In Montreal.

Being so awake early in the morning, chilling on the sofa in my nightgown waiting for others to wake up and share the excitement of seeing dawn in Montreal for the first time in over a year... it feels a bit like being a kid at Christmas.

Yesterday's flight was one of the better transatlantic ones I've flown, owing to the fact that I actually slept for most of it - something which almost never happens but I suppose my state of exhaustion was great enough. I went straight from the airport to a hamburger followed by a 3-hour rehearsal for Sunday's Biber concert with SMAM. For most of the concert I get to play 4th trumpet and had a bit of a scare when I stuck a crook in and a trombone mouthpiece (it's quite low) and was far too flat... it was tuned for the 15th-c mouthpiece that plays much higher... so I took the slide out and that brought it up to just right. As a bonus, I can hold it like a natural trumpet without worrying about the slide falling out! Then I got to play some lovely trombone parts in the instrumental pieces and, hungry again, go out for tortilla soup and local beer with friends, not to mention a nightcap of 1996 Springbank when I got back here. It's good to be back!

Today I have to get back into research mode - my first task is to re-translate my academic CV from German into English, then head to the new(ish - after my time anyway) lovely, spacious music library to read, write, and bump into people I haven't seen in a long time. That I'm going with an agenda and a deadline guarantees that I'll meet a lot of people, I think.