Organ Pizza and Other Fun

No, we didn't eat liver pizza!  We went to the Organ Stop Pizza where they have a huge theatre size Werlitzer organ.  They bought it in the 1970s and had it rebuilt using the parts of defunct organs. The organ was enlarged in 1997 to a four keyboard with nearly 6000 pipes.  The wind required comes from four large turbine blowers visible from outside the building.  The organ is installed in a room with 43 foot ceilings.  Four chambers with the works are visible inside and many of the precussion instruments are installed sround the room.  The organ is installed on a 8000 lb rotating hydraulic elevator that raises, lowers and turns the organ.

Oh! and the music!!  The organist (one of three) played all by heart and controlled all the elements around the room as well.  He took requests so you just knew that it wasn't all pre-programmed. 

We sat for a couple of hours with our friends and we all could have stayed longer.  The music ranged from semi-classical to pop to old time to hymns.  There were even a couple of short singalongs - and people did.

If you are ever in the Phoenix area, you can't miss this!!

I forgot to metion the cat puppets that came out from behind a curtain.  They were all different, with personality. They  - well I won't call it dancing - bopped to the music. 

Yesterday we went to downtown Phoenix on the light rapid transit.  The downtown was bright, modern, clean and QUIET.  We have never seen the downtown of a major city with such a traffic-less downtown.  Not many people either.  Since it was early Friday afternoon, we are not sure if it is like this all the time.  We took a few pictures but I forgot to bring them with me over to the hotspot so I will have to post them next time.

The convention centre is huge and nicely decorated, quite modern.  The ballroom can host several thousand to a sit down dinner.

We enjoyed the plants that are beginning to flower in the area.  There were also pistachio nuts on the trees.  Sorry I forgot the pictures today.  Check back on the next post and I will insert the pictures into this post.