on the road – Torun (Aug'18)

We arrive in Torun round about midnight, after a 12 hour road trip through a deliriating heat wave. And the next morning we wake up – in Torun – in the middle of that same heat wave, luckily on the shadowy side of the hostel. We wait for the sun to almost enter our room and then hit the streets of Torun armed with a bottle of water and calculating our each move with the aim of jumping from shadow to shadow. For the next two days we become shadow hunters in Torun. We drove here with Janis Vanadzinš Band and tour manager Normunds at the wheel to play at the Festiwal Teatrów Ulicznych. We met up with them in Riga and from there started our journey through the heat of August 2018. One of the legendary heats. Tonight Janis Vanadzinš Band is playing. sO, for Ringhold it’s a day off to get lost in the heat – in shadows only – in this beautiful, partly medieval Polish town. Shadows that lead us to air conditioned stores full of crappy plasticky merchandise. Yes, the same merchandise that is produced by companies largely responsible for this heat wave situation. Shadows that also lead us to the door of the Katedra rzymskokatolicka św. Jana Chrzciciela i Jana Ewangelisty (St. Johns’ Cathedral). We can feel cool air coming out from beneath the door. We want to enter but the door is closed. We find ourselves lost in shadowy medieval court yards. We try to enter everything that has cool in the air. We normally try to enter everything anyway, but this time we are much more bold. Crappy plasticky merchandise producers and eco system collapse master minds have made us much more bold. After we have wondered to the max through this heat, we find some cool on the terrace of a Mexican restaurant facing a house that used to be home to Frederic Chopin. The terrace also faces a sex shop, but it sounds much neater to say home to Frederic Chopin. We will not order large, hot Mexican dishes. We order white. cold. wine. and try to keep as still as possible. After the session with the wine it’s time to go and show support to Janis Vanadzinš band. Unsurprisingly the concert is hot and later we all go to drink some cold Polish beer after which I suggest we go to the same Mexican restaurant. I think it can be a good idea after not eating all day but the heat really is on and the dishes are so large and so heavy. Makes me think that global warming will not bring food shortage, since we won’t be able to eat much anyway. By midnight we are back at the hostel rapped in the shadow of the night until the next morning greets us the same way as it did yesterday – stay in until the sun beams us out of the room and then hit the streets. Today we decide to go extra slow – move as extra slowly as possible from shadow to shadow to have late and extra slow breakfast after which we just move back to the hostel – extra. slowly. Normunds will soon come to drive us to the stage to play the hottest show Ringhold has ever played. Despite the fact that the stage is a sauna we play long. In Estonian the place you sit in the sauna is called sauna lava – lava meaning stage in Estonian, sO. After the hot stage experience we go to the same Mexican restaurant in front of the house that used to be home to Frederic Chopin. And keep cool. Tomorrow morning we will start our trip back home. through. the heat wave.