FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2009:
Today I leave for the Faroe Islands and will meet up with Charley Pride in Dublin. Charley has been in Ireland for the last 3 weeks doing several dates. His brother, Stephen, and son, Dion, are traveling with him as his opening acts.
I went and had lunch with Andrew this morning at school before leaving. I love to travel, but being away from him is the hardest part. I was afraid he might get sad because he had earlier in the week when we just talked about my leaving, but he was brave. J
No problems with check-in or my flights. I mostly read on the flight over the Dublin and slept maybe 3 hours. I know I will regret this later. L
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009:
Arrived in Dublin, Charley and his group won’t arrive until around 9 AM when it is time to check-in for our private chartered commercial flight. The buyer in the Faroes, Allan, wanted Charley to perform there so badly that he chartered a private commercial flight just to get him there. The Faroes are so small, (population 50,000 – yes, that’s the entire country) they only have a few flights out each day and to very limited cities. Dublin is not one of them. J I checked with Servisair, who is responsible for setting up the private charter and making all of the arrangements, and everything is on schedule so that is good to know.
Charley and his group show up and we get everyone checked in. Allan has a tv crew traveling with him to meet us. They are going to film Charley’s arrival, his stay, his show and make a tv show out of this and a mini documentary. Charley is HUGE in the Faroes, and has been since the 1960’s.
We had a great flight to the Faroes. The tv crew did an interview with Charley on the flight. Charley is great at interviews, too. He “loves” to talk. J As we came in for the landing, Allan tells us that the run way is very short, just long enough to stop the plane. How scary is that…..no wiggle room when landing. The islands are very barren, more like huge cliffs in the middle of the ocean. I did notice one island that appeared to have about 50 or so houses/buildings on it. As we went through passport control in the Faroes, it was 2 men sitting in their boths. They didn’t even bother to “stamp” our passports, so we all went back to get stamped. If you go somewhere you at least want your passport to prove it, right?
On the way to the hotel, we stopped off at the oldest church in the Faroe Islands for Charley to do an interview. The rest of us walked around and took pictures. This place is so beautiful, but when you hear “island” you think tropical, that is not the case. J Nonetheless, it’s still beautiful, but it’s mountains and streams, secluded, quaint…..
Arrived at the hotel, got everyone checked in, showered, which I felt like I “really” needed. J Everyone met downstairs for dinner. Allan and I sat with Charley. What a wonderful person. He is such a funny person with a great sense of humor who loves telling stories and talking about numerology. He knows all of the signs and their characteristics. I really enjoyed the chance to get to know him.
It had been an extremely long day and a half so I headed to bed shortly after dinner.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009:
Up, but not too early. I kept waiting for the sun to come up, but it never did. It was daylight outside, looked like it was about 6 AM, but it was almost 9 AM. Checked email, showered, ate breakfast and headed over to the venue for load in / sound check. What a really neat venue. It’s the largest in the Faroes and seats 1500. Out the backdoors of the venue, it overlooks the sea and the football stadium, which is the ONLY grass that I seen while there. J There are no trees either, except in the little forest out back of the venue. J Finally about 12 noon the sun came out, and was back down by 4 PM.
The audience who bought tickets for the show had asked about Christmas songs since it’s so close to Christmas, Charley has agreed to oblige. J Charley usually doesn’t attend sound check, but since it’s been a while since he has done any Christmas songs, he came over for a short sound check.
After sound check, I went with Allan to his house so he could change for the show. I got to meet his wife, Annie, his daughter and his in-laws. They were all so sweet. I really enjoyed getting to chat with Annie. Allan is a lucky man, but I think he knows that! J
Back to the hotel for a quick dinner, freshen up and back to the venue for the show. OMG this place was packed. Haller, a local artist in the Faroes, opened the show, followed by Stephen, then Dion. Charley came out and the place went crazy. They stood up for so long, several times, and sang along to so many songs. I helped the girls sell cd’s and it was “crazy”. Charley sold out of cd’s, only had a few dvd’s left, as well as Stephen and Dion. After the show, they all signed autographs for everyone who stayed.
We all went back to the hotel, and was trying to figure out whether to lie down for a bit or just stay up. It’s almost 11:30 and we have a lobby call at 3:15 AM. I chose to just stay up, figured I would sleep on the flight.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009:
We all met in the lobby at 3:15 AM ready to go. Loaded the luggage and gear and headed off to the airport. We have to change islands, as the airport is on a different island than where we stayed. We have to go through a tunnel that goes under the sea. This is only the 2nd time I have ever done this. First time was in Norway with the Bellamy’s. It’s kinda freaky to think about being in a tunnel UNDER the sea. How did they ever build it? I try not to think about what would happen if it began to leak, or even worse…. L
Arrived at the airport. They opened the airport just for us. We all really appreciated the people who got up SO early just to accommodate our flight back to Dublin. The guy that checked us in ended up doing 3-4 jobs. He said there was no sense in everyone getting up when he could do all of the jobs.
I slept a little on the flight to Dublin. It was only 1 ½ hours so it was hard to get too comfortable. We landed in Dublin, headed over to the baggage area. We all had to pick up our luggage and gear, take it back upstairs and check in for the flight to the US. I had checked a box for Charley that had the remaining cd’s / dvd’s in it so they wouldn’t have that excess. Wouldn’t you know that was the ONLY piece that did not arrive from the Faroes? I guess the little man doing 3-4 jobs didn’t do them as well as I thought. J