How to Entertain Yourself

The last two weeks have been rather eventful because, well, I learned how to entertain myself properly. Now that I am settled and less overwhelmed with newness, I found more time to explore Krakow on my own. I promised myself before I came here that I would try to get involved in city events. I did this because I love going to live shows, art galleries, and music performance, also, I wanted to take advantage of being in a real big city; I thought Krakow would be a great place to experience all of that. I began by paying attention to posters and flyers, these show you that there is in fact always something interesting going on, especially in a big city like Krakow. Doing this I noticed a particular set of posters all around Krakow with very eye catching graphic design, underneath wrote “Unsound Festival”. Next step was to do a quick Google search, there I discovered that this was actually an international festival that goes to different cities in Europe. Once the theme of the event is known the next step one should take is to look up the dates, for this event I discover that the duration of the festival lasted over the course of a week, from Sunday to Sunday. The festival is based around experimental techno music. Unsound consisted of multiple music events, as well as presentations, talks with people in the music industry, films, and art. Although I wasn't able to see everything, but I did attend all the events that I could- when there is a long lasting festival it is good to try and go to a ray of programs that are held. I started by going to the opening ceremony, which was held on the Sunday leading the week. In the middle of the week I saw a presentation done by a man from the ancient Sámi tribe based in northern Norway. The man performed traditional Sámi folk songs that are sung in long non-ending loops; each song carried a representation of the nature observed by the Sámi people- he closed his presentation with a bone chilling performance represents the Wolf. I also attended a talk that was with a handful of people from the music industry who discussed the music industry and its' connection with the culture of sex and drugs. Each person played a very different role in the music industry, therefore very different perspectives. I closed the week by attending the big “The Tickets that Explode Part II” event, which held at a venue set up with multiple rooms set for performance, perfect for this multi-act event. There were three rooms, and in each room there was a different performer every hour starting at 9pm and going until 4am. The performers were all semi-famous underground techno artists, who were paired with a psychedelic light show. I am so glad that I put the effort in to looking up the event and attending what I could. It showed me putting effort to see events is a great gift for yourself, and full of surprises. I just bought tickets to see Yakoma: The Drummers of Japan performance in November, it should be a real treat!