Hi folks This weekend saw us traveling to the east of Norway to take a look at one of these big gatherings of camping trailers, mobile homes, tents, and all that kind of stuff. We are looking to buy our first trailer you see. The trip is certainly doable in one afternoon, but we decided to make a weekend of it which of course meant checking into a hotel or two along the way. We chose hotels that are affiliates of the "Quality Hotel" chain both on the way over and the way back. Now, I suppose you are all wondering what this has to do with pianos. Well... I am getting to that :) Seems like Quality Hotels have decided that everything about their hotels should have the appearance of being something that it really isn't. The first was built with what appeared to be pillars and had this strange looking combination of classical greek architecture mixed with what could only be called New England Colonial.... all in white plastic mind you... this in some little ski town in the middle of nowhere... the "pillars" were particularly intersting being in reality concrete 4 by 4 beams sleved with a charming off white plastic, slightly thickened in the middle section. Just about everything in the building was like this. We decided to get ourselves a nitecap and wandered into the piano bar. AH finally something about pianos.... there indeed was this grand piano and I sat down waiting for my drink and for the player to start a song. From his first note it was obvious this was no ordinary grand piano. Now you have all seen the piano bar where the instruments guts have been ripped out, and a keyboard has been put in place of the keys. Here at Quality Hotels, they have gone a step further. They didnt even bother to buy and old beater and gut it. No nonononono... they actually built a case to look like a grand to put the keyboard in. Close inspection of this wonder product revealed the whole darn thing was manufactured out of quarter inch cheap plywood, beveled around the lid to give that "authentic" touch... and given a fine coat of some kind of black enamel paint, buffed to a satin finish to hide all the dust. The keyboard was actually of no better quality and probably could be had for 19.95 at the local hardware store on one of those volume purchase specials. Poor guy who had to play there... actually had some talent... I felt sorry for him and he didnt look too awfully enthused. Well, we got to our campers heaven...looked at a hundred or so units... collected a library of handouts, brochures and whatnots... and got in our car to head back... This time we pulled into another town with another Quality Hotel, this one had the appearance of being some kind of Swiss Chateau... complete with holes in the plastic cheese at the reception desk... which I suppose was suppose to give the appearance of being some kind of quality welcome snack or something. We checked in, waded through the plastic flowers and plastic trees, and through a couple of plastic doors with plexiglass windows and sat down at yet another piano bar to have yet another nitecap before going to bed. Low and behold.... the EXACT SAME solution for the "grand piano"... different fairly talented uninspired player.... but obviously they had ordered a crate of these quarter inch plywood grands to stick Sharp or Marx or Crustex or some such name keyboards into. Well,,, sigh... at least they had real wood and paper chinese umbrellas in their long drinks. I guess that was something. In anycase... the experience gave new meaning to the concept of a Piano Shaped Object. Cheers ! RicB -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html
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