My first post about Tea in an age plus some Art and Water
Posted: July 7, 2012 Filed under: Warsaw | Tags: 30's, apple, art, art museum, assassination, bubble, bubble tea, burst, cup, design, drink, Food, fountain, green tea, history, jelly, Matcha, milk, offended, photo, photography, Pineapple, pipe, Plac Trzech Krzyzy, Poland, politics, posters, powdered green tea, president, rainbow, refresh, refreshing, sacrilegious, spring, straw, tea, three crosses, travel, war, Warsaw, water, Zachęta Leave a comment
My first Tea post in a long time, and I’m sure some of you may find Bubble Tea Sacrilegious! But on such hot sweaty days like these it is certainly refreshing, and there is something very fun in the struggle to get each and every last bit out of the cup! For those of you not too offended by the Bubbleyness, then mine was the one on the right, and it was a Matcha Milk Tea with Apple and Pineapple bits in the bottom! Does the fact that it’s Matcha make up for any purist annoyance out there??
We also visited Zacheta, the Art Gallery, and being as it was a Thursday entry was free. On show at the minute is a collection of works and histories of the Warsaw art School, with pieces by professors and students alike. There are some great pieces, the highlight being, in my opinion, the posters from the mid 30’s. There is a great amount of Poland’s history wrapped up in this exhibition, and I would recommend it to everyone!
That was all followed up by a wander around town, quite a lot considering the heat. We found ourselves near Plac Trzech Krzyzy, or ‘Three Crosses’. There was a fountain of water spraying out onto the street from an orange pipe. We definitely didn’t need any encouragement, and dove right in to cool off. Apparently they do this on purpose on days like these to help people cool down, in the winter they set up small fire places by the Bus and Tram stops. I’m a bit worried about the waste of water, but I guess there is no denying that it is quite a good, and kind, idea.
Better late than never
Posted: July 1, 2012 Filed under: Warsaw | Tags: beer, bialo, bolivia, carlsberg, championship, coffee, countries who haven't visited me, cup, czerwoni, day, don't stop believing, euro 2012, europe, Fanzone, final, football, greenland, happy, iceland, Italy, opening, photo, photography, pleased, Poland, Polska, racism, reception, revelation, Soccer, spain, Sports, stadium, tags, tea, travel, UEFA, Ukraine, vodka, Warsaw, zubr, zywiec Leave a comment
What better time to post my pictures of the first day of the Euro 2012 Football Cup than on the LAST day of the Euro 2012 Football Cup? The Fanzone in Warsaw has been a great place to hang out and watch the games, the atmosphere has so far been great and the people all very happy and sociable. Despite peoples reservations about how they would be treated and regarded in both Poland and the Ukraine, I should thing almost everyone has been pleasantly surprised, and I hope many of them have realised what a gem they might have been missing if they have never travelled to this part of Europe before. Polska Polska, Bialo i Czerwoni!!! (Poland, Poland White & Red!!!)
The cheerleaders, however, could have done with a little more practice, and a little more stamina….
Definitely Polish…
Quite possibly British… (we aren’t all like this I promise!)
Day 26, Tallinn – Tartu, February 4th 2012
Posted: February 4, 2012 Filed under: Tartu | Tags: art, bargain, bus, Bus station, Card game, cheap, cold, couch surfing, cup, drink, empty stomach, estonia, Estonian language, euro, europe, fir tree, Food, freezing, fruit tea, ice, Ingrid, Italy, lasagna, lasagne, liquor, mandarino, photography, snow, Tallinn, tartu, tea, travel, traveling, weather Leave a comment
Tea 26: Õuna-Ingveri Plahvatus, Heli’s Apartment, Tartu.
Today I travelled to Tartu, in South-East Estonia. I woke up, packed up, said my goodbyes to Ingrid and made for the bus station. The bus I took left at 1pm and cost me the princely sum of 5 Euros! On a Saturday people aged 26 or under can travel for half price! That was a hugely pleasant surprise! The coach took 2 and a half hours, in which time I managed to catch up on a little sleep missed the night before and to see a bit more of the Estonian countryside. The country is pretty flat for the most part, with a few huge lakes, currently covered in snow and a little hard to differentiate from the fields. But the scenery is beautiful, which chunks of old, fir tree woodland, covered in snow, making the fronds and branches droop under the weight.
I arrived in Tartu at 3:30pm, and was met at the bus station by Heli, my new couch surfing host. We went straight from there to her apartment, kind of in the north of the city. My beard froze more or less instantly in the cold -21’C air! I was introduced to her family, and a brief introduction to the cat. Then started to make myself at home, chatting all things travel, to art, to card games and liquor. Some lovely Mandarino Italian liquor Heli brought back with her from a recent trip to Italy, and then a great Lasagne cooked by her sister Evelyn. It was very good, the perfect food for a cold day and an empty stomach. We sat a chatted for a while after, played a few card games and I am now sitting in front of the fire drinking a cup of the above-mentioned tea, before I head to bed / couch. The tea is a fruit tea, with all sorts of lovely chunks of orange, apple, and ginger. The name actually just means apple-ginger explosion! It is lovely, not strictly tea, but good none-the-less!
Below is a picture of the fire and a couple more from my time in Tallinn.
A Travel and Tea Diary 