Krakow – Day 3

Monday, Steve, Marcin and I travelled out of the city of Krakow to Auschwitz.  Aleksandra had visited as a student, and didn’t want to go again.

We took a bus, which took about an hour and a half.  Auschwitz is actually two camps, Auschwitz is the smaller of the two, and Birkneau the larger, about 3km away.  Auschwitz is the one we visited first, as it has exhibits that explain the history of what happened there.  It is, obviously, and extremely sobering place. 

After a couple hours there we walked over to Birkneau.  The time to process and talk about what we had seen was good.  At Birkneau you get a sense of the vastness of the horrible tragedy that took place here. 

The landscape is bleak, and the chimneys that remain continue far into the distance.

The train track that brought people in like cattle is nearly a half mile from the front of the camp to the back.

I was surprised that I was not emotional while I was visiting.  What breaks my heart about the Holocaust is thinking of individuals facing their deaths and families being separated.  The individual emotions and moments.  The sites had relatively few photos and stories.  What I experienced on my visit was the immense scale of the numbers impacted.  Not individuals, but a countless sea.  I still can’t get my head around it.  And, I suppose, it is harder to be sad about what you can’t understand.

Krakow – Day 2

*Second in an occasional series on our April trip to Poland.  Once I’m done with this I’ll pick our Spain trip from September back up before my sister nags me again.

Our second day in Krakow, Sunday, was as beautiful as the first – so we visited an underground salt mine:-)

The Wieliczka salt mine has been in operation for about 800 years years, and  some 200 years ago the salt miners started making carvings and turning the rooms created by the mining into chapels and dioramas commemorating important people and events.  It really is an interesting tour, and I’d particularly recommend it if you have a rainy day in Krakow.   You had to pay extra to take photos, and photos in a cave generally turn out like rubbish, so I didn’t bother.  So this is all you get.

When we got back to the city we wanted some sun – so we found a cafe and had coffees or beers and just enjoyed the beautiful weather.

Sunday night Marcin had made reservations at Restaurant Wierzynek, one of the finest restaurants in all of Poland.  Marcin had wanted to visit this restaurant for many years – so it was a highlight of the trip for him.  The food was great and the service was excellent.  We had a beautiful meal, with glasses of wine, for about £100 for all four of us.

The Jones European Adventure (TM)

I was going to write a blog post today about all the great National Trust properties we’ve been visiting this weekend, and all the good pub food we’ve eaten, but I just can’t compete with the travel tales that Steve’s sister’s family are experiencing.

We’ve been following along at Facebook, but I’ve been pulling out the highlights and posting to their blog, Dear International Family.  If you have 20 minutes to laugh along WITH them it is more than worth checking out.

The Griswolds have NOTHING on the Jones family!

What is Different – Part III

(Part 3 of an occasional series on the lesser-known differences between the States and England.)

Hanging “do” at the end of a sentence. It exists in a few colloquial forms in the States, as in “No can do”, but it is much more common in England.

US: “Can you take care of this?”  “I can.”  
“Can he take care of this?”  “He might.”

England: “Can you take care of this?”  “Can do.”  ”Can he take care of this?”  ”He might do.”

Then there is this very strange phrase with a hanging “do” that describes an event: “Leaving do.” As in “Are you going to Andrew’s leaving do?” In the states, this is more expressively known as a “going away party”.

The Schrockinator

Ironing

I really dislike ironing.  Probably the only household chore that I dislike more is vacuuming.  And since moving to England I am doing a lot more of both.  But this post is not to whinge about vacuuming – that can come later.

The reason I iron so much is that I don’t have a tumble dryer. I hang all of our clothes and linens up to dry.  We have two racks that are in our third bedroom (the ‘laundry’ room – the washing machine is in the kitchen).  I hang neatly, and shake the clothes out to get some of the worst out – but still – virtually everything needs to be ironed.  Shirts, trousers, jeans, sweaters – the whole lot.  I don’t iron underwearor socks, towels or sheets (I’m not a masochist).  I do iron the pillowcases as it makes the bed much more comfortable and it just takes a couple minutes.  The WORST ironing task is the duvet cover.  Yep, once a week I spend 20 minutes ironing the dumb thing.  I just can’t stand how terrible the bedroom looks with a wrinkly duvet.

OK – whingeing over.  Now a story.

