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India Photo Set #4 – Part 2

Hindi is a phonetic language that has 11 vowels and 35 consonants (or 13 vowels and 33 consonants, depending on what you call vowels). Reads left to right, like English, but has this line across the top. In handwriting you would use a line to level out the tops of your text, much as we do with a line at the bottom, but here they keep the line as part of the text. The second photo show, I think, a pharmacy. Even the graffiti has this feature.

And no presentation on roadside businesses by me would be complete without the neighborhood tailor. Yes, that is a real charcoal iron, in use. Prior to a Fulbright in which I was speaking, I had her iron my shirt. Price is 6 rupees – 5 cents; I gave her a 100-note and made her day (I try to pick up small notes to pass around).

Yes, there are fast-food joints.  Take a look at the Indian Colonel Sanders!

As I leave the Metro, here is the taxi stand.  Notice how they obstruct the traffic.  There are a lot of various people in the transportation business, from human-powered rickshaws to Ubers-on-motorcycles.

Here is a human-powered rickshaw. My colleague Arindam and I rode this out of the old-town area. Took a long time and he was huffing, this for 50 rupees (about 60 cents).

This is the first “auto” that I flagged down myself, enroute to my Fulbright meeting. Basically a motorized tri-wheeler. Amusement parks in the US should have these to scare people, or perhaps they could use these for videogames. At one point the driver drove one-way against a lot of traffic – my blurry pictures shows FEAR. He also had to stop for directions.

Finally, we should say a word about advertising.  It essentially covers every flat surface, everywhere.

India Photo Set #4 – Part 1

Some general observations on India. To begin, we need to remind ourselves that India is the world’s largest democracy (the US is #2). And I hate to say this, but theirs is probably thriving better than ours. These are some signs from the last election.

India may also be the world’s biggest purveyor of small-business capitalism. Small businesses of every description, everywhere. This little cooker of meats is I understand “famous” (though I have to say that Indians may use the word “famous” too often). Some of these little businesses go back 100 years, not so hard to believe when you appreciate that the country’s interior has not been disrupted by war in more than 100 years.

Some of the roadside displays are quite fancy. I unfortunately am not allowed (warned by my doctor and Fulbright) to not buy any roadside food as this could have me worshiping the ivory throne for quite some time. That goes for dairy products as well, so this little ice cream stand is verboten. Note that this sticks out into the roadway, and buyers would literally stand in the road, and we have already talked about the traffic.

Many of the roadside displays are much less formal, little carts that are moved about – in amongst the traffic. These are some displays near my Metro station.

Here is a guy who has a small display outside the entrance to The Institute (more on that later). He sets up all these limes at the beginning of each day. Behind this is a little grinder for shaving ice to make what we would call “snow cones”. It is starting to get hot and I would love to have one of these, but of course I do not know where the ice came from, and so can’t.

Let’s see some of the little carts that are pushed down the small street in front of my apartment. This guy comes around in the morning at about the time I leave for work (0830). He has a variety of vegetables, which he can weigh out on a small hard-held scale. The second picture is of a cart with some carpets, the guy riding this dismounted and hustled out of field of view as I took the picture.

And here is the garbage man – there are no garbage trucks as we know them. What a neighborhood might do – and my neighborhood is a bit upscale – is hire a guy to come around and pick up the trash left by the roadside. Poorer neighborhoods do not do this and the garbage piles up to create a real mess.

Off the major roads, every alleyway is literally lined with displays of every kind. The second picture here shows clothing, and the third shows me at a little outdoor leather shop, where I am having a couple of additional holes put into my belt (I am losing weight!). These displays are everywhere. There are stores, I understand, but there are many of these small entrepreneurs … everywhere. There is no social net, so people raise money however they can.

This is a sign at the Metro station, in English and Hindi.  Elsewhere the signs are mostly in Hindi.

 

India Photo Set #3

My third weekend here is “Color” Festival. I think some background is needed. Most jobs in India are 6-days a week; off only on Sunday. Maybe to recompense for some of this, there are many festivals, which vary from region to region. These can provide days off. Lucknow is fortunate in that there population is essentially split between Hindu and Moslem, which means more holidays.

