Above the clouds

Good evening!

Memories, postcards - you need them to evoke memories about your journeys. If you travel a lot, probably you have got a good camera, unless you use your smartphone to take photos or record movies. It`s nice to have them, and keep all data from every place you have been. But what if I tell you that you are able to take better photos or to make videos from places where nobody have ever been? I You can do it with UAV - unmanned aerial vehicle or simply called drone.

Maybe now you are thinking that I'm crazy because they are so expensive, but I can assure you that drones are 5 times cheaper and 5 times better than 5 years ago. For example a very good drone with 4K (very high resolution) camera costs in Poland about 2000 PLN (500 USD). Of course, it`s a lot of money, but it would be cheaper and cheaper in short future. I think that for taking photos and making videos in a quality as you can seen in the video at the bootom of this post, it`s definitely worth it.

The next question which is worth to think about is: "Am I able to fly drone?" Well...Of course you are - evolution of technology is so fast like it have never been before. Flying a drone is like playing a video game - when you push stick up drone moves up and when you push it down, drone falls back, simply. New drones are very stable - they keep horizontal and vertical position easily , even in strong wind, thanks to sets of sensors like visual positioning system, global positioning system, GLONASS and many others. 

They are able to flay away further than 1 km and higher than 500 meters. Don`t worry, you will not lost your drone - if connection would be lost, it will come back to a start point! Great, don`t you? One thing what could stop you is battery. Anyway, it`s pretty good because you are able to get up to 20 minutes flying time and of course he will back home or land automatically if the battery get low. There`s much more safety systems.

In my opinion, today is the best time we could have to get a drone, because we don`t need license to fly, which could be hard to get, I think. They are easy to fly and give a lot of fun and different points of view about the whole world around us. I really recommend you to buy one if you travel a lot or you are photo maniacs 😀

Following the history….

If you were an attentive student in high school you would remember two important dates in polish history. Those are 1569 and 1791. The first one reefers to The Union of Lublin and the second one refers to the Reciprocal Guarantee of two Nations adopted by the Great Sejm (Sejm Wielki in Polish). This two historical events leaded to create a single state, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth which replaced the personal union between this two countries. That is why some places in Lithuania have a special sentimental meaning for our Polish nation.

Firstly, I think that everybody knows the words of this famous invocation:

Lithuania, my country! You are as good health:

How much one should prize you, he only can tell

Who has lost you. Your beauty and splendor I view

And describe here today, for I long after you [...]

Yes, this words comes from the national epic “Pan Tadeusz” written by Adam Mickiewicz. Maybe you won’t believe but the first edition of his book - “Ballads and romances” - was printed in 1822 in Vilnius. Today we can also find there a museum dedicated to our poet.

Vilnius is the only one capital In Europe which is situated in the middle of two historical civilisations – Latin and Byzantine. This is the reason why this beautiful city is known of its nationality and religious tolerance. 

We can also find there the biggest Old Town, which extends on the surface of 360 hectares! From 1994 The Vilnius Old Town was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in recognition of its universal value and originality. What is also important, the capital of Lithuania was called the European capital in 2009.

I put below the video which will help you to discover the most important places in this beautiful Old Town and its history! Have a nice trip! :)

Heaven on earth

Today we`re going to a real heaven - full of small islands with gold beaches and crystal turquoise ocean around, without noticeable horizon joining the sky and water which looks like endless highway for ferries and planes at once - that is French Polynesia.

It`s a place where lots of newlyweds from all around the world would love to spend their time, but not only them - I think that every person dream about it! There`s quiet, lot of nature, many beautiful views which no words can describe. But where is it exactly? Well, it`s hard to get there due to small airfields and a very long way from the closest continent. It is situated between Australia and South America, near the International Date Line on the Pacific Ocean. That is why the ticket prices are so high - one way ticket from Poland costs about 14000 PLN (4000 USD). But there is no price to get to heaven, don`t you think?

French Polynesia is administrated by the French Republic and the official language is French, but English is widely spoken. It is composed of 118 geographically dispersed islands stretching over an expanse of total land area 4,167 square kilometers. 67 islands are inhabited and total population of country is about 260,000 people that live mostly in or near the capital of French Polynesia - Papeete. Every year islands are visited by 200,000 people. Not much for such a beautiful place, but taking into account the price you have to pay to get there.....

The most popular activities there, as you can imagine, are water sports e.g. diving, surfing. But many people comes here just to enjoy resting at clear, blue water with colorful reefs and fish and colorful nature around. But don`t worry about venomous snakes or insects. There aren`t there! 

Huh, what a great place it is! I always dreamed about it and I hope that one day it will come true...

It is really hard to describe the beauty of this place with words. Maybe the movie below will do it 😉

Some facts about Rio Carnival

Hello again! It is a pleasure that you have visited my blog again :) 

So today I will tell you about Rio de Janeiro Carnaval.

As you may know, every year, 40 days before Easter, in the capital of Brazil starts the greatest  and the longest carnaval all around the world!

The first festival dates back as far as 1723 and every next year it was bigger and more colorful. About two milions people came there from all over the world, but in fact most of them are not from Brazil due to high ticket prices that costs from 55$ to 3000$ and which are not affordable for typical Brazilian. Fortunately, inhabitants are able to watch the parade on the television. 

Acording to the tradition ritual, during the opening ceremony, King Momo (king of the carnival) takes the Silver keys from the hand City Mayor then raises the keys to open the festival.

Parade is like a competition where a lot of dancers from more than 200 different samba schools, from Rio prepare performance based on dancing and creating show on colorful, themed floats. The focus of the festival is the parade that takes place at night on Sunday and Monday, in the Sambadrome stadium. 

