25 minutes to go...

my vacation to memphis was fun. the highlight for me was sun studio, the place where elvis and johnny cash, among others, first recorded. the tour guide was awesome.. he obviously knew a lot about the history of the place, and told some really neat stories. like that elvis was really shy when he started singing, and that johnny cash was an appliance salesman but he only sold one appliance in his career - to the receptionist at the studio. or that the song some music historians consider to be the first rock song got its distorted guitar sound from newspaper stuffed into the broken amplifier. really, i didn't realize how much music is from memphis.

my mother and i had this running joke about bono and memphis. he seemed to be everywhere we turned. (not the real man, of course, i could only wish for that. sigh..) the first sign of him was a picture in sun studio. apparently, some of the sessions for rattle and hum were recorded there. later, we were at the national civil rights museum, and in a room with pictures of people like martin luther king jr, rosa parks and ghandi, there was bono again! that night, i was reading my dad's guidebook trying to find a place for dinner, and i found this little nugget: "if you're very lucky, you may even run into bono." really???!?

we also went to graceland, the memphis rock museum and the gibson guitar factory (which was awesome, too bad no one could really hear the tour guide since we were in the factory and machines were whirring). oh - another highlight was definitely the ducks at our hotel. about five ducks swim in the fountain of the hotel, and every morning and evening there is an elaborate ceremony to mark their arrival and departure. on sunday, my parents and i happened to be in the lobby at 5:00 to witness their departure for the day (they live on the roof during the night i guess) and it was one of the funniest things i have seen recently. there is this guy called "the duckmaster" (well, that's what my mom called him - i doubt that's what his name really is) who rolls out a red carpet. then they start playing this really loud marching music and the ducks start coming out of the fountain and waddling down the carpet in time to the music. they waddle into the elevator and the doors close. this whole ceremony probably drew at least 100 people to the hotel's lobby. the whole thing was very odd.

here are my pictures