The “Color” Festival is a three-day holiday, Friday to Sunday. Everything is closed, including the institute where I can usually even on Sundays. The holiday is a lot of Halloween and a bit of Thanksgiving. One the Friday, the kids come out and can douse anybody they can catch will colored powder, although there are also heavy-duty squirt guns and water balloons. I have seen some of the people in the street absolutely covered in “color” many of these perhaps against their will.

My hosts at the hotel/apartments that I stay at have offered to take me to what is essentially a family party. Whenever you meet someone you dab some of the colored powders on their face and so forth, which should explain the first picture. Fortunately, Ajay stopped on the way there to get me a disposable hat, otherwise I would have ruined one of my caps.

Here is a picture of some of the people in the street, very well colored.

As you can see, my hosts are already well colored before I get there. Everybody is happy to see an American and there are some questions; they are quite happy to be talking to a scientists. This is a middle class extended family, which has a small sewing shop in the rear. Everybody speaks English pretty well.

There is a lot of dancing, the music is a sort of Electric Rap in Hindi, many of the people seem to know the words for each piece. Probably not much different from a party in the States.

Some neighborhood kids show up with a double ended drum. They make a racket and eventually get some money and move on. A guy shows up with two monkeys and one is allowed to climb on me.

And there is food. I will try to talk about the food once I am bettered versed on the subject. The food is good, and is generally only lightly spiced (I get warned not to eat this or that, I usually taste a bit but make sure that I have a drink in hand). I have to be careful, as dairy products and uncooked food can have me worshiping the ceramic throne in pretty quick order. The rule on fruits is for me to eat anything that is covered (bananas or oranges) but not something where I eat the skin, as that may have been washed in water that can have the same effect. The party also has something that is seldom seen in India: ICE. This drink is alcoholic but no one is drinking too much (I have a couple of beers but avoid the whiskey).

This is my first opportunity to see the Indians “letting their hair down” (having a good time. This is a joyous people, and the festivals are an opportunity to play. I hear there are about 12 fairly major festivals during the year, and many lesser ones. “Color” is one of the big ones; the “Light” Festival occurs after I leave.

I find when I get home that the colors are not easily water-soluble. Two showers after I get back to my apartment and much is still on my face.

India Photo Set #02

I am here of course for scientific research and do not plan any trips in these covid times but one: the Taj Mahal. I mention this during my first week and my hosts immediately book me a three-day weekend to Agra. I must go now, they say, as it will get too hot too quickly. I take a six-hour train ride to Agra, then a 20 minute cab to the motel. Here is dashboard for the cab. Cab-driver honked the horn almost constantly.

Turns out that the cab is powered by compressed natural gas, which is the first CNG vehicle I have seen since our student trip to Iceland some years ago. This is for my ENERGY class.

Once we have dropped our stuff off at the motel, we are ready to explore. Upon our exit we are immediately hounded by aggressive people who want to drive us around. We push past this – obnoxious salespeople we do not want – and after a short walk find an older and more professional driver – Netaji.

With me is a student from the Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences who is fascilitating my trip. This is Rout. I am fairly adverturous, but frankly, trying to make this trip by myself would be foolhardy, and I much appreciate these two.

First, yet another bit of traffic – cows (and bulls). I have not seen these in Lucknow, but are all over the place in Agra. They always walk like they know where they are going, and no one seems to get in their way.

Our first stop is the “Red” Fort, from the early 1600s. There is a big crowd, and we are literally unable to get through the –again – aggressive people who want to sell us “discount” tickets and take their 1-hour guided tour (me being an obvious foreign makes me something of a target). We retreat back to Netaji, who knows – Nataji knows everyone- a tourist agent who gets us tickets online. We then return, show these to a security guard and just like that, we are inside. No one-hour guided tour for us, we stroll about for a couple of hours.

Inside is one large structure after another. This is the private of a Mughul Emporor. Some maintenance and restoration has not doubt happened, but I am amazed that all this has survived with little damage.

These pictures some of the detail associated with one structure. The Mughuls were moslem, so fancy ornamentation without human figures.

Here is another view, and looking out one of the windows – hey! That is the Taj!

