In Dubai, they don't like the Flintstones...

I'm not that patient a person and rely on instant judgement and my gut to tell me what to do in many cases.  This doesn't always work sadly so I have become adept at changing horses in mid-stream.  Or using my friend Arri's saying:

"I have my principles but if you don't like them I have others."

I wanted to write my first blog about Abu Dhabi relatively cold and then see how that opinion changed or not over the near 3 weeks Viv and I shall be here.

I blew it.

Today we went on a hop-on, hop-off bus tour to get a helicopter lens overview of Abu Dhabi and in the process learned quite a lot more about the place too.  Mostly good too.  So my view is now muddied by this new information and therefore cannot be a snap judgement.

Probably a good thing too.

Our first lunch with Anton's family was great.  This time of year the temperature is in the 70's and comfortable versus being in the mid-120's and nuclear at other times.  So we'd walked along the relatively new Corniche adjoining the immense white sand beach (7- mile beach!  Is that all you can do?) to cross the bridge separating the island of Abu Dhabi with another man made island (Abu Dhabi is all islands just off the mainland so water is everywhere and so are bridges) to a grill restaurant specialising in local style food.

That was great but I was also reintroduced to that great conundrum that I'd first come across in Dubai 5 years ago concerning the loo.

First of all the line to get in was down the stairs and around the corner.  I'd of course forgotten that there are no urinals outside of the western oriented hotels and restaurants because of the local attire.  Many men wear long robes called the 'dish-dash' so cannot easily, well, go about things.  So there are only stalls.  Just like the ladies in fact.  Inside the stalls in addition to the usual lay out is a spray gun that one can only assume cleans those parts otherwise unreachable.  And now here is the conundrum. Or in fact two which therefore makes it or should I say them, conundra.

1) why are all the stalls bone dry when there is a hose about that clearly has its uses?
2) how on earth is it possible to go about your business, use the hose and have no subsequent sign of clothes being either creased or wet?

For local culture has it that men have to wash pretty much everything before they pray which in itself is 5 times a day therefore that means a lot of washing.  And in the act of washing, you only have 2 hands which by my assessment given the needs, the clothes, the hose, etc is at least one hand too few.

Difficult questions to ask.

So the food was good, the sweets in particularly fabulous, the mint tea lovely and the local coffee mind altering in both its strength and sweetness.  Great start.

Next day came Ferrari World and the largest indoor theme park in the world (what great PR for Ferrari to have a theme park in the country of one of their best customers!).

Ferrari World... Really

"Right Uncle Mark, don't get scared".  "OK Tudor, now how fast does this gooooooooooooooooo...?"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhhh..."

"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH...."

"NO, AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH....."

"Is it over yet?"

We did everything on offer including the fastest roller-coaster in the world (I was glad I hadn't eaten a big breakfast, twice actually as I went again with Tudor, Anton's oldest son) and a competitive Ferrari race car simulator where I came a comprehensive last followed by dinner at Rojo's Roller Coaster Restaurant in the newly opened Yas Mall (the biggest mall in the world) -- yes, a restaurant where you ordered by iPad and had the food and drink delivered by roller coaster through a well designed albeit Heath Robinson style series of lines and pulleys that brought your order to your table side.  Still hot and only a little shaken up.

And today was the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus trip which was as usual terrific (I am a big supporter of this innovation).

The first sighting of the Grand Mosque from the bus

So if Abu Dhabi was a child and it came and kicked me on the shin, at this moment I'd probably smile and give it sixpence.  Make it a shilling.  What the heck.

... but Abu Dhabi Do

We're back on our travels again and this time we're visiting Viv's brother Anton and his family, Catherine, Tudor, Antonia, August and Sterling in order who live in Abu Dhabi.  They've lived in quite a few places since Anton married Catherine and have been in Abu Dhabi all of a year now.  They visited Bermuda in 2013 so Viv was keen to see how much the children had grown... and of course to see their parents too.

We'd visited Dubai in 2010 just after that Emirate had defaulted and been bailed out by oil rich Abu Dhabi so we were keen to visit particularly as the price of oil has fallen below $50 a week or so back threatening the viability of many OPEC nations.

