Luke Burrage's Blog » Travel

EJC 2010 day 6 – Thursday 29th July

admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:17:57 +0000

Day 6, and my life is revolving around organizing shows and performing in them. This can be great fun, but the heat is getting to me. 37 degrees, and the hottest day in the history of Finland!

Today: the third open stage, and Fight Night, plus associated meetings and technical setups and stress. It’s worth it in the end, as a thousand people get a good show or two.

Other shows took place, with Luke Wilson and Sakari Mannisto and Jay Gilligan (with Eric). I didn’t see much, as I tried to take time off when not organizatering.

I’ve failed at one of my 50 goals of the year. I didn’t win either the Berlin or EJC fight night. Second and third place respectively.

EJC 2010 day 5 – Wednesday 28th July

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:00:22 +0000

Instead of going straight to bed, I stayed up playing combat, then chatting, and then uploaded my photos. By that time I decided to see the end of Rumpole’s 26 hour show. I realize that means there are photos of his show over three days on my convention coverage!

Next: Open stage technical setup. No stress. Luke Wilson is cool.

Next: Massage. Good stuff.

Next: Special show from Shake That. I only caught the end of it due to my massage.

Next: Finish Youth Circus. I didn’t see any more than a few photo’s worth.

Next: Pizza!

Next: Running Open stage. Pretty weird selection of acts, but zero stress. Eric and Komei rocked it!

Next: Hanging out. Renegade for a few minutes. Then more hanging out. Until 6am. Damn!

EJC 2010 day 4 – Open stage show and Compagnie Ea Eo

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:51:34 +0000

When I got to my hotel to go to bed, I found that breakfast was already served, and many guests were up and about. I took some food up to my room to eat when I woke up.

Tech run for open stage… fine. I only remembered to take photos when Stefan Sing got on stage. In the afternoon I slept, and missed my massage appointment.

Next up, Compagnie Ea Eo with a show called m2. Awesome. I cried twice.

Next, the open stage. I was going to host, but was ill (hungover). Hans offered to host a show at some point in the week, so I asked him to step in for me at the last minute. I forgot to take photos until the final act… Stefan Sing again. 280 people watched online, and someone proposed to their girlfriend.

After the open stage, I rocked out at combat. That’s my day! Tonight I’m going to bed early.

EJC 2010 day 3 – Monday 26th July

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:06:45 +0000

Today I mainly went about organizing the open stages for Tuesday through Friday. Also, during the afternoon, I saw a few parts of the Fins and Friends show. The first and last act were variable/tedious, but Tony Pezzo (Wes Peden’s Mini Me) performed an engaging ring juggling number.

I also watched the Finish Open Stage Show. The highlight for me wasn’t the acts on stage, but chatting with the people watching the live at EJC2010.org/live – At one point there were 180 people watching from all over the world.

Also today I stocked up on alcohol from a supermarket. This came in handy in the evening, after the shows, when various 23rd birthday parties took place. Okay, just one. But then the party moved to the lake, and I think it is still going, at 5.45 AM. I ended up in the lake, then the sauna, and then here in the lobby of the arena uploading photos. Why? I guess I’m still a bit drunk.

Oh, at some point there was a tango band in the bar, a fire jam session, and Rumpole began a 26 hour show.

EJC 2010 day 2 – Sunday 25th July

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:51:57 +0000

Today I hosted the opening show of the convention, and even performed some juggling too. Then I went swimming in the lake and watched some volley club. Then I saw two really good shows. The first was a solo show by Wes Peden, who was particularly sweaty afterwards. The second show was by Marco Paoletti and company called “12 pieces of stuff”. I don’t normally like taking photos of shows, but Marco’s show was particularly dramatic in terms of lighting and imagery. Afterwards I discovered the pizza place didn’t serve pizza after 9pm. Back in the hall I chatted and played combat.

The sun is now up, and I should really get some sleep.

EJC 2010 day 1 – Saturday 24th July

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:32:26 +0000

The first day open for jugglers. There is a free Rubik’s Cube for every person who pre-registered. The pass is fixed around your wrist with a metal clamp. Today I played volleyclub, played combat, ate with friends in the camp site, hung out in the hall, had my first sauna in Finland.

EJC 2010 day 0 – setting up the festival site.

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:50:45 +0000

EJC Photo Blogging begins! I’ve got lots of organizing and performing to do this year, but I hope to post some photos from each day, just like last year.