Leaving the fort, Netaji takes us along some back roads to a location where we can see the Taj from the back, across the river. We work our way through an orchard and here is the view. Rout takes this picture – he has a good eye.

Getting closer here is the south bank of the Yamuna River, with the Taj on the other side (and more cows on our side).

Through that is a large courtyard and another larger gate, and as we approach that we see the Taj. This building and gate are quite large, here is my view of this gate from the other side.

And once I turn around at the same location, here is the view. And here is the picture that everyone seems to be taking.

Flanking the Taj Mahal are two large red buildings. To the right is the guesthouse. On the other side is the dining hall.Both are exact mirror images of one another.

Here is the entrance. Everything here is exactly symmetrical, and without flaw (I am told this by a quilter, and quilters seek out any flaw in another’s work). I have here pictures of the corners to the right and left of the entrance.

No pictures allowed within, this is after all a burial site. Shah Johan built all this for his wife, who died in childbirth after bearing her 13th child. Her sarcophagus is in the exact center of the area within the Taj. The Shah, 5th in the line of Moghul Emperors, is in a sarcophagus next to her, and is the only violation of the perfect symmetry that surrounds her. And here is Rout and myself on the other side.


A picture from the Taj directed back at the previous gate. Where I stand, the tiles remind me of … silicoflagellates.

Later, in a busy day, we visit a local market, this is the sort of shoe-district, with many shoe stalls down the alley. Oops, somewhat wants to come through…

India Photo Set #01

Since this blog is both for people in Maine and India, here is what it was like in Maine the day that I left. Kate and I had lunch at a local restaurant in the city of Caribou Maine (population 8.500). In front of the restaurant (near my car, which his in the picture) were 28 snowmobiles, these belonging to other people eating in the restaurant.

Quick change to India. I usually start these blogs with a picture me and me enroute at the start of the trip. But there was no real opportunity in the airplane: Crowded, for 13 hours, took about five days for me to get my sleep cycle back on track. On the Saturday of my first weekend in India, my colleague Arindam took me to the old center city of Lucknow. The main street has an enormous farmers market, with much else as well. The buildings here are quite old – often 1800s – quite large and many are not in good condition. The narrow allies behind these buildings are quite narrow, lined with some pretty fancy shops that sell jewelry, perfume and clothing.

First experience in Lucknow (population 3.5 million) could not be more in contrast to Maine … the traffic. My pictures do not – cannot – capture this adequately. The main roads are an equivalent to our two lanes going each way, but the traffic is helter-skelter, seems like 4 vehicles abreast, traveling at break-neck speeds, horns blaring. There are no lanes, everyone is jostling for position to get into the gap between two vehicles in front, ever-ready to avoid pedestrians and other obstructions.

The traffic contains cars, motorcycles, bicycles, the 3-wheeled rickshaws (gasoline, electric or human-powered),some horse-drawn carts and people pushing (or here pulling by bicycle) their wares. It is NUTS. To be a pedestrian trying to cross the street is … #@&%$, there are no traffic lights, crosswalks, or pedestrian bridges / tunnels.

And you must walk along the side of and often within the street, because the flanks – what we would call an “emergency lane” is pretty much holes and rubble, full of tripping hazards. There are also many obstructions: the ubiquitous rickshaws waiting for business, or the cart here in the roadway selling vegetables, or people stopped in the roadway to buy stuff.

Pretty much the same at night, though there are fewer vehicles. I have now ridden in a human-powered rickshaw through this. Need I mention that the rickshaw had no lights?

There are everywhere along the roads people selling things. This person has a regular bathroom scale, and for 5 rupees (maybe 4 cents) I can weigh myself (97 kg, I think I have already lost some weight). Here is a picture also of someone shaving ice for drinks.

I have learned very quickly to avoid the roadways at all costs. Fortunately, there is a Metro line that connects where I live with where I work, with relatively short distances along the roadways. My ticket on the Metro is 9 rupees, about 7 cents.

Getting into the Metro requires that your bag and body get a pretty thorough search. Security is very much in evidence, everywhere. India has had its fair share of terrorism, including their “26/11” (Nov. 26th, our 9/11), a bloody four-day event in Mumbai, the Indian capital city. These are long remembered, there as in the U.S.

