Author: Kevin McCartney

Another pretty building.  In taking these pictures, one has to be sure to lean back to get the spire into the shot.

I (we, actually) have been to Warsaw and Poznań, which are big tourist hubs with old city centers, but I have long maintained – and made believers of some visitors to Szczecin – that Szczecin is prettier than either Warsaw or Poznań.  The old historic central area (Stare Miasto) was not rebuilt in Szczecin as elsewhere, but Szczecin has a lot of the old German architecture, which is beautiful and scattered throughout the city.  Here we will have three days of pictures of buildings that were all taken as I stood in one place.  These buildings look out onto a small park and tram stop.

Christmas markets are a big thing in Europe.  Here is one at the Szczecin Galaxie Mall.  The Mall has a planetary theme, you might notice the “Pluto,” “Uranus” and “Mars” in the second picture.  The Multikino is the major movie theater in town.  I will get a picture of that and say something about how that works at a later time.

News kiosk, also near the farmer’s market.  These are fairly common.  Small, packed with newspapers, magazines, some eats and tram tickets (bilety).

This is the pavement at the farmer’s market, market of cubed cobble-sized rocks.  Such pavements are all over Szczecin, and throughout much of Europe.  The time and expense to do and maintain this must be considerable, but it does add something to life that asphalt does not.  I do notice, however, that asphalt is becoming more common.

The Farmers market has Christmas-themed items for sale.  The fruit/veg displays are getting rather lean, mostly apples (Jabłka) and nuts (orzechy, the ‘ch’ is sort of an extended hhh).

Poland is a catholic country and patron saints is a big deal.  For older Poles, “Name Day” (the day of the patron saint for whom they were named) is a bigger event than their birthday.  The patron saint for miners and geologists is St. Barbara, whose day is December (Grudień) 4^th.  The University of Szczecin Geology Club has a meeting with various talks presented (on a visit to the Arctic, two mineral collecting trips to Southern Poland) and then beer (pivo) at the Cutty Sark.  Here I am with colleagues.

Święty Mikołaj makes an appearance at the Rotary Club Christmas party, has the kids say something in English (they all know that Santa comes from Finland, and so is foreign) to get their presents.

Weather in Sczecin is a few degrees above freezing, overcast, a bit of rain the next day.  This is very near where I live.

Meanwhile, back at home, here is what 35 cm of snow looks like back at the house in northern Maine.  School there gets closed for a day.