My Polish Alphabet: B for Biskupin

Another "B" in my Polish Alphabet series.

 

Lake Biskupin

 

Biskupin is an archeological site and history reserve situated on Lake Biskupin, about 56 miles from Poznań. In 1933, the remains of a Bronze Age settlement were discovered there. A year later, archeological works started at the site. The remains appeared to be a fort/defensive settlement from the Bronze/Iron Age - an example of the Lusatian Culture. The fort, surrounded by a wooden palisade with a gate, consisted of 106 houses. Between the houses, there were streets paved with wood. During the decades of excavations, traces of a few settlements of the various time periods were discovered. They were partly reconstructed and nowadays, the site is available for visitors.

We have been there as well. The Museum site is so large that walking around and visiting the area took us four hours. In the end, our legs were not very much willing to cooperate, but it all was worth our effort. It is one of those "one-of-a-kind" places. During the school year, Biskupin is full of school groups. Since we were there in the summer, we could enjoy our walk without crowds around us.

The Biskupin site sections which we have visited

 

Traces of hunter-gatherers camps constructed 10,000 years ago - this part of the museum site presents reconstructed huts made of cane, an outside hearth, and an original ancient boat made of wood.

 

An ancestor (?) met at the hunter-gatherers camp site

 

Not far from that, a settlement of the first farmers was discovered (from 6,000 years ago). They lived in pine longhouses. Each of the houses had about 12 inhabitants who occupied two chambers. In a bigger chamber, there was an inside hearth. 

 

The longhouse looked similar to the ones built by the Vikings

 

The fort reconstruction - a bridge, gate, parts of the outside wall, breakwater, two rows of huts, and a street.
 

At the fort gate

 

An early medieval village, traces of which were discovered before WW2. The reconstructed part - several houses without windows, with a hearth inside.  

 

The last section of the Biskupin Museum is a wooden Pałuki hut from the 18th/19th century. Pałuki is an ethnographic region in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian and partly in the Greater Poland region. The inside of the hut is not open for visitors. Around the house, you can see a reconstructed well and a bee garden.

Biskupin is recognized by the National Heritage Board of Poland as a National Historic Monument.
 
More about the excavations works and how the original settlements were constructed - in the video below.

 

The museum website: Muzeum Archeologiczne w Biskupinie

PS

There will be one more "B" in My Polish Alphabet", posted soon.

My Polish Alphabet - B - Part 1

In "My Polish Alphabet" B is for a few things. If you have not read its previous entries, the Alphabet is about things, people and places which come to my mind when I think about Poland.

 

B for Birches

Birch trees are a common element of the landscape in Poland and that part of Europe. Well, you do not see it in Texas, though due to the climate difference, of course. Birches are said to emit positive energy of healing properties. The energy, bringing calmness and relaxation (among others) is believed to be beneficial for humans. That is why (according to dendrotherapy), hugging those trees and being around them is supposed to be good for our health. Birch syrup derived from the tree trunk, birch leaves, and its petals contains various micro-elements and is used in herbal medicine.  Moreover, birches are just pretty trees with their slim trunks covered with white bark and light green leaves on the branches.

B for Berries/ Blueberries

I remember picking them when we happened to be in a forest when I was little. There were quite a lot of woods with deciduous trees where we lived, so it was not uncommon to visit /walk in such an area. Sometimes it was raspberries as well - they went straight from a bush into our mouths.

In the summertime, you can buy all kinds of fresh berries at greengrocer's or at the local market fruit and vegetable stalls. My favorite summer dishes made by mom were blueberry soup served with diced cream of wheat and blueberry dumplings (stuffed with blueberries) served with cream and sugar.

B for Baltic Sea and Baltic Sea Beaches

Ages ago, on the summer weekends, mom made sandwiches, packed them with a bottle of syrup and towels in a bag, and we walked to the beach. As a few-year-old kid, I enjoyed spending half a day playing in the waters of the Baltic Bay. Later, in the evening, my burning and red arms usually reminded me about the beach time. Mom treated my burned skin with buttermilk. The cold layer of milk brought relief. later in my life, I visited the beach also on my own. Although as time passed by, I (meaning my skin and I) enjoyed sunbathing less and less. It was always nice to walk barefoot along the sandy seashore.

