The Madness Continues

So as of my last entry I had my men's league team entering the Finals in our tournament, plus I had 1 ABB show down and a few more to go.

Well, for starters, the team won the championship! It was another battle, we were down 12 points at halftime, but fought back, got the game to OT and then pulled away in OT for a comfortable win. I have been in the league for 5 years, and the first 4 years we either lost in the semis to the eventual champion or we lost in the finals, so we finally got over the proverbial hump and it feels great!

My run with ABB at the Beacon continued as well. In all, they did 15 shows and I was lucky enough to catch 5 of them. Highlights for me:

• Clapton - come on, Clapton with ABB doing Derek and the Dominoes stuff plus a few ABB tunes too? Really does not get any better or surreal. Trucks and Clapton playing together on Why Does Love Have So Sad and Layla was just unreal.
• Bruce Hornsby - Huge fan of his music, and he really added a nice dimension to the second set on the 21st when he sat in. The also had the Juke Horns at the show too, great mix. Derek also really tore up this show, one day I'll be an old fart saying "I saw Derek back in the day..."
  
• The 27th was Southern Rock night - Kid Rock came out for Soulshine and then the Marshall Tucker Band drummer came up and they all did "Can't You See" which was pretty cool. The second set started off with the intro to Freebird. The show also had some pretty rockin versions of the New Instrumental, Les Bres and No One Left To Run With Anymore.
• 28th - Last night of the run. The second set started off as a bad Grateful Dead cover band - you know I like the Dead, but Weir should stay out of the public eye, he looks and sounds awful. Lesh was playing the band leader role too much - man, its not your band, its Gregg's, back down, calm down! Sugaree didn't do it for me, I Know You Rider was a bit better and then they had Chuck Leavell come out for Franklin's Tower and that had some pop to it. In all, good show, but for the last night at the Beacon, half the 2nd set did not have to be uninspired versions of Dead tunes, it just did not click. Also, all other musicians that guested did their own stuff plus ABB stuff, why didn't Bobby and Phil do any ABB material??
  

March Madness has arrived

Well March Madness has been kicked off in style. This weekend I headed down to AC on Friday night with Matt. Between 10pm Friday night and 3:30pm Saturday afternoon we logged about 11 hours of poker each, needless to say, eating and sleeping were optional!

We had to leave AC because we had tickets for the Allmans (my first of at least 4 shows this year). The setlist for the night was great:
Allman Bros. Band
3/14/09
The Beacon Theatre - NYC, NY

Set 1:
Little Martha (Warren, Derek, Oteil)
Ain't Wastin' Time No More
Walk on Guilded Splinters
Rocking Horse
Gambler's Roll
Revival
Woman Across the River
Dreams (w/ Randy Brecker, Lenny White)

Set II:
Melissa, Gregg on acoustic.
Lovelight, w/Robert Randolph and Adam Nusebaum, drums -->
brief Drums w/ Adam Nusebaum, drums -->
One Way Out, w/Robert Randolph and Adam Nusebaum, drums.
In A Silent Way, w/ Randy Brecker, trumpet and Lenny White, drums -->
Elizabeth Reed, w/ Randy Brecker, trumpet and Lenny White, drums -->
Drums, w/ Lenny White -->
Bass Solos w/ Stanley Clarke -->
Elizabeth Reed (core band, but with Lenny on drums, no Jaimoe this set)

Enc:

E: Mountain Jam > Dazed and Confused (w/ stanley for whole enc)


The madness continued today - my men's league had our semi-finals match up tonight. One of our players hit a 35' 3 pointer at the buzzer to send the game to OT, and yours truly won the game in OT with a free throw with 2 seconds left on the clock! The commissioner called it the best game in league history.

The championship game is Thursday night, and then I have the Allmans back to back on Friday and Saturday.

And oh yeah, a little thing called the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament gets into full gear this week.

Come on, seriously, who does not think March is the greatest month ever!

"Oceania"

Day 4 - Time for the Blue Lagoon then a trip back across the pond to NY.

The Blue Lagoon is the most famous of all the hot springs/geothermal spas in Iceland. People in Iceland love public hot springs. The Blue Lagoon is one of the most famous, supposedly it has healing powers for certain skin diseases, etc. It is also a full service spa with all sorts of in water and private room massages, etc. I was going to be there for about 4 hours, so I decided to get a 1 hour massage in the water. It sounded interesting, but when you are in water for an hour, your masseuse's hands get all prune-y and stuff! So you have these wrinkly hands giving you a massage. On the flip side, you are sitting in a hot lagoon with amazing scenery, but the actual massage was just ok. Next time I'd skip in the water massage, either get one in a spa room, or just hang out in the lagoon sans massage. I had a nice meal at their restaurant, then headed back to the airport.