I know you know where the UAE is, but just in case you need to be reminded

Getting here wasn't too bad -- an overnight flight to Gatwick, taxi along rain sodden motorways in England to Heathrow, a civilised R&R period in Etihad Airways' very comfortable lounge (including massage and complimentary everything) followed by a 8 hour flight to Abu Dhabi arriving at the god awful time of 1.30 am.  (Writing this 2 days later, I still haven't regularised my internal sleep clock yet).

OK I know I'm repeating myself but just in case you want to see what the Empty Quarter looks like from outer space.  It's that white/grey looking bit.  All of it.

Anton greeted us and the following day -- being a Friday and therefore the Islamic weekend's most holy day -- we caught up with everyone else too.  The two sets of twins had certainly grown since we last saw them and very well too, if I may say.

First action for us was lunch ... and at this point I will pause the narrative and go into a little local background.

Abu Dhabi is by far the largest of the United Arab Emirates, more than 87% of the combined land mass, and has virtually all the oil and therefore virtually all the money and therefore is the most important part of the UAE which in December turned 43 years old.  The nation came about because of the British pull out in 1968 as part of the de-colonising strategy that robbed myself and many others of my generation the chance of meaningful employment in the colonies.

The British had first arrived to boot out the dastardly Dutch and perfidious Portuguese who were trying to gain a footing in the region to protect the sea lanes to the east.  That was in 1766 but 60 years later they/we decided to make the region a 'protectorate' as opposed to a colony by assuming all non-local powers (i.e foreign policy) and setting up a garrison in the region.  This coincided with the arrival into power of the Al-Maktoum dynasty, clearly a symbiotic relationship born out of serendipity, who still rule Abu Dhabi and hence the UAE today.  Most emiratis lived in the interior at the time and there wasn't very many of them so opposition to this notion wasn't really on.  But it must have worked as the region prospered until the 1930's on agriculture, fishing and pearl diving until the Japanese discovered Makimoto pearls -- the synthetic ones.  That hurt and it wasn't until the then ruler granted oil rights to a British/French oil consortium that things turned around.

In 1958 oil was discovered and the good times started to roll, first picking up with the departure of the British, the establishment of the UAE and the 1973 oil crisis when the price of oil started to move up quite favourably for Abu Dhabi who have the 6th largest amount of proven oil reserves, a top 10 national oil company and as of today plus or minus $2 trillion in their sovereign wealth fund.

I wonder if the current ruler ever thinks to say thanks to the British for leaving them in such a sorry state.

On the way in from the airport, I'd questioned Anton in my usual way on things here and he'd said the Abu Dhabi folks were far lower key than their Dubai neighbours and with solid financial backing and what seems like a long term plan in place were executing pretty nicely.  There's still very few real emiratis and 90%+ guest workers, so the old saying of winning first prize in life's lottery could well have moved on from the 19th century Brits to the emiratis.

Rats!

Regarding religion, the emiratis whilst tolerant are themselves serious about their religion.  Maybe not as strict as Saudi Arabia next door but still stict.  No booze other than in hotels and certain very few restaurants.  No outward signs of affection.  Very conservative in fact.  According to Lonely Planet, the UAE is the most likely place for British people to be arrested in the world!  That serious.

Emiratis are Sunni muslims so are very tight with Saudi and in particular the Egyptians.  Clearly with such a stack of cash in reserve, the temporary dipping in  the oil price whilst annoying won't stop the cranes building the new Abu Dhabi that much.  But with the turmoil in the region apparently the big concern is Egypt.  If Egypt goes fundamentalist, so goes the middle east is the big worry.  So Saudi and the UAE will spend all they need to make that not happen.

They have an ally in this in the USA who themselves are concerned about fundamentalism in the region so hopefully things will not take that path.

And it was only a 30 minute ride to Anton's aprtment overlooking the Corniche in downtown Abu Dhabi.  Phew, I'm glad it wasn't longer.  Who knows what I would have learned?

Our first view in the morning.

It's minus 6, so its Ramen Noodle time

There are times when you need to eat a bowl full of soup noodles, preferably spicy noodles with lots of nice yummy things in it.  That was yesterday when the day dawned clear and bright in Toronto which meant that at this time of year it was 28 degrees F or minus 6 C.

The view from our window

Having just arrived from Cayman when it was a pleasant PLUS 32 C, this came as quite a shock so the call went out for the nearest Ramen Noodle shop.

Ramen Raijin is just east of Yonge on Gerrard Street, nice and downtown and fortunately less than 5 minutes from our apartment.

The soup is pork based but spicy with pork belly, pork cheeks, seaweed and the fungus mushrooms that have a Japanese name I can never remember but which are delicious.

Combine and eat.  Now that warms the cockles alright!

Conch City

There are some things that are touristy which are well worth skipping, and then there are things that are touristy that are just brilliant.  Stingray City in the Cayman Islands is one of the latter.

I've been traveling to Cayman since 2003, before Hurricane Ivan which devastated the island, but have never made it to Stingray City before a few days ago.  Some times it was the weather, others were due to something else.  I'd just never made it however Nick said he had a spare ticket and asked if I'd like to join him and Elaine (and a bunch of others too) for a morning's outing.

The weather wasn't great, very wavy with the wind coming in from the North East, just the wrong position for the visit… but that wouldn't stop the trip from going ahead.  It just wouldn't be as calm as the photos.  In fact it would be downright rough.

The trip with Captain Marvin's would visit a site near North East Breaker to dive for conch, the second site would be the Sea Gardens… a bunch of reefs nearby… and the final trip would be on the sandbar that is Stingray City itself.

Now I like conch.  Its a shellfish, probably a large mollusk like a whelk as opposed to a crustacean like a shrimp or lobster, and is just lovely in a variety of ways.  My favorite being conch salad, a raw presentation including chillies and lime juice that I was introduced to back in the 1980's back in the Bahamas.  In Cayman they call it either ceviche or marinated conch but tastes just as good.

The dive site was no more than 15 feet deep and a pure sandy bottom.  I snorkeled for a bit but couldn't see a single conch -- they are as big as a rugby ball and pink, so really should stand out.  However when I hopped back on the boat I saw that it was just I that was incompetent as there was simply loads of conch shells onboard.  The boat crew said we needed only 4 or 5 but there was more than double that amount.

The conch harvest

Fortunately for the conch, or at least some of them, only the 5-year olds and older are fair game.  Others get thrown back.  The way you tell is that the edge of the shell (the 'fan') has to be big and extending out beyond the something or other which looks like a big nobble on the shell (I can't describe it any other way).  The crew could tell and only worked away on the big 'uns with a claw hammer and sharp knife.

The claw hammer technique.  The crew scrub the empty shells and sell them to tourist stores.  They really are a beautiful pink color when scrubbed and cleaned off with bleach.

You bash the shell gently with the back bit of the claw hammer, enough to make a gouge that enables you to stick a sharp knife inside to cut the muscle holding the conch to the shell, and then you pull the poor creature out.

Big, eh?  Lots of guts, goo and slime before you get to the good stuff. There's a long clear string like membrane that looks like fishing twine which the boat crew said was great for male 'strength'.  He offered it around but it was declined by we wimp tourists.

They are bigger than you think and after all the trimming of the guts, goo and slime, there is a white piece of conch about the size of a chicken breast.  It is this that goes to make the conch salad.  Yummy!

Stingray City itself is no bigger than a small sandbar and on the day we went it was chocker block with 4 or 5 boats crammed full of tourists all of whom were feeding the rays with squid, cuddling them and in some cases kissing them.

A calmer and quieter day by the look of it.

The rays were big, probably 6 to 8 feet wingspan so pretty sizable.  If you had a denizens of the deep phobia, you'd have the screaming abdabs.  Fortunately I didn't.  Their skin at the top is rather leathery but underneath they are soft and yielding.  Really weird feel actually particularly when the boat crew picked one up and draped it over your back and head!

I'd love to go back when its less crowded and calm.  This was brilliant!

Gangs of New York

Its been a couple of weeks since we got back from New York and with a couple of hurricanes getting in the way have only now got round to writing about it.

I do like New York, its a great world city.  Only on Friday I was reading an opinion piece suggesting that because of its even greater diversity, London has just regained top slot in the race for the #1 city of the world, a place held for the last 50 or so years by New York.  I don't disagree with that of course (being partial) but that still doesn't do anything to detract from NY's allure for me.

We arrived on a Monday in late October around 11 am so I organised a walking tour of lower Manhattan titled after the movie of the same name that is the title of this post.  That movie was a historical classic, and of a time when the city (and country) was changing from an old world colony to a new world polyglot.  Before this period (the 1860's) America was all about old world colonists.  After it was all about immigration, massive growth and a really new world country.  The Civil War being the devastating catalyst for speeding things up even more.

