Bringing Traditon To Untraditional Easter

I got to spend Easter in London this time. Although it’s quite family-centred holiday in my home country, somehow I haven’t been to Poland for Easter for the last 8 years. So nothing new really, except for the fact that since last year I’ve been trying to actually make some effort to make Easter feel a little bit more like it was back home. How do I do this? Well, the answer’s quite simple… food, glorious food! 🙂

Did you know that traditional Polish Easter breakfast is all about eggs as the symbol of life (and that the breakfast can last half of the day, based on my experience)? Well, you do now! 🙂

Eggs in salads, eggs with stuffing, eggs with mayo and chives, eggs in soup, we even make traditional painted eggs. Mine were not works of art maybe but I did paint 4 of them! And I dare say they were quite creative:P

And another interesting tradition in Poland is… pouring water on your friends and family on Easter Monday. This is actually the reason I’m happy to be in the UK right now so I can avoid this cheerful tradition… But I remember the days when my little brother would wake me up with a glass of water he poured over me sleeping. Obviously with the bed all wet there was no sleeping anymore, and hence a fierce water fight would begin, which ended with my mom yelling at us for flooding the floors… If now you’re thinking “where on Earth do they get those weird ideas” – here’s a bit of explanation for you:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9Amigus-Dyngus

And for some examples of real traditional painted Easter eggs (pisanki) click on the picture:

Happy Easter!

London Markets – Part 2.

So, as promised, here’s about the other two London markets I visited last Sunday.

The first one was the Columbia Road flower market. Not sure how I’ve found out about it, probably someone’s mentioned it to me a looong time ago, which I then forgot and luckily it came back just in time for last weekend:)

Even though I’m not a gardener type of girl, I still enjoyed the crazy burst of colours that the market provided! Especially now that it’s not really spring yet and it’s still kinda grey and cold around, all those flowers blooming made me feel like I was having carnival in the middle of Lent (if you know what I mean). I think this must be the place where spring comes first when it reaches London 🙂

The only thing that I was wondering about for the entire visit to the market was: such a crowd (it was Mother’s Day after all), so how do people who bought flowers actually manage to get them home intact? Let alone “get them home” – how do they even manage to leave the market without at least a few twigs/stems broken and blossoms crushed??

Anyway, it turned out that the Brick Lane market was in a walking distance so eventually we paid a visit there as well.

This one was mostly a food market with some bric-a-brac and clothing. If you’re eager to sample dishes from (literally) all around the world – that is your one-stop international food shop. I had a lunch waiting for me at home, so I managed to resist, but man, it wasn’t easy! All the lovely smells… And the vendors were doing a great job trying to convince me to taste their food for free. It was close, well, finally I didn’t but but don’t promise to be equally good next time, haha 😀

P.S. Note the Black Cab Coffee in one of the pictures – yes it is a black taxi and yes, they were selling coffee there! What a cool idea 🙂

Okay, to be fair just looking at the photos now makes me hungry. So I’ll leave you to have a look and I’m off to grab something to eat! Ciao! (and if you get hungry, don’t blame me, blame the market!)

London Markets – Part 1.

Last weekend I managed to see for myself a few famous London markets and I must say, I see why most London guidebooks recommend visiting them!

If you happen to be in London on a Saturday and the weather is not terrible (sometimes you can’t expect more from the English weather…), then be sure to walk down Portobello Road in Notting Hill. Just be prepared to see quite a crowd there. Anyway, I really did enjoy the area itself (it is there that you can find all those colourful houses) …

… and the market. Portobello Road is incredibly long and you can find so many gems there, especially if you’re into antiques, vintage and handmade stuff. From 18th-century maps, to hats (some lovely ones! at some point I’ll have to go back and get one), to silverware and jewellery – amazing variety of things that you can just fall in love with. And in case you get hungry while trying to refrain from buying stuff that you didn’t even realise you needed – there are also food stalls with dishes from around the world, fresh fruit and veg, bakery and so on.

Portobello Road Market

Portobello Road Market

Portobello Road Market

All in all, I can strongly recommend Portobello Road market for a Saturday stroll in Notting Hill.

