La fête de la musique

The 21st of June was la fête de la musique, which is also called "Make Music Day". All day (although especially in the evening), people of Paris come out onto the streets and play music, listen to music, and dance. There are organized events (for free), with professional musicians playing their most well-known pieces, and there are spontaneous expressions, with groups of plucky amateurs testing out their latest improvisation. It's quite something.

June the 21st is also around the time of the summer solstice, the longest day. This year, the sun rose at 5:47am and set at 9:58pm, giving us 16 hours and 10 minutes of daytime. This long day is ideal for an evening of wandering the streets and enjoying music late into the night!

If you're reading this in the USA, a 16-hour day probably seems pretty long. Only in the northernmost edges of the continental US do you get days even approaching 16 hours. On the other hand, if you're reading this in Scotland, you're probably wondering what the big deal is - Paris's longest day was more than an hour shorter than Glasgow's longest day, and the Shetland islands enjoy nearly 19 hours on the same day. Most of Scotland won't see days as short as 16 hours until early August. And if you're reading this from somewhere else, then hello! Nice of you to join us.

So, as I mentioned, there were many many musical events happening all over the city, some publicized, some not. There was a tremendous diversity of music on offer - from smooth jazz to punk rock to electro-swing. We decided to go to a little concert which was being held in the courtyard of the Mémorial de la Shoah (Holocaust Memorial Museum). It featured an eclectic classical string group with two violins, one viola, two cellos, a bass, and a harp! Also performing was a teenaged a cappella choir who sung vocal versions of pop songs. They took turns performing throughout the evening.

Our view of the string performers.

I'll leave a full critique of the music to Talia, but I certainly enjoyed it and it was clear that the performers were all really enjoying themselves. It is really special that there's a whole day set aside for people to just enjoy music. And looking at the publicized events, there was a real diversity on offer. If you wanted to go and see the Orchestre de Paris play a Mahler symphony, you could do that; if you wanted to go to a rave, there was that; if you wanted to enjoy some traditional Portuguese fishing songs, then you could even do that. And of course, just around the corner there is an old crooner singing the Beatle's Come Together in a thick French accent. What a way to celebrate the summer solstice!

Cello Reunited

Our lost luggage saga wasn't wrapped up as neatly as we had hoped. As we mentioned in a previous post, the flights to Scotland were lovely and everything was perfect until we arrived in Glasgow and found that none of our luggage had arrived, including my cello. After much calling and wrangling with the airport courier service, we got back three of our suitcases two days after we arrived--just in time for the wedding we were attending. Phew!

Except...conspicuously absent from the luggage delivery was the one thing I couldn't live without: my cello. They didn't even know that they were supposed to look for a cello in addition to the three suitcases despite us saying very clearly to the contrary. I mean, how do you lose a cello!? It pretty obviously stands out.

I was fretting and grumpy for the next two days, worrying about where my baby could possibly be. Eventually, they managed to find it and they sent it down to Rory's parents' house, but I was on my journey in the Highlands and then to Glasgow at the time, so I didn't get to see my cello for another week.

At last, I was reunited with my cello--something that is only slightly less valuable to me than my marriage. As I opened the case, I was praying that all the extra handling and shipping hadn't damaged it. TSA agents are seemingly unable to open a cello case, inspect it, and close it without leaving something unlatched. This was no exception. My bow had not been fastened and was hitting the instrument for the whole journey. But luckily, it was still in perfect shape and I was able to tune it and play it happily for the next hour.

I was feeling emotional about having my instrument back and about coming to the end of our stay in Scotland, so I composed a short quasi-Scottish sounding tune and took a video of it. Rory's dad called it the "Icelandair Lament". Here it is!

The journey begins...

In the last few days, weeks, and even months of our time in Columbus, Talia and I have been overwhelmed by the love and support that has been shown to us. So many friends have offered assistance, cars, housing, food, sometimes even their children. We're truly grateful to have such excellent people in our lives, and you've made the process of leaving much easier in a logistical sense, but much harder on an emotional level. Feels, I have so many feels!

Seeing as Columbus has given us so much, we wanted our last steps on US soil to be in the 614. We therefore took pretty much the only international flight you can take from Port Columbus International Airport - the commuter flight to Toronto.* So long, America, thanks for all the freedom!

Talia heading toward a Bombardier Dash 8-100 for the first leg of our journey.

Our second flight was with Icelandair to Reykjavik (the capital of Iceland). We went to the area designated as the check-in desk for Icelandair, only to find Cubana de Aviacíon instead! While Cuba is a warmer destination than Iceland, it's not in the right direction... It turns out that several of the smaller airlines share check-in desks at Toronto, and we just needed to wait a while for Icelandair.

The Icelandair flight was pleasant. Upon boarding the plane (a 757), we were given a little bottle of Icelandic glacier water! We also got an exit row, so yay, extra legroom! Since it was an overnight flight, the lights were dimmed, and the ambient lighting on the cabin ceiling above the overhead compartments looked like the aurora borealis. We were rocked to sleep by gentle Icelandic lullabies sung over the loudspeaker by the co-pilot.**

Upon arrival in Reykjavik at 6am local time (2am Ohio time), we had just enough time to breathe the cool Nordic sea air and look at some Icelandic sweaters before boarding our flight to Glasgow. We were again seated in an exit row! The Norse gods were smiling upon us. The 2-hour flight to Glasgow was uneventful (another 757).

We had fun in the immigration area of Glasgow - we were asked if we lived in the USA or in the UK - "neither, well, we don't really live anywhere". The joys of temporary vagrancy!

We had less fun in the baggage claim area. The carousel went around and around and around... But no bags. All of our earthly possessions - including Talia's cello(!) - were nowhere to be seen.

This was not the auspicious beginning to our journey that we had hoped for. Not at all. We filed a lost luggage report, we were told they would call us once they had any updates, and we went on our way with my parents to their house in the south of Scotland.

30 hours later, we get a call saying the bags are in Glasgow and on their way to my parents' house. We will be reunited tomorrow, just in time for Susan's wedding! Hooray!

* Well, we actually took it because it was the cheapest... But the symbolism is nice, right?

** At this point I had taken a few sleeping pills so I am not entirely sure that this actually happened.