India has some 28 written languages, and others unwritten, which amounts to a lot of different cultures and cuisines. Here Arindam selects a chicken and a mutton dish – these meats are common in India, beef and pork are not for religious reasons, both Hindu and Moslem. You might note that this business is “established in 1897” – many businesses here go back a long ways.

Because my intestines are not well adjusted to all this, I must avoid anything that is uncooked. I also must be careful about bones – meats in India are cut differently than in the U.S., and sample gingerly. I like spicy food, but some dishes are well beyond my tolerance. The chicken was quite good, the mutton was quite spicy.

 

 

Photo Set #09 – Kraków area

Photo 1:  Kraków rynek

Another shot of the Kraków rynek.  In our opinion, this city and Vienna are two most beautiful (and tourist friendly) cities in old-Eastern Europe.  In our last two days here we took in three attractions: 1) the Poland Aviation Museum, 2) Salt Mine, 3) Auschwitz.  I took many pictures but will only show a few essentials here.

Photo 2: “pretzel” stand

This is one of many little bread stands that sell a Polish equivalent of the pretzel (not sure of the Polish word for these).  The bread is more white than the heavier dough of the pretzel and covered in seeds rather than salt, but large in size.  The point to be made here is that these cost 1.6 zł, less than 40 cents.  We saw a lot of these kind of prices in Kraków.  This has to be the most affordable very nice European city to visit.

Photo 3:  Polish Aviation Museum.

I have visited nearly every significant aviation museum in the world, and the Polish Museum is a favorite:  it has a very interesting history.  The first picture is of the only surviving Polish-made fighter from WWII.  The PZL 11 was a high-wing fixed-gear fighter confronted with larger numbers of the much more modern Me.109, and did quite well, considering everything.  This aircraft survives because it was captured and incorporated into the Berlin Air Museum, by far the best aviation museum prior to WWII.  But the collection was bombed and dispersed and all that remains of the many significant aircraft in this museum are about twenty aircraft, most of them incomplete, that were found in some railroad cars in Poland after the war.  Those included this PZL, now returned to its homeland.

Photo 4a, b, c:  Levavasseur Antoinette

What the Polish Aviation Museum has of the old Berlin Museum is an eclectic collection of mostly pre-1920 aircraft, most with German histories.  This includes about eight WWI German aircraft, most being only the fuselage (wings were in another set of railroad cars that did not survive).  There are four pre-WWI aircraft (including one now in Berlin), the most noteworthy being an original Antoinette, though fuselage and engine only.  Very interesting early aircraft, with an interesting (first V-8!) engine.  I include several pictures.

Photo 5:  Siemens-Schuckert D.III (Albatros H-1)

I should show one of the German aircraft.  The Siemens Schuckert D-series was an odd late-war aircraft.  This had a rotary engine (the engine spun), but this design has the propeller spin in the opposite direction to reduce torque.  The aircraft was small, with an enormous propeller.  Some say this was the best fighter of the war, but showed up only in small numbers before the end.  This is the last survivor, modified by Albatros for further innovative experimental work.  Only the fuselage remains.

Photo 6:  Wieliczka Salt Mine

The Kopalnia Soli (salt mine) in Wielniczka has been in operation for over 700 years and now extends to levels several km below the ground.  We have heard much of the intricate salt carvings here and took a guided tour.  Some of the chambers are gargantuan and none of my pictures (and flash) could do justice.  There are whole cathedrals and concert halls down there; one of the chambers is large enough to host the first underground hot-air balloon flights (and bungee jumps!).

Photo 7:  Salt Mine statue

I will just offer this one photo from underground.  Every location of any size in Poland has a Jana Pavela II (John Paul II) statue.  Here is the one in the salt mine.

Photo 8:  Auschwitz

We visited Auschwitz.  I resisted, as this was definitely not on our list, but friends insisted that if we were in southern Poland we had to do this, so we did.  I took a number of pictures, but would rather describe that try to show.  The tour is fairly low-key.  You go through buildings and displays very quickly, as there is a long line – 2.2 million visitors last year, and the structures were not designed for that purpose.  Some 1.3 million died here, but that number does not include the many people who died enroute to this location, or who were here and then transported elsewhere.

