(b)logophile

As promised, the weekend update. There’s a lot to catch up on. (Pics below the fold.)

First off, last Wednesday I got an email from my brother. “I’m in Amsterdam for three days,” he said, “what’s your number so I can call you?”

We haven’t seen each other for four years, but we’ve still got a few things in common.

Then on Thursday Nick and Nic from my old university in Dunedin mailed to say they were going to be in Amsterdam this weekend, we should hang out. Andi had some hospitality club folk staying, so the houseboat was pretty full and pretty fun.

We did some time on the town, but (perhaps thankfully; the red light district is de rigueur for Amsterdam tourists) most of the photos aren’t that stunning.

Running along the street I took a tumble and dislodged some internal hand-mechanism (it’s much better now, thanks)…

… which turned out to be really bad timing because Saturday night was the biggest rebetika session café Dionysos has ever seen. Olga made the following list:

• 4 bouzouki (at least)
• 1 tzouras
• 5 baglamas
• 3 guitars
• 1 laouto
• 1 banjo-like instrument (with 6 double strings) the name of which I can’t recall
• 1 violin
• 1 clarinet
• 1 mandolin
• 1 accordion
• 8 logicians

We played (yes, “we”, one of those baglamas was mine) until 6:30 Sunday morning. I didn’t take any photos (next time, I promise!) but Olga did — this one gives you a tiny taste of the crazy-full room and incredibile multitude of strings.

And now it’s back to work and back into the routine. (Some sort of book-related outburst should be appearing soon though, I’m expecting a couple of packages…)