 

However, that was not what I liked most about living by the sea. 

It was the salty smell of the breeze coming from the Baltic, refreshing the air not only on a hot summer day. On the other hand, in the wintertime, the sea brought dampness and chilly gust which made the "feels like" air temperature lower than the thermometer was showing.

No matter what the weather was, besides the storm, of course, the sea boulevard was the place to stroll. The sound of the waves hitting the stone boulevard barrier and the calm waters of the Baltic made the walk relaxing. The ships standing somewhere far at the distant horizon were a pleasant view as well.

 

The second part of the B entry soon on the blog.

Credits: 

• Photo of Birch Trees - Dalee Despain, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
• Photo of Blueberries - Petar Milošević, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
  

My Cosmetic Side: Body

It is said that the body is the temple of the soul. That is why, in my opinion, we need to take care of our body - just to feel and look good. In this post on My Cosmetic Side, I am sharing how I mind my body.

BODY BALM
The easiest thing which we can do for ourselves is moisturizing the skin with a lotion or body balm. After having a shower and drying the body with a towel, I always use one of them. Applying a lotion to the skin when the skin is saturated, helps to lock the moisture in its cells.
There are many body care products which I have tried, some of them I liked more, some less. However, I have found most body balms really fine too. As far as I know, baby cosmetics formulas are usually more restrictive, considering their (more delicate) ingredients. Therefore, I think - if a balm is good for a baby, it is good for my skin as well.

SUN-CARE
My skin is pale and sensitive to sunlight. That is why I use sunscreen with high SPF number in the summer. I also cover my arms and wear hats to avoid sunburn. As for the sunbeds and solarium - I do not do it, I know my skin would not like it either. I used to work with a lady who was a kind of sunbathing and sunbed addict. She was not very much older than me, but the skin of her decolletage area looked like the soil in a desert - dry and cracked. It looked awful not only according to me but also to the lady's doctor. She told me the physician advised her not to sunbathe anymore but she did not care about that at all. Well, the look of her skin aged her a lot. I do not know how she is doing and how she looks now as I have not seen her for a very long time.

FOOD
'The beauty comes from within' - it is well known that eating habits and what we eat are important to us and our bodies. Personally, I believe that most our food likes and dislikes are connected with our childhood experiences. There are certain things which I did not eat when I was little and nowadays, being an adult, I do not care much for those food items. When I was growing up, there were no fast food places in Poland, no hot dogs, hamburgers, and pizzas - they appeared on our menus much later,  when I was older. And even then I did not eat them often. We always had a salad or vegetables as a side dish for dinner. The main meals were also accompanied by homemade fruit drinks cooked by my mom. Breakfast was always quite light - as a child, I often had milk based soups, later mostly dairy products and jam sandwiches. At primary school, I had lunch at school canteen - it was always a meal cooked by school cooks - no junk food was served. I remember the time when students could get hot milk (it was a cold season - winter or autumn maybe) during a recess, I often put a little piece of chocolate in my hot milk. It was so good!

These days I tend to like eating similar kinds of meals as well. Of course, my menu is not entirely the same as it used to be in the past, but I usually have one big meal a day only. I do enjoy a pizza or a hamburger from time to time, it is not my favorite food, though. I prefer an apple or some other fruit to sweets. Moreover, I try not eat anything late in the evening, before going to sleep.
There are times than I happen to pack myself with food and have more sweets and cookies than I usually do (especially around holidays), but later I check my weight, cut down on candies and come back to my everyday eating routine. Although we do have a dessert almost every day, we do not eat it straight after dinner, just some time later. Besides, when I make a cake, I add a bit less sugar than a recipe calls for.
Of course, a proper diet may mean something different, considering particular people, and may depend on their personal health needs. If you do not know what is good for you, perhaps you can consult a dietitian or a doctor on that matter.

