Girl with a halo

I saw the coolest thing the other day! I know its a little hard to see (I had to pull the camera out in time and shoot from the hip, through a window of moving tram), but there in the distance, across the street is a girl walking with a guy behind her. The guy is holding a logo of a company on a poll above the girl's head. At first tho, you don't see the poll, just the logo bobbing above the girl's head! What a brilliant idea for a promotion!

Ikarus

Some of my fondest memories of Warsaw as a kid, was riding on the public transport system with my grandmother. She taught me how to appreciate the different people that were on the bus (in those days practically everyone since few people had cars), they were they looked, or their conversation. You could really encounter anyone, from all strata of society often making the experience very educational - sort of like traveling to different countries. My favorite is still this guy I once say with a comb over. The trick was that instead of combing over the hair left to right, or right to left, he had it wound in a spiral. And not just a little bit, he must have had at least foot and a half of hair up there. Picture a hair turban. Anyway, I've been trying to get a picture of a one of the buses that used to run back in the day, but most of the buses on the streets are new, and many of the old ones, make Ikarus, have been modernized. I finally got lucky the other day and got a picture of one of the old ones, still with a manual gearbox. I remember being fascinated by this gearbox as a kid. The layout of the gears is completely different, second gear for example is up, and third seems to be, to the right. Apparently, I wasn't the only one that tried to break this gearbox code. Szymon, my flat mate, also spent many a ride as a kid hopelessly trying to discern the method of this shifting madness.

Trzepak

I finally got lucky and was able to get a shot of local kids playing on one of those installations used for cleaning carpets. Although it is not quite the shot I wanted of ten kids hanging off of one, playing valley ball is almost as good.

Plucha

Yesterday (and today actually) it's been raining all day. While Warsaw is beautiful in sunlight, personally, I prefer it in the rain - or at least a good overcast. It's not hot, the car fumes have been washed out out of the air, and there are plenty of cafes to step into for a warming cup of tea and biscuits.




One of the places was this giant bookstore built in a pre-war "kamienica," or tenement. I bought three modern Polish books. Previously relying on libraries or friends to supply me with reading materials I had no idea how expensive books are! No wonder all these literary types are always poor!










Another place encountered along the way was this small cafe called Zakątek. Apparently Krakow has many such places built into the cellars. This particular place was filled to the brim with cigarette smoke. I guess people didn't feel like smoking outside in the rain.






Walking back I couldn't help myself from taking another shot of the the Palace of Culture - it looked really neat in the almost sunset.

