341: Corpus Christi day

 

Just been reading up in Wikipedia, so it must be right (?), about the meaning of  the feast of Corpus Christi (Latin for body of Christ). I see that it is observed as a public holiday in 21 different countries, including Poland. For a change I'm in the right place at the right time to take advantage of a day off. In this instance it was two days off. Corpus Christi always falls on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (i.e. 60 days after Easter) and many Polish offices close for both Thursday and Friday, giving employees a long weekend. One of my students told me that many companies require employees to take a day from their annual leave entitlement in order to have the Friday off. So, if the offices are locked there can be no English lessons.

Lots of church services yesterday and temporary "places of worship" (?) erected on the streets. Here is a picture of one such. There were two nuns "on patrol".

I took the opportunity to see more of Warsaw. In the morning a 5KM run in the local woods and in the afternoon a wander around the largest park in Warsaw - Wazienki Park. Follow the Wikipedia link for an insight into the history of the park and a description of some of the many buildings therein. With it being a national holiday there were many thousands of Varsovians and visitors milling around the many attractive buildings and gardens. Here are a few of the pictures I took. The first picture is of a particularly mangy half-wild but used-to-the-crowds squirrel. He hopped onto my bench looking for some nuts! The second picture immediately reminded me of "don't look Ethel" from The Streak by Ray Stevens (1974 !). I've added a You Tube clip at the end of the blog in case anybody wants to listen to it again.
Finally I just wanted to illustrate that a rip-off is a rip-off wherever in the world it is perpetrated. I stopped for something to eat on the way home from the park. This was billed as Nachos and cost me about a fiver. It was just a dish of crisps. The 'cheese dip', such as it was, came in the smallest dish in the world. There was not even a whiff of chilli-con-carne or guacamole. I wouldn't have minded quite so much, well yes I would, if the crisps had all been crisp sized but underneath the top layer it looked as though they had given me the dregs from the bottom of so many packets. Never mind, worse things happen at sea. At least I know not to go there again.