Salome: confessions of a ditz

Some idiotic things I believe are completely my own fault ie. thinking that geographically Switzerland was up in Scandanavia with Norway and Sweden. Then there are other things that are really not my fault. Last night I thought I was going to an opera called "Salome" by Stanislaw Moniuszko who is a Polish composer. I believed this because on the tickets it said so. Therefore when I invited Kris to go with me, unlike the last time when we went to see La Traviata, I told him it would be perfect because the words would be in Polish and the subtitles in English like when I went to see "The Haunted Manor" also by Moniuszko.

The adventurous evening began around 3:50 when I arrived at the train station to take the WKD into Pruszkow where Kris lives. For those of you who don't know, the WKD is not really a train, but kind of a half-train,half-tram deal. It is slow and old, but since there is not PKP station (which is a real train) in Podkowa where I live, I have to take the WKD. During the summer, WKD purchased a brand spanking new, state of the art train which, within a few days of operation, broke down. After the WKD people fixed it, instead of putting it back on the tracks, they sent it to Berlin so the Germans could look at this one-of-a-kind train in all of Europe. By the time I got to Poland this train was nothing more than a phantom.

I am not sure how many exactly, but I think WKD has 10 or so trains that they run at a time, so even if the new train had been running when I returned to Poland, there was no way, outside of calling the WKD office and finding the exact schedule for the new train, of knowing when I would be so lucky to have it pull into Podkowa at the time when I would be going to Warsaw. So for a month now, all I have heard is talk and wonderings of this new train that many people have never even seen.

Back to yesterday, I am standing on the platform at 3:50 waiting for my WKD when I see this strange car coming towards me and here, it was the very WKD, the very new one that everyone had been talking about. When I saw it, I just wanted to do a cheer, laugh, jump up and down, something!!!!! This WKD is NICE- sleek frame, white body, big clean windows, padded seats, retard voice that tells you which stop you are at- the works! The doors open and I am smiling and bopping around inside, and everyone around me just looks like nothing at all is different. They are not smiling, they are not looking around to notice the brand new clean dream machine they are in- absolutely no reaction. I am thinking to myself- how is this possible??? You would think that people would get in side and look around, talk to each other about how cool it looks, how quiet it rides, but nothing. It's just like after I was waiting at the bank on friday for an HOUR and they finally called my number. I felt like I had won the lottery and wanted to do cartwheels around the room. Why doesn't everyone feel like me! Life demands a reaction- so give one!!!!!!

Anyway, 15 minutes later in Pruszkow I was on my where to Kris's flat. Kris and I have been friends for almost a year now and we do stuff together all the time and yet I have only seen his father, his sister once, and never his flat, his mother, his grandmother, or his turtle. So when Kris started to talk about inviting me over for Wigilia and Christmas this year if I don't go home, I stated how this was "wykluczony" because I know nothing about his family and by nature, really this is true, am a shy person. Kris quickly acted on this, and invited me over where we drank tea and looked at baby pictures. The plan was to catch the 6:05 PKP leaving plenty of time to get to Warsaw and then to the Opera house. We caught the train (just barely) and sat down when Kris suddenly realized, you guessed it, that he had forgotten the tickets. I could have just died (because mind you, I did the womanly thing of reminding him to bring the tickets once already), but instead whipped out the chocolate bar Kris's grandmother gave me and started chowing down to release the necessary endorphins I would need for this situation. We quickly caught a taxi back to Kris's flat, grabbed the tickets and were on the next train to Warsaw at 6:25. We arrived in Warsaw at 6:53, not bad really and the first thing we did we rush to a Taxi, for sure we could make it on time. Do you know the taxi driver sitting there wouldn't take us! If only I had had a baseball bat!

We didn't have a lot of time to think, only to act! So we hopped a tram 2 stops and ran the rest of the way to the Opera House-through the park, through the woods, past the tomb of the unknown solider, down the street, until we finally made it 10 minutes late. Not so bad. The opera had already started and because our seats were down near the front, they put us in a balcony which actually turned out to be a better view.

When we walked into the opera I was so totally confused because firstly, they were in star trek costuming, second they were singing in German, third this music was so radically different than anything Moniuszko I had ever heard before I almost thought we were sitting at a different show, except I heard and read them singing "Salome". So here we have some chic in a sexy white mini dress with black garder stockings trying to seduce some soldier who looks like he is klingon meets punk. As the story develops and I am following along with the subtitles understanding about 50-50, it finally dawns on me that this is a plot roughly based on that of John the Baptist and his imprisonment and beheading by Herod.

I explained all of this to Kris just around the time that Salome was trying to seduce the prophet, demanding that he look at her because, as the translation went, she "wanted to kiss his mouth." At this point, I wasn't sure if we should have bagged the whole opera idea back on the PKP at 6:05 when we forgot the tickets the first time and just gone to McDonalds. But within 25 minutes when Salome, after dancing for the Herod is standing naked in front of an Opera house full of people, I was hooked. After the beheading of John the Baptist as Salome was walking around with his head, I was hanging onto every word and every action she made, right down to the moment when she, singing to the lifeless head, demands to know why it, or the prophet that is, won't look at her and succeeds to get her wish and "kisses his mouth." After which she declares "the taste of it was bitter because of the blood, but such is the taste of love." Shortly thereafter, the king demands Salome put to death, she is stabbed three times I think, and the Opera was over. It was totally awesome- my favorite opera so far. Music wise, not necessarily. But by far it was the most interesting.

So I went home and tried to look up more info about this "Salome" by "Moniuszko and for the life of me couldn't find anything until I found the month schedule of the Warsaw opera only to learn that what we went to last night was "Salome" by Strauss, not by Moniuszko. I felt really stupid about this, but no where on the ticket did it say Strauss. Please do not try to question my logic further, such as putting together the clues of German libretto, music screaming stylist attributes obviously Straussish, and knowing Strauss himself also composed a very famous opera by the same name. Blame it on being blindsighted by the costuming and a nice set of boobies.

As far as other weekend activities go, only one thing can come close to holding a candle to my Salome experience, and that is, after Kris and I went swimming tonight, he invited me to go to his "Stodniowka" with him. Stodniowka is the equivalent to a prom sort of event which occurs sometime in January 100 days before Polish high school seniors take their Matura, which is a very difficult test in 3 or 4 different subjects that very from student to student, and last I believe a few weeks. They must pass these tests in order to pass high school. So I said yes, why not? Pending the event will not take place during Sabbath hours, but we are pretty confident it will be Saturday night. I will have to find such a dress and learn how to do these Polonaises and I don't know what else they do, but I think it will be a really cool thing to experience.