Today's Carnival derived from the ancient carnival of Romans and Greeks held to welcome spring and honor the beauty of life. For Brazilians, Carnival is thier pride and opportunity to honor the beauty of human body - like the ancient Olympic spirit - and express the unique culture of the Brazilian Samba dance through traditions.

Below I put some video from carnaval. I hope you will enjoy it :)

Taste of France

Hi again! 

I hope that you didn’t eat a lot today because today we are going to France to taste some delicious dishes!

What comes to your mind when you hear about French cuisine? I’m sure that most of you will be probably thinking about different types of chees, wine, frog legs or escargots de Bourgogne. But now you can forget about them. I will prove that French cuisine means something much more than that….

First you have to know that French meals play a large part in organising social life. Eating has its own collective ritual and it is one of the day’s main activities for French people. They have three major meals, that is:

1. Breakfast known as “le petit déjeuner”

2. Lunch known as “le déjeuner”

3. Dinner known as “le dîner”

Le petit déjeuner is always a sweet breakfast which contains baguettes or croissant with jam or Nutella and with orange juice. Then they have a famous lunch punctually at every midday which consist of several parts - entrée, main dish, chees, desert and coffee. The meal is often accompanied by wine. Water is also an important part of typical French meal so it has to be on each table while eating. Now let’s move to dinner. This meal is served usually between 8 pm and 10 pm. For the most of French people it is a hearty dish which consists of three parts- hors d'œuvre or entrée.

In France every region has its own traditional meals but today I will take into account the major meals in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region.

The first one is Gratin Dauphinois which is made from potatoes and crème fraîche- fresh cream in English. Potatoes are thinly sliced, covered by cream and cooked with garlic.

The second one is Quenelle which is a typical lyonnaise meal. Quenelle consist of semolina of durum wheat or flour, butter, eggs, milk or water and seasonings. 

Next there is also Raclette which is my favourite one. A modern way of serving Raclette involves an electric table-top grill with small pans, known as coupelles in which we can put slices of raclette cheese, potatoes, salami, and some types of ham such as: jambon cuit or viande des Grison. Ingredients depend on what you like and what want to eat, but I assure you that it’s really delicious!! J

However, we can’t forget about Tartiflette, which contains potatoes, reblochon cheese- made in the Alpine region of Savoy and having its own controlled designation of origin, lardons and onions.

The last one which is worth attention is Soupe à l’ognion gratinée – it is French onion soup. This meal is served with croutons and cheese. 

 I hope that I inspired you to prepare today’s meal! J

British vs American English

Hello!

Have you ever wondered how many differences are between British and American English?

Today I want to show you some tricky words which may not make a difference for foreigner who learn English. The most noticeable difference is obviously vocabulary. For example Americans go on vacation, while british people go on holidays, or hols. New Yorkers live in apartments, Londoners live in flats. British would say that you have a sense of humour and Americans that you have a sense of humor. And the famous school game which is called in British English “noughts and crosses” is known in America as tic-tac-toe :-)

When you want to send a letter to London or to New York you need to pay attention on the postal code but that’s only when you are thinking about England because in America there is ‘zip code”.

If you drive a car in Britain you have to remember that you have to go on a petrol station to refuel your car and not to a gas station.  British pack things into the boot and Americans into a trunk. And before going shopping in London we would say that we have to park the car in the car park and in Chicago that we have to do it in the parking lot.

Furthermore, we can see a difference in the collective nouns. In American English collective nouns are singular. For example stuff refers to a group of employees, band refers to a group of musicians so they would say that “The band is good”. But in British English collective nouns can be singular or plural. For example we can say that “The team are playing tonight” as well as we can say that “The team is playing tonight”.

There is also a small difference in the past tense verbs. For example in the past tense Americans tend to use –ed ending unlike to British who tend to use the –t ending.

For example: learn -> learned or learnt, dream-> dreamed or dreamt, burn-> burned or burnt.

When it comes to the past participle form Americans could say: “I have never gotten caught” while British would say: “I have never got caught”. Brits only use got!

Spelling is also important when we want to learn English. There are some words, such as: advertisement, mobile, clique, either, neither, missile, envelope and many others, which have a different pronunciation in British English and in American English.  

So it is important to remember about this small changes in English when we are planning our vacations in America.

Below, I put the video which in a funny way presents what people think about British and American English and how to distinguish them.

What do you know about Australia?

Hello!

Today I want to share with you some interesting facts which I have read about Australia. First of all, you have to know that Australia is a huge country which could englobe majority of the European countries and many others, as you can see on the picture below.

 However, the largest central part of the continent is unpopulated. Most of people live on the coasts. Total population of Australia is 23 million people and about 15 million live in the metropolitan areas. Some people are even saying that there are much more kangaroos than people :)

The society of Australia is multicultural but the ethnic people who have lived there from fifty thousand years are Aboriginal Australians. It is the oldest living culture in the world and until 60’s of the last century they were considered as a “part of fauna and flora”. During the period of colonization, thousands of Aboriginal Australians died because of the unknown so far diseases such as flu. The Others were murdered by the colonists. In the 2007 the Prime Minister of Australia apologized them for crimes of a “stolen generations” – the children from the interracial relationships which were stolen and given to a “white family” to provide them a better future.

Australia is also known as a country of innovations. Did you know that Australian people invented Wi-Fi or flight recorder. Commonly known “selfie” is their product too. This word appeared because they like to make words shorter. The other common abbreviations are: “BARBIE” which refers not only to a doll but also to barbecue, “ROO” which refers to a kangaroo, “ARVO” which means “afternoon” or “AUSSIE” which is used to denominate an Australian.

Finally, you have to know that in Australia there are many dangerous species of animals such as box jellyfish, sharks, snakes, redback spider and many others creatures which really like to sneak home.

I hope that some of this information will be useful. Have a nice week! :)