Krakow for Christmas

Christmas!

We flew in to Krakow on the 23rd of December 2013. There was no snow, but it certainly was more chilly. Our flight was delayed an hour or so in Rome because of fog, but after that it was pretty smooth sailing. We had requested a driver, and it felt ever so fancy to see somebody holding a sign with our name on it in the airport. He took us to the check in building for our apartment, and then to our apartment. It was really nice and cozy.

First thing, we settled in with a photo shoot. Emma insisted on being photographed in her new location. These following shots were the results:

That's a really natural smile

Sweet, and still forced. But cute anyway.

Then we did a little more of a personality shot:

....but that grossed me out.

Notice the fan halo.

Stella found the arrangements to be suitable for her favorite activities.

And of course we had to try out the television, even though it was even more incomprehensible to us that Italian TV would have been. But, never really having a lot of TV experience, the kids took it for what it was.

Our bedroom was also cute and cozy. Probably thanks to Ikea.

Soon after arriving, I thought it was a good idea to warm up with a little tea. After pouring Emma some, I went back to the kitchen to save Stella from the glass dishes in the lower cabinet. In a matter of seconds, Emma poured her scalding hot tea all over her shirt with a blood-curdling scream. I've really never heard a kid scream like that. Stupid Ikea tea cup with the little tiny, off-balance handle that's way to close to the top. You ever seen that one? Totally not built for children. Anyway, I rip her shirt of and we spend the next 45 minutes re-cooling rags for her stomach which was very red and had developed one blister. Yay for 2nd degree burns! Poor girl just kept crying, "It still hurts!" as we tried to cool it down. Meanwhile, daddy went out to try to find some aloe vera, but to no avail.

After settling in with a bang, we hit the streets and commenced with the activities that made up almost the whole trip: walking, eating, shopping, and enjoying the sites of the medieval town.

Church of ....St. Fransis, maybe?

I loved all the architecture. Very different from Rome and very beautiful. It was such a different feel and even though there was no snow, it felt a little more Christmasy than the Roman streets we had been treading.

Many, many people told us about this restaurant, Pod Wavelem, with its enormous portions. Indeed, it really held up to all the talk. Cheap, massive, and tasty. I particularly recommend the beet root soup and the Kielbasa. Of course, there is  no bad kielbasa in those parts.

Bring pant expanders to this place.

Krakow has a Christmas crib competition, and although we didn't go into the museum where they feature hundreds of cribs from various artists and families, you could still catch them about the town. They didn't look anything like a crib, but more like beautifully colored castles. (sorry for the sideways pics)

Christmas crib, ex. 1

It had been an early morning and we walked all day. Emma actually fell asleep on top of Leon's head during her shoulder ride. It was quite the balancing act with a flopping, limp child trying to stay upright on the move. We poked her as much as we could but she wouldn't stay awake.

Vacations are exhausting. Leon's not even awake.

The days kind of blurred together, especially trying to recall them now (in March) so I'm not sure of the order of events. Each day we wondered if the shops would be open, or if we'd be able to find a restaurant, because all of the websites we visited said to 'make arrangements' for the whole city closing down. Well, we had no need to worry. If we had been trying to go out in the newer parts of Krakow, maybe we would have hit some trouble. But we basically lived in and around the main square around St. Mary's Cathedral. The Christmas market was open everyday, which meant you could find amazing kielbasa everyday. And that was all we needed to survive.

Some pretty impressive accordianists

Here was the indoor shops full of beautifully crafted goodies from jewelry boxes, wooden toys, blown glass, pipes, to clothing and accessories.

St. Mary's Cathedral (left): where we attended Christmas morning mass at 10am.

Hand pumped water for all the shops was provided by these two hardworking elves.

Then there was the eating!

Emma with orange juice, Daddy with beer, Mama with 3 sauses!  Heaven!

Happy Diners!

A rare mom shot. And a standard Stella shot (blurry). 6 months pregnant here!

With a little bit of help, we can see her eyes.

"Can I just get back to my bread, please?"

No shortage of bread or beer here!

Bread!

Bread, sauce and tea!

Juice is definitely a sign of vacation.

Cutie.

My dinner that evening was a Gregorian pie. We didn't know what it was when we ordered it, but it was good. Actually very similar to a pizza but overflowing with meat on a very thick bread. Everything seemed to be served with cabbage, coleslaw or beets. Very yummy.

