Fat Thursday

If I were to choose the sweetest Polish tradition, it would be today's holiday - the Fat Thursday (Tłusty Czwartek). In Christian tradition, the Fat Thursday is the last chance to eat as much as possible before the 40day lent followed by Easter holidays. On the last Thursday of Carnival, each Pole has to eat at least one pączek, which is a kind of a donut with random fillings. The most classical one has rose jelly filling inside and is being covered with sweet glaze sprinkled with pieces of dried orange.
This time I had 2 pączki - regular one with jelly rose filling and the other one with advocat and powdered sugar on the top.

1 pączek (pon-check)

2 pączki (ponch-ki)

The best place to try pączki in Warsaw is "Cukiernia Pawłowicz " at 13 Chmielna street, where they serve them fresh and still hot!
Can you imagine something better than such a sweet donut covered in a paper bag warming up your hands and mouth when it's snowing all around you? I don't think so!

Kultowe Dobranocki - not only for children

Dobranocki (or Wieczorynki) are nothing else than Good-night stories.
They've been displayed on Polish TV since 1950s. Every night, exactly at 19:00, when most of the children is waiting in front of TV, a Good-night story begins and lasts until 19:20-19:25. It's been like that since not only me, but also my parents remember. There is no such person in Poland who never watched "Miś Uszatek", which is one of the most famous Polish animated TV series and became famous even in Japan!

Miś Uszatek in front of the Palace of Culture - Warsaw's most characteristic monument from the communist times

The other famous Good-night stories of my parents' childhood are: "Jacek i Agatka" and "Bolek i Lolek". I've never seen a single episode of the first one, however the second one was about two brothers - the tall one and the short one - named Bolek and Lolek.

Extremely old bar of soap for children packed in the paper with Jacek's and Agatka's images

My personal favourites, as far as I remember, were probably: "Maya the Bee" and "Gummi Bears". Unfortunately, usually I wasn't able to watch "Winnie the Pooh" on Sundays coz it was my bathing time!

The front window of the shop (view from Jana Pawla II street)

During one rainy afternoon, I've discovered an incredible place in Warsaw! It's hard to say if it's rather a kind of shop or an extraordinary museum. Somehow it's both! "Kultowe* Dobranocki" is how it is called. Getting there is like becoming one of the Good-night stories' characters. At first it gives an impression of a gadget shop - on the first floor there is a plenty of toys, clothes or cards of which the themes are Maya the Bee, Bolek and Lolek (Poland), Smurfs (Belgium), Koziołek Matołek (Poland), Krtek (Czech Rep.) and so on... However, the staircase in the back of the shop leads to the 2nd floor full of the stuff from old times! Even if you find things for sale on the 2nd floor, they will be really unique - such as postcards more than 20 year old!

Me and the Czech guy - Krtek

"Kultowe Dobranocki" can be found at this address:
Ogrodowa 1a street, Warsaw
(entrance from the back of the building)

* "kultowy", obviously a Polish word, is usually used to describe cultural achievements (book, movie, piece of music) that are well known and appreciated

What's new in Warsaw?

Last Sunday, I met my childhood friend Tomcio. Before that I told him to surprise me with showing something that was not in Warsaw before I went for Erasmus.
We met in the most common place, next to the statue of Charles de Gaulle or as somebody would rather prefer, in front of the Palm. Tomcio asked me: Did you know that we have Starbucks in Warsaw since April? He must have noticed disappointment on my face and added quickly: Don't worry I have another thing as well! I was just checking your reaction! After walking all the way along the Royal Route to the Old Town, it turned out that the surprise was as I expected, truly adequate to Tomcio's profession, which is HISTORY.

The place which he wanted to show me were newly renovated Arkady Kubickiego (eng. Kubicki's Arcades). Actually, it's one of the lower parts of the Royal Castle that is located between the Castle and its gardens.

The story of the arcades is that even though they were designed and party built in the XIXth century, they were never really completed. After the November Uprising they were taken over by Russian army that converted it into a horse stable and since the end of the IInd World War they had fallen into ruin. In the middle of 90's somebody came up with an idea of renovating them. I'm looking forward to see what will be in the interiors in the future. Perhaps restaurants or galleries wouldn't be a bad idea.

(the picture was taken from Flickr)