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The third part of the parade was for schools and children. Apparently all of the schools in Tarnowskie-Gory got to march in the parade. They were supposed to dress up based on the current year’s theme, which was apparently ‘Fair Tales.’ The results varied from school to school, so I only put the best ones up here.

School Train

The first group did a train – very clever.

Finding Nemo

Then there was ‘Finding Nemo’ or, if my translation is correct, ‘Where is Nemo?’ Odd, that – can anybody explain how and why that got changed?

More Finding Nemo

Smerfs (!?!)

101 Dalmations

Weirdest Dalmation Ever

This has to be the most bizarre Dalmation I’ve ever seen!

Comments

• Feb-7-2006 20:44:42 by Mark Rankovic:
  Yes, I noticed that too….. She is all white except for her arms that are black, but I thought they were supposed to be black spots on a white coat…

More than your Average Number of Pirates

I have no idea what they are supposed to be, but it seems like the ‘Pirate Costume’ was the most popular.

Harry Potter!

The most impressive group in the parade (in my opinion) did ‘Harry Potter’. In fact, they did a very impressive job, as the next few photos will show.

Gryffindor House Banner

Gryffindor House

Gryffindor Closeup

This is an impressive bit of detail – it’s a bit hard to see from the pictures, but they even managed to get the Harry, Hermione and Ron characters fairly accurate!

Hufflepuff

Ravenclaw

Slