After a solemn day, we celebrated Camille properly with a fun evening. All day she had been wearing her princess crown from Nana. It didn’t quite fit the theme of persecuted people groups and death camps, but you’re only 5 once!
We walked back up the main shopping road to the square where Caleb talked me into buying him a bird whistle that he had been longing for all week. I thought he was going to need to learn a special technique to make the sound, but all they do is add water to the bowl and then it sounds like a very loud, shrill, warbling bird. Awesome.
So they showered their fellow man with terrible whistles while we watched the other street performers: man playing music on crystal glasses, a Giant skellator statue (he must have a box under his long robe to give him the extra height) who would time his movements to scare people walking by (that one was hilarious), a street-dancing troupe who was not up to the So You Think You Can Dance caliber, and various individuals or groups playing musical instruments.
We saw a woman surrounded by a flock of pigeons and realized she had brought a bag of food for them. Caleb had spent the last few days trying to catch a pigeon so he went to see if he could get his hands on one while it was busy eating. The birds stayed just out of his reach until the lady gave him a handful of food and then they were all over him. Perched in his hand, on his arms, and one landed on Camille’s head and she ducked and ran away screaming.
The bird whisperers
Who would have thought it would be so much fun to feed a flock of feathered rats? Sadly, I think this was the activity that the kids enjoyed most, since from then on it was “when can we go feed the birds again?!” I’m so glad that we went all the way to Poland for that. Kind of like the time we took 2 year old Calvin to Sea World and he was most excited about the ducks in one of the landscaping ponds. Woo. Hoo.
Although, in their defense, we don’t really have flocks of pigeons in Bahrain. At least I can’t remember seeing them. And not “friendly” ones like these. Maybe a solo bird here or there. I vaguely remember seeing a few crows. We have a lot of cats. And sand. That’s about it. If I get excited about grass and rain, I guess it makes sense for them to think pigeons are a novelty too.
When the birds had eaten their fill we headed back to the house to meet up with Nana and Poppa and get dinner. We returned to the restaurant from a few nights before with the amazing mulled wine. We wanted to try their specialty platter — basically a kitchen sink of polish food. Pickles, sausage, pierogi, fried cabbage, sauerkraut, and more. It was divine.
It’s not actually a curved dish, just the panoramic lens makes it look that way. Our dinner was too long to fit in a single shot!
From the right: kielbasa on top of fried cabbage, pickles, chicken kabob and pork, boiled potatoes, and the black lentil looking stuff was this mushroom I-don’t-even-know-what, but I wanted to eat all of it. Maybe mushroom and bulgar wheat? That doesn’t sound appealing, but it was a grainy textured, earthy comfort food. Good thing I’m not a food writer or no one would want to eat at the restaurants I reviewed.
Second half of platter from the right: the mushroom fabulousness, more boiled potatoes, the brownish thing at the top is a pork knuckle — pork cooked on the bone until it is falling apart, more pickles, 2 or 3 kinds of pierogi, and at the far end is another sausage on top of my other favorite thing, biggos. Also called Hunter’s Stew, it’s cabbage cooked with different cuts of pork (bacon, sausage, etc) and tomato sauce and again, that sounds boring, but it’s so good I ordered it at several different restaurants. It’s on every menu.
Writing about it makes me hungry for Polish food — I never thought I’d be saying those words!
All week Camille had been begging to ride in one of the horse drawn carriages that are parked on the square so we told her we would do it for her birthday.
We climbed aboard and set off around the square, down past the castle and back. It was a 20 – 25 minute ride for 8 people for $35. Another Polish bargain. Nana and Poppa taught Camille to “wave like a princess” and told people, “It’s her birthday!” as we rode past.
driving by Wawel Castle
Party in the carriage!
Calvin sat up front with the driver so the 7 of us could squeeze in the back. Good move, kid.
Petting her horses at the end of our ride.
To end the evening we went to birthday dessert. It was about 10:30 by then but all was still lively on the square. We found outdoor seating at Noworolski’s, famous for being a favorite hangout of Lenin’s (it’s been open since 1910).
Just as we were seated a light rain began to fall so we scootched our seats in closer to the center of the umbrellas, ordered up a bunch of desserts and enjoyed the pitter patter of the drops overhead as we tried a bite of everything.
She ordered the hot chocolate, which was thicker than any I’ve ever seen and had to be eaten with a spoon.
Happy birthday sweetie!