Show me on a Tuesday... my snail mail storage

Bursts of Bubbles' Show me on a Tuesday continued. This time let me show you my snail mail storage. I don't have so many penpals so I only have one drawer of mail that I got over the last 2 years.

The other drawers are empty, waiting for more letters ;)

Andrew's Night

Tonight is a magical night – Andrew’s Night. A holiday which has pagan roots. Why is it so magical? Tonight you can find out who your future husband will be! To know it, you just have to play some fortune-telling games.
The most popular one is pouring hot wax through a hole of a key to a bowl with cold water. From the shape of the shade on the wall of the figure you get when the wax stiffens, you can guess what is going to happen to you in the future.

Other popular game includes shoes. Only unmarried girls can take part in it. They must put their shoes from the left foot in a row in front of the door (starting from the opposite wall of course). Then they should move last shoe in a row to the beginning until some shoe crosses the threshold. The owner of that shoe is going to get married first.

There is also a game in which you write boy’s names on the big paper heart. In the back of the heart the girls need to insert a pin. The name the pin went through is a name of her future husband.

Have a wonderful night!

[photos googled]

A postcard from... South Korea

I think this is my favourite postcard. The title of it is: "Picnic in the Spring" by Shin Yun-bok (1758~?) from a collection of Gansong Art Gallery - Colors on paper.

The description on the back sais:
Three couple of young men and ladies are returning from picnic in the spring when azeleas are in full blossom. A lady with a spray of azelea in her hair, another lady waiting for a man light a cigarette for her, untidy behaviors of the men in a pleasant mood after spring outgoing match with the relaxed scenery of the spring to add deep atmosphere.

There's also a note for sender and recipient:
Sender: Please write on the back of the fan and include it in the envelope together with this note to send
Recipient: We hope for you to decorate your home with this piece or hang it on a wall to cherish sender's sincerity for a long while.

Which I happily did :)

Christmas and penpalling

Christmas is coming with big steps. The TV started emitting Christmas commercials and there are Christmas decoration in shops. Time to start thinking about Christmas cards or gifts for penpals. But, the truth is I feel a bit lost here. Before I met my current penpals in Interpals, I was only sending a card to my old penpal. Now, not all of my penpals celebrate Christmas. Should I then send them a card or gift or omit them? And what with others? I am scared of, what if I send something small and get something big myself? Then my penpal might be disappointed? And what if I send something and don’t get anything? Then my penpal might feel ashamed or bad? I was a bit lost with that case last year, and this year I still don’t know what to do. Do you usually send Christmas gifts or just wishes or nothing?

Show me on a Tuesday... My Handwriting...

The original idea of this post you can find here. So, that's what my handwriting looks like. In the end of the letter it usually is even worse :S Hah, not a great advertisment of myself as a penpal :P

Dili dili, trali vali, no more smoke

First of all I would like to express my happiness of the fact that after visit in a club my clothes didn’t stink with smoke. On 15^th November 2010 Poland introduced a prohibition of smoking in public places and I could enjoy it’s result on Friday night. The smokers feel indignant with it, they say it’s against democracy, it’s discrimination of them, that people who go to the pub or club should expect that people smoke there and if they don’t want to sit in the stinky mist they can not go in there at all. Then isn’t that opinion a discrimination of non-smokers? Weren’t the non-smokers discriminated for all these years? So now the non-smokers feel relief. Finally they don’t have to breath the smoke, finally their hair and clothes won’t stink after a meeting with friends in a restaurant. The smokers can always go out, smoke there and come back in. Noone denies them smoking. They are only denied poisoning those who don’t choose to smoke. Why is it so hard to understand to some people? Anyway, I was waiting for this act to be passed for a long time, since it works well in other countries I had occasion to visit and now that it finally got into effect I just wanna scream… YEEEEEEAAH!

