Hi DU Friends (soliciting world travel advice)

[gopiscrap]

I am so jazzed. I am in San Diego tonight right on the beach. I begin my world tour on Saturday. My family and I are going to the following places:
Honolulu 3 nights
Sydney Australia 7 nights, Hobart 3 nights, Adelaide 1 night, Murray Bridge 3 nights, Perth 4 nights, Brisbane 4 nights from there we go to:

Ho Chi Minh City 4 nights, Doha Qatar 1 night, Johannesburg 2 nights, Cape Town 4 nights, Athens 2 nights, Warsaw 3 nights, Frankfurt 4 nights, Berlin 2 nights, Rothenburg 2 nights, Nuremburg 1 night, Lisbon 3 nights from there we go to:

Soa Paulo 1 night, Montevideo 4 nights and Lima 1 night, coming back into the US via Miami 2 nights and then home to Tacoma WA

For a total of 69 days

I am singing and speaking in Sydney, Perth, Capetown, Warsaw, Berlin, Lisbon and Montevideo. I just got an Honorary Doctorate in Sacred Music and this is part of the trip, working on church music.

I ask for your good wishes and or prayers.

I have been to all the European cities but never the others if you have been to any of them can you give me rec's on what to do, etc....specially curious about Ho Chi Minh City, Capetown and Montevideo

Thanks in Advance Mike C

[hatrack]

1. If you're a musician, and heading for Athens . . .

Happy to recommend the Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments. Very cool little museum in the central part of the city.

Safe travels!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Greek_Folk_Musical_Instruments

[gopiscrap]

2. thank you how cool

I have been to Athens twice, but never at this museum. I will definitely go!!!

[hatrack]

3. Like the folk instrument museum, the Greek Folk Art Museum's a bit of a hole in the wall . . .

But again, really cool exhibits and artifacts. The two together would make for a good day out.

Better Half and I both really loved Greece - the problem is that there are so many other countries we haven't been to yet. Alas!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Greek_Folk_Art

[gopiscrap]

4. thank you, I will check that out also

I was thinking aout blogging about the trip on DU don't know if I should considering all the crap that is going on right now

[Phoenix61]

5. Here goes

Sydney opera house tour, Hop-On-Hop Off bus.
Get on the bus around 11:00 as the ticket is good for 24 hours. You can tour the first day then get back on the bus and go to wherever you want the next day for free within that 24 hours. Take your own plug in ear buds. They have some but …
Highly recommend the Blue Mountains. There’s a direct train there from Sydney. Do the Hop bus there. You’ll get a great map of all the trails and the bus will drop you at the trail head and pick you up at the end. The trails are very well tended and the views are breathtaking. The blue haze is a sunrise/sunset thing.

Brisbane
Lefty’s Music Hall was a blast. Caught a great concert there. It’s in a nightlife area. I was there 2 years ago and there was a lot of construction downtown which hopefully has been completed.
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary - lots of koalas and kangaroos. Did you know kangaroos never stop growing? I learned that there.
Sounds like an amazing trip. Have a blast!

[gopiscrap]

6. thank you will follow your advice

[Kali]

7. how wonderful!

no advice - have only been to one place on your list (Honolulu) and have been trying to get to Australia for more than 10 years, but just want to wish you a good trip and hope you will share the journey with us either during or for sure when you get back.

[gopiscrap]

8. Thank you so much

I have been working on this trip for years. So much to do. Selecting flights, hotels, visa, shots, tourism stuff, coordinating with work, plus we are seeing three families (one Australia, One in South Africa and one in Germany) folks we have known and spent time with in the US. It doesn't seem real that it is now upon me. I got the Doctorate completed and awarded in October and this is part of that. Mike C

[Kali]

9. wow! congrats on the degree too!

I actually mentioned you to my sister recently. we were talking about travel and how much better it is to do it in the context of work or at least some interest other than just generic tourism and I said there was someone on DU who had done singing around Europe from previous posts I remember reading and maybe replying to. we both think your story is cool.

[gopiscrap]

10. omg thank you

singing the church has always been my life. When I was 11-12 I sang for the Vatican Boy Choir and then at age 14 both my parents were gone, but before they died we immigraed to the US. I became the foster child of aLutheran Pastor and his wif, I wound up singing all over the US with 6 others for 15 months. I also have been the chair of the Tacoma Refugee Choir. Music saved my life. Also saved me from getting kicked out of the Catholic School I attended. When I got back from the Vatican I knew they wouldn't kick me out, because all they did was brag about how they had one of their own sing in that choir. I was a horrible child for about a year after I came back. But in all serious, you are so right, it realy helps to have a reason to travel besides pure tourism. Also it is so much btter with others. If you do go to another country, I highly recommend looking at a site called "Eat with a local" for a fee (not cheap, usually 50-100 a person) it will hook you up with a person or family that is fluent in English and they will have you over for a meal. MY wife and I did that in Barcelona and are doing it in Portugal, Uraguay and South Africa-Mike C

[Kali]

11. oh that sounds like a great site! thanks!

my main travel companion is German and she is a potter so we often check out local potters and meet people that way. I run the family ranch so I always want to check out livestock in rural areas. I am not very refined to look at art and architecture

[gopiscrap]

12. I grew up in Germany

and when coming to the US my first entrepenurial skill was teaching kids at the Catholic School I attended in Taoma, how to swear in German for a dime. I was making good money (1973) until one kid told their father and he had been in Germany in the late 50's and knew German. When asked where she learned that, she told him, he told the nun and I had to find a new career

[Kali]

13. LOL!

I taught my friend (inadvertently - I just cuss a lot) a lot of American swear words. It is funny when she calls somebody an asshole.

[dickthegrouch]

14. Congratulations on the PhD

I despise most churches, but adore the music created for them. Monteverdi 1610 vespers started my lifelong desire to perform such works.
Very little decent music has been written since 1830 IMHO. No, I didn’t forget the “:”
John Rutter is an exception.
Have fun.

[gopiscrap]

15. thanks

I agree, there is an awful lot of crappy, trite church music out there