Szklarska poreba photos

These pictures are taken around Szklarka of a place called Sowie Skaly (Owl's Rocks in English) as well as of the main road into Szklarska and the main river that flows through the town. Cool place for paintball although you run the risk of runnng off a cliff like Arnie in Predator.

The quality of these pics are not amazing due to the fact I only have a camera phone in Poland but I think the views are conveyed well enough.

My version of krokiet (meat filled pancakes fried in breadcrumbs)

Coming in one night and being absolutely famished I looked in the fridge and found what looked to be rolled up wraps (flour tortilla rolled around fillings) and ate a few. They were delicious straight out of the fridge but I did not find out what they were until the next day. They were Polish krokiet (information and recipe for krokiet) but I had eaten them before they were finished and luckily enough the meat filling is not raw otherwise I would be talking about a way never to eat this food. Now I always them before the breadcrumb layers are applied and fried (see link above). Essentially they are just cold crepe pancakes filled with minced meat but they are lovely and great when you are in a hurry and don't have time to finish the recipe. Of course the Polish family here think I am crazy for changing the traditional way of doing things but the English have a stereotype of being eccentric so I might as well live up to it.

Dislike about Poland - paying for water

Coming from London, I took it for granted that I could drink as much water as I wanted from the tap without fear of any water-borne nasties infecting me or equally nasty chemicals. I try and drink as much water as possible as it is healthy and I done that here too for a month until I got a stern warning from my adopted babcja (grandmother) that scared me despite not understanding a word! Now it pisses me off every time I have to buy a 6 litre bottle of water which usually only lasts me 2 days at most. You can see from the photo it can cost about 5-6 zloty and that is the same as a packet of cigs and although I do not smoke anymore I still have a habit of judging prices by how they relate to the price of a pack of 20 in England (which is way overpriced in relation to other prices due to tax). I know that being unable to drink tap water is not unique to Poland and I had problems with tap water in Ireland because it tastes like a sheep had bathed in it, but it is the first time I have had to deal with it for an extended amount of time. The expense is not the major issue, but inconvenience because running out with the local shop already closed means no water for me. Furthermore it is a pain to decant water from the huge bottle into smaller ones to put them in the fridge so mostly the water is warm. Lastly we accumulate armies of blue tinted plastic bottles which are a real pain to get rid of.
Looking on the bright side I have increased my spoken Polish in shops a great deal because I am in there all the time to buy more water, I can order a large bottle of still mineral water like a native Pole. Also I have tasted many different brands of Polish mountain mineral water (One called Zywiec which the famous beer uses to it's brew) and I'm sure I am all the healthier for it.

My favourite Polish dinner

My all time favourite Bigos, Bigos Bigos. This meal is the national dish, basically bacon and cabbage (but much better than the Irish version). It has such a unique taste and tastes better the longer it is reheated and the longer it is left. I can't recommend this enough and I have written down the recipe that my adopted bapcia (grandmother) Ania uses to make the Bigos I eat. This site also has all the recipes and information about Polish food that I pick up while I am here. Have a look and try some of the recipes yourself. I learnt much of this by watching babcja Ania with a limited ability to communicate and I have consequently cooked some of these recipes for my family and friends in London. Of course they loved this food.

The link is:

http://www.polishfoodrecipes.blogspot.com/

Singing Polish style

Magda, her cousin and myself of course were invited to a grill (Polish barbeque) and although no one ate anything, that was not the point of the party and the presence of a guitar meant that everyone was soon singing away. There are many Polish songs that everybody knows here unlike in London where there is not a strong traditional musical memory that everyone shares. If you start singing one of these songs everyone around you would know the words and probably join in. It reminds me of a lot of Ireland where there are very famous old songs which everyone knows and loves singing. I can join in quite convincingly although I usually wing it and say anything to the tune emphasizing the one word I might know. There is a song with the verse 'hej hej hej' and it has 'Dzwon Dzwon Dzwon' in it somewhere that I know (Hej sokoly). Luckily there was a binder with all the songs written and that was extremely helpful for me since reading Polish is quite easy once you know what the sounds are because it is phonetic unlike English. I sung a song which I know, an Irish song, 'Seven Drunken Nights'. It is a song I love to sing, especially while drinking, because you don't have to be a good singer and it has a great chorus. Unfortunately I tend to mix up or forget certain parts of the song but it is all part of the performance.

I was introduced to a lovely new barley beer. By god it's strong (Look at the photo!) but it has a wonderful taste and I think should be a sipping lager because it will blow your head. This could be a contender for top Polish lager (At the moment I have Warka strong as undisputed number one but I will have to do more research into this particular one, ahhh the things I have to go through to get this information for you!

It is hot actually

Well after complaining about not feeling the hot weather in the weather post previously, I certainly had to eat my words on this particular day. The thermometer nearly burst!!! I found myself melting and everyone here was doing the English thing of talking about the weather (I felt at home).

What I found quite strange was a hot weather expert that Polsat (national TV channel) employed to give advice to the Polish public. As I was watching they interviewed a black guy and I could not really understand but I assumed he is had flown in from some tropical country where extremely hot weather is normal. However he started speaking.......and he was Polish born and bred!!! I could not believe how this seemingly racist event was allowed to be aired on TV. It is assumed that this guy is an expert in keeping cool in hot weather just because he is black, he might never have left Poland in his whole life and so never experienced any different conditions to the rest of the Polish public, but he must have some inherent knowledge that all black people are born with about how to cool down in the hot sun. Imagine asking an Irish guy the best way to become unconscious through alcohol even if he is does not drink. I think I am used to an overly politically correct Britain where this type of thing would have been controversial and not be shown. Actually it is refreshing that this society is not worried about being politically correct to the point of absurdity and the guy got 5 minutes of fame anyway. By the way his advice was to drink hot tea to cool down in case you wanted to know the expert advice.

An englishman in......

I was browsing the Google search engine to see if I rate highly on the SEO and I found some interesting and related blogs (I'm not high by the way...yet!). I think the song about an Englishman in New York by Sting has influenced many Brits subconsciously because there are a multitude of blogs with this title. For me it was a natural title which did not require any thought and I expect for the others also but I think we should all link up to start a travel series that will overtake the lonely planet guides! If any of you 'An Englishman in.......' are reading this contact me and tell me what you think.



Here are links to some of those sights.

http://anenglishmaninosaka.blogspot.com/

http://an-englishman-in-dubai.blogspot.com/

http://englishalien.blogspot.com/

http://anenglishmaninnyugun.blogspot.com/

http://www.anenglishmaninamerica.co.uk/

http://an-englishman-in-japan.blogspot.com/

http://anenglishmaninverona.blogspot.com/

http://www.anenglishmaninneworleans.blogspot.com/

http://englishmaninjoburg.blogspot.com/

http://www.englishmaninstrasbourg.com/

http://www.englishmaninla.com/

http://englishmaninmumbai.blogspot.com/

http://an-englishman-in-paris.blogspot.com/

http://blog.pauldwade.com/ (Sydney)

http://rowmarcus.wordpress.com/ (New Zealand)

http://thechillcoat.blogspot.com/ (A few different places)

There are more but I think you get the picture. I imagine a scenario like that in Bourne Identity films where we have an official 'Englishman' for every country! But instead of being assassinating people for the Americans we just tell everyone where the great places to get pissed are around the world.