Streets of Bengaluru

The streets of Bengaluru are very colourful.

Their main users are small three wheeled taxis called auto-rickshaws,

They sometimes even come with modern navigation and communication equipment.

And often ornamented.

Generally ornaments are quite popular in India.

But before I show the best ornaments, I must demonstrate to you that even locals often say that only the city centre of Bangalore is a town. The rest is still a village, just with 10 millions inhabitants.

With electrical installations everywhere in the air rather than underground. Some of them are even decorated.

But the best decorations I've seen during Holi, the festival of colours. And they were fantastic figures travelling through the streets.

Half of the town was orange. You can read about the many meanings of colours in India in a great article in Smithonian Mag.

The stores went also into the streets with their offer.



And the same do all the city population.



Including the holy cows.

What gives another argument for the ones claiming it is just very dense rural area.



Let's follow the cow and see wen we can get next week.

Festival of National Cultures in Grodno

Since 1996, every second year, Grodno welcomes guestes from all over the world.

Modern singers from Armenia …

and Georgia let spectators hear and watch the best of their cultures.



Children groups sing and dance most popular hits from Russia ...

and Moldova, with little help of their more experienced friends.



Local groups sing traditional belarussian songs.

All the places are decorated with artificial flowers presenting national flags, including obviously the hosts.

Lenin is proudly overseeing the whole festival from above.

The artists come also from other hemisphere - huge applause to Cubans.

During the festival one can buy also traditional handicraft, for example to cook ...

 or decorate the table.

The atmosphere is fantastic. It looks like the all citizens went into the streets to celebrate and admire distant cultures.

Hope you liked our trip to Grodno, the city where one can admire fantastic history and contemporary culture.

Kites' festival

I must tell you honestly that I am not a huge fan of autumn. When it gets dark and windy, my motivation to travel falls significantly and all I dream of is a warm blanket and a bucket of hot water.

But some humans manage to turn the biggest disadvantes of autumn into an opportunity for good fun. Windy autumn is the best time for a kite festival! If you want to play with kites, especially in a bigger group, you need space. A large field will be best.

First, the kites will pass by a jury who will assess the construction and the decorations. The two most popular shapes are a hexagon and a diamond.

Some participants prepared decorations which are cute and funny, like those smiling vegetables.

 Others decided to scare their opponents. Pirates of the air, ahoy!

Personally, I liked a lot this rose in a pot.

Finally, the jury calls the participants to move on their marks. The kites will fly on long string. They also have a tail, usually decorated with bows and fans.

 All participants are aligned in a row, ready to launch the kites.

And here they go!

I think that I know who might win this race, just look at this one, flying soooo high.

 In the end, windy autumn does offer some reasons to go outside.

Pinewood Derby

Today we will have the chance to participate in the creation of something completely new and unique. I was offered the opportunity of participating in a pinewood derby! Pinewood derbies are a tradition of Cub Scouts of  Boy Scouts of America. The first derby took place in 1953. Not much has changed since. Each participant is getting the same box.

Inside you will always find the same kit - a block of pine wood, four plastic wheels and four nails that will become the axis.

How can you race a block of wood? Well, you need to work a bit on it. We need to prepare some tools.

First we need a saw and a set of clamps. We will cut the block in halves to improve the aerodynamics. Then we need to polish it well.

The heavier the car the better it races. The maximum weight is typically five ounces (150 grams). To get there, we will use some metal washers.

We will glue the washers with a hot glue gun. Then we can start painting.

Does it remind you of anything?

And yes, I told you. You can take a Polish guy out of Poland but you cannot take Poland out of a Polish guy. My human family not only painted the car in the colours of the Polish flag. They even called it "Winning Warsaw".

Time to go for the race! First, we need to register. Each car is carefully weighted.

Over seventy cars were registered for this derby.

Here comes ours!

The track starts high, since the cars are only moved by gravity. Then comes a long flat part.

The track ends with sophisticated measuring devices that measure the time up till one ten thousandth of a second. On top comes a camera.

Winning Warsaw is ready to race.

Off they go! If you can hardly spot the cars do not worry. The average speed is around three hundred kilometers per hour!

Well, this time we did not win.

Still, the pinewood derby proved to be real fun. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did. And next year, we will build a better and faster car. I count on your help!