I haven't forgotten about the Easter report I promised to give. I feel silly posting about something so lame in between all the exciting blog posts, but I'll try to make it not so boring.
I have the house to myself now, because my boyfriend is spending the night with his dad at his (dad's) weekend house. He just wrote me on skype that it feels a little like in "The Shining". I've never actually been to the house, but apparently it's a little cottage in the middle of nowhere. And, I know you're all sick of my complaining about the weather, this is what my shiney new Windows 8 weather app thingie says about today and the next few days:
I guess I don't need to translate and y'all can figure out what Schnee is *sigh* I'm actually listening to Frank Sinatra's Let it Snow today and I wish I had a fireplace.
Oh wait, I was supposed to write about Easer celebrations... which don't normally invovle Frank Sinatra.
On Good Friday (and I think every Friday during lent) they have a "Stations of the Cross" procession, where they act the 14 stations of Jesus carrying his cross. Wikipedia tells me, there are Good Friday processions in Germany, too, but I'm from a mainly Protestant region and I hadn't even heard of them before moving to Poland. On each of the 14 stations you have to fall down on your knees and pray together. I went last year, but this Friday, it had been snowing all day and it was so cold that I couldn't motivate myself to go, so I stayed at home and took a nap. My boyfriend's tough and went anyway!
On Saturday we went to his parents to take their Easter basket to church to have it blessed. The easter baskets look like this and traditionally they need to have eggs, bread, a lamb made from sugar, salt, horseradish, some sort of meat (sausage or ham) and boxwood branches. You take them to church and the priest has a little sermon and sprinkles some holy water on them. Before Easter brunch on Sunday you share the blessed eggs with your family. For this the eggs are cut in halves (or quarters - if you have a big family) and put on special plates (when I first came to Poland I used to wonder about those funny looking plates!). Unfortunately I was late this morning and missed it When I arrived at my boyfriend's parents' there was my piece of egg waiting all alone and lonely on the egg plate. They were all waiting for me so they could finally start eating, so when I got there everyone was all happy they could start and then there was A LOT of food and then some more. My boyfriend's mum made a sandwich fish cake! After all the food, there was more food. In the end there's a cake called "Mazurek" (example, but they mostly always have Alleluja written on them and some spring symbols like flowers or storks), which I don't think anyone actually likes (it's sort of dry and too sweet, even for me), but it's tradition so they have it anyway.
I had to try really hard not to fall asleep the whole time. We went out with a friend last night and even though we didn't get home very late, I was still sooo tired. This city is a total ghost town on holidays and to a lesser extend on all weekends. Most people who "live" in Warsaw or from other places in Poland, they just came here, because there's no work where they're from. But because life here is super expensive, they live in teeny tiny spaces and go home every weekend (unless they have to work) and for the holidays. Last night the city was EMPTY and the few people that were there, were almost exclusively foreigners (like -um- for example... me!). I've observed that a few times already and it's a really weird phenomenom. We went out with a friend of our's who lives in Germany now, her German boyfriend, her sister and two friends of hers, one of them from England. He was wearing a blazer and a sweater in -whatever°C . What's up with English people being immune to cold?!
I can share your experiences with Public Holidays. My GF and I went out I the 26th of December (Boxing Day) and only Russians were outside.
Tooki: My boyfriend actually want to Mass (with his grandparents and cousins and some other family), but I preferred to get some more sleep and take my time to get ready And still managed to be late.
LOL@ the Costa Rican Judas thing, LB.
My home town is a bit like Warsaw in that regard, btw. Many, many people go "home" for holidays so the traffic decreases dramatically around those days and it's all calm and peaceful. Love it