2014-12-26: Meat Time (plus also some 25th)

On Christmas day (i.e. after midnight on the 24th) there is usually the traditional "We haven't eaten meat for hours!" gorging. Plus cakes. This year I think everyone was a little tired after playing X-Box sports. Even the niece ran out of energy. She got a little emotional when the kinect wouldn't recognise her javelin skills no matter how fast she ran on the spot.

Breakfast

After a snooze everyone was ready to perform their duties with regard to denuding the landscape of anything mobile and edible. People say the forests are quiet in winter because of the snow, I figure it is because everything got eaten.

With cake, the knife was only a joke... they ate anyway

The skinny people get force fed cake. My Polish is not good enough yet but I am sure there was a bit of "eat, eat, you are all skin and bones".

Ewa is a trained pastry chef and makes an excellent Napoleonka (Custard Square). Living in Australia has made her weak and soft. Now when people ask her to come and teach them how to make it she refuses unless they buy a KitchenAid mixer. We grabbed one as a Christmas gift for the Sister in law. Then promptly told her she was getting her present a day early so Ewa could use it to make the cakes. Not sure if that makes us bad people.

This one will fail an opiate drug test

Poppy-seeds feature in the wildly popular Makowiec cake. It is a nice enough cake, sort of a strudel pastry with a boiled poppy seed filling. Excess consumption leaves you in a somewhat witchy dental situation.

Someone ought to put the street light on the other side or turn the tombs around so I can get better pictures.

After breakfast the snow started, just a light sprinkle but it got heavier over the day as the temperature dropped. This means I got a white Christmas. Ewa didn't as she believes Christmas is the evening of the 24th. Half Arsed Traveller wins again!

We went up to the Cemetery where some family are laid to rest and lit candles. A few other people had been by and done the same which looked great with the snow. Apparently at Halloween the number of candles is vastly higher. There are concerns that the American version of Halloween will take root here and the traditional one will die. I hope not as a candle lit cemetery in the snow is pretty damn cool and I won't have a chance to see the huge one for 2 years.

The walk back featured a snow ball fight. Shame the young kids hadn't come along. We probably have better throwing arms than them.

The sun sets on another day (3pm)

Linguistic Skills: Polish Naming Conventions

As mentioned in passing previously Poles like to change their names. For example:

• This is "Ewa"
• That is "Ewy"'s secret
• Bill, can you give my room keys to "Ewie"
• I like "Ewę" because she is pretty
• I am travelling with "z Ewą"
• I am talking about "o Ewie"
• Hello "Ewo"! (I am excited)

Not quite the same as Victoria's Secret

There are up to 7 different forms of names depending on the grammatical case (this a grammatical thing we don't have in English, if you want to hurt your brain have a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case then try to apply it to a real world sentence).

Now not all names have all 7 forms of their names. Those people get sad and feel less special. Poles are friendly lovely people so they make it up to those people by encouraging them to have alternate names.

Some of these make a bit of sense, for example Simon is not a traditional Polish name and so doesn't have all the alternate spellings nor is it easy to pronounce for youngsters. In my case I am also known as Sam. For the nieces and nephews I am Wojek Sam. This translates as "Uncle Sam". Which I am too stupid to have noticed... 

Others make less obvious sense. Piotr only has 6 different spellings for the seven cases. So he has snagged a spare name of Adam. Which has another 6 spellings.

This is overdoing it I think.

Rating: 5/10 (I gave it +1 because of the indelible link in my brain now between cases, names and lingerie, all thanks to a packet of biscuits)

I believe the EU regulations stipulate at least one Heaven nightclub in any city >50K people

For boxing day we all went swimming at a hotel in town. They had nifty warm water salty bubble baths for different ailments. I think I had my rheumatism fixed up and my "that thing where your leg is sore" should be under control as well. I didn't make it to the third salt bath. If I die of some terrible disease I bet it would have been cured by the third one. Kicking my self now.

Maybe I shouldn't have cured that kicking leg of the thing that hurts it.

This brand needs no best before labels!

 I also neglected to take my camera to the pool which is a pity. They had saunas, an ice bath and a waterfall room. I am hoping to go back and get some pictures. Several rooms had stalactites. I was thinking I could add to my collection of doing naginata stuff in silly situations.

Plans:

Krakow. Fireworks! Goth Bars! New Years Eve! Roasting meats in the central square!
Zakopane. Mountains! Snow! Melted Cheese! Perhaps a sleigh ride! I will need new finery!

Reminders:

Think of a good explanation to take a bunch of martial arts weapons into a hotel swimming pool.