At Auschwitz, what is surprising is how much survives.  Most of the buildings survived, and much of these are totally original and complete.  The victims here were shorn of hair, cloths, glasses, and etcetera, much of which the Nazis then reused in their war effort.  The Nazis did try to burn what was left of personal effects on site, knowing that this provided evidence of the crime; what was left is evidence enough.  In one display, you walk about 20 meters along a display that is a pile – more than you are tall and going back for several meters – of shoes, and there is a similar pile on the other side.  A huge pile of human hair, of eyeglasses, of hairbrushes, or suitcases (all labeled by the original owner with name and date of birth).  There is this building and that.  We had the “short” tour that was only two hours, with another hour or so at Birkenau.

Photo 9:  Birkenau

Auschwitz was the work camp; Birkenau – 20 times larger – was the death camp.  The initial brick buildings survive but the later wood buildings have only the chimneys remaining – and there are many chimneys, two per building.  The four gas chambers were blown up by the Germans and are now only ruins.  About 70% of those who arrived here went immediately to the gas chambers, the other 30% to the work camps, with most of those either executed in Auschwitz or retuned to Birkenau.  The separation of who lived and who died that day was made by the infamous Dr. Mengele, among other SS officers.  Visitors essentially walk the route of those who went to the chambers, past the site where Mengele made those selections.  We visited only one of the buildings, which had he large shelves on which the men lay side-by-side (you have probably seen pictures of these men once they were liberated).

Photo Set #08

Photo 1a and b:  Kraków rynek

After a day in Wrocław, we traveled to Kraków for three days (four nights).  Kraków is we think the prettiest city in Poland.  The city was not damaged by the war the way every other major city in Poland was, and the city is well prepared for tourists (again, unusual for Poland).  The Rynek (city center) has the largest market square in Europe, with many churches, shops and restaurants.

Photo 2a and b:  iron collection in Tarnów

Our first day here was actually spent an hour by train east of Kraków, in the smaller city of Tarnów.  Here is Jerzy, an iron collector.  We collect old laundry irons, and have visited other collections in many countries.

The subject of old irons (in Polish: stare żelaska) is very immense and diverse, and every collector has a separate focus; the collection here is irons mostly from Poland, Germany and Russia.  There are a lot of charcoal irons, which have a wide variety of latches and handles; a picture of one of these is included here that is worth hundreds of Euros.

Photo 3:  Tarnow, first independent city

Jerzy took us on a walking tour of Tarnów.  This was the first city to become an independent Polish city after the country was reestablished following the end of World War I.  This city, as all Polish cities that I have seen, has many monuments and statues to celebrate some aspect of the country’s history.

Photo 4a and b:  Jewish memorial

Forty percent of the Tarnów population prior to the war was Jewish, which included the area in which Jerzy lives.  Very near his apartment is this monument, which memorializes the first 752 Jews taken from this area, in November 1939, to become among the very first inhabitants (if that is an appropriate word) of the German work-, and later death-camps.

Nearby is this plaque on a wall that marks where a group of Jews were lined up and shot.  Jerzy’s mother was a witness to this event.  I suspect every town and city in central to eastern Poland has these stories and monuments (western Poland was previously German, so the present residents do not have memoroes of the local war history).

Photo 5a, b and c:  Basilica

I referred to this as a church and Jerzy quickly corrected me – this is a basilica (here, home base for the main priest of the diocese).  Inset into the walls are the burial sites of various princes, with the top inclined to better show the person (I have not seen the tops inclined this way before).  Nearby is a museum of the wood-carvings from old churches; the one of the left is from 1300.  Many are incomplete or missing pieces, which allow one to peer into these to see the intricate wood constructions.  Beautiful.

Photo 6a and b:  Lyceum

This is a Lyceum (grammar school).  You need to know that in my walking tour of Tarnów, I took pictures of more than a dozen statues – or kings, writers, inventors – but I will choose to show this one, of a teacher (one of two in front of the Lyceum).  I do not recall ever seeing a statue to a school teacher in the U.S.

Photo 7a and b:  Buildings

These old European cities have so much in the way of beautiful old buildings, that include various ornate designs and artwork.  I include a couple from Tarnów here.  The first of these has at the base a memorial to the previous Jewish owner, lost to the concentration camps.