Out on the streets again, enjoying the decorations.

Stella: "I wasn't touching the tree."

 This is only part one of Krakow which was really only the first day. I'll find the rest of the pics and put them up soon.



In the elevator, going back home. Everyone in 2 jackets a piece.

T

Granmama and Pop Pop at St. Peter

Ok, I thought these were posted months ago. I guess not. When Grandmama and Pop pop were here in November we took a trip to St. Peters.

Pop pop reading books before the excursion.

 

Everybody praying at an alter in St. Peters

That's a hug. 

 

For some reason, Emma kept asking to be photographed throughout the church, and it was mostly in front of pillars. She found the pillars very moving.

Sitting comfortably on the marble step

Cheese!

Standing on marble step

Attempting to climb on a pillar for the picture.

Almost got it!

Stella and Grandmama where enjoying the ceiling. Stella was the one who kept pointing it out first. 

"If only I had a chair I could get up there!"

I was enjoying the ceiling too (And the zoom on my camera that helped me see it better).

Our Lady

Emma invited Pop pop to share in her pillar fun.

Ever seen such a pretty pillar?
Didn't think so.

Christmas Cookies

Living in Rome has provided me with many opportunities to do things for the first time. But a lot of them have nothing to do with the new country I'm in, and much more with the fact that I miss home and all things American. (Seriously, I may start listening to country when I get home. Ok, maybe I wont go that far.) But I definitely have discovered that I have way more American pride than I thought I did. Or I just developed it quickly while being away.

I had never made pancakes (remind me if I'm wrong) until I came to Rome. I never made Christmas sugar cookies either, at least by myself. Tonight, we had meatloaf for the first time ever too! Very exciting! And all, apparently, food related.

Anywhoo! Cookies!

See how sweet they are!
I could eat them right up!

 No, really, we'll get to the cookies. But look!

"Cheese!"
"I'm a ham like my mom!"

We were joined by Loretta and Paco for our Christmas cookie adventure and we all had a really good time. I cooked the cookies the night before, making my own Christmas tree cookie cutters out of cardstock and tin foil. It worked, and at first I was very excited. Then it started smushing all the edges as my cutting edge flattened out. Then I started thinking how if I had been in America, it would be so hard to find or store cookie cutters. Then I resorted to cutting out cookies with a glass cup and said, "Look! Its an ornament! That's Christmasy!" and tossed out the tree.

Our production line.
With a steady intake of sugar, children make great laborers. 

I had made a very special trip across the city to find a large enough chain grocery store for the food coloring. Of course, all my friends back home were making their own natural dyes. As much as that would have been fun, it would have added about a million more steps to this process. Including buying a food processor. Finding out where in the world I could buy things like beets and tumeric, etc. We'll revisit that when I'm back in the States. The dyes I had made some very nice jewel tones. And I even had found some very overpriced sprinkles! Of course, I don't even know the last time I bought sprinkles in the States. Maybe it was normal.

Teal ornaments are so bad, eh?

 It was tricky at first trying to make the cookie decorating accessible to the little ones. Having frosting that was almost completely liquid at first didn't help any. (Note the Christmas tree with the bite out of it, second over from the right. It wasn't completely dipped, as it may appear. The frosting was just that runny) Once we had our good consistency, bags for squeezing the frosting out, and sprinkles in trays to be spooned out, we started making some progress. A good number of these below where done by Emma, all by herself. (See the  bottom left corner. That shows a lot of her work)

Some cookie masterpieces

 Of course, not all children could participate. Some had to be strapped down and watch the happening while being promised a cookie of their own. Said children waited very patiently. These were heavily sugared cookies after all.

"I can wait all day"

 And yes, she was greatly rewarded for her patience.

I ended up making at least 3 or 4 different kinds cookies in the course of a few weeks, helping to make the spirit bright. Another first. Being away from home forced me into taking initiative on all Christmas spirit in the home. And the cookies helped that effort quite a bit.  And yes, it was technically advent. But I don't care! They were all delicious! Mmmmmmmmmm, coooookies.

Griesbach Advent Wreath

Here's what happens if you eat too many cookies. 

Red Dye 40 reaction

Or a sprinkle overload?

Nothing says Christmas like crashing on the couch! (Just pretend, ok?)

