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One thing I like about Warsaw is that most of the museums, galleries etc here have one day a week with free admission, and not only for local people… also for visitors.
Even better, they are not all on the same day! So if you stay some days in Warsaw you can visit several different places for free.
Schools started yesterday.
As usual, news sources reminded motorists to take things easy, as new first-graders are still at a pretty early stage in development and unable to really grasp traffic safety.
I didn’t see any first-grader as I was driving yesterday, but it seemed like it was the parents, as well as 15-year olds on 50 cc scooters and quads that were the ones to watch out for, seemed like a lot of people were out there in a pretty emotional state. Signs of frustration, taking extra risks, just crazy.
Traffic safety and people’s attitudes towards it are a subject that keeps fascinating me.
The nice thing with watercolor is, even if you are tired and don’t have the brain capacity to mix colors, you can just use two and it still [looks pleasant.](https://www.deviantart.com/tereyaglikedi/art/Lake-sunset-scene-1227658843)
I am a bit of a sucker for pencils. I also draw with pens, but I really, really like pencils. As such, I love to try different ones. Yesterday I saw someone recommend Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, which are supposed to be dirt cheap and perform as well as the very famous and expensive Derwent pencils. Unfortunately, it seems like it’s an American brand and not that cheap here (they’re actually about the same price as Faber or Stabilo, not like 20 for 2 bucks like the Americans in YouTube comments were saying).
American Redditors, do you know these magical pencils? Are they really amazing? Can you get different hardness grades? I am so curious to try them.
I got invited to a board game cafe this evening. We started off the evening with some obscure card game and, as usual, I got laughed at for doing something stupid because I didn’t fully understand the rules even after they were explained to me several times. These kinds of things just don’t stick in my mind, at all, and they never did even before smartphones had rotted all of our attention spans.
I’ve honestly really never got the appeal of card games whose rules are so complicated that they take about 10 full minutes to explain and have about 3 million different exceptions to take into account. Sorry mate, I’m not going to be able to follow your giant [exposition dump](https://youtu.be/s2FXfFeRtJo?si=-2xnmBHfZzkzv0fQ) all the way through and honestly by the time you’ve finished explaining everything nor am I gonna care. Until recently I worked for a government institution that was the epitome of Brazil-esque bureaucracy full of pointless convoluted and contradictory rules we all had to follow so as not to get fired. I don’t need this shit in my downtime as well thankyouverymuch.
Raaah get off my lawn.
PS: No, I don’t buy the idea of “oh, but you’ll only need the rules explained to you once and then you’ll get the hang of it after a few rounds”. Because by the time I ever get round to playing this game ever again I’ll have forgotten all the rules and they’ll need to be re-explained to me again.
It was night of the arts in Tampere yesterday, and I happened to be out with a mate so we checked some stuff out. First we went to the Tampere Cathedral where they were playing organ music for like five hours straight. It’s such a lovely building, I don’t go there enough. The architecture is wonderful and the art inside is truly amazing. The frescos, the altar piece, the stained class. It’s the best building in the city.
After we went to an exhibition on costume design in opera (and a bit in ballet), which as a fan of opera I found interesting. Whenever you see costumes from opera, theatre, or even movies or TV close up it’s such a let down to realise how horrible the materials look (and feel). But when you’re watching from a bit further away, as you’d normally be in an audience, they look just fine.
Unrelated to all that, it was my niece’s first day in school and she told me she had the “best day in school”. I mean, duh. First day of first grade, of course it’s going to be the best since there’s nothing to compare to.
Random thoughts about my 4 week Sabbatical in Korea/Japan.
It’s odd to me that “Western” culture can’t accept/get used to the idea that a good restaurant can exist inside a shopping mall or subway station. Which is very common in Asia. Some of the best foods are found inside shopping malls or subway stations. Sukiyabashi Jiro (the famous sushi restaurant featured in the documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”) is located in a subway station in Tokyo.
Had a luxurious Omakase lunch in Osaka that consisted of 11 courses of different types of sushi and other prepared right in front of us. 6600 yen per person. That’s 36 CHF (38 EUR) per person. Even my 9 year old twins ate every dish (to the praise of the staff).
I love getting haircuts in Korea because not only are they 1/3 of the price compared to Switzerland but the service is incomparable. They wash your hair twice (extra cost here), they give you a head massage, offer you coffee, etc. There’s no tipping culture in Korea but I will still tip them 40-50% because I can’t believe how amazing the service is.
Gatcha and crane games are extremely popular at the moment in both countries. It’s a money pit but they do offer really interesting items to buy/win. Part of me thinks it’s neat, but the environmental side of me thinks it’s an irresponsible creation of trash between the plastic containers they comes in, and the plastics used to create them.