Photo 8:  Polish cigarette packages.

From a store display, these are boxes of cigarettes.  The warning are much more explicit than American get from the Surgeon General (let Poles see these and still smoke – a lot!).

Photo Set #07

Rynek in Wrocław

My wife (moja żona) Kate joined me for Planet Head Day, and the next morning we left for a trip through southern Poland.  First stop is Wrocław, for a day of exploring the old Rynek (city center) there.  Wrocław has a recent history very similar to Szczecin: total devastation during the war, then the German inhabitants forcibly evicted and an entirely new (“pioneer”) population of Poles from the recently Russian-occupied region of eastern Poland came and rebuilt the city, retaining and rebuilding as much of the original architecture as could be done.

The Rynek in Wrocław is similar to the smaller one in Poznań that we visited two years ago.  I would guess that all these buildings were rebuilt from scratch after the war.  (The Rynek in Szczecin was not rebuilt as all the bricks were sent to Warsawa for rebuilding, as the sense was the Szczecin would later return to German control.)

Church in Wrocław

The churches are interesting to “deconstruct” with the eyes, which tell by the patchwork of new and old bricks the bullet and larger-caliber holes and collapsed areas that have since been repaired; often everything from halfway-up is made of new bricks (I don’t think there is a shard of original glass in the city).  This church, apparently no longer in use, has a nice door.

Farmers Market in Wrocław

We love farmers market in Europe (and the US).  As soon as we saw what looked like an old train station, we headed in that direction since that is usually where farmers markets are to be found in European cities.

Lunch with Kate

Having lunch, an oven-baked pierogi (essentially a calzone).  Note the simple but very neat décor:  wooden spatulas, forks and such are suspended to divide the booths, surround lamps, etc.  Very effective and I would think very inexpensive.

Gnomes

It seems that every city in eastern Europe has some small-statue theme.  In Wrocław this is gnomes, of which there are several hundred scattered everywhere about the city.  Here is the backstory.  In the last stage of protests prior to “The Wall” coming down, people in Wrocław took to painting anti-communist slogans on walls.  The commies were very efficient about quickly painting these out to be covered with pro-Communists slogans.  These the protesters painted out and replaced with … caricatures of gnomes.

A macho bicycle

Eastern Europe seems particularly friendly to those of us who ride the macho bicycles (ie, lack the silly gears, chains and brakes).  Not sure what this sign means, but I like it!

Photo Set #06

PHD in Poland

Some photos from Planet Head Day in Poland.  The event had 50 shaved heads and several hundred participants altogether.  As with our PHD in Maine, the event quickly outgrew the science museum and moved to a gymnasium.  These are pictures of the start (major VIPs, which includes me).

PHD in Poland

Among the shaved heads is my research colleague Jakub Witkowski, who just lost his mother-in-law to cancer, 2nd from left.  The second picture is of students from a local maritime academy.  The head-painting is nowhere near as accurate as we do – a tradition of accuracy-in-planet-painting started by Jeanie of course – and then EVERYONE sports a set of Saturn rings, which I guess has become the tradition here.

PHD in Poland

They shaved and painted the heads in sets before the audience, to the accompaniment of a jazz band – maybe a new idea for us.

Mc and Harwood

During the week of PHD, my research colleague Dave Harwood from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln came to Szczecin to work with Jakub and I on our projects.  Dave and I have co-authored a host of papers, I count maybe ten altogether with more coming.  He is a diatom specialist, but also interested in the early (Cretaceous) history as I am (Dave has always been the one to bring new-and-very-unusual silicoflagellates to my attention.

Photo Set #05

Photo 1a and b:  Galaxie Mall

This is ground floor at the Galaxie Mall.  I am going with some neighbors to see “Bohemian Rhapsody” at the Multikino theater on the top floor landing.  The atrium has a … (what for it) … planetary theme.  On the top floor, I am waving in the direction of my second favorite object in our system (Pluton).

Photo 2:  Polish coinage.

