Contiki tours and the like. Anyhow, they had a table tennis table and the beer was reasonably priced, I didn't think it was so bad. I won the table tennis 21-17.

We got the bus home, and once we got off, Dan was busting for a piss. He ran off the bus and into a nearby park. He was so worried about the task at hand, he didn't see a low fence, which put him flat on his face in the park. He had a nice wound and a sore shin the rest of the week.