An EJC with a single day allocated to building everything and setting up the whole site. And it worked! Here are photos from within the arena on the evening before the convention opened to the public.

Warvis Bay, Namibia

admin — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:47:56 +0000

Air travel is a necessary evil. Due to last minute booking of my flights to Cape Town, I managed to have two overnight flights in three nights. That’s not fun!

Also, I was really looking forward to seeing a bit of Cape Town, but when I arrived at the airport, we were taken directly to the ship and weren’t allowed off again.

Accordingly, I ate dinner out on deck, with a great view of the Table Mountain. And so ended my great South African adventure.

So on to Warvis Bay, Namibia! I took a shuttle bus from the port into town. On the way I saw Chris, another guest entertainer, wandering round and looking a bit lost for something to do. I offered a mini adventure, and we caught a cab out to the desert.

Dune 7 is about 300m high. My only plan was to climb the dune, juggle, jump a bit, and run back down.

Chris couldn’t keep up. However, it’s now about 4 days later, and my inner thighs are still giving me trouble.

Chris walking along the top of the ridge.

Jumping! This is one of my favorite things to do on a sand dune.

Chris had a go too. It took him a while to get used to it, but this is the best shot.

Soft landing.

Here’s a video I posted a few days ago. If you missed it, it contains running, jumping and juggling.

Driving back to the city. That’s the Westerdam cruise ship looming over the entire city.

I wore sandals. Chris wore trainers. He carried a lot of sand back from the dune.

Testing the weight of wooden sculptures to see if it’s possible to take them home on the plane.

The Westerdam, ship of drama. Maybe, if I ever work out what’s going on on this ship, I’ll write a blog post about it.

St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada

admin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:52:31 +0000

Back in 2004 I visited Canada… for about an hour. I walked across a bridge, looked at a big waterfall, and then walked back again. Niagara Falls was very impressive, but I’ve not been back to Canada since. A few days ago I visited St. John’s, Newfoundland, at the end of a cruise. I had to leave the ship and head to the airport, but not until 4:30pm.

My first plan was to head to a small town near St. John’s. There is nothing of interest in this town, but I wanted to visit anyway. Why? Because the town is called Dildo.

This lead to much amusement when I mentioned it on twitter and Facebook, mainly due to the many puns. But it would be quite expensive in both time and money, so I decided to let that plan slide. No puns this time.

I decided to walk towards Signal Hill, a big bluff at the mouth of the harbor. It’s the location of Marconi’s first ever transatlantic radio transmissions. Such a transmission was thought impossible, but trying it out lead to the radio waves bouncing off the ionosphere instead of just running in straight lines into space.

A labrador! Although Labrador is the province next door to Newfoundland, they are represented by sculptures. There were also some Newfoundlander dog sculptures, but I didn’t take photos of them.

There are lots of painted wooden buildings in St. John’s. Unfortunately none of them piqued my photographers eye. But this bird box did.

The entrance to the harbor, guarded by cannons, with the city in the background.

Culver’s tower on top of Signal Hill.

This is the location of that first ever transatlantic radio signal reception antenna, the reason this is called Signal Hill. It’s also REALLY windy.

A small dog.

A labrador! a real one this time.

Ashley, my fellow adventurer, recently unbraided hair blowing in the wind.

The walk was much longer than expected, as we took the more adventurous route back down Signal Hill. I was fine, but someone else was wearing flip-flops.

The fishing village part of the city. Note the buildings falling into the sea. This was one of the many results of a single freak wave earlier in the year.

Ashley and me, surprisingly sunburnt.

I always love checking out second hand bookshops in all the cities I visit. It’s a pity I didn’t have time to look about much, as I had to get back to the ship in time to leave the ship.

That’s it as far as photos go! I did get some video of me juggling in Canada/Newfoundland, but due to the strong wind, I couldn’t do anything particularly interesting. Except, that is, straddle a cannon for full on phallic symbolism.

Juggling in Namibia

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 08:47:38 +0000

Yesterday I visited Namibia for the first time. Whenever I arrive somewhere new I like to go out and do something fun. The evening before I asked Chris, another entertainer on the cruise ship, if he wanted to go on a mini-adventure. We took a taxi out to one of the highest sand dunes in the world, one called Dune 7. There we climbed the 300m high dune, jumped into the sand, juggled a bit, and ran back down the side. I would have maybe done more, but I had a show last night and wanted to save a little bit of energy.