A Polish Złoty (the ł has a w-sound) is worth about 26 cents US.  The currency is decimal, much like ours, with .01 (penny), .02, .05, .10, .20 and .50 coins.  Their “50-cent” piece is about the size of our nickel, though not as thick, and much more used than our Kennedy half-dollar.  But the small coins fill your pocket, particularly since the cashiers are much happier to get rid of their small coins than take in yours.

There is also a 1 złoty coin (a little smaller than our quarter), and 2 and 5 zł coins of bimetal constructions similar to our local Canadian “two-nies.”  The smallest paper denomination is 10 złoty, with also 20, 50, 100 and higher denominations that you would seldom see.  Actually, the cashiers hate to see a 100-note.  My wife Kate’s single most lasting memory of Poland is of being yelled at by a Polish cashier after being given a 100-note.

Photo 3a and b:  Antique shop

There is an antique shop nearby that has a fairly large number of antique irons, mostly fairly standard European slug (Poles call the metal insert the “soul”) and coal irons.  I like to look but don’t buy as getting these home is a lot of trouble, and am holding out for some nice single piece to add the collection.

Photo 4:  Flower shop

The Polish love flowers (kwiaty) and there are flower shops (kwiaciarnie) everywhere.  Sort of like being in Seattle, where you are never out of the line-of-sight of a Starbucks.  Some of these shops are open 24 hours a day.  This shop is near where I buy my Polish pottery.

Photo 5:  Kewin at work

This is me at work.  My first batch of samples and slides are prepared and I am now working to count silicoflagellates at four slides a day, which adds up to maybe six hours of scopework.  I did five slides each on Thursday and Friday, but take it easier on the weekends.  Presently working in the Oligocene of ODP Hole 748B, for those who keep track of that kind of thing.  Silicos are such pretty things; I never get tired of them.  A lot of bird calls (seagulls but other birds as well) reach me from the window.

Photo 6:  Primary school

This is a school that I visited from a small village near Szczecin.  The central area of the village has many old German buildings – beautiful, but badly in need of renovation.  This is apparently something of a factory town, but the factories are now closed.

Photo 7: School visit

What brings me to the school is a Planet Head Day program.  They have done wonders with this idea.  Visits to the school includes a program being as much about “filantropi” than about planets or cancer.  The old Communism was not about community involvement, and so these strange ideas about making the community a better place through personal involvement need to be developed in the young.

I practice the language of handshakes (or high-fives).  The kids seem fairly incredulous about a dr. Professor who goes by his first name and asks for questions.  Note that the seats are very simple, do not match and have no desks; this is a fairly poor school.  But there is an obvious interest in learning, science in particular.  Among my three classes there were two students – just by chance – who were wearing  NASA t-shirts, with another I saw in the hallway.  Also a student wearing a Planet Head Day t-shirt.

On one of the posters is a “Gallery Bohaterów” (Pictures of Heros) that show planetheads from last year.  I have only been here six weeks and have already been stopped on sidewalks, because someone has recognized me from a video and wants to shake hands with a “hero.”  You might also notice prominent placement of Rotary and UMPI logos on the posters.

Photo 8:  Soccer fan

While having dinner that night at the Cutty Sark Pub, the guys at a nearby table see my NASA hat and we fall into conversation.  They set up scaffolding at construction sites, and have just returned from a soccer game.  The Szczecin team won 3-1; they were happy. One of the guys at the table knew me – by name – as he had apparently seen the video of the soccer team getting their heads shaved last year for PHD.  The guy in the picture has a scarf that says (my translation) Go Szczecin!

Photo 9:  Polish pottery

One thing I have been working on for the past several years – an extended anniversary present for Kate – is a good set of Polish pottery. The Bratasławiec pottery is beautiful, and in many traditional and modern designs. We have picked a traditional pattern, called “mosquito,” and over several visits to a local pottery shop I pick up a lot of 25-35 pieces to pack and mail home. This is the first lot for this sabbatical: mainly square and mid-sized plates, some bowls and tea cups-and-saucers to go with teapots that I gifted during the Fulbright fellowship.

Photo 10:  more pottery

Here are the first two pieces for the second batch (the coffee cup is there for scale).  I went for a couple of larger pieces.  The shops gets a new shipment in next week and I have on order some more square plates and small bowls.