So I found Alex.

It was a Living Social thing that gave me the idea but none were available so the fallback of Google found Alex (see website www.Alexstours.com).  Timing was right so we headed out immediately and found the church assembly point AND the oldest pizzeria right near by... called Lombardi's and opened in 1905 (see website here).  The pizzas weren't as great as in Chicago or St. Louis but still pretty nice and as it was an icon, the place was jammed.

Lombardi's Pizzeria

However Alex didn't show up at the allotted time.

So I called him and he gave me a whole bunch of stuff about how his 3 different online calendars weren't working properly and said "sorry" an enormous amount of times ... and then said he could be there in 30 minutes.

It gave us the chance to consider where we were.  Its beyond Greenwich Village down to the unnumbered cross streets and south of Houston (which is one of the subway stops nearby) --- incidently Houston is pronounced HOW-STON not WHO-STON because of its Dutch ancestry and the spelling change from HOO-STON which in Dutch pronunciation is HOW-STON.  OK?  Well that's what Alex told us anyway.

It was a brilliant tour and it all comes down to Alex, a young 20-something with an outrageous French accent who conducts tours in English (father is English), French (mother is French), Italian and German (no idea about the last two).

I am so impressed by young people who have a vision and guts to start up their own business and give it a go.  (Alex incidentally plays jazz in a band and that night had a gig but despite this was very casual about continuing on and on).

He was also very knowledgeable (or at least it seemed that way to me) and had a high speed delivery that made me feel breathless and certainly obviated the need and opportunity to ask questions.

So onto the tour, well it all takes place around Five Points, a part of NY above the financial district but below where the rich folks lived.  Once you came off the boats from wherever, you ended up in Five Points.  There were Italian, German, Polish, Russian, you name it nationalities but predominantly the Irish.  They all hated one another but it was only the Irish who hated themselves too -- "You're from Cork, you B*&*^*&".  That sort of thing.  So there were umpteen gangs that were initially set up for self-protection but soon morphed into criminality as well.  So 'protection' was not only from the other nationalities but also from your own gang.

Five Points in the old days -- called so because it was at the junction of 5 streets

Take the tour yourself to find out all the good stuff.  There is so much I could write for ages but I loved the story about the firemen the most.  As all the tenement buildings were essentially wooden construction, fires were frequent and devastating.  Hence the need for firemen.  However the gangs owned the fire stations (which were usually the gathering points for the gangs) and were a good profit centre.  The city paid only the first crew that got to a fire so there was a race (and often battles) to fires.  Also enterprising entrepreneurs may even set the fires and then set an upturned barrel on the nearest hydrant so no competing fire brigade could attend the fire.

One of the old fire stations

These days 1 Police Precinct, City Hall and the Criminal Courts is on top of what was Five Points -- that says something!  Clearly it was so troublesome and after the multitude of riots, the worst being the 1863 version covered in the movie that the city fathers felt that bulldozing the whole place was the best solution.

Five Points today

We ended up after more than 3 hours pretty weary at the Staten Island Ferry right at sunset so felt that cocktails and dinner would be the best way ahead.

This we managed at Harry's in the financial district (see website here), a great steak house that made wonderful Negroni's, a personal favorite!

Tuesday was meant to be our shoppping day as everyone is on sale in New York, it seems all the time these days however after dragging ourselves around the 5th Avenue Uniqlo store, we ran out of energy so decided to go to the movies instead, passing the ticket office on Times Square along the way where we bought tickets for Les Miserables for that night (incidentally we made the movies too!).

I saw Les Miz in London 30 years ago and it was pretty much the same show, pretentious, dark and Jean Valjean having a pretty hard time of things, year after year.  Victor Hugo himself apparently didn't think much of either Marius or Cosette so constructed very superficial characters for them.  However Epernine and Gavroche were great characters and received strong, if brief coverage.  It must be difficult though for any actor to make any part his or her own after so many years.

I won't go into detail about my business meetings but will note that this year's restaurant choice was another simply magnificent steak house in old New York.  Thank goodness, they keep on coming.

By the way, do you know why they call New York the big apple?  Apparently it stems from Harlem jazzmen who in conversation always referred to getting a gig as getting "a big apple" so at some point along the way, those jazzmen's slang went viral.