EXERCISING
'Move yourself' is our family motto. It is not easy to follow it as, presently, we all tend to sit a lot during the day. Walking is not always possible and not everybody is a gym person. I am certainly not. Nevertheless, there are different groups you can join to make your body move. Some friends of mine like Zumba classes for example. As for ourselves, we do walking and dancing (no, not Zumba). In my opinion, it is not important what you do, the more important is whether you enjoy it. If you do not, you will not fancy doing it and, very likely, you will quit it soon. If you do like some activities, you will be more into them and, at the same time,  you will exercise more effectively.

SUPPLEMENTS
If you think you need any dietary supplements, I advise you to consult a doctor first (on what to use, how long and when). Some of them - their ingredients - may not be good for you and/or may make you feel unwell. It happened to me, so to avoid my mistake ask your GP about it all.

HEALTH CHECK UPS
Whatever you put on the skin, no matter what you eat, how many times a week you jump or jog, it is not enough. Some time ago, having had a routine check up appointment, I received a reminder from my health care provider. I found the message quite interesting as it contained the information on  suggested screening tests for women - how often and when we should have them done.
To find out more on this topic, visit the womenshealth.gov website.

Take good care of yourself and your body!

More on My Cosmetic Side:

Aroma & Aromatherapy

My Music ABC: B

The Beatles
Their songs were my first music love. Because of them I started my interest in English - I wanted to know what they sang about. As far as I know, I am not the only one who began learning the language inspired by the Beatles. I have heard, quite a lot of people from various non-English speaking countries felt similarly and I did so too.

At that time, any books about bands or singers were not available in Polish stores. However, I did love listening to their songs so much that I made my own fan book. I collected all the pictures of the Liverpool band which I came across and magazine cut-outs related to the group and its particular members (even when the Beatles split up) as well. And I stuck them in my album and decorated it page by page. Guess what,  I still have it - you can see some parts of the book in the pictures/collage below. Why have I kept the book till today? Well, the answer is because of sentimental reasons. I spent a lot of time not only making creating it, including writing the song lyrics, and what matters most, put my teenage heart into it. So many emotions connected with the music itself and the song lyrics - from the early pieces of the Cavern club times until the very last album.

When I was about fifteen, 'Hard Days Night' movie with the Beatles was to be on TV - those days such programs were usually on TV during school hours. I so much wanted to see that film and, since it was before video recorders came into being, I asked my mum to let me stay at home and watch it. She agreeded - because I had never skipped school, there was no class test on that day and she also knew what it meant to me. I was so incredibly happy about it that I remember it even till today. I also recall, my classmates envied me, I was allowed to stay at home to watch the movie. Well, mum is quite a special woman and mother.

Despite my interest in The Beatles, I also listened to other kinds of music and some time later, I discovered

.

I was enchanted. Soft ballads and such delightful heavy music! I need to mention that I never cared about anything but music - meaning the musicians looks and all the frame connected with a band. Especially that, as already mentioned, I hardly ever was able to see them in magazines or on TV.

Anyway, a neighbor who lived opposite us (I learned yesterday that he had died recently - God bless his soul) happened to have a record by Black Sabbath. He actually did not like it at all but I did! It was 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath'. At that time, I also did not care much what the songs were about. On one hand, my English was not good enough then, on the other hand it really did not matter as, according to  me, the music was stunning. I also found the Gothic font (the back of the album cover - all the titles were printed in such a style) quite interesting and learned to write the letters like that. I quite often used the Gothic-like letters to write special messages. Such text looked nice, the only problem was - somehow - most people had problems with reading and understanding it. Because it looked different to the usual hand writing.

Years later, while visiting Birmingham, I saw this on the pavement (look at the photo below). The thought: 'Black Sabbath!'. Of course I had to take a picture of the star. I cannot even recall if there were any other marks like that on the city streets. Wish the spot I liked had been a bit cleaner though.

BUDGIE
I have already written in one of my previous posts that when I was growing up, it was the state Polish radio which was my music window to the world. Especially some of its programs and radio presenters. That was how I learned about various older and more contemporary musicians. When I heard Budgie, I also found out that the name of the band means a short form for budgerigar. Plenty of splendid guitar riffs, epic pieces like 'Parents'  or 'Riding My Nightmare' for example.

