Posts tagged with "photos"

On Disliking Winter – Verbs Expressing Emotions

Posted by Anna No Comments
Jan 28 2010

So, in the last post, our guest blogger – Ms. Anglopole was telling us just how lovely and picturesque polskie zimy (Polish winters) can be.

Now, I don’t know about lovely, but they sure are picturesque. Even if you’re not a fan of cold weather (like me), you have to admit that śnieg (snow) looks very pretty. It covers all those ugly, unsightly things and makes even the dirtiest city appear fresh and clean. Of course, that lasts for only about five minutes until the snow turns grey and yellow. And slushy. Yeah, nie znoszę zimy! – I can’t stand winter.

But what was it we were talking about? Ah yes, pretty and picturesque.

There are people out there who don’t mind bundling up and going out with a camera to take photos, even in the dead of winter. One such person is the lovely young lady who runs the City Toruń Daily Photo blog.

Kasia kocha (loves) Toruń, it’s her home town, and being the tough Polish woman that she is, she odważnie (bravely) went out in the cold and took some wintry shots.

So, go take a look at them while the snow is still biały i puszysty (white and fluffy)!

And since we are talking a lot about disliking and hating winter, I thought I might as well include those verbs for your learning pleasure:

  • lubić – to like
  • nie lubić – to dislike
  • kochać – to love
  • nienawidzieć – to hate
  • nie znosić, nie cierpieć – can’t stand (something), to resent, to dislike, but more powerful than “nie lubić”.

We’ll talk about nouns (yes, it’s declension time again – how fun!) that follow these verbs in the next post.

November Picture Post – Photos of Poland

Posted by Anna No Comments
Nov 30 2009

It’s November 30th today and that means only one thing in Poland – Andrzejki. The feast of St. Andrew’s, celebrated in a very unsaintly way – by fortune telling, singing, dancing and much drinking. I think I wrote about Andrzejki last year, so I’m not going to repeat myself. And besides, I’ve never been a fan of pouring hot, melted wax into a pan of cold water, and through a keyhole, no less (lanie wosku).

So let’s celebrate the end of November (koniec listopada) in a slightly more refined way – by looking at some pretty photos of Poland. Yes, it’s time for our occasional Polish photoblogs roundup.

Today I have two sites for you showcasing the beauty (and otherwise) of Śląsk (Silesia). One is about Gliwice, and the other – Chorzów. Now, call me stupid, but until today I wasn’t even 100% just where exactly Gliwice was. I knew it was in the lower part of the map, slightly to the left, but that’s about it. And until I discovered Gliwice Daily Photo, I had been under the impression that Gliwice was just another grimy mining town. Boy, was I wrong!


Gliwice Daily Photo

The other blog representing Śląsk today is Chorzów Daily Photo. Chorzów has always seemed to me as another one of those mysterious mining towns that most people are quite happy to avoid. But wouldn’t you know it? That photoblog has proved me wrong.


Chorzów Daily Photo

Both sites are written in English and the photos provide glimpses of Silesian city life as it really is.

Go visit them and you’ll see for yourself.
Enjoy!

September Picture Post – Photos of Poland

Posted by Anna No Comments
Sep 27 2009

Hi guys!
After all these very serious discussions this month (because what to give a foreign mother in law who’s a snob and has everything is a serious discussion indeed) we deserved a more relaxing subject. And I realized that we haven’t had a proper picture post in a very long while. Shame on me.

But this time, I thought we should try something different. Instead of looking at my lousy photos of store names and advertising billboards, I want to show you the country as other people see it. Other people, who are actually very skilled at using cameras and taking gorgeous photos, as well. And some of them even provide informative commentaries in English. So it’s a win-win situation, right?

We’ll start with one of the most picture-perfect cities in Poland – Toruń. Glenn Standish over at Toruń Daily Photo Blog (the original English blog on Toruń) does a magnificent job at showing the city as he sees it.

photo by Glenn Standish

And he writes about it in English, too, which is always an awesome combination.

Then we move on to Yellerbelly’s Warsaw Daily Photo Blog. Also with gorgeous photos and also with short write-ups in English.

photo by yellerbelly

And I just love how he talks about Warszawa stuff that we should all know but somehow never think about anymore, like the story accompanying the photo of a manhole cover on ul. Miodowa.

And rounding up today’s selection of photo blogs from Poland is Łódź Daily Photo by Frank de Jol.

No text, just photos, and all of them magnificent. Łódź is definitely one of my favorite cities in Poland (“one of” because it has to compete with Gdańsk for this honor), and when I look at Frank’s photos I always end up thinking, “Gee, I never knew it was THAT beautiful.”
So, please go and take a look!

If you like this idea, I will feature three new photo blogs from Poland next month. That way even those readers who have never been to Poland will get a chance to see our beautiful country.

Seen in Poland – Picture Post

Posted by Anna No Comments
Jun 27 2009

As you know I’ve traveling around Poland a bit lately. It’s been fun. I got to see all sorts of very interesting things. Or not so interesting things, which for some reason stuck in my head anyway. And I dutifully took pictures of it all.

Actually, speaking of pictures, I realized that we’ve never had a classic photo post on this blog before. Hmmm… How did I manage to overlook THAT?

So for today, I prepared a selection of photos that though maybe not necessarily interesting for everyone (and especially not for native Poles reading this blog – I apologize in advance here for any hurt feelings), show a few things that I noticed during my Polish road trips. Things that made me chuckle, or say out loud “what were they thinking!”.

Here we go:

You know those big fonts of holy water you see when entering a catholic church? Those where people dip their hands and then make a sign of the cross. Have you ever thought how the holy water gets into those fonts? And what is holy water anyway? And what happens when the font becomes empty?

Now, this mystery has been solved. This is what I saw in one of the churches in Toruń.

The caretaker came over and poured some “Kropla Beskidu” bottled water into the font, and voila – problem solved. Then he poured some into a plastic cup and had himself a drink. And then left both the bottle and the cup by the font, presumably for future refills.

This is something else I saw in Toruń. Unfortunately, the shop was closed and I didn’t get a chance to investigate this mysterious “schab po żydowsku” up close.

“Schab” – pork loin. “Po żydowsku” – Jewish style. Hmmm…

While driving around Warszawa, we saw this:

I don’t know about you, but if this was my company, I’d never let such an embarrassing typo roam the streets. Or maybe Victoria Group (yes, that’s the proper name of the company – I looked them up on the internet) was hoping that nobody would notice?

And speaking of company names… I have seen quite a few really strange ones around. I can forgive “Bizarro” (a restaurant by the E7 highway), because I’m guessing the idea was to name it after a comic book character. But this made my English speaking traveling companion spit his soda all over the car’s dashboard.

Yep. Blow.

And by the way, here’s something else that makes me chuckle. There is a major jewelry store chain in Poland. They specialize in wedding bands and engagement rings. The company’s name is Apart. I know that it’s just a pretty sound in Polish and doesn’t mean anything at all. 

Just imagine this firm expanding to the UK, for example. Their ads would be simply wonderful – “Apart – the best choice you can make for the rest of your life.”

Personally, if I were getting married, I’d prefer my guy to buy our rings at a place with a more auspicious name – like this one, for example:

By why does their logo look so much like GAP? From a distance it totally had me fooled.
Hmmm… The mysteries of modern Poland.

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