So Big Apple and of course Alex, thanks.  We had a great time!

Happy Trails

Just back home to Bermuda and the hot, sticky weather my first thought after 2 months away was how old Bermuda looks.  Not surprising I suppose seeing as it was discovered in 1609 and being small has been built over for years now, so there's precious little leeway to build big, new things.  Or money at the moment anyway although I do hope that changes soon.

Looking back on our time away though, here are some thoughts:

Chicago

What a great City!

That's it.  Nothing else.  OK, one thing someone told me about was the Architectural Society's city tours and how good they were.  He was right.  And this really leads onto a theme running through the trip which is that exploring somewhere through history brings perspective and so much more enjoyment than simply rolling up and trying to get going.  My son, Ali, recently went to Paris for a friend's wedding and visited some of the museums there which he said he really enjoyed.  I found this pleasantly surprising as I thought the young today don't read that much (if its not on a digital device) and don't care much for history beyond the first 20 second sound byte.

Chicago Board of Trade's throne style art deco building

Museums

Many of the museums we visited had guided tours of displays, events and such like.  Do them.  These tours are provided for a reason.  They are interesting and informative.  If the guides are enthusiastic (and ours were), this translates into a wonderful experience which brings so much more to what you are looking at.

Warning: You are in danger of learning something…

In Montreal, for example, at the Pointe a Calliere Museum -- the museum of the city -- a temporary exhibit was of one district in the City just outside downtown.  I couldn't for the life of me understand why I'd care about some suburb but the tour convinced me otherwise and reminded me that everyone and everywhere has a story.  All you have to do is listen.

I now know for example why Montreal housing is built the way it is -- outside staircases because property tax at the time was calculated on living space, staircases being considered dead space were therefore built outside.  Made no sense of course as with the city being snowed in for 6 months of the year, these staircases were death traps!

Not many people know that.

Baseball

The 2 games we went to were brilliant but make me wonder why there are so many games in a season. 162 regular season games is a lot so teams have to have large rotating squads and make sure they win 52% of their games to make it to the play-offs.  (Watch the movie Moneyball to see what I mean). This means the game can be managed statistically; beat that team, rest the good guys for this other team…

Takes some of the immediacy out of things.  Had we realised the St. Louis game was the final one in a 3-game series against LA and they'd already won the first 2 games, we may not have spent the $100 per ticket to watch a game that was fairly low energy (and importance to St. Louis anyway).

I think this is likely the case with NBA and NHL too.

Bourbon

I was hoping I'd like Bourbon but even the smoothest drink felt like a dagger in the throat to me (just like Scotch too).  But when incorporated into a cocktail such as an Old Fashioned or a Manhattan… whoo-hoo!

Draw daggers…

Old Fashioned and Mint Julep… that's what I'm talking about!

Interestingly as a side comment the barman at our cocktail course said that Canadian Rye whisky is the most popular US drink so that now many US distillers make rye too.  This is permeating into Bourbon making as well where the area in which it was originally distilled (Bourbon county in Kentucky) was expanded to the point where it could be made anywhere in Kentucky and still be called bourbon, and then again further still so that bourbon can be made anywhere… and still be called bourbon.

This would never happen in the EU who make sure that you can only legally get Yorkshire Pudding in Yorkshire.  Mind you the French are highly guarded over Champagne and Cognac so maybe the EU learned it from them.

Movies

We like movies and when away take the chance of spending lengthy periods in the local Cineplex 24 or whatever the local name is.  If you plan properly, you could spend an entire day in one of these places moving from screening room to screening room -- our record was 4 in a day.  The challenge is to find movies you like in the right order.

The biggest irritant is going out to buy multiple tickets and makes me wonder why these multiplexes don't just sell a day pass, or a week pass for that matter.  Double or triple a single ticket and enable movie goers to stay and go as much as they want.  They'd buy stuff at the concessions and probably generate more revenue for the cinema and at the same time obviate the need to hire people to check for those who hop from screen to screen without buying new tickets.

Make the experience better for moviegoers in fact.

Service

We went out a lot in the last 2 months.  Pretty much across the board we found that service in bars, restaurants and hotels was excellent but stand out moment goes to the Toque Restaurant in Montreal (see link here).