The story is to be continued:) In the next post are coming the photos from my Sunday visit to other two markets (which were also amazing), so be sure to come back and have a look!

Lost and Found in London

Remember my post about seizing the day? Well, seizing the day I am and that’s, in short, what’s brought me to London quite unexpectedly.

And once again, London proves to have something for everyone (except for the unemployed maybe, since even getting from A to B here is quite expensive). Shopper’s paradise? Check. Party venues in all possible styles and forms? Check.Quirky little cafes and pubs bearing funny names? Yup.

Something for wanderers, for theatre and music lovers, for the cautious and the thrill seekers. Even for those who want to travel to China and back in half an hour.

As I do quite often when I have time while sightseeing on my own, I got (deliberately) lost in the centre, and then I was getting lost and found a good few more times, until it got too chilly to enjoy the weather. The results? At first I turned round an innocent looking corner from Leicester Square and magically found myself on the streets of a Chinese town, with all its restaurants, lucky trees and roasted ducks hanging in shop windows.

Welcome to Chinatown!

Then, I discovered Soho and walked down the colourful Carnaby street. Squeezed into a tiny street on the left and ended up in the enchanted, bursting with colours Neal’s Yard! Being a nosy Parker pays off 😀

Agent Provocateur – just casually squeezed in between two cafes

Finally, I somehow landed in the Covent Garden market, and on the way I found Poland Street (obviously had to immortalise that with a picture:D) and a few funky-looking vintage shops.

So this is where the Queen spends her afternoons. Covent Garden Market.

Love getting lost! (if at the end of the day I find myself, that is, of course!) What are your thoughts on getting lost? Is that your way of sightseeing too? Or do you prefer to have your whole trip planned in details?

Creativity… sky is the limit!

Happiness comes in all different forms. For example, in seeing the unintended irony in job adverts… Even if it’s kind of sarcastic happiness (“sarcastic happiness”? What on Earth…?).

Going through enormous, gigantic and endless piles of job adverts these days, sometimes I come across real linguistic (and logical) gems. And so, recently I saw a company recruiting for a sales role. The beginning was quite standard: “We are looking for someone with sales background”, etc, etc. Then the other requirements: “proven track of success, at least 2 years of experience…” – still fairly average a text for this type of job ad. But here comes my favourite line: “MATURE ATTITUDE TO LIFE”. Woah. That’s a lot to expect 😀 And how do you measure that? By the amount of grey hairs on the applicant’s head? By how old they are? Or maybe you give them a hypothetical case study to solve? Anyway, that was original I must say, and I definitely didn’t see that coming.

Another example. The job title was “Marketing and Quotations Preparation”. Main duties: office management, international and national marketing and quotations preparation, translation and interpreting (?), verification of documents validity, meeting minutes, taking part in meeting with various business partners, coordination of international projects. Required qualifications? High-school educated. Well, good luck. Not to mention lack of requirements for qualifications to translation of international documents. Quite risky of them, not to say absurd.  But this is not the best part yet! The best part is the company’s promise: “What can we offer you? A chance of getting a high social status”. My oh  my. Do I even need to say anything else than that the creative ad made my day? :)Whoever wrote it, thanks for making me smile (ok, laugh) :)P.S. Should I start gathering those things and make a book out of them? 😉

Carpe Diem!

 

…That’s what they say, at least. So, I’ve decided to seize the day and when an opportunity came along, I started with… auditioning as an extra for a movie 🙂

I found out that they were looking for extras for “Panie Dulskie”, a film which is being shot in Lublin (my home town) and is starring talented and famous Polish actors (if you’re not Polish, probably their names won’t tell you much but if you are, then I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard of Krystyna Janda, Sonia Bohosiewicz or Maja Ostaszewska).

I figure out if I can’t really find any cons, then it’s time to try and satisfy my curiosity about what movie-making looks like from the other side! And to do something a bit different.