I reckon I have seen them at concert - it was so long ago that I am almost not sure about it though. The only thing I can remember from the gig: I wanted them to play 'Turned to Stone' - my favorite song, but they did not. To my disappointment, they performed only the tracks from the latest Budgie album.

Blondie
Quite a few New Wave bands/singers attracted my attention. One of them was Blondie. What I liked about Debbie Harry - in some songs she sounded so smoothly as if she was singing with no effort at all.

Polish 'B'
Breakout
Their album 'Blues' is the one which I find the best. It was recorded with Tadeusz Nalepa as the main vocalist/guitarist. I believe the album can be called a classic of the Polish rock/blues.  Thorough the years, the band also had a female singer but, in my opinion, no other songs by Breakout were more interesting than the ones from the 'Blues' album. Intriguing lyrics and superb blues tunes.

Classical 'B's
Borodin 
'Prince Igor' and 'Polovtsian Dances' - totally magnificent.
Borodin (do you know he was a chemist also?) wrote such picturesque music, listening to it I can easily imagine eg. horse riders dressed in traditional Russian noble, winter outfits, galloping through a snowy wood - guess which part of Prince Igor I mean. :)

Brahms
'Hungarian Dances' - all twenty one of them. Which one is more beautiful, more exquisite? Do not know. All of them make a gorgeous music collection.

'Lullaby'
My mum was the director of our local youth club xylophone group. She taught us to play and prepared the xylophone pieces for us. 'Lullaby' was one of them. I still can remember most of it (the notes) by heart:
E, E, G
E, E, G.......

Credits:
The Blues Breakout album cover: http://www.amazon.com/Breakout-Blues-Tadeusz-Nalepa/dp/B001BFI02S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450810239&sr=8-1&keywords=blues+breakout


Other posts of My Music ABC:

A

My Texas Alphabet: B for Beans

The idea for this alphabet post series comes from ' The Alphabet of My Emigration' by Dee Dorota L., member of The Polish Ladies Abroad Club, who has relocated to England.
I have also decided to join the project and write about My Texas Alphabet twice a week.

---

Thinking about my life in Poland, there were only a few kinds of beans available in the local stores. At least as far as I can remember. Dry: white one, called Jas (Johnny); canned: white and red (in water); fresh: green and yellow bean pods, and frozen bags of green pods. Moreover, we did not eat beans too often - just once in a while.

In Texas, beans are a most important ingredient of many traditional dishes. Beans were also a main everyday meal in the old cowboy days. Maybe that is a reason, there are so many various sorts of beans here.

What you can see in the picture above, is a supermarket 'beans aisle' - white, red and black beans, (including eg. pinto beans, kidney beans and so on) dry, canned, seasoned, unseasoned - whatever you need and want. When I first saw that loads of beans, it was as surprising as overwhelming. I simply did not know which one to choose. And I felt lost - in the world of beans. Lost but not alone - my husband and my greatest supporter helped me. That time, and many times before and after the beans dilemma moment.

These days I have no problems with getting the beans I like. I have learned a lot since then. Furthermore, some of them (eg. baked up beans) have become my favorites. Since beans are high in fiber, iron, folate, protein and complex carbohydrates, they make a simple but quite a nutritious meal. From time to time, we enjoy having pinto beans, cooked in a traditional way (a recipe is to be posted on the Polish Ladies Abroad blog soon) and other ones too.

In a way, the beans are only an example of all the new things I have experienced and learned here. I would not have been able to go through it if it was not for my husband's love and care. At least not so smoothly as I did/do.

Other 'B' entries by Polish Ladies Abroad:

Gabi / B jak Boję się (in English & Polish)
Dee / B jak Boże Narodzenie, buraki i Belgia
Kropka za Oceanem  / B - jak Brookfield Zoo
Karolina / B jak Bordeaux
Anna Maria / B jak Belgia 
Justyna / B jak Będzin 
Anna / B jak Bon apetit 
Viola / B jak bagaż