Wesele

I have often heard that few people party as long or drink as hard as the Polish at their weddings. To ascertain this claim, I have hoped to have the opportunity to check out such a celebration. This past weekend one of my roommate's friends was going to a wedding in a Southern town Kielce and graciously agreed to take me along.
Of course I've forgotten to bring my camera to the wedding ceremony, but no one else was taking pictures either, so I figured it just as well. Pretty much all the weddings in Poland are a Catholic affair and very traditional. This one was no exception, taking place in a little wooden church, traditionally in the bride's parish. After the ceremony, buses, as old as the Communist roads they drove on, took us to the wedding hall for two days of eating and drinking. Unlike American weddings I've been to, guests in Poland are, as much as the room allows, seated at long tables. While often that leads to place trading and fights for seating closer to the bride and groom, in my opinion it is the key to a more inclusive celebration.
The wedding party begins with food immediately after everyone enters the wedding hall. Soup, a second course and deserts are placed in quick succession. Another set of waiters places an ice cold bottle of vodka is between each four people. The vodka is tapped at regular intervals throughout the night, measuring the long hours with many, many toasts of long life and prosperity to the newlyweds. As the dinner dishes are cleared from the tables what remains are ever more numerous empty vodka bottles, chasers and mixers, and finger food of fish and cold cuts. Of to the side was a "village" table covered with hams, sausages, mushrooms, beacon, pickles, and bread, frequented mostly by men. For the brave there was also a table with "bimber," or 150 proof home made vodka. I would just like to say that after trying that stuff, regular vodka went down like apple juice - and yes, you could even taste some sweetness.
As the party went on and the participation in the numerous toasts began to wane, the band came into the dining room and began singing traditional Polish wedding songs. The young and the old alike joined hands and sang together about the bright future of the newlyweds and, curiously, about lost love. I have observed that many Polish songs, both in the popular culture and the wedding repertoire, are about the good old days long gone and unrequited love.
The party went on alternating between dancing to not to be heard anywhere else Polish wedding songs, games along the lines of musical chairs, and regular breaks announced by the band for either more vodka, or more food. Apparently there is something of a wedding timekeeping system punctuated by different foods. One of the breaks was hot potato noodles with gravy at about midnight and at about 2AM red barszcz, announcing the end of official celebration. After the barszcz it was apparently ok to leave, though the party went on for many more hours, finally ending with the band kicking everyone out at about 6AM.
The next morning, well at about 2PM, started poprawiny, or the second day of partying loosely translated as corrections. More meats, sausages, bigos, soups in bread bowls, deserts, and definitely more vodka, welcomed by everyone's hangovers. While the party started a little more slowly than the night before, it picked up quickly and lasted well into the night. While the young people mostly sat around the tables and talked, a group of 6 couples, I guess in their forties, were living it up. They had a guitar with then and sang many traditional campfire songs, drank more bimber, brought outside specially for them. I bowed out at about 8PM to catch a grimy train full of smokers back to Warsaw, but at that point I was just happy to sit somewhere quietly without someone offering another toast every fifteen minutes.

Zamek Królewski

Yesterday I took a little trip to the Royal Castle. I wanted to see an exposition of Polish and Saracen arms and armor, but (can you believe it) not enough people frequented the show, so its open hours had to be reduced. Of course no one bothered to post the change on the website! Not being interested in their permanent expositions (sorry, the rooms and furnishings of the Polish government in exile after WW2 seemed even lower on the general interest scale than arms and armor) I decided to check out the Castle another time. Nevertheless, I got this pretty cool shot of the Castle and Columna Zygmunta (King Zygmund's Column) in front. I've overheard a tour guide saying that should the King lower his saber the city will fall. I don't really know, but I would place that story's credibility right up there with the architect of the Sechenyi bridge purported suicide over lion tongues.
Instead of the Castle, I checked out this pretty cool cafe in the old town recommended by one of Olga's friends. The place is called Same Fusy, which refers to old tea leaves as well as a slang name for rejects. The cafe is a door front that quickly descends into the cellars, where the tables are located. The atmosphere there was amazing. I tried to capture the feeling of the place. A cool thing that you may be able to see is that the tables are made of some translucent stone and are lit from below.

Bar Mleczny

Grandpa and I went on another one of our walks through Warsaw. This time in to the Southern Centrum and Northern Mokotów. While we were talking about cars and fast women, we passed a number of cool buildings and streets. The first picture is of a very important circular church, which's name I forget. The cool thing about it, besides the circular layout, is that it extends underground to about where the picture was taken from.
A picture of a typical pre WW2 Warsaw street (or its rendition after the post war reconstruction).









A pretty cool restaurant front. The restaurant is called "Under The Giants."










We've also found one of the relics of the Socialist era - a milk bar. In these places you can buy for next to nothing all kinds of dairy based dishes, like pirogies, crepe pancakes with cheese, all kinds of noodles, and creme soups. Students and poor people used to attend these regularly before the dollar menu lowered the bar with grade F meat.
A unique thing is the way one orders. You chose your dishes from the menu and pay at the register, they give you a ticket, which then you carry to the kitchen window. A woman there rudely grabs it and disappears without a word. Some minutes later she appears with a plate of something and yells out the name of the dish. Now, since everyone is waiting for similar things people have to discuss who ordered first, though if you're quick you can simply swipe the dish before other people claim it.