Goodbye Uncle Lou

My family's relationship with cats goes way back. Both my parents had cats as pets when they were kids (my mother's cat Spooky was still alive when I was very young). My own love affair with felines began when I was 6 and we got Tiger. Today, as you know, I have two of my own, and both my brothers have cats.

Sadly, my little brother's cat Uncle Lou lost her battle with diabetes this weekend. Here she is as a kitten 15 years ago - I thought my brother was crazy to call such an adorable little female kitten Uncle Lou, but he told me the name would fit when she was old and fat. And true enough she grew into her name. The last few years she has spent most of her time sleeping, but still loved to cuddle with my brother.

Lou, you'll be missed.

Road trip tips

Three things I learned from my road trip to Prague with my good friends K and DW this past weekend:

1. Remember to bring your passport, preferably before you are more than an hour into the 6 hour trip. Forgetting it at home adds 3 hours to an already long drive.

2. No matter how much you trust your GPS system, do not turn off the highway into a dark forest late at night when you have missed an exit. Driving on unpaved, unlit logging roads in the dark is very scary, particularly when your GPS loses its satellite connection.

3. Bring lots of Kleenex. If one of you has a cold when you start, you all will by the time you finish.

Happy

When I was looking at some pictures a colleague took of my hiking trip last weekend in the Beskid Sadecki mountains, I realized that in in every shot, most of them taken when I wasn't aware I was being photographed, I was smiling or laughing.
Yesterday when I was talking to one of my friends in Toronto and telling her of my plans for the evening, she said that it sounded like my life was really fun. I quickly retorted that I worked a lot, but I had to concede, that, yeah, it is really fun.

And a few times in the last month I have been happy to the point of giddiness, for no particular reason. Last weekend, standing in the dark in a soft rain laughing and talking, made me so happy that I was inspired to do a little impromtu dance for the gang. Much more laughter ensued, particularly when I hit a rock mid dance move and fell over.

Life can't get much better than that.

The Tatras

At the end of June I went on a full day hike with many of my colleagues in the Tatra mountains, a few hours south of Krakow.

A full day hike translates into four hours up, and 3 hours down, with a few rest breaks in between.

The Tatras are Poland's highest mountains and are spectacular, even compared with my beloved Rockies.

Here are a few shots of from the few hundred that I took that day:













I'm going on another hiking trip with my team next weekend, in another of the mountain regions. Maybe I'll be able to post those pics a little sooner . . .

Happily ever after . . .

I attended my first Polish wedding yesterday. It shared many similarities with every other wedding I have attended: the bride was beautiful, the groom was very proud, family and friends were joyful.

However, unlike any other wedding I've been to, this one was held in a beautiful 14th century Gothic church. Fittingly several of the lovely hymns, sung by a choir composed of friends of the bride and groom, were also from medieval times. And the bride wore a long flowing dress and a crown of flowers that reminded me of portraits from the middle ages.



And, as my 3 year old friend Mis remarked several times, she was a princess. He was in awe of her, especially when he handed her a rose and she asked him for a kiss.



Before the ceremony my friends and I stopped in the Rynek (the main square) and bought huge bouquets of flowers for the bride. Flowers are extremely popular in Krakow - one corner of the Rynek is dedicated to flower stalls (see the yellow umbrellas in the picture below).



As I witnessed at some of the weddings I stumbled across this summer, everyone brings flowers for the bride. A few lucky friends or relatives are drafted into flower duty. Yesterday there were at least two flower bearers.



My Polish friend told me that there is a complicated system in place for distribution of all of the flowers after the wedding: some are given to the church, others decorate the reception hall, some are given to relatives, and others go home with the bride and groom.

And yes, it was all in Polish, except for a few Latin bits.

Small's long lost sister

Check out my friend M's blog to read about and see pictures of her cat Lola.

I know Lola, yet reading about some of her habits (and seeing her pictures again), made me realize that she and Small must have been separated at birth. They are strikingly similar in both temperament and looks.

And like M, I love Small fiercely (perhaps because not many others do) in spite of all her quirks.

The tram party

I attended my first big party in Krakow on Thursday night.

The party included all of the usual elements - dancing, drinking, lots of new people - with one major twist - it was on a tram (or streetcar for those of you more familiar with the Toronto public transportation system). And not just some old show tram, but a normal part of the Krakow fleet, following a normal route.

So full of anticipation and carrying a bag of unopened alcohol, I waited at a nearby tram stop with a few of my colleagues. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the tram pulled up, lights darkened, music blaring. The conductor jumped off the tram, ushered us on, punched our tickets, presented us with a plastic glass, and a shot of vodka.

Thus the night began.

I quickly discovered that the Poles really only drink vodka, and that they drink it straight, one shot after another. Everyone was so generous, constantly refilling my tiny glass, that at one point I had to start emptying it out the tram window instead of drinking it. Using my Canadian citizenship as an excuse ("I am Canadian, I am not used to drinking shots of vodka straight for hours") didn't seem to work on them, so I had to get even more creative in my non-drinking strategies in order to remain standing for the rest of the night.

Aside from the vodka, the party had many other attractions, including a DJ at the back of the tram, which led to a modified form of dancing in the aisles and on the seats, and some sort of athletic activity that was a cross between dancing and doing chin ups on the hand rails.

And since there were well over a 100 people crammed into the tram, I couldn't help but meet new people. I have no idea who many of them were, and will most likely ever never see most of them again, but all were very friendly.

Several hours later, after driving through areas of Krakow I had never before seen, the tram stopped and we all piled out.