Well it is now Oct 15th and the temperature showing on the thermometer outside our kitchen window during the day has consistently been between 3 and 10 C for the past couple of weeks. At night of course colder and with wind chill and / or humidity or rain it can be rather nippy at any given time. The reason I mention this is that there is no heat turned on in the apartment block yet. Apparently it will not be turned on until November 1st. The whole building is heated by water radiators and I am sure that once it is turned on I could be complaining about the fact that I have no control over the darn things and it will sometimes feel too hot! But right now, I am finding myself layering clothes, even to the point that I had my down vest on while sitting knitting. The story is that the many of the occupants, especially the older ones on a fixed income can not afford the utility costs that will start with the heating so they prefer to delay it as long as possible. So the upshot is that even a hardy Canadian like myself is shivering a bit waiting for November 1st.
Cheryl and Jim and gone to London for a week on business and then will be leaving to go back to Houston for good. As a result, they gave us their electric heater (purchased in the summer as it was too cold for those southerners then!). So we do have a very tiny source of heat if necessary. .. though I can sit in the the toilet room or the bathroom as they both have some heat.
.....On another note... I was walking around town last week and noticed a poster advertising what looked to be a concert at the Mazeikiai Cultural Centre for Friday night. From what I could gather it would be a quartet of musicians and a soprano performing various pieces that included Ravel, and Bizet, and others. So I called Tom and asked him to get Rada, the community liaison gal at MEI to inquire about tickets.
Rada ordered the tickets and I picked them up on Thursday. The next evening I got dressed up and Tom picked me up after work in time to hurry over to the venue. It was a cold and blustery evening so we wasted no time getting inside. Our last concert here, in the summer had been very good performance wise, featuring a top conductor and a small but precise group from the Moscow symphony. That evening was almost unbearable though due to the lack of air conditioning and incredible stifling heat.
Well true to form, this time we nearly froze. No heat in the building or else, like my apartment, it will not be turned on until November 1st. I don't know how the musicians managed though under the bright lights it probably was rather pleasant.
IN any event, I had worn a pant suit with a cashmere shawl thrown on for extra warmth (just in case!!! I am learning!). Tom meanwhile, had a jacket and hat which he put in the coat check upon arrival.
Upstairs, enroute to the ha, crowds were looking at a large exhibition lining the walls of the foyer. As we drew near, we could see that this was some sort of wax museum display of historical characters. They did not look particularly good, but then I am no expert and have absolutely no interest in this sort of thing. What this was about or why it was here...who knows, but it was a rather bizarre and unexpected precursor.
Taking our seats, we still weren't exactly sure what to expect from the concert itself and so were a bit bemused to see the audience contained a very large percentage of school age kids, some accompanied by adults, but many on their own. We quickly surmised that free tickets had been given out to a school.
The performers were introduced and we found that they were 4 classical guitarists. Playing standards from Carmen, Dvorak, etc, they were entertaining though not brilliant. Half way through, the "Soprano" was introduced. I had been previously told that she was Lithuanian who was now living and performing in USA. What a diva! She simpered and swayed, and waited for her supposed adoring public to respond to her every move and gesture. She actually was quite good when singing arias but when she did a couple of Lithuanian folk songs we did not find it as enjoyable, but this more due to the overly dramatic style of the songs.
Nevertheless, the performance on the whole for the grand sum of 10 LT ( $4) each was more than reasonable and we would have enjoyed it. However, it was marred by several things. First the audience was terrible. The school kids obviously did not really want to be there...we were not sure if this was a school assignment and compulsory, or if it was just something different and free to do on a Friday night in Mazeikiai. The giggling, talking, text messaging, etc was constant and did not stop even when Tom and I both told groups to cut it out. They just laughed and went on with their conversations. The blue lights of cell phones could be seen throughout the auditorium and their texting purpose was very apparent when at one point between songs, at least 20 of them stood up en masse and climbed over us in their haste to get out of the row and the hall.
As distracting as this poor behaviour was, what was more disconcerting was the lack of any intervention from the other adults...either parents, teachers, or fellow spectators.
I philosophically could accept that teenagers and younger children may behave badly in this type of setting, especially if not disciplined in some manner. So I just chalked this up to another Lithuanian oddity and my own advancing grumpy years. However the best was yet to come.
As we left the hall at the end of the concert, we made our way down to the coat check area and were one of the first to arrive as our seats had been near the end of the aisle by the door. I stood slightly back from Tom as he was standing at the counter. Suddenly a hundred stampeding Lithuanians pushed and shoved me out of the way. People were literally running up to the counter and elbowing and fighting their way to the front. I moved to the back in comparative safety and watched as Tom had to fend of the hoards. It was unbelievable. Men in business suits, women with purple hair, older gentlemen, etc....I have never seen adults behave in such a display of extreme rudeness especially at an event where you might expect to find a more "genteel" crowd.
As we finally escaped from the mob scene, we both reflected on this strange behaviour and and concluded that hopefully this is not a general Lithuanian trait, but rather something more peculiar to this small city, Mazeikiai. So really we just chalked it up as just another adventure.
Anyway...enough for now.. I have to go sit by the heater and warm my fingers.
Iki.
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