I've turned around

I added a sitemeter to this site a while back, evidenced by the small icon in the bottom left-hand corner of the page. I was the first person registered as visiting this blog (to test the meter) and yesterday I became the 360th person to read my blog (I read it to check my posts after I type them). I feel like I've gone around in a circle. (I hope you noticed the amusing pun, which was the sole premise for this post)

Nothing much happened this weekend; I didn't travel anywhere further than ulica Pszczynska (about 15mins walk from my apartment). I went to a pub called CD, located in ulica Pszczynska. It's a small pub, but nice. The proprietor was excited to have an Australian customer because he has an Australian $5 note, which he showed me. I made a grammatical mistake ordering piwo for myself and a friend: I asked for "Dwa Lech" instead of "Dwa Lechy" and managed to confuse the bartender. It all worked out well and we received our piwa.

Będę lecieć do Paryża. Kupiłem bilet.

I have just purchased a ticket that will allow me to fly (with the help of an aeroplane) to Paris. I decided, after my recent experience with flights to and from Rome, that I would fly with Skyeurope rather than W!zzair. There are two reasons for this; the first is that Skyeurope flies from Kraków-Balice, while W!zzair uses Katowice-Pyrzowice and Balice is much easier to get to because of Skyeurope's shuttlebus service; the second reason is that Skyeurope issues seat allocations, whereas W!zzair have a 'first on' arrangement of seating, which in my opinion makes Skyeurope a far more civilised airline.

Onto the flight details, for those who are interested:
I will leave Gliwice on the SkyShuttle at 09:35 on the 2nd of March, arriving at the Kraków-Balice airport at 11:05. The flight leaves this airport at 12:30 and arrives at Paris Orly Sud airport at 14:50, also on the 2nd of March.

Booking this flight is something I've put off for about a week now, as the act of purchasing the ticket seems like putting such a final stamp on my stay in Poland, which I guess, it is. It serves to remind me that I will soon (within 4 weeks) have to complete the daunting task of sorting through my belongings and packing up my life here to return to an uncertain future in Australia (ok, not really, I just wanted to write that last part to be a bit melodramatic).

I can't wait to visit France, and people in France (ie. Julien, Amelie and Thomas). I'm also looking forward to returning to Australia to see my dog again. :-)

The mind boggles

The following extract comes from an interesting article in The Times UK:

CONTACT LENS IN THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD?
It is quite common for people to come into an emergency room because they can’t find their contact lens. Sometimes it is found folded and tucked behind the eyelid, but other times it is nowhere to be found. So where is it? Answer: probably on the bathroom floor at home. A little anatomy lesson: there is nowhere else for it to go. Other commonly “misplaced” items that lead people to accident and emergency: tampons, condoms and car keys.

Ok, umm... car keys? Where and how does one lose them in such a way as to require a trip to emergency?

Why isn't Poland in the tropics?

The temperature when I left home this morning to go to work was -28 degrees Celsius, though it felt like -28 degrees Kelvin. Apparently the "maximum" was -16. I used inverted commas around maximum because I don't really think it's a term that one can really use when the temperature range is -30 to -16. It's more like minimum and not-quite-as-cold-as minimum.

The school's car (the one that I drive) has a wonderfully effective anti-theft device enabled. The doors are all completely frozen shut. Unfortunately, it's also a remarkably effective anti-use device.

Susan eats poo!

And I went to Opole. With Susan.

My main reasons for going there were that it is close to Gliwice and there's a pub/restaurant/club called "Drake Club", which we saw, and which I think looks like a nice establishment.

We had lunch at a restaurant near the Rynek (Main Square), visible in the back right-hand corner of the webcam in the link above. It was a Hungarian restaurant, but also served traditional Polish cuisine. I had a delicious Budapest style filet, and Susan had a rolada, which is a piece of rolled-up meat. Susan's meal looked like a big poo, hence the title of this post. She also ordered a sauce that distinctly looked like diarrhea, so her meal looked remarkably like a big poo in diarrhea sauce. Yummy!
Our meals were actually delicious, despite appearances (sorry, I didn't think to take photos of it).

We wandered around for a while afterwards, looking for Drake Club. We walked past a squashed, dead bird (twice) and found a shopping mall, where we stopped for delicious coffee and less-than-perfect tiramisu.

Anyway, it's getting late, so here are some photos from Opole:

Jutro jadę do Opola w pociągiem

I'm going to Opole tomorrow. It's not a very big city, it's actually more like a town, though bigger than Gliwice. I've wanted to go there since I discovered that there's a pub called "Drake's Pub" there, and hence I have to go to see it.
I'm going with Susan, who is another teacher in Gliwice (though she teaches at a different school).
Opole is quite close to Gliwice. It only takes an hour to travel there by train.