So there ya have it, my trip in detail. Here are some random thoughts from the trip in general:

• People in Iceland are very nice, approachable in bars, on the street, etc. Never did I feel uncomfortable, you can walk in any area of town and feel safe.
• Shower water smells like Sulfur! Very toxic smelling. But water is safe to drink anywhere, and it really is everywhere!
  
• Do NOT eat at Pizza Pronto - they are all over, it is microwaved, soggy crappy pizza! I do not say this because I am a NY Pizza snob, I say this to save you a few Krona (Icelandic currency) on your trip, do not stop here!!!!! Find your pizza elsewhere.
• IcelandAir - excellent Airline. On time (even flying in/out of JFK!!), with a very friendly flight crew. All seats of a screen in front of you with movies and tv shows on demand, sure its not live satellite tv, but I found for a 5.5 hr flight it had enough to keep me busy. Icelandair also services 18 destinations in Europe, in the future I could see myself using them to make another pit stop in Iceland for a day or two then heading over to Europe for an extended stay.
  

"It's Oh So Quiet"

Day 3 - I am tired! I was up til 4:30am on Friday, and Saturday I had a 12+ hour tour with Christian. So on day 3 I decided to take it easy and go see some museums. The weather was dark and dreary with some sprinkled rain on and off, so I picked a good day to stay indoors. Besides, most shops are closed on Sunday, and the town is very quiet, so museums made sense. A few highlights of the day:

• Iceland National Museum - A very interesting museum, it displays a clear history of the discovery of Iceland all the way up to Independence in 1944. A short timeline - Settlement around 871A.D., move to Christianity in 1000 A.D., turned over sovereign rights to King of Norway in ~ 1200A.D., Norway gets taken over by Denmark, so Denmark rules Iceland from ~1700A.D., and then by 1944, after close to 100 years of small changes, Denmark finally grants Iceland its complete Independence, which is celebrated on June 17th.
• Reykjavík 871±2 - This exhibit has different archaeology findings from the original settlements in Reykjavik.
• The Perlan - This is mostly a great look out point to see the city, has a fancy restaurant and the Saga Museum. Due to the cloudy/rainy weather, I did not really take any pictures as it would have been a waste, but the Saga Museum was interesting.

After the rain ended I decided to head back outdoors for a bit. Christian tipped me off to the flea market/farmers market every Sunday at the Harbor. So I went to check it out, and stumbled upon the flea market plus some amazing scenery at the harbor as well.

On the food front for the day, I had some more local Icelandic treats:

• Lunch was at Hlolla Batar - a quick sandwich shop right in the town square. Instead of "subs" they have "boats". I had one with beef, cheese, their own sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, etc. I must say, this gives Quiznos a run for the money!!!
• Afternoon snack - I kept seeing signs for Kjoris which I guess is their local soft serve ice cream, so being a true patriot, I had to compare Kjoris with Carvel to see who won the battle. It is close, but I still like Carvel better, but Kjoris put a great fight!
  
• Dinner was at the Fish Market - This is one of the most famous and trendy restaurants in Iceland. I sat at the sushi bar and had an amazing 9 course "Iceland Experience" menu. I do not want to bore everyone with food details, as I am not a pure foodie, but this meal was one of the best I've had in my life!
  

"Hunter" of Nature and the Northern Lights

The alarm goes off to wake me up around 10:30 on Day 2. I had a private tour guide from Iceland Rovers picking me up for a full day of sightseeing outside the city. The tour is called Golden Circle, Northern Lights and Lobster Delights. The Golden Circle is the big tourist trip in Iceland - people get into large coach buses to go see Gullfoss, Geysir and Þingvellir (The National Park).

Though I wanted to see the sights, I did not want to travel in a group of 30 on a coach bus, so I found Iceland Rovers who do more private tours in Super 4x4 Jeeps. Also, Iceland Rovers did a full day tour with the Golden Circle, dinner and a chance to see the Northern Lights. I figured this was a great way to do everything in 1 day, so I booked the trip and I had a fantastic tour guide - Christian. Christian was probably in his late 30s or early 40s, a very nice family guy who was born and raised in Iceland. He has held many jobs like a fisherman, hotel desk clerk and more recently adventure travel leader. Though he was doing this tour, most summer he spends time taking people on multi-week backpacking tours of the more remote areas of Iceland. Along with the history of Iceland, he also shared a lot about pop culture and music. I think my favorite music we listened to was a guy named Mugison and the album was Mugieboogie. Eventually I'll make a slideshow of Iceland set to music, and I'll use some Mugison for the soundtrack, so stay tuned!

