Team Sullivan's Adventures in Warsaw

Friday, March 16, 2012

Awesome Thing About Living in Europe #20

Awesome Thing About Living in Europe #20: Environmental Consciousness

Environmental consciousness is everywhere in Europe...from hotel rooms where the lights automatically turn off unless you have your room key inserted into a special switch to reusable bags. The reusable bags have been the one thing that we have definitely adopted in our time here. I always carry one in my purse and use it for everything from picking up some advil at the drugstore to my weekly trip to the market for produce. As you walk around Warsaw you see everyone toting their brightly colored reusable bags.

Pretty much every store charges for plastic bags if you need/want one. So, not only does it help the environment but it also helps your wallet! I know that some states in the US are considering charging for bags and I think it is a great idea. We used to have a whole drawer filled with old plastic bags and now we simply have our few reusable ones. It's an easy way for me to feel like I am doing my small part to make a difference.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Teatr Wielki

I had the opportunitiy to take a backstage tour of Teatr Wielki, the Grand Opera House, in Warsaw. Since Tom and I had attended an opera performance in the theatre in January it made it even cooler to go behind the stage and see how the performances all come together.

A bit about the theater:

The Grand Theatre in Warsaw (Polish: Teatr Wielki w Warszawie), the Grand Theatre—National Opera is a theatre complex and opera company located on historic Theatre Square in Warsaw, Poland.

The theatre was inaugurated on February 24, 1833, with a production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville.

After the building's bombing and near-complete destruction in World War II, the theatre was rebuilt, and the building reopened on November 19, 1965, after having been closed for over twenty years.

Today there are over 1,000 employees who help the theater run every day. And, the theater is used for both the Opera and ballet performances - so there is a ton of work since they have to turn the sets, costumes and performances around every 4 weeks or so.

Gorgeous glass sculptures in the lobby

Backstage rigging

Sets from the opera we saw, Nabbucco

Lots of options for hanging sets

Scenes for the upcoming opera

On stage facing the audience

Interesting props in storage

From high above the stage - where the lighting guys sit

More props

The costume room - The opera has over 30,000 costumes in storage dating back to the 70's. They rent them out to other performing companies all over Europe.

The costumes went on and on...and we only saw one of three storage areas.

Sitting in the audience

The outside of the Teatr Wielki today

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Womens Day!

The Poles have it right on today....they are celebrating Womens Day...a day to celebrate all women. I like this idea!!! Tom celebrted the proper way by buying me flowers as well as buying all of the women in his office flowers. While buying flowers for female colleagues may send the wrong message in the U.S. it is completely normal and expected here on this day.

Here is a brief explanation of the holiday:

A holdover from Soviet Union rule -- Dzien Kobiet or Women's Day -- is celebrated on March 8.

The holiday was created in 1948, in part, to replace the Roman Catholic feast day of Blessed Wincenty Kadlubek, a 12th-century monk, but also to glorify the ideals of women as hard-working contributors to the economy -- sort of a women's equality day. Although initially this feast was enforced by the government, it became accepted and part of Polish culture. And, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it is still celebrated.

While Valentine's Day is more privately celebrated between lovers in Poland, Women's Day is celebrated more as a national holiday for all women, regardless of age. They receive special attention, usually flowers, sweets and small gifts, not only privately, but at work and schools. The Western trend of giving greeting cards is creeping into this holiday.

Women's Day is now an official holiday in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and other Eastern European countries.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Does this make us officially Polish?

Tom bought himself and early birthday present this weekend. He has always wanted this "classic" Polish item since the first week we arrived and he spotted them across the city. After telling me multiple times that he was "definitely going to get one" I just shrugged it off as one of his funny wants. He is so lucky that his friends have been helping him search for the perfect model, and lo and behold, found one this weekend. Here is Tom's new toy. He is so excited to take official ownership of it this weekend!

What is this crazy car you ask? It is a Polish legend....its called a Maluch and is very famous around Poland. Maluch translates into english as "little one" or "toddler" This car became quite famous during communist times when afforadable cars were nearly impossible to get. If you could afford a car, you purchased a Maluch. And, due to the limited supply of all goods people had to wait months and even years during this time to get a car. Therefore, although they are small and basic, they became quite a covented item across Poland. Every Pole can tell you stories about riding in a Maluch. These cars are no longer produced, so Tom's car is technically a vintage vehicle. His model was built in 1987.

Here is Wikipedia's description of the car:

The car was produced in Poland under the brand Polski Fiat 126p (literally in English: Polish Fiat 126p) between 1973 and 2000. To distinguish it from the original Italian car, the letter "p" was added to its name. It was produced by Fabryka Samochodów Małolitrażowych (FSM) in Bielsko-Biała and Tychy under Italian Fiat licence. Due to a relatively low price it was very popular in Poland and was arguably the most popular car there in the 1980s. Its very small size gave it the nickname Maluch ("the small one","small child", pronounced. The nickname became so popular that in 1997 it was accepted by the producer as the official name of the car. It was exported to many Eastern Bloc countries and for several years it was one of the most popular cars in Poland and in Hungary as well.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Austria

Tom and I spent last weekend outside of Salzburg, Austria celebrating our five year wedding anniversary. The weekend was the perfect combination of relaxing in the gorgeous mountains and sighteseeing. We stayed at a beautiful resort in the middle of the mountains on a lake. The views were incredible and there was a ton of fresh snow to add to the scenery. We spent our first day hiking to view an old castle which should have been quite an easy climb, but it was a bit difficult trying to find the path in two feet of snow. We knew we were in for trouble when we started the climb and a local guy watching us got a big grin on his face as he muttered something in German. He got a real kick out of us trekking in the deep snow. After our hike we relaxed in the hotel spa which featured a number of different saunas and even had a hot tub outside overlooking the mountains.

On our anniversary we went skiiing on the Hintersee mountain area. It was quite the adventure considering I had never been skiing before in my life and the last time Tom went skiiing was 20 years ago. Nothing like two novice skiers hitting the Austrian alps for the first time. : ) The moutains were absoliutely breathtaking. I took a ski lesson with a super helpful instructor. Tom joined in for the beginning of the lesson, but quickly realized that it was "coming back to him" quite easily so he decided to head up the mountain while I continued. Unfortunately, Tom got a bit confused and took the wrong slope and wound up heading down a black diamond level hill. He wiped out a few times but was fortunate to get some help from some other skiers. And, in typical Tom fashion he "figured it out" and made his way to the bottom. After my lesson finished we headed up the lift to try out the blue slopes. On the way up I saw the hill that Tom had accidentally come down...I could NOT believe how steep it was and was simply grateful he had made it to the bottom in one piece. We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon skiing and hope to go again sometime soon....since we can both use some more practice.

We spent our final morning with a trip to the spa which was a great way to relax our post-skiing sore muscles. In the afternoon we made our way into Salzburg and walked around the charming city. We had a wonderful weekend filled with great memories. And, we fell in love with the beautiful mountains and the area. We are hoping to plan a return trip in the summer months!