We made pierogi that are not pierogi (uszka - "ears") last night. It has been stipulated that any that fail are my fault. As some are expected to fail I have been informed I am allowed to cook the goose. I have never cooked a goose. Been called a goose? sure. Anyway... this will be fun.
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| Little hands make little ears, until little brains get distracted. |
A terrifying realisation dawned on us yesterday. Christmas is in 3 days. The 24th obviously is a write-off day as Ewa will be cooking cakes all day and I will be cooking a goose then entertaining children to keep them away from the feet of the Ladies. Today We Shop!
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| The Family That Rolls (Uszka) Together Stays Together (I am sure that is a saying in Polish) |
Cultural Observations: Polish Gift Giving (for the newbies)
Polish people like to give gifts at Christmas. They don't put the givers name on the gift. This opens the door to much gossip about who gave a gift to who and what the subtle message was. Last time we were here Ewa received a cupcake decoration kit, sort of the type that kids would enjoy. This was either:
- From one of the boys: "Ewa used to be a pastry chef, she will like this"
- From one of the Ladies: "Ewa should have children, here is a reminder"
- From someone as incompetent as me who just labelled it wrong
Such Fun! I love the idea of meta-gifting! I had grand dreams of making subtle and confusing comments in my choices of gifts. This is not the spirit of gift giving though and so we instead will buy presents that people will enjoy.
Or we will if we can get our act together in the next 48 hrs. We are simply not very good shoppers. I get distracted by shiny things and vodka.
Rating: 7/10 (although -7 if your extended family is a bunch of vindictive bastards)
In the past we have referred to our shopping technique as "military precision". This has been ironic. Gift #1 was researched, phoned ahead to check in stock, transport organised and so on. We got there an hour before the shop opened. Military precision! So we went to the old Białystok markets to kill some time.
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| Ceci n'est pas une selfie. Wheee art humour! |
The markets are quite large and the weather was quite cold with not insignificant amounts of rain. Since the opening of the two main shopping malls these markets have taken a bit of a hit and Białystock is not really on the tourist trail enough for it have a Paddys Market type of crowd.
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| Whenever it says "Sektor"it feels weird to me |
The traditional attire of puffy jackets worn when shopping made a lot more sense in this environment and, whilst I do tend towards keeping the more interesting markets over the anonymous shopping malls, I can see that the marketing department would have their hands full on this one.
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| No one has ever or will ever believe this |
Poland has some odd little things left over from the past few decades. With the concatenation of WWII, Communism and only 20 odd years of capitalism some things have fallen through the cracks or been put into the too hard basket. There are houses which "someone" owns but no one knows where that person is. Maybe they were Jewish (Białystok used to have one of the highest Jewish populations in Europe) and ran away (for good reason) and changed their name. Maybe they were confused with some of the more obscure tenets of Marxism and went to study it further in one of Siberia's famous universities. This leads to areas which have kind of picturesque houses.
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| Waif and House. |
Apparently if there is an abandoned house and people move in and pay the bills the government is not allowed to evict them.
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| The sign says "Music, Alcohol and Driving" I do not think they have fully worked out their business plan... (now I am informed I just translated badly, it is Music, Alcohol and Food". I guess that makes more sense) |
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| It's 2 a.m. and you need collectible stamps? We're here for you! Found the missing stamp for your Romania 1945 collection? celebrate with vodka! We're here for you |
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Sign Review: Alcohol Advisory, Corner Shop
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| It's that sexy lady from the parking place again! |
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Rating: 6/10 Mostly because I support females right to work if they want (-5 if it is because Poland has bad maternity leave schemes)
Plans:
Finish Christmas shopping.
Research how to cook a goose (I figure they are just big ducks)
Achievements:
I have a visa for the US. Actually I currently have approval to travel to the US. Apparently when I finally get there they will have a good hard look at me and decide whether I can come in or not.
Next Steps:
Work on personal grooming, general politeness and tolerance of officious types for when the US border people take a good hard look at me. This might take a while.
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