2007.04.02 | the death of the polish pope

right, there have been some comments on my reason for not having pictures of polish women (or men for that matter, robin). as everyone can see, the quality of my current camera is well below par at best thus making it impossible to take pictures inconspicuously. to take a photo worth posting, it would require me to blatantly point my phone at the subject(s) at a distance of a half a metre or less. and no robin, i will not be that "creepy person on the train taking pictures of all the women" :P. i might however borrow my aunts digi cam for some high res candid shots in her local mall.

speaking of that mall, it's is yet another amazing building. it's called promenada. this particular mall actually has an ice rink built inside. a small one, but an ice rink all the same (see photos below). we went to the cinema there to watch "300". it was in english thankfully, with polish subtitles. the cinema is also amazing. this one has three storeys. all the ticket/food related stuff is on the bottom floor and the remaining two floors are for the theatres. i not sure how many there are in total but i think we were in theatre 12, so there must be at least that many.

it's been sunny here for the last week and a bit, and i'm starting to think i might have to move to the uk (or some other suitably cloudy country). with this constant sunshine, it has been getting very much warmer barring the occasional cold wind. but while riding around on the public transport system in poland i've come to the conclusion that polish don't feel temperature change. i say this because the moment i enter the enclosed tram that has been in the sun the whole day, i must take off my jacket and jersey. but i seem to be the only person doing so, as all the other people keep their many layers of clothes on. i don't understand how they can do it without melting into a puddle of sweat.

turns out that today is the two year anniversary of polish pope john paul ii. this is a big event for the polish people. earlier today i was travelling down the road jana pawła ii (john paul ii) which is scattered with candle lamps as a memorial. there is also a concert type thing that has been set up at the pałac kulturi i nauki (palace of culture and learning). i've wondered for a while what they were doing there, and now i see it on tv. many people are there listening to songs, poems and hymns.

on to employment news. i went to an interview at verifone today. this time it was at the company itself. they gave me a c/c++ test which was a bit of a kick in the ass, but i managed somehow (i think). i'll have to wait to see if they call be back for yet another interview. if i do get happen to get employed by them, i will probably be sent to london for a month for training in the work that i'll be doing. the work will be with various counter top card swiping machines, but there will be no low level work. all the work will be application developing for the machines themselves and all the operation system stuff has been done already.

also, i'll be going to a follow up interview for the outbox company. but seeing as i would probably end up coding in peoplecode (peoplesoft[1|2]'s language) i will probably turn down the job.

that's all for now. check out the new pics (including a new one under the cars album).

promenada and surroundings