I can't actually believe how incredibly lazy I am. Shame on me. Of course I've been upset with me for a long time by now because I am six weeks behind my life in this blog, but I could ignore myself - until today, when Janika said "you should write your blog". Why the hell did that work...? :D But well, here I am again, risen from the dead.
Dec 11th
Day after my birthday
We had agreed to meet the Fins at 11am on the Raekoja Plats where the Christmas market was. So we set off early at Kahm's and were there on time. But there was nobody else. Isabell called them and they appeared to be at the harbour still, shopping. We agreed to meet them. Kahm didn't know where to go, and she was the one living in Tallinn, so Isabell led the way and we got lost. We called again and agreed to meet some time later. We spent time on the market and I could finally shop in peace. That was nice. In Gera, Germany, our Christmas market is like NYC - a nice net-shaped road network. In Tallinn, the Christmas market was like Washington, D.C. - star-shaped. Well, when we found the Fins, they were in some handicraft shop that we'd been in the day before. And Luisa was not among them. She was still shopping...
We walked over to the market again (12.15), when Luisa finally appeared. She congratulated me again, and we had a bottle of non-alcoholic sparkling wine. Again. On the market square. In the heart of Estonia's capital. Standing in a circle, handing the bottle around. That was nice. Afterwards, I went shopping on the market again with Luisa and at 1pm, they were meeting at some restaurant to have lunch there. Leonie and the two Paulines came, too, and we spontaneously decided to join the Fins for dinner because we had had so little time only. We found the prices far above our budget, so we took a piece of cake only. But that one was good.
;) One of their teamers walked around and said that who hadn't told her yet how he/she got home later should do so now. So - funny as always - I said that I was taking the bus. She answered something but I couldn't understand, because the others were laughing too hard. That was nice.
Shortly afterwards, we discovered that we seriously should go now to get our bus. This time, we took the right tram and would've got our bus, had the tickets not all been sold out. Well, that's exactly why I always buy the tickets at least a day before I take the bus. We couldn't take the
Noorteekspress and took a bus half an hour later which cost 80% more. Of course, 9€ is still amazing to go 180km right through the whole country, but it was an unnecessary expense. Argh.
When I arrived at home at 6pm, Ilona told me that two hours before, Ahti had asked whether or not somebody should go upstairs and wake me up, because I had slept for 24h by then. He somehow had thought that unseen, I had gone straight to my room on Saturday after I had brought my guests to the bus station, and that I had fallen asleep in the afternoon (before 4pm or I wouldn't have missed lunch) and hadn't woken up yet. Ilona had then told him, that I was in Tallinn actually.
:D
Dec 13th
Open Stage
Let's maybe talk about how I understand
Open Stage and had wanted it to be, then you'll understand better what exactly went wrong in my opinion:
Open Stage was supposed to be a nice evening, where you can spend time with your friends and, if you want to, perform something in front of everybody. You didn't have to sign up, you didn't even have to decide whether you want to do something at all or not, you didn't have to be there on time, you didn't have to sit there until people make you go. You could even talk while others are performing. You just had to come along. Do whatever you want. It was not supposed to be a concert.
What happened: people came half an hour early. I had actually expected something like that. After all, I hadn't put an entire description of how the evening was going to be onto my posters, so nobody knew. Well, they took seat, and more and more people came. Around 5.50pm (it should start at 6pm), Janika said a few words and opened the night. Some seconds of awkward silence followed, until finally Triinu and Matis went onto the stage and performed something.
One song. Then they were off again. I came next, said a few words, sang a song and then asked whether anybody would complain if I did another one. Everybody was silent, until some people from our workshop group simply negated, and I sang another song, again with a few introductional words. I felt too weird by then to do a third one, as I had originally planned. Well, some more awkward moments followed, and we did an
energizer. It didn't work, because of course some really wanted to do it, but were discouraged by unmotivated people who made fun of it and spoiled it all. We did some more songs and forced the evening on and on somehow. The highlight for me personally was, when I made Mirjam spontaneously accompany me on the grand piano while I sang
"Hey Jude" by The Beatles. I loved that song and we managed really well. In the original, the last four minutes are just
"na-nana-nananana-nananana, hey Jude" all over and over again. I tried to make our audience sing it, but we gave up soon, after only Õnne (also a workshop member...) joined us. Still, Mirjam and me had fun and that was enough for the moment.
Mirjam, Medeea, and Jakub had to leave at 7.15pm already to get their last bus to Tartu, and until then the whole event had been pretty disappointing. For 90mins we had desperately tried to make the audience enjoy themselves, but they were unmotivated and discouraging in their whole appearance. They sat there (after the energizer, they had gathered at the back end of the aula) and waited for a perfect concert, which -
of course! - did not come. And whenever we tried to encourage them to do something themselves, they became defensive and aggressive. Amazing.
Argh. Shortly after our teamers had left, half of the audience went off, too. Others followed. So some minutes later, we were about 70% less than before. And suddenly, it all became acceptable. Those who remained,
wanted to be there. The others had only waited for something to happen in their lives and we couldn't help them. But the last ones actually
enjoyed it somehow. That was amazing. They came closer to the stage and it finally was something like a get-together of friends. At some point they left for 15mins, and when they came back, ten people stood on the stage and sang
"Frère Jacque" together. It had no real musical value, but it was fun, and that was what it was supposed to be. They amazed me.
They also left some time later, and around 8.15 there was only me, the other workshop members and three more people who actually had liked the whole thing. And then it became truly enjoyable. We sat in a group, who felt like it, sang, and the others talked silently or simply listened. It was like sitting by a campfire, just without the campfire. I loved it.
Soon afterwards, we all tidied the aula and left. On average, the evening had sucked, but I just removed the first 65% of it from my mind, and what was left was a stunning night with my friends. Exactly what it had been supposed to be.
