Train tickets and church music

After the usual morning classes I go for a hair cut at a barber shop in the Forum Hotel. 92 zloty with shampoo, pretty cheap and a good job.

Then Romek accompanies the three of us to buy our train tickets to Berlin. Despite the thorough preparatory work of the previous days, we need his help to overcome the indefatigable Polish bureaucracy. At one point a clerk wanted us to change money again, because the receipt of the money we changed yesterday had a different date (yesterday) than the date on the receipt of the train tickets (today). We manage to stay cool and Romek persuades the man to finally issue our tickets.

In the evening we go for a concert of Bach's Luke's passion in a small church in the center of town. Always a moving experience to listen to bach's religious music, even if I am not religious.

You can choose one of many editions of Bach's Passion according to St Luke on Amazon.

The best is probably this one:

Another concert and meeting Polish girls

Wake up late, around noon for a lazy Saturday. Ann and I go for lunch to the Forum hotel (in later years bought by Novotel) but it's nothing special, a little disappointed for its price level. Ann has a bit of stomach ache, who knows why.

In the evening I go to another concert at the Chopin Society, the same venue as yesterdays' concert. Again Buchbinder but this time he plays Schumann and Beethoven.

I have been invited by Christopher, a Pole who speaks perfect English and German.

Ann has gone out with Vadim. After the concert I meet Andrew at the Stodoła (the barn) where we pick up three Polish girls and spend the rest of the evening with them, ending up at the Bazyliszek restaurant for ice-cream.

Credit, Beethoven and bear steak

Usual classes in the morning.

Rudolf Buchbinder

At 5:00 pm we listen to a lecture by a Polish professor on "East-West Trade". He says nothing unpredictable: we need to increase East-West trade, we need to raise the volume of exchanges. He also asks for "cheap credit" from the West to finance it. Right. Well not surprising: Poland is running out of cash. During the 1970s Gierek's government has been splurging to keep people happy but the coffers are empty. Lacking market reforms cheap credit is the only way forward. I ask him how Poland could increase productivity and thus afford international credit but he is rather evasive. Poland, like other Comecon countries, is getting subsidies from the USSR in the form of cheap energy but it's not enough.

In the evening great concert by the Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. The three of us manage to get good seats (second row for only 60 zlotys).  All-Beethoven program, including the "Appassionata", one of my favorites.

After the concert we go for dinner at the Canaletto restaurant of the Victoria hotel and for the first time in my life I eat a steak of bear meat! Delicious. Only 1500 zlotys (about 13 dollars) for the three of us and this is the most expensive restaurant in the city. This can't work. Something has to give. The day ends with a long talk in the car with Ann, until 3:00am.