Hugging a tree

Rumbling on a full tram number 10 towards Meilahti, I witness a pleasant scene. A small boy, about eight years old (or maybe twelve, I'm never that good at estimating these things), complains to his mother about not being able to sit on the way home. A considerably older woman decides to start a chat with the child from her seat. How nice, I think. Social interaction between strangers using public transport. My favourite subject. The woman asks the boy where he lives, what he will have for dinner, the usual. The boy is distracted for a while, but soon once again complains about not being able to sit. I smile, wondering whether the lady will let the boy sit on her lap or something like that.

"You know", she starts, "When I was young, young people weren't allowed to sit in the tram. Not even children!!" I begin speculating on what decade we are talking about, but she raises an agitated finger into the air and drastically changes her tone of voice. "There were women; officers in the tram! And they screamed at every young person or child who was about to take a seat! Those were the days!!" My smile is gone as my mind is flooded by the freak image of some frighteningly huge woman brandishing her whip at cowering passengers. Gratefully, I scurry out of the tram at my stop.

A pigeon patiently waits for the train from Vienna at Budapest's Keleti railway station.

Rewind to just about ten hours earlier, and I am in a very horizontal position, holding my alarm clock above my sleepy eyes with both hands after silencing the device with a quick dash of my left hand (strange, now that I think of it. My right hand is usually much nearer to it). I want to check the time - which is also strange, as one would expect me to know what time it is since I set the alarm myself. The alarm clock decides to take matters into its own hands by dropping from my lazy hands straight onto my face.

I use my right hand to open the window blinds, and the room is flooded by light. It is 7:35. The sky is blue, the sun has just risen, and the air is tingling with the promise of spring. Rubbing my forehead, which is still sore from the alarm clock, I smile and get myself ready for another day of work. A week ago, I was strolling along one of Budapest's main avenues with my Hungarian muse, having another hot chocolate after another latte after another hot chocolate, browsing second-hand music stores and learning useful local phrases such as "Hello", "Thanks", "Let's go" and "Oh my God".

Petra on her birthday.

At the university, a social lunch break is interrupted by a wild impromptu performance of a contemporary piece for double bass and violin. All of us, who are either nibbling on some seriously scary fish dish, toying with their cauliflower gratine or sipping lukewarm coffee with disgusting lumps of sugar melting at the bottom of the cup, cannot avoid being reminded that it's time for "Aikamme Kamarimusiikkia", a festival arranged at our university every year to glorify and promote contemporary chamber music.

These surprise attacks in the middle of lunch are designed to entice potential audience members to attend a concert in the evening ("If you are hungry for more, tonight at seven! Concert hall! Bring your friends!"), but to me, they bring back flashbacks from three years earlier, when I made the "mistake" of being trapped into actively taking part in the festival and found myself desperately rearranging the pages of my music (and at the same time wondering whether it really made any difference), performing a piece for cello, celesta and violin, and banging away at a Bösendorfer I had first vandalised with a roll of scotch tape. (I wrote a detailed account on this blog on March 7th, 2005...). Oh well. Long live freedom of expression, and all that!


And, actually, I must say I would have missed out on some nice memories if I hadn't taken part in the festival - like the rehearsal camp in Koli national park, where I hugged a tree considerably smaller than the one above and dazzled the hotel receptionist with my karaoke interpretation of Finnish evergreen love songs (am I really boasting about this?). And I still play chamber music with one of my friends I got to know then, but thankfully, it's not all that contemporary - it's Brahms.