Английский язык. Рассказы. Уровень В2+ - стр. 5

Training 4

While they were living in Edinburgh Greg went out three times a week to folk music sessions. They’d go in, sit down in the pub, and have a drink, and someone would get out their instrument and start playing. Then others would join in. Greg really was a bad fiddle player at the time, but he learned a lot from listening and watching how others played.

Training 5

A lot of people from Northern Ireland used to come to the Edinburgh sessions, and they were a strong influence. There are some pubs where people play Irish music, and some where people play Scottish music. There were always more people playing in the Irish sessions, maybe because in Irish music you often find five or six fiddles playing together or because songs were more common in the Irish sessions.

My friend Alexander, who is Russian, told me an interesting story about a trip he made to Damascus, in Syria, a few years ago. He was working in a city in the heart of Siberia as an interpreter for a dancing group, composed of boys and girls aged between about fourteen and seventeen. They were a very professional dancing group, as they’d all started dancing at about the age of six, and had been training intensively since then, every day, learning many different types of dances, so it was very impressive to see them. It was a real pleasure for my friend to work with them, and to see them dance so often. Every time he looked at them, he couldn’t help admiring them, as they danced so magnificently, better than many adult dancing groups that he’d seen.

Anyway, they travelled to Damascus in July or August, in the middle of summer, so it was rather hot in Siberia at that time, about twenty-nine degrees Celsius, so everybody was sweating. He said to them before they left, “Don’t forget where we are going, we’re going to Damascus, very close to the desert, and it’s going to be something like forty-seven or even fifty degrees.”

When they arrived at the airport, however, and got out of the plane, they didn’t believe that they were in a desert region, as they all felt a little bit chilly! When it was announced at the airport that it was just eighteen degrees, they couldn’t believe their ears.

The next day, however, the heat wave came, and it was blistering hot. The temperature reached forty-seven degrees, and so during the day it was almost impossible for my friend and his group to go out into the street without staying in the shade. They could walk along covered walkways, or stay under the canvas awnings of cafes, but it was absolutely unbearable to be in the open.