The auditions took place yesterday and there was quite a crowd there during the first two hours of the casting. Luckily I was there early enough not to spend the entire day in the queue! So after waiting for my turn for nearly two hours, I finally went inside the auditions room… Then, they quickly checked my documents, I posed for a couple of photos, then they put me in front of video camera, filming me from close, from far, front view, side view… and five minutes later I was already done.

The recordings are going to the director next, who will decide whom he wants to hire so I won’t know the outcome until 1-2 Feb. But anyway, now I can say that I’ve auditioned for a movie! A whole new experience to add to my collection 😉

Carpe Diem people, seize the day!

Newcastle – ooops, they did it again! (and I love it)

Hey there!

Remember last year’s Newcastle Ale’s last year’s commercial they released around the time of 2014 Super Bowl? The one starring Anna Kendrick and the one that technically… wasn’t  even real? (link here)

Newcastle are really becoming my favourite beer brand after they’ve teamed up with the same agency (Droga5) to do a follow-up this year! They still have no money to do “a S***L commercial” but they’ve got a lot of wits and great ideas. This year they’re pretending to enter a chip maker’s Super Bowl ad contest… and to fail again.

And they’ve got a hilarious way of  making fun of many typical adverts, too (painfully obvious product placement? Check. Latin sounds to match the advert for “a tortilla-flavoured chip brand”? Check. Predictable plot and unoriginal dialogues with a cheesy ending? Check, check, check).

Have a look yourself:

 

I love how cleverly self-deprecating their “nearly Super Bowl ads” are! Will the new one repeat their last year’s success? What do you think?

They’ve even released a case study video about how they tried to enter the Doritos (I mean “a certain snack chip brand”) contest and failed. One thing that comes to my mind now is ABBA’s song that goes: “I feel like I win when I lose” 🙂

There’s the behind the scenes video:

How do you like the ad??

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let it sNOw??

You know me – my hope that we can finally get a summer lasting all year long will die last. So when we didn’t get snow in November and it was acutally quite warm outside in the beginnings of December, I started suspecting we might be heading in the right direction.

It didn’t feel very chistmasy but it felt like a fair price for not freezing whenever you go outside. Sure, snow is pretty and I actually like looking at it from inside the house, wrapped in a big blanket and with a cup of tea in my hand. And I could come to like it, seriously. Only if it wasn’t that cold and wet. Only if we could have +15 C and snow that doesn’t turn into a greyish-brownish pap, yuck. Then I’d be completely fine with snow. You know what I mean, right?

Anyway, then the Boxing Day came and to my surprise, I woke up to a snow-covered world! Sneaky white prankster! At least it looked pretty (from the distance). So here’s a winter postcard from my place 🙂

“Polska. Where the unbelievable happens” – a ray of hope

Finally!

I’ve been moaning about past campaigns advertising Poland abroad for some time now. And finally there’s something going on worth mentioning.

The new spot “Polska. Where the unbelievable happens” is maybe not exactly accurate about what happens on the streets of Warsaw in the 21st century but… it’s a story! It’s engaging, it’s fresh and dynamic and it’s using the power of imagination of a child. And at the end it explains what each scene was really about.

Finally I’ve got a feeling that advertising  Poland abroad is heading in the right direction. Have the right people started doing the job? Hope to see some more soon, keep up the good work!

 

 

credits: A spot for Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of Poland / Director: Paweł Borowski / Cinematography: Tomek Naumiuk / Producer: Sonia Pośpiech

Advertising time machine

Today I’ve stumbled upon a time machine!

Surely now you’re thinking I’ve gone mad (“Well, J., not having every minute of your day organised like it used to be for the past few years is not doing you any good, you’d better find a full-time occupation now”). The truth is, if you look closely enough, you’ll notice things around you documenting the past that remind you of how different life used to be. A-ha! Got what I mean now?:)

I’ve found one about adverts, focusing on two things that I love: language and society norms, and namely – how they’ve changed during the last few decades. What seemed completely normal back then, now sounds odd, ridiculous, disgusting, or even shocking.

So, here we go ladies and gentlemen (and everyone else) – give time travel a go yourself and have a look at…

22 Vintage Adverts That Would Be Banned Today

Enjoy 🙂