Sunday, February 27, 2011

tram-night-life

The Kid had her renaissance choral performance this weekend - it went well. They provided the choral interludes and some comedic songs for Shakespearean scenes and some short morality plays. After the closing performance she joined me at a dinner and then we took the tram home.

She had a new experience, or rather encounter, with something I took for granted, sporadic in my exposure but definitely not unheard of. The tram jam. It happens on metros too, but the trams are pretty cool. Last night when the tram pulled it there was a group of young-ish guys with their instruments out just playing away and dancing up a storm for all the passengers - they had out an accordion , hand drums and a recorder that I could see and had brought good humor and joy with them as well. Unfortunately they got off as we went to get on, but it made the kid laugh - she'd never encountered that before. I have a few times on the metro and the tram.... one of the best was some music students got on with their instruments and all of a sudden the guy with the upright bass started plucking away and then the rest joined it - they played for a few stops then got off and went inside their school. Another time it was a bunch of much older men with their guitars and their voices - they must have been old songs as so many people joined in... it was great. I love moments like that here as it breaks through the isolation and brings people together for a moment - you can look around and people make eye contact and laugh and smile. It's lovely.


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