Yesterday I dropped by the University of Miami Bookstore and picked up a new Moleskine. If you don’t know what a Moleskine is you can check them out at www.moleskine.com. These handy little notebooks are great for keeping a journal of your practice, a personal journal, or just a place to scratch the odd note every now and then when something strikes your fancy. When I picked mine up (storyboard notebook) it came with a small promotional for their new City Notebook. This ingenious little notebook includes: city maps, metro maps, translucent sheets for tracing itineraries, detachable sheets for quick messages, and personal blank pages amongst its many features. They have them available for Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Prague, Rome, and Vienna. When I saw this, I had to resist the urge to run out and buy every one of the notebooks, book my trips to these incredible cities, and spend my time wandering their streets, photographing my shadow in narrow, winding streets.

One of the things I enjoyed most about being in a major symphony orchestra was getting to travel to many of the world’s greatest cities while on tour. I have been fortunate enough to visit all the above listed cities while on tour except for Lisbon, Milan, Prague, and Rome. I have enjoyed Belgian Beer in Brussels, sipped coffee on the Champs-Elysees, wandered through the streets of London until my feet ached, and enjoyed the smoky-surreal world of Madrid, the city that sleeps only in the afternoon. Of course, lining up to check in for a flight with 150 of your closest friends is an obvious drawback, as are many other sensations involved in traveling with such a large group. In the end, though, I have to say that I very much enjoyed my travels on these tours. I would like to be able to go back now on my own terms and be able to really enjoy each place, but it is pretty amazing that I have been able to see so many incredible cities simply because I happened to be good at making music. It’s hard to believe where time spent in a practice room can take you.

Now, let’s see if I can manage to avoid disappearing without a trace to the grey, cold-bitten, Parisian streets of winter…

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