I have definitely been enjoying my new G10 camera and as a result came back from the Easter holiday with loads and loads and loads of photos. Just going through to select the good stuff, and then tag has been quite a chore… Can’t wait until someone invents something that would intelligently do all that labour for me.
Polish Easter like most of our holidays includes a lot of food, some typical for that time of the year and holiday occasion. One of these specialities is a desert called Mazurek - a small pastry topped with jam followed by toffee or chocolate and finished with things like nuts, almonds, etc.
Recently I read this interesting article about the “American Stonehenge”. Apart from being a great, and considering today’s press, surprisingly informative article, it made me think about how we treat the monuments from the old days… Well obviously I mean civilized people, that do not trash and destroy something because it’s from this or that religion.
We kind of subconsciously assign more value to it as opposed to modern pieces. In a way the less we know about a structure, the more mysterious it is and the wilder the theories that surround it. I look at things today and am amazed at things like the pyramids. But then again is it maybe that I am assigning knowledge available to few people to a whole society? Just because modern day humans have the technology that can build structures even greater than the pyramids or Stonehenge, it does not mean a random person in the street could build as much as a simple watch or a car… In similar sense it was probably just very select few who had the skills and knowledge to orchestrate such a great undertaking.
Also at first I was taken aback with the negative attitude of some of the people. Doesn’t matter what the intention is of the builders, it’s not like they are putting some nuclear weapon out there. But when I thought about it for a longer while I remembered something.
My home town Gniezno is located near a bigger city called Poznan, and there near the town centre one can find the Castle. For many years it looked like any castle. The stereotypical grayish-green walls looking old and gloomy. That’s how old castles look, at least all that I have seen up till then, that’s how they looked in the stories etc…
Until one day I went to Poznan and they were in the process of restoring the Castle and a part of it was cleaning the walls - washing of all the dirt and stuff that has accumulated over the centuries. I was in fact lucky enough to get there when the process was half-way done, which meant you could see half of the wall clean and half with the dirt still on. Not to drag it out much more the restored stones were of a nearly light sandy colour, not really something you associate with old castles.
But the point of this is that it made me realize that when the Castle was built it in a way looked completely differently. And in similar way we will never know whether there were the equivalents of graffiti painters trashing monuments like Stonehenge or commoners whining about what a waste of money the pyramids are. Probably not to the degree that democracy allows us today to voice our opinions, however still the perception at the time of their building might have been just as controversial as of our modern attempts at great architecture.
One day while looking for shoes in Camden (where else would you go looking for fancy shoes, when you prefer a Not So GirlyAvoid Heels Style…) in London we were browsing through several stores and goofing around a bit. In one of the shops I happened to find an advert for the “Anti Shoe”.
It obviously sounds like a very bizarre idea in a shoe store. It was a very small shelf under the brand MBT with just a few designs available. Being a very curious creature I just had to try them on to see for myself what is so special about them.
At this point I probably should mention that this wouldn’t be the first “Anti Shoe” I have heard of. I’ve read before about different initiatives trying to aid our poor spines and feet in different ways. One of which was extremely thin soles which encourage walking barefoot-like. This came with a whole lot of theories about the superiority of toes first walking… Though this is a topic for another day.
Back to the MBT shoes then. The feeling was definitely strange. A bit like if someone had put a tennis ball in the middle of your shoe and asked you to go for a walk… Though even despite the odd impression, they did make you “roll forward” with a certain lightness.
However I did not buy them back then. Firstly I don’t trust things like that without doing some extra research on customer satisfaction… Secondly the price tag doubled my caution. When a product is expensive and pretends to be some sort of genius invention there is high risk of charging for some gimmick and or brand name, rather than providing actual, long term value.
Surprisingly I found glowing reviews online. Not only that but it proved to be a medical product claiming to relieve spinal problems, and give your whole leg, as well as your behind an extra workout just be the share fact of walking. Well, who could resist that?
After much deliberation (and a few long trips with my soles ending in blisters…) I thought maybe I should give them a try. This is where I hit a slight retail problem. I was told that because they are classified as a medical product, you cannot buy them online and only certain stores sell them. And even when you find the few stores, they do not stock the whole range (which is not huge to start with).
The problem here was aesthetics… Most of the designs are quite sporty, and I like only two, or three at most. Every store we went to they didn’t have the one I liked, or if they did, it wasn’t in my size. Very frustrating indeed. When I almost gave up hope, I actually got what I was looking for at the last store we had on our list to check. Hurray!
After a whole day of walking from store to store, I was keen to give my new shoes a spin and see if they actually sooth the creeping in sole pain. And they did! What I did not realize was that the “leg workout” tag line was no joke. That day I definitely said hello to some leg muscles I didn’t quite know I had…
The first week in the new shoes seemed an odd trade. I have exchanged the sole pain for pains along the back of my legs. But hey, at least it made me feel like I really am getting a workout. Not to mention the funky “ball rolling” feeling that came with the shoes. In a way you could compare it to climbing stairs, or constantly doing toes - heels, heels - toes while walking.
After a while I must say that the purchase was definitely worth it and I’m considering getting another pair - sandals this time for the coming summer. My feet seem to have gotten used to the funny feeling though, as if the “ball” has gradually disappeared. Maybe I just got used to walking in them.
While on Easter holiday at my parents home we have been going out for daily walks. Living in the countryside has the definite benefit of enjoying some rare sights. Just to mark to really nice encounters - a couple of storks and a pack of young deer I’m giving away two photos - wallpapers. You can use these as you please.
The sky and the stork - 1024×768
The sky and the stork - 1200×960
The sky and the stork - 1600×1200
The photo is slightly enhanced to bring out the colours, as it turns out trying to shoot a flighing bird, especially from a far is quite tricky… We met this stork couple in one of the nearby nests and as I have a few more shots of the two I will posting more details about them soon.
While chasing the stork we spotted this pack of deer up at the very edge of the hill. Really fun to watch!
