...the most bizarre things

Sometimes, on the road, you just find yourself in situations where, if you step back and ~really~ look around, you can only shake your head at the absurdity of it.

Last night, after my somewhat down-and-out posting, I did go wander around. I discovered that the throngs of people are here for Plovdiv's annual art and history festival. All of the galleries and museums are open late and for free, everyone had a drink in hand (although I'll be damned if I could find anyone selling or giving away the stuff!!!) and so I just wandered around checking out different art galleries and street displays. There were some really, really great paintings on display. One, in particular, was just excellent. It was of Daedalus (sp?) falling from the sky with his burned-out wings. Amazing.

What was so weird about this, you ask? Well, there's a local historic manor house that has ethnographic displays of clothing, tools, etc etc, including some armour and weapons from the medieval and later eras. Outside of this place, however, was the bizarre scene that was so funny I was actually getting a lot of funny looks myself because I kept laughing out loud.

On a balcony overlooking a large garden there was a band, decked out in medieval knight, monk and priest's outfits (except the drummer, who looked like George Carlin stripped naked to the waist with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth). This band also happened to be playing bad Zeppelin covers, sung in English despite the fact that the singer didn't know all the words. There were five people on stage, but it was a three piece band. The other two were conducting bad mock battles: knight vs monk, two daggers vs short poleaxe.

So there I am, wandering into this courtyard because I can hear Whole Lotta Love starting up somewhere, and I end up watching this scene unfold. It was absolutely hilarious.

I've got a few pictures from the evening, but I don't think any of them will really do it justice. I did take a short video of the band, but I think the microphone on my camera is screwed up, because I don't think it captured any of the sound. Oh well, I can show you the band later, at least.

I'm going to head out and hike up some of the hills here in Plovdiv. They're quite odd, actually, because this city is built on a massive plain. There just happens to be six distinct hills that jut up out of nothing around here. There used to be 7, but the communists dismantled one of them for materials to make cobblestones. You can now visit the "7th hill memorial site" if you want. I'll probably check it out. Maybe I'll take a picture of nothing to show you all. ;)

cheers,
Mike

PS: that bed last night was the *worst* one of the trip, and I may have to sleep in it again tonight. I got up halfway through the night and put down about 3 inches of heavy blankets to sleep on top of. I'll add a couple more inches of blankets tonight, I think.

PPS: I forgot to add that I finally figured out (in the daylight) why i was SO confused by the layout of this city. It turns out that the main street goes through a tunnel underneath the old town, which is built on a long narrow hill. That explains why I would periodically find myself on the other side of this road, despite never crossing it. Man that had me screwed up last night!