I spent this year's Valentine's day doing a trip to Jakarta. The first thing I headed to is the Wiener Restaurant to have lunch a.k.a unsuccessful business meeting with Stephane who successfully made me cross and broke his promise about coming to the concert.
Perplexed by the rendez-vous, I sought consolation at Erasmus Huis and saw Jonny at the cafe looking very much lost. When I went to him he just mumbled some words and refused to let me buy him coffee or anything. So I left him and went up to find Simon at the hall practicing his part. It was really calming to see those blue eyes again and I instantly felt better. He asked for a coke so I went again downstairs to order. At this moment John came with Mr. van Hien and Jonny finally managed to uttered "a cup of coffee".
Back up, Alex went out from the dressing room where I had a chat with Simon at the hall, then we all went down. John was smoking his Indonesian cigarette. I gave Jonny a painkiller for his toe that seemed not only to kill his pain but also to awake him. He was chatty and witty and talking so much! (I made a mental note of doing this again on those moments when he just whispering words instead of saying it loud and clear.)
At 4.30 the boys went up to rehearse, and when I returned John asked for a music stand which he forgot to bring. About 10 minutes later, he came back with a guilty face, a feature very unlikely to happen to John, and told me that he has left all his music at home! His mind seemed to already travel away to Pasaraya that morning. So I called Pamulang and arranged so that the music can be brought to Erasmus on time, and Wanti (Mr. van Hien's maid) was doing a great job in getting the right ones!
At 6 pm the music came and everyone was relieved. (It was also very ridiculous if John had to use a score during the concert). The concert started 20 minutes late but it was a great one. Certainly worth the trip.
We finished the day at Marriott (after a short visit to a cigarette vendor which John claimed later as 'sushi' vendor) and had, again, the superb buffet. (I regretted a bit that I didn't take Simon's challenge and dance with him. It would've been fun.) I was a bit broken-hearted when I said goodbye to all of them, but (1) it has to be done, (2) I'm sure we'll meet again, and, (3) as Dumbledore says: "It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."
(Imported old blog, originally written on February 15, 2008)
