Greetings and welcome to yet another fuzzy-headed little open thread, a bit of a warm, fluffy community space teetering on the edge of The Great Orange Cesspool. As an open thread, it's open. That means anything you want to promote, share or chat about is welcome in the comments.
For my end of things I'll be posting some more photos from a recent trip I took to the capital of Poland with Mrs the Werelynx.
It was a business trip for Mrs the Werelynx, but a vacation for me. The day before, we arrived and I found myself invited by the Polish organizer of the conference, Ewa, to join in on their lunch, a short guided tour of some of Ewa's favorite spots in Warsaw and a party that evening in a bar on the 40th floor of a hotel overlooking the city.
So I started day two in debt.
Not literally, but I did have a feeling of indebtedness. Everyone was welcoming and charming, especially Ewa and although I'd profusely thanked her, I wanted to express my thanks a bit more tangibly. I was a man on a mission.
I headed straight for that curious tower near our hotel and found a quiet spot to sit in the park nearby.
I was thinking that this tower must be pretty iconic and so I spent the rest of the morning doing a watercolor sketch of it.
And then I wandered in search of lunch.
There was a strange low building by the bus station that had a crazy roof …
My photo of that building from the day before.
I went inside to discover that it was a shopping mall.
I took advantage of the free toilets and then failed to find anything I really wanted in the food court.
I decided to try a little, hole-in-the wall Chinese restaurant in one of the passages under the street we'd traversed to get to the hotel earlier. I got some spicy Chinese noodles for lunch and took it back to the hotel to eat.
Then it was back out into the city to explore.
What European capital doesn't have palm trees on islands?
A little tribute to the Polish revolution.
Mrs the Werelynx and I had discovered that there were free concerts being put on by music students every Tuesday at the Frederick Chopin Museum. I'd seen ads for it displayed in the neighborhood of our hotel. So I made my way to the museum and asked about the concerts at the information and tickets desk.
The lovely young woman told me that this week there wasn't any concert and that she didn't know why— but, she did know of another concert going on at the Philharmonic and told me to arrive about a half an hour before the concert started because that's when the line for tickets would be forming.
And then there was a whole series of tiny adventures. I went to the side street entrance, the address I'd been given, of the Philharmonic concert hall, tried several of the doors and found them to be locked. I went around to the main entrance and stepped right in. I found someone to ask about the concert and was told that I needed to go around to the side entrance.
Once back there, I tried a couple more doors— and found the one that was unlocked. With the help of the good folk working the coat check counter I found the ticket window— which was still closed. Okay, I was pretty early— but I was third in line! The man in front of me pointed out a woman who was seated nearby. Without speaking, I took the hint. I was fourth.
While we waited, several people who had pre-purchased tickets passed us to have their QR codes scanned by the ushers guarding the top of the stairs. A family passed only to have the father consult with the ushers and then turn and walk back to ask the man at the front of the line if he'd like his extra ticket for free. Gratefully accepted, I was now third in line. Moments later a man came up to me and offered to sell me the extra ticket he found himself with. He wanted the price he'd paid, 60 zloty. I was willing, but the only cash I had on me was in Euros. I guess he was unwilling to do the math as he moved on to try his luck elsewhere.
When the ticket window did finally open and it was my turn, I discovered that these late-purchased tickets were only 20 zloty and that there was a mysterious system in place to determine where we'd be sitting.
The late tickets didn't have assigned seats. We were supposed to wait until there were three bells warning people that the show was about to start. That would allow the regular ticket holders plenty of time to find their seats— we'd get the leftovers. Some ushers did their best to keep the riff raff out, but it mostly came down to folks just sitting down only to be politely asked to move later.
First there was one bell, I waited patiently. Then there were two more bells— hey! that makes three! I found myself a seat on the aisle down near the front. As I sat there, three more bells rang out and the owners, a young couple, of the seat asked me if I wouldn't mind moving to the inner seat of the three they'd purchased. I countered with a question of my own, asking them if they wouldn't prefer having the seats closer to the center of the stage for themselves. And indeed they did.
So what were we there to see? An elimination round of The National Institute of Fryderyk Chopin's annual piano competition.
Three Wangs, three Wongs and a Widlarz
An amazingly talented group of youth. The second performer made some error which I didn't catch and immediately stood up, bowed to the audience and left the stage. That caused a bit of chaos, but after an unplanned intermission we got things rolling along again with the next performer on the schedule. I can't imagine working so hard to get to that point and not finish. My advance ticket bearing neighbors ducked out during the regular intermission and were replaced by a bizarre young woman who kept her attention firmly on her cell phone during the introduction of the next performer and well into the third piece that they played. She also kept her shoes firmly planted on the backs of the seats in front of her. Sometime during the third or fourth piece performed after the intermission she started taking pictures of the performance on her phone. One of the ushers reached over my shoulder to touch her shoulder and get her attention to tell her to stop. During the brief pause between this and the next performance she left the concert.
I was glad to have stuck around for some amazing music. It was a full evening of performances.
As you can see, it was a fairly small, but elegant, venue in the basement of the Warsaw Philharmonic.
On my walk back to the hotel, I got a message from Mrs the Werelynx that she was back at the hotel after another dinner after a long day of work. I opted for a tiny local pizza place for my dinner and took one of their standards back to the hotel to eat.
Not too adventurous, but still fun.
Thanks for stopping by.
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