We were recommended this as being one of the best restaurants in Montreal and expecting it would be French-ish, we went.  Montreal isn't as French as I thought it would be nor was Toque.  It was new, elegant and had some French components to it but it was new American… and very nice too.  I'd ordered a bottle of red wine I thought would be nice and while drinkable it wasn't great and for some reason I mentioned this to the sommelier when he asked.

He apologised and asked if he could change it for us.

I hadn't expected this as it was my poor choice in the first place that I was happy to live with.  I certainly didn't ask him to change it.  He offered.

He also said let him choose a wine he thought we'd like… and he did.  And we did.  And it turned out to be a Serbian cabernet.  Very nice it was too.  The sommelier said he didn't want to tell us first as we'd never have agreed to try it.  He was right, we wouldn't.  I wish I'd made a note of the name as it actually was lovely.

As was dinner and the stunningly unexpected service level.

Luggage

We made some very poor choices regarding luggage in our trip earlier in the year and had cut things down to just the 3 bags … from 6.  Progress certainly but still not perfection.

What were we thinking?

Travelling these days with luggage is a real pain.  Virtually all airlines now charge for luggage -- AA I think was the hold out in the US but they gave up in April when they merged with US Airlines.  Yet another added cost on top of the quoted fare.  Security and Immigration controls are also a pain.  If the US ever increases its Amtrak routing, I'd consider trains more.  No immigration, no travel to/from the airport, no security… sounds wonderful.

Or we could just go tubing…

Dinosaur or Fossil

I read a review written on Tom Petty's new album today.  The conclusion was that he was still 'relatively' relevant which made him a 'dinosaur not a fossil'.  We went to TP's show last night at the Air Canada Centre so this comment was interesting.  Also in a trip that has seen us travel around the US and Canada quite a bit AND where we have taken the time to visit some museums, it made me think about history being 'relevant' and the characters in question being either 'dinosaurs' or 'fossils'.

This also relates to me too.

This being the digital age, there was a reader comment after the review which said why ask a Justin Bieber fan to review a Tom Petty album?  Decent question that made me chuckle but I suppose the come back to that is why not?  The modern reviewer views TP as a man of the past, or history.

Just as well that reviewer didn't consider Tom Petty's opening act last night, namely Steve Winwood.

Who?

Steve joined a Birmingham band in 1964 with his brother when he was 14 as singer and keyboardist and wrote a string of amazing R&B songs picked up by other acts: I'm a Man, Keep on Running, Gimme Some Loving.  He formed Traffic in 1967, then Blind Faith with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker coming out of Cream in 1969….

Unlike many other singers of that era, his voice has held up remarkably well.  Robert Plant and Roger Daltrey's for example aren't a patch on their heyday, clearly Steve sings within his range. 

But in terms of icon, Steve is a big one.

I saw him in Traffic 3 or 4 times the last being I think in 1977 or 1978 just before the band went into another lengthy hiatus.  Not many of my friends liked the band dismissing them as too boring or bland so I'd have trouble in finding people to go with. But they were brilliant live and to my mind pretty darn good last night -- check out Dear Mr. Fantasy below.

Unfortunately the arena was half empty and even for TP a few more came in but still it wasn't jammed like it was for the Queen show we saw here a few weeks back.

Tom Petty looked OK for a 60-something year old rocker.  At least he was standing … although a bit tricky to say whether he was weather beaten or not given the traditional rocker's life on the road.  His voice wasn't as strong as when I saw him last -- some 10-12 years ago -- but then again like Steve, he works within a range that works for him.  I was surprised to see him actually playing solos too.  He didn't before leaving that to his guitarist, Mike Campbell.  But this time he played some and then they extended out some tunes into some very nice interplay.  I call that progress.

From the Toronto Sun's review: they said pretty good and didn't mention dinosaurs more than once or twice.

Of course the audience sang along with the big tunes… me too and they were great to hear live.  

At some point, maybe even fairly soon, like Steve maybe TP will have to move his shows to smaller arenas.  The ACC is a huge aircraft hanger sort of place with people hanging off the walls… I am reminded of the nose bleed seats I'd bagged for the Carole King/James Taylor show a few years back when the music and the A/C units at our head level competed to be heard.  

Not quite nose bleed this time

But it was really nice to see them both back on the road, playing big halls to a lot of appreciative people.  Its probably all they know so better than sitting at home watching soap operas.

Not yet fossils.  Definitely.