While I Sweep

This is the KEK power plant at Obiliq. Yep, all that black crud belching out into the air is why I have to sweep and dust every single day. Closing the windows doesn't help.
Remember the old movie, "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston? And remember that one plague that killed a bunch of Egyptians....you know, the one where an insidious green mist invaded every household? Well, that's what I think of every time I sweep and dust here.

Leader of the Pack

Here's the guy who is supposedly The Cigarette King. He's the boss of all the cigarette vendors that plague downtown Prishtina. He must have dozens of guys who work for him. He always stays put in the same spot every day, 12 hours a day (at least). A smoker in Prishtina never has to go on a cigarette run to buy cigarettes because just walking down the street you will be accosted by the vendors about every two minutes. They also sell phone cards, gum, lighters, sometimes candy and on occasion these guys have flowers to sell, too. They invade every cafe I'm sure a hundred times a day. Apparently it is profitable. What really annoys me is the little kids who are pressed into service by their parents to sell stuff. I've seen children who appear to be only 6 or 8 years old trying to sell cigarettes and candy. Tom never lets me take photos of them because he feels that if I do, I should pay them, and it's against the law to pay these kids for anything.
And then there are the gypsy kids....their parents make them go out and beg. I have a lady whom I have adopted as "mine" who begs on a street corner and I give her money everytime I see her. I always give her enough money to buy bread for a week because I don't know if I will see her everyday. Maybe someday I will be able to get a photo of her, too.

Is the Snake Extra?

I took this photo of a display in a local photography studio. It's on Glove Alley that I used to go through until I found out there was another street a block away that was much better. But this photo always intriqued me so I went back recently. They have your regular type portraits in the window such as high school graduation photos, glamour shots and so on. Right after Ibrahim Rugova died, there were some photos of him on display, too.
What I want to know is, did this girl bring in her own snake or does this place have one on hand in case you want a similar snapshot?

Quick Trip to Vienna

We had a three hour lay over in Vienna on our return trip from Krakow so we took the train to the city center. We only had about 45 minutes to look around so we walked up to St Stephen's Cathedral where they also had horse drawn carriages. It's very picturesque but again, I worry about the horses. I know, I know....I'm a hypocrite. I eat ground up pigs as sausages but I concern myself with the horses. Did you ever notice that there is a pecking order among animals when it comes to which ones we will eat? It starts to get fuzzy about the time you start contemplating squirrels, right?

Ever Get the Feeling You're Being Watched?

June 1st and it was freezing cold and raining in Zakopane. We booked the tour there on the advice that the weather was going to be better than it had been. Ha! The weather was so bad even the tour guide gave up. Finally he asked our group if we wanted to go somewhere warm and dry for lunch and he promised that this place had really good traditional Polish food. And it was! The only thing was, the walls and ceiling were covered with the carcasses of dead animals. I didn't need reminding that the sausage I was eating was ground up animals of some sort. I asked our waiter if the sausage was pork and he said, "Something like that." ?!?!?!?
I ordered it anyway and it was fabulous. I just wonder what the heck it was.

Does PETA operate in Europe?

I will be the first to acknowledge that these horses appear to be well taken care of but don't their feet get tired? These poor animals work about 16 hours a day. Aren't there any laws governing hours animals can be worked?

Designs to Keep People Out or Keep People In

I loved this old city defense wall in the heart of downtown Krakow. It's hundreds of years old and of course, was built to try to keep out any number of attacking armies that frequented Krakow over the centuries.
Then there is the barrier built to keep people inside at Auschwitz which is less than an hour's drive from the old city wall. Something of a study in constrasts, isn't it?

The Pope Beat us to Poland

Tom had been to Krakow about three years ago and fell in love with it so he really wanted me to see it. Less than a week before we left I heard on EuroNews that the Pope was going to be there, too. As we flew over Krakow I looked out my window and I could see a very large area that at first I thought was a park full of flowers. Turns out it was people! Tens of thousands of people who were all there to see the Pope.
The airport was interesting. As we arrived inside the terminal we were met with a couple of hundred people with flowers. Since we knew the Pope was already there, we couldn't figure out if there was some other celebrity they were meeting or what. We went to exchange some money and the guy there told us that all those people were there to meet a plane full of people from Chicago. The city with the second largest number of Poles is Chicago and there is a direct flight several times a week during the summer.
We got a taxi and on the 20 or 25 minute drive to the city center we saw literally hundreds of Polish police officers who were posted about every 100 meters. So we assumed that the Pope was leaving town as soon as he finished whatever was going on out at that park I had seen from the air. As it turned out, he didn't leave until almost 12 hours later so those poor guys had to stand around for hours, doing what I don't know.
We arrived at the hotel and got what we figured was the last room in Krakow. When Tom had originally tried to get a room he was told that there wasn't a room available. We didn't know then that the Pope was going to be there at the same time. But he went to his trusty travel agent and they secured this room for us.
We walked about a mile to the main town square and had lunch at a place where they had traditional Polish food and it was really good. Before we finished we couldn't help but notice that thousands of people all of a sudden flooded the square. The park where we had seen all the people with the Pope was a short distance away and the benediction or blessing or whatever was going on there was over.
Here's a picture of him that was plastered on the side of the building next to our hotel. I don't know about you, but he looks kind of sinister to me. And get this: when he was at Auschwitz the day before, he addressed the crowd of people there in German. I know he is German, but doesn't he know another language??? Somehow that just seemed all wrong.