Wow! Two posts in one day!

I took these photos about a week and a half ago (on the 3rd of January, to be precise) but never got around to posting them here. I took them after an amazingly heavy snowfall.

What can I say? I'm a health food freak.

I decided today, after the exciting task of grocery shopping, that I wanted to make use of my oven facilities and cook something. I decided that I would cook something healthy, nutritious and tasty. I looked in my pantry to see what delightful option I had available (note: I decided to cook AFTER grocery shopping, rather then the reverse, far more sensible, order of events). I spied, with my little eye, upon the shelf, a box of cocoa. Of course! I would make a chocolate cake. It smells great. I think someone should invent incense that smells of fresh chocolate cake rather than the other silly flavours on the market. It also looks good too. See for yourselves:




For those who would like to emulate this masterpiece at home, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
180g butter
3/4 cup of castor sugar (cukier puder)
3 eggs
1 cup of self-raising flour (or 1 cup of plain flour, half a teaspoon of salt and half a tablespoon of baking powder)
1/2 cup of plain flour
1/3 cup of cocoa
1/2 cup of milk

Method:
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Mix everything else together. Add the melted butter. Bake in a cake tin in an oven at 180 degrees for somewhere between 50 minutes and an hour.

*Note: I actually use 200g of butter, and I think it makes a nice improvement. The main reason for this, originally, is that butter is sold in 200g packets and I don't have a set of kitchen scales here. It might seem like a lot of butter, but it's not really. It's much less than 500g of butter, for example.

My sense of humour has sunk to a new low....

I know I shouldn't laugh but....

This headline in the Guardian made me laugh loudly. Of course, I need to point out that I wasn't thinking of the Israeli Ariel Sharon when I laughed, but of the countless bogan Sharons found in classy places like Woodridge and Inala (ie, those also known as Shazza).
So, read the headline again, but this time as if it refers to the latter option.

mmmmmmm

Jem pierniki toruńskie w glazurze i piję herbata z cukrem i mlekiem. Smaczny.

Awesome

Click on this link. I don't think I can express in words how much I want these items. Follow the link so that you can see for yourselves and agree with me.

One Hundred!

This is my 100th post! How exciting! Yay! You can tell because the previous post was number Agent 99. Oh Max! (I hope some people recognise that reference)
I predict that my next post will be number 101.

Of course, the cynic in me wants to point out that there's nothing really special about the number one hundred, just that it looks nice and even (a 1 folled by two zeros) because we (as a civilisation) arbitrarily decided to use a base ten counting system.

But in the meantime, feel free to congratulate me on my superb blog that has managed to reach this milestone.

Because I'm brilliant

I've been walking on water for a few days now. It's not that difficult; you simply need to be careful so that you don't fall over. I don't have much choice about this: the footpaths are submerged under a layer of water, about 15cm thick, on average.

Lunch with Sylwia at the Stara Chuta Naleśnikarnia

I just came back from lunch with Sylwia, at, as the title suggests, the Stara Chuta Naleśnikarnia. We both ordered identical meals: Kresowe and Herbata. Kresowe is an
"eastern poland" style naleśnik and herbata is tea.
I like this restaurant and the food is usually really good, plus it's reasonably priced. It was great to see Sylwia again, for the last time before she returns to Australia, though I will see her again there of course.
Here are some photos from lunch. One is of Sylwia, one is me, and the other is the bill. I'll leave it to you to guess which titles match which photos.

Back to work

Groan.... I'm awake at a stupid hour of the morning again which can only mean that I have to go back to work today. Why don't these people realise that 7am to 3pm is a stupid time to allocate business hours. If they ran a normal 9 to 5 business I wouldn't have to start work there until 9am.

I want to go back to bed. I wonder if they'd notice if I didn't show up today.

Nerd Curiosity

To those of you who have noticed that Blogspot supports Live Bookmarks, do any of you use this facility to view updates on this page?

The New Year and Tim Tams

Well, it's the first of January 2006 today, which means that it's the first day of 2006 because our calendar system has arbitrarily chosen this day to be the first day of the year. I haven't noticed a huge difference in the world, but that's not altogether that surprising.

On a sour note, I started off the new year by not winning a Tim Tam Hamper. Once again, this is nothing new, as I have successfully not won this hamper every month since I started entering the monthly draw back in July or August. This isn't something that I enjoy being successful at.