Second, I would like to express my happiness of my grandmas’ 90^th birthday which was on Saturday and today we organize a small party for her. My dad prepared chicken soup, Greek style fish (which is a Polish dish that has nothing to do with Greece, besides the name). My mum prepared a Polish vegetable salad (though I discovered with astonishment that it’s not known in all parts of Poland, yet in many houses it’s traditionally served on every holidays, birthdays, names days etc.). It consists of all types of vegetables, eggs and mayonnaise. I once read an article that it became popular during communistic times, as there wasn’t much food in the shops, so people were growing vegetables and fruit in their gardens (if they had one), the mayonnaise was one of the things possible to buy often and so, this salad became traditional. It’s also my dads’ birthday today and in two days, my dogs’… though we’re not celebrating this event, hehe.

Polish vegetable salad

Greek style fish

In the end, let me introduce a cute song I got to know yesterday on my Russian classes. It’s a song for kids from some Russian cartoon, about a lazy boy who doesn’t want to help his brothers. I guess it is supposed to teach children that if they won’t work hard, they won’t get anything, but the lyrics “Это мы не проходили, Это нам не задавали” (we didn’t learn it, that wasn’t required), just ask to be taken as a motto :P

 

Lalalala Aga's song

Searching YouTube I ended up watching Sesame Street. I loved it when I was a kid. I even had Bert and Ernie mascotes, but my favourite character was Cookie Monster! Isn't he hilarious?





These videos brought a HUGE smile on my face:) Did you watch Sesame Street in your childhood? Who was your favourite character?

Lassi a la Saag and the Independence Day

As it's free of work day I had plenty of time to stir spinach so I decided to make a spinach yogurt soup - Lassi a la Saag from Bursts of Bubbles recipe. It's the first Pakistani dish I have ever tried. I'm afraid it's not thick enough. Oh well, I'll do better next time :S But it'a real feast for such a spinach lover as I am.

And it's a free day because it's our Independence Day today. It's an anniversary of Poland getting back it's independence after 123 years of partitions in 1918. We celebrate it rather calmly, without fireworks. All that happens are some military parades and people hang flags in front of their houses. And I make a soup ;)

Zorba the Greek

“Zorba the Greek” is a beautiful story about friendship between young, educated man who in his life follows the voice of reason and an older, simple man – Zorba, who lives the moment.

There is a nice fragment in a book, where Zorba sends a letter to his friend:

“I discovered a beautiful green stone. Come immediately”

Young man wants to go with all his heart but due to the bad situation in his country and all the problems around, he decides to stay. In the next letter from Zorba there is a message:

“Not trying to offend you, boss, but you’re a scribbler. You could too, poor man, for once in your life see a beautiful green stone, but you didn’t.”

I feel I am such a scribbler too. My common sense stops me from following my heart too often. Because what if it won’t work out, what if I’ll lose what I already have, what if something bad happens to me, what if, what if, what if…

Let it rain

Since the weather outside is really depressive, cloudy and rainy (what to expect of November huh?), here’s a little song to brighten such a day.

Have a nice day!

Postcard walls

Postcards are a big part of the penpalling world. I’ve got many wonderful postcards from my lovely penpals and I wanted to expose them in my room. I was planning to buy a cork board for that purpose, but I always forgot about it when at shopping mall, plus I have slanting walls in my room, so I’m not sure if such a board would fit. Finally, after checking if a scotch tape won’t destroy the postcards, I sticked them to the walls.

Wall nr 1, by the desk

Wall nr 2, over the bed

I know it’s not a big collection, but each one means a lot to me because they’re all from my friends who thought of me when sending them. Where do you keep your postcards?

All Saint's Day and the Day of the Dead

1^st November – is All Saint’s Day. It’s a catholic holiday celebrated in memory of all saints.

2^nd November – is Day of the Dead. It descend from a pagan celebrations of “beggars”, which used to take place four times a year, and the purpose was to commemorate the dead. People used to feed the souls of the dead who were arriving from the beyond that day. They also used to bake special bread and shared it with beggars who were praying for the souls of the dead (therefore the name of celebrations). It was adopted in XII century as a catholic holiday and diminished to be celebrated just once a year.

Since only 1^st November is free of work, it is celebrated also as Day of the Dead. It doesn't remind the old pagan holiday enymore. We just visit graves of our relatives and close people, leave flowers and candles and recall memories about them with pensiveness.

 [photos googled]