Since the tour group was small (just me), Christian figured we could squeeze in a couple of extra stops before dinner at 8pm. So here is a rundown of our trip:

• Christian happens to belong to the Icelandic Caving Society, so he took me to a lava tube for some exploration
• Iceland is known for geothermal power so we went to visit one of the newest geothermal power plants in Iceland. Did you know over 90% of Iceland's buildings and homes are heated by water? Even driveways are heated by water so snow and ice do not build up!
• Our next stop was to visit Gullfoss - wow so breath-taking, this is certainly a must see sight. I was pretty stupid to take my camera so close, as it was icy and water was spraying everywhere, but the camera held up thanks to protecting the camera with my jacket.
• Then it was off to the hot spring area to see Geysir as well as some of the other hot springs.
• Next stop - The National Park. Here was took a drive around, saw where the continental drift where North America and Eurasia continents meet, plus we saw the magnificent man-made waterfall. Back during the early settlement of 900A.D., this area was where the "government" met, and they needed a water source, which is why they diverted a river to create the waterfall to bring water to them.
• We headed down to the South Shore for dinner. Before we went to the restaurant, we took the 4x4 Super Jeep on the beach, met up with another crew on a tour and had a toast with some Icelandic Schnapps
  
• Dinner time at Vid fjorubordid - This little restaurant is on the South Shore right on the black sandy beaches of Iceland. They are known for their lobster feast dinner. But instead of the traditional lobsters we know of, they serve these tiny juicy little guys know as Langoustine which are a type of lobster, just much smaller. So we got a few pots of the Langoustine which were steamed in a pot with butter, potatoes and veggies, plus they gave plenty of side dishes to go along with the main dish.
• After dinner we spent about 2-3 hours using the 4x4 to climb up a mountain to try and catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. Christian played some Sigur Ros, which I am not a huge fan of, but driving up a pitch-black mountain at 11pm kinda set the tone and the Sigur Ros music kind of fit the bill to help set the mood, so that was cool. After such a great day, it was sad to say we did not see the Northern Lights - the forecast said they would be seen in the Northeaster part of the country so it was a long shot as we were in the Southwestern part of the country. Christian explained the Northern Lights peak every 11 years, so sometime around 2012-2013 would be the best time to plan a trip somewhere to go see them.
  

"Hidden Place"

I have returned from my trip to Iceland. People are asking for details, information, etc. So to make all of my fans happy, I will be writing a few (delayed) blog entries regarding the trip and all of its glorious details. So I told many people I was heading to Iceland, and most found it kinda funny, who goes to Iceland in the Winter, etc? Well I got to say, it really is a hidden place, such a small little gem. Reykjavík itself is a very, very small town. You can walk around and see everything in a day, and if you want to go to some of the museums, leave 1-2 days total for the city - not putting down the city but most of the unique stuff is all within nature outside of the city. But alas, onto the review:

Day 1: Iceland & the City of Reykjavík- A "Hidden Place"

So I took the red eye out there and got to the Klopp Hotel by about 8am. The hotel has a great location, 2-3 minutes to get to the middle of town, but far enough where it is not loud at night when you are trying to go to sleep. I quickly found out nothing in the city opens before 10 or 11am, every day. The hotel luckily had a room ready for me, so I was able to check in and go take a quick nap. For the first day I decided to get my bearings and walk around the city. I made a few key stops, like visiting the famous hot dog stand Bæjarins beztu (get the hot dog with everything!) and then I stopped to see the sights like the government building, some art exhibits, shopping, local architecture, cafes, the bars, etc. Most of the bars are really Irish/British pub types, though there is plenty of local Icelandic Beers of which I mostly enjoyed Egils Premium. Let me tell you, I now know why this city wakes up and starts work at 10am, they party til 5am every morning! I left the bars around 4:30am and there were still lines of people waiting to get into the bars!

So Day 1 was good, had some local hot dogs and beer, saw the sights, and walked around Laugavegur which is the main shopping/restaurant street. I had some Icelandic Lamb at Cafe Paris, met some locals, did some drinking and called it a night.