**Stay tuned for part 3 of our Christmas adventures! Krakow, here we come!**

Piazza Navona Christmas Market

Now that we're approaching St. Valentine's Day, I want to talk about Christmas and our awesome trip to Krakow, Poland!  (Can I just say how much I love working on Windows! Bad Ubuntu!) I've gotten out of the house and am stationed in Leon's office in the late hours of the evening so that this blog will get off its butt and continue.

So where did we leave off?....

Christmas! This wont be as hard to imagine for those of you who are still in a wintry wonderland. (admittedly I'm still a little bit jealous. But then I go for a walk in the 60 degree weather today and forget about it)

Although there was never any snow here in Rome, Christmas lights helped to make the streets very festive. Restaurants, like Luigi's here, actually still have their garland up today. Although I think they've finally taken down the lights.

One of our main destinations while still in Rome was  Piazza Navona with its crazy Christmas Fair. We were surprised that it was more like a carnival fair then what I would think of as a Christmas Fair, but it was still fun.

Balloons and Crowds at Piazza Navona Christmas Fair

 It was packed with rows upon rows of craft/goods/food stands that looked like box cars with a canopy. You could find beautiful ornaments like these:

Can't imagine the cost of decking out our entire 4 foot tree with these....
but it would be pretty!

 Fantastic wreaths...

People, presents, and Piazza Navona

 And of course, it wouldn't be Christmas without a Merry-Go-Round! Wait, not that's the county fair again..



One of my favorites of course were all the junk food stands. The massive doughnuts the size of your face were very tempting, but I settled eventually on a more reasonably sized frosted chocolate one. (But it wasn't very good. Too dry. Next time, go big or go home!)

Just trying to capture the delightfulness of my children.
Not the doughnuts. I swear.

 Many, many of the stands were of various cresh accessories, figurines, and village and/or cave houses. Apparently I hear that many Italians have several (3 or 4) nativity scenes throughout their houses. But that ain't the American way, so sorry none of you American friends got any of these beauts. If you'd like to enlist in the multiple cresh households, let me know and I'll make a note for next Christmas.

Nativity Scenes

I found this MASSIVE, several-feet-high house at one stand. I'm just guessing, but I don't think that's the "lowly manger" in which Jesus was born. It's still really cool nonetheless. 

Maybe its just a well equipped  cave?

Carnival Games included shooting things, rolling things, and ringing things, like these floating swans. All for the the classic stuffed animals that no Italian apartment has room to house.

Lady in the way!

We definitely got a good mix of Christmasy, carnival, and Halloween sentiments when mulling through the crowd. The latter effect being caused by these traditional Christmas Witches, known as the Bufana. Complete with ugly face, broom stick, plaid garments, and all-around un-Christmasy feel to it....at least by my standards. I really tried to warm up to her, but she seemed to fit in better two months prior.

The Christmas Bufana

It carries some story about the Magi coming to her house looking for directions to the Christ child. But she was too cranky and mean to help them out. Then she repents and goes looking for the child herself, but never finds him. She feels so guilty (good Catholic witch) that she gives out presents and candy to children. On Epiphany? Look it up for more accurate details. Don't let these fantastic story telling skills bewilder you away from the fact that it's actually February and my short term memory ran out a month ago.

 Aaaaaaand.....more stands! This one oddly featured a lot of Simpson memorabilia. Puppets?

Again, more carnival than Christmas, but what the hey!
It's all fun!

Here's a small side note, gently reminding all you Mainers out there that eating outdoors was still possible in the middle of December.

So warm and cozy...hehehe

One of the stands I should have gotten a picture of, but was too busy admiring their goods, was the fountain pen stands. They had ones with dragons going up the stem, flowers, all ending in fantastic colored plumes. I really really wanted to get one for Leon, but it was above our budget for each other. Now, two months later, we got some beginner, flat nibbed fountain pens and Leon is steadily on his way to becoming a master pretty writer. I think I shall give him that as a title. He'll like it. :)

One the way home we saw another example of good old-fashioned Christmasy spirit. An evergreen headress! Decked out with lights, bells, and bows!!

Taking pictures of strangers covertly doesn't always guarantee a smiling face.

Sing it with me! "City Street lights, even head lights..." (get it!) Ok, those are both head and tail lights there. :)

Buon Natale! Auguri!

(Stay tuned for actual Christmas week footage, as we travel to Krakow, Poland in some of the next few blog posts!)