Winter Lilies of the Warta

While out and about yesterday I crossed over the Warta River and looked down to see these giant "lilies" of ice floating down the river.  Because of the speed they were moving, the freezing cold, and the fact that all I had my was little compact camera; the pictures not very artistic and the focus could be better.  But I thought they were cool, so here you go.  One more image after the break below.

Old Man Winter may be coming for a visit

I was informed yesterday that "Old Man Winter" (see my previous post) may be coming for a visit.

The warmest we are expected to get over the next 10 days is -2C (29F) with lows expected to get down to at -12C (10F) or more.  Yahoo is predicting a low of -12C, but apparently the local Polish weather team is expecting us to drop to -15C, and that it might even go as low as -20C.

Tonight we are supposed to get down to -8C, and for the first time while walking home I actually felt my cheeks and nose getting painful between the wind and cold (I remembered my tuq this morning, but forgot my scarf).  So I'm hoping tomorrow isn't too freezing as there are places I want to go.

FYI, I hope to add several posts over the weekend (although I will probably schedule them out a few days).

Have a wonderful weekend!

Important Words to Know....

(Image borrowed from Mugopom at DeviatArt.  See the original here:  http://mogupom.deviantart.com/art/mikey-way-starbucks-logo-75599218)

I've been very spoiled since I got here in the fact that all the staff at the Starbucks across the street from my work speak English.  And since I go in nearly every day they have all become familiar with me and with what I drink (since I get the same drink 97% of the time).

When they found out I was going to be here for about 2 years, and that I was slowly trying to learn Polish, they decided to do their part by forcing me to order in Polish.  Since they were nice enough to teach me how to order what I wanted in Polish first, and I would use it every day, I figured it was a very good thing to know.  Of course, by now, given how predictable my order is, they really don't need me to order at all.  But I appreciate the attempt to help me learn.  :)

For your edification, here is my daily order:

"Venti Caramel Macchiato, chude mleko, bez pianki"

"Venti Caramel Macchiato" you hopefully already know.

"chude mleko" is "lean milk".  Chude sounds sort of like "hooda".

And "bez pianki" means "no foam".

So if you are ever in Poland, at a Starbucks, and want the same drink I always get, now you know how to ask for it.  :)

An Update

Sorry it's been a few weeks since my last update.  I haven't been up to much worth mentioning.  The ankle I twisted at Edinburgh airport on my way home (the day after Christmas) has been taking forever to fully heal.  The fact that I pretty much have to walk on it every day probably hasn't helped.  Neither has the fact that most days I have a ~20-pound backpack on my back for at least part of those walks.  So needless to say, I just haven't been doing that much that you are likely to find interesting.  So here's a few bullet points:

• I got a taste of how fast weather can change here on Friday.  In the morning it was cold, clear, and so bright I probably should have worn by sunglasses.  Around 1pm we had a front move through the city from West to East that brought strong winds blowing so much snow it was like someone was drawing white lines across the sky.  After about an hour, that stopped and it went back to being fairly clear.  Then around 2:30 another front with another load of snow and wind blew through, and it was gone again after an hour or so.  None of the snow stuck, reinforcing what I've been told is the warmest winter on record since the 1800's.  But we have had a near-constant "sprinkle" of occasional snow-flakes coming down since Friday.  And even a bit of small hail.  So there is definitely still some cold air up over the city.  Yahoo (who have not been generally a good source of weather predictions) is predicting snow and/or rain Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this coming week, so who knows, we might have a bit of a snowy winter after all.
• I managed to the find a CD of a Polish post-rock band I had heard on a podcast and liked.  I'm listening to it now.  I had hoped CD's would be cheaper here, but they are not.  It seems the music labels want to get their money no matter what.  Unfortunately, the band is not on iTunes or Amazon as a digital download, so I have a physical CD to carry around.  On the plus side, at least I'm not paying the cost of an "Import" CD on Amazon, so the album was cheaper.  I may post some more info on them in another post.
• I'm hoping to take a short trip somewhere in Europe sometime in February, as I'll need to use up at least a few more vacation days by then.  Berlin is close, but if anyone has any other suggestions, let me know.
• If anyone has anything they want me to blog about, let me know.  I have some more ideas, but some of them are going to have to wait until Summer probably as they are things that might work best with some pictures.

I've got a few other things I may post about later in the week.  And I'll see about a few more "New Foods" as well.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.

Stuff That's Different #5 - Fireworks

Coming from arid California, where just about any type of interesting fireworks are banned, it was a massive shock to see the fireworks displays that went on here in Poznań on New Year's Eve.  Bottle-rockets are illegal in California, and the ones I remember as a kid were quite small.  The launch stick was less than a foot in length and the propellant + explosive part was smaller in diameter than a pencil and maybe an inch in length or so.  For the bottle-rockets sold here, the launch stick is about 3-4 feet long and the propellant + explosive is about the size of a Subway 6-inch sandwich.  They go about 70-100 feet in the air and explode with quite a bit of noise and light.  Needless to say, the fire departments in California would have collective apoplexy if they were available there.

Then there seemed to be some near-commercial-grade fireworks.  I saw someone carrying what looked like a couple of coffee cans packaged together and have to assume that these were what were creating fireworks that weren't quite the size of the commercial displays in the U.S., but were pretty close.  Take what we are used to seeing in the U.S. for commercial fireworks and reduce them in size by about a half, and that's what I was seeing in nearly any direction I looked.  So they weren't commercial items that were put on by the government I don't think.

What this means is that the fireworks display on New Year's Eve seems to take place everywhere you look, and goes on for 30-45 minutes.  I went out on my balcony and looked out towards the big apartment blocks on the other side of the river, and was able to watch a near-constant show of the bottle-rockets flying up, a large number of the bigger items, and what looked like a fair number of commercial-grade fireworks that were launched all over.  My balcony doesn't look towards the city center, so I couldn't say if there was a specific fireworks display by the city, but it appeared that nearly every large (and not so large) apartment block bought at least a few large-scale fireworks of their own and launched them.

Between the younger folks who live in my complex using the park behind us to launch their bottle-rockets, plus all the other fireworks going off, it seemed that no matter which direction I looked that there were fireworks going off.  It actually went on so long that after about 20 minutes I decided to stop watching and just go inside.

Who would have thought that I could be bored with fireworks?  Is that a symptom that the little boy in me has grown up a bit too much?  =)

Have a wonderful New Year's everyone.  I hope your New Year's Eve was filled with joy and that you aren't paying too dearly today for any celebrating you did last night.