There are quite a few mornings when we get half way down the lane and I say ‘did i turn the iron off?’  Maybe once a month I think I didn’t and we head back to check.  I can’t think of a single time that it was left on, but hey, checking is better than burning the house down.  Anyways, two weeks ago I went to Texas to visit my sister.  I did my packing on a Thursday night after a day of meetings in London, and pressed the worst out of a couple tops before putting them in my suitcase.  Well, on Monday night, after coming home from work, Steve thought the house smelled funny.  Sure enough, the iron was on.  STILL on.  Since THURSDAY.  Four days.  We are so lucky the house didn’t catch fire.

The iron still works, but leaks water – so today I got a new iron.  YES, it has auto off.  It is 2300 watts, heats almost immediately and irons a pillowcase in about half the time.  It will take the edge off the drudgery.

Yes, I am aware you can hire people to do your ironing.  (there are quite a few services here in England that will pick it up from your house and deliver weekly)  I just can’t justify the cost.  When I’m a VP maybe:-)

A treat for Dad

We saw this at the store today.

Steve’s dad is always talking about the good old days on the farm with the rich milk from the Guernsey cows.  We’ll get this for him when he visits in August so he can show us how it’s done.  Gold Top ‘breakfast’ milk.

This milk has an amazing 5.8g of fat per 100ml.  Almost 50% more than English whole milk and 3 times that of 2% milk.  Yummy (sortof)

How to get an invite to meet the queen.

I just read this hilarious article.  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/8045654.stm

“Catherine Masters from Oxfordshire wrote to say the Queen was wearing the same outfit in each of the five congratulatory cards she had received.”

An 109-year-old woman winges about the Queen’s birthday cards being lame.  So, what happens?  She gets a visit from Prince William and he invites her to tea with the Queen!

Easy beef stroganoff

My friend Michelle asked me for my stroganoff recipe, so I thought I’d put it here.  This is very easy to make, and also great for making ahead or doubling for a big crowd.  I often made this as a meal for new moms and doubled it just last week when our Jones relatives were here.

Easy beef stroganoff – serves 4

1 lb. lean ground beef
1 med onion – chopped
1 clove garlic – minced
1 can cream of mushroom soup (condensed)
1/2 tsp. salt (more or less to taste)
1c. sour cream
Egg noodles

1.) Cook beef, onion and garlic  in 10″ skillet (single batch) or dutch oven over medium heat, 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally until beef is brown.  Drain.
2.) Stir in soup and salt.  Simmer 10 min uncovered.
3.) Stir in sour cream, cook til hot. 
4.) Prepare hot noodles according to package instructions.  Serve over noodles.

Accompaniments:  goes nicely with garlic bread, green beans, broccoli

Make ahead:  When making ahead, prepare through step 2, then refrigerate sauce.  When I made this for new moms I would prepare through step 2, then deliver with a carton of sour cream and the bag of noodles.  It was easy for mom (or even better dad!) to heat up when needed and was a bit different than the usual new mom casserole.

Krakow – Day 1

April 17-22 we took a 4 day city break to Krakow, Poland.  We travelled with our friends Marcin and Aleksandra, who are both originally from Poland.  They had never been to Krakow, so we were sightseeing together, but since it was their native country, and more importantly native tongue, they were are defacto tour leaders.

We had a late Friday night flight, so we got a later start on Saturday to catch up on our zzzzs.  Saturday was a beautiful day (the first of many).  We walked down to Wawel hill.

 

This is the ‘national cathedral’ of Poland, filled with the graves of many famous Poles.  It was very interesting inside.  You could climb the bell tower – for a great view of the city and an up close look a huge bell, now rung on only very special occasions.

Later we toured some state rooms, which had some rooms with beautiful leather tooled walls (no cameras allowed inside).  I saw a painting of one of the old royal families of Poland, and one of the girls in the painting looked just like my best friend from growing up.  I’ll have to find that online sometime…

Apparently this hill is one of the 7 places in the world with the best Chakra – or something like that.  This corner is where it is ‘strongest’ so that is where the old men hang out.  From the looks of them they could do more for their ’state of conciousness’ and ‘energy’ if they spent less time standing around and more time exercising.

I found a more comfortable perch to enjoy the sun.

Nephew paparazzi.

OK – one gratuitous paparazzi post of pictures of my nephew John.

My favourite picture.  I love his little expression.  This is the blanket that our surrogate Grandmum in England, Margery, knitted for him.

His favourite pose.  Right arm up.  He clearly has a future in pitching.

Concentrating on keeping that head up.

In his baptism outfit on his christening blanket made out of my sister’s wedding dress.

On a blanket my cousin Leisa made for him.  Look how long he is at 6 weeks.

OK – gratuitous photos over.