Playground

The nice spring time is well established. Next to the place where my human family lives they have opened a new playground. Before it gets invaded by kids, I decided to take a walk there and check what facilities it offers. First of all you can see some construction where you can climb.

See how high I managed to get!

 Then there is the swing.




 It does not really look stable. I will rather try the other one. A unique opprtunity for a horse to climb on a lion.

Last but not least - the slide. And off we go!

The playground gets an official approval from Rick.

Sechseläuten

Last Monday I visited my friend Marta who lives in Zurich. And yes, you guessed it right, she is a postcard collector that I have met via Postcrossing. I must admit that the Warsaw airport is almost like a second home to me.

 Luckily, I never leave my house without my passport.

The reason why I chose to go to Zurich on that specific day was that the 3rd Monday of April is the traditional day of Sechseläuten, or spring holiday. On that day the guilds are having a parade in the streets of the city. Unfortunatelly it was raining heavily so the parade was not as spectacular as it could have been. Yet, you can see the orchestra.

 And a part of the parade. As you see, the members of the guilds wear the traditional, historical costumes.

But if you think that they have completely missed the fact that the time is passing then I must tell that it is not the case.

 The most important element of Sechseläuten is the burning of the Böögg, a figure of a snowman prepared with explosives. He represents the winter of course. The Zurich people believe that if the snowman burns quickly and his head explodes within a short time than the summer will be long and warm. Here you can see what remains of the Böögg.

As I have already mentioned, this year it was raining on the Sechseläuten day so it took quite long for the Böögg's head to explode. Not a good prognostic for the summer unfortunatelly. 

Katowice

Recently, I decided to visit another postcrossing friend of mine - Laura. Laura lives in Katowice and she runs a very interesting blog about her posctard collection.

Katowice is an industrial town in the South of Poland, in the region called Silesia. It is best known as a large coal and steel center. But it has also many cultural places of interest. Like the Silesian museum. It exhibits mainly ethnological and archaeological artefacts but you can see there also paintings of famous Polish painters like Stanisław Wyspiański or Olga Boznańska.

If you prefer moving arts, you may visit the cinetheater Rialto, the oldest in Silesia. You may have a virtual walk inside by using this link.

 Another option could be the Silesian Theater on the market square.

 Have you noticed construction works? They are everywhere! This was very unusual, as if the whole city was undergoing a kind of refurbishment. I went to see Spodek, the famous show and sports arena. And guess what I saw? Construction works again!

Katowice is also the center of education for the entire region. It has there very good high schools, e.g. the the famous High School of Adam Mickiewicz, located in a nice 19th century building.

And of course the Silesian University. Here you can see the Faculty of Philology. It is a building with a very interesting history. Before the war it was the seat of some governmental office, during World War II it was the seat of the nazi police (gestapo) and after the war - the house of the Polish communist party.



Inside it looks probably like any other biulding of any university. Here you can see where the future librarians study.

In front of the Faculty of Filology, you will notice the monument of Wojciech Korfanty, a 20 century journalist and politician who faught for Silesia to become Polish after the First World War. He is very respected in the region.

Korfanty was a member of the Silesian Parliament, a governing body of the Silesian Voivodeship between the First and Second World War. The building houses now the regional government of Silesian region.

They did not let me in saying that the odd-toed ungulates are not admitted! Well, after all pigs are even-toed ungulates. And you know what the say of polititcians ...

Finally, I was lucky to meet some more postcrossers who came for Touristic Fairs.

I guess you will not be surprised that they were not really interested in travelling. Here you can see what Laura brought home from the fairs (believe it or not but Agata had even more).

For me the most important memory for the Fairs was the dinosaur ride!

Yeah! Rick the Dinosaur Whisperer!

Thanks a lot Laura. This was a great trip!

Blessing of the Easter baskets

Those of you who know some members of the Protestant churches know that the most important day around Easter is for them the Good Friday. Those who have ever met a Roman catholic surely know that for them the most important part of Easter is the mass held on Sunday morning. At least for most of them.

For many Poles, the most important part of Easter is the Holy Saturday morning when they go to the church for the blessing of the Easter baskets. An Easter basket looks like this:

And no, it is not meant to carry horses inside!

You should put inside samples of food that the family will eat during the breakfast on Sunday morning. First of all eggs, typically colored, painted or otherwise decorated. They are the symbol of the resurrection of the Christ.

I bet you want to have a closer look, so here is an example ...

... and another one.

Then comes the meat (typically a sausage) as a memory of the lamb that Jews (including Christ and the Apostles) were eating during their Passover feast.

The bread is the symbol of Eucharist.

The salt represents the preservation of the soul of the Christians.

The horseradish commemorates the bitter sacrifice of Christ. I have no clue why they mix horses in this, it tastes horrible to be honest.

Finally come the Easter cakes, in particular the Easter Babka, made with the use of yeast.

When you have everything ready, you must pack all of this into the small basket. Not so easy I must tell you.

The final touch is a nice napkin to cover the basket on the way to the church.

In all Polish churches on the Holy Saturday there are huge tables, full of baskets.

Every 15 minutes the priest comes to bless them.

And then new baskets come. Again and again. As I said, this is the pivotal part of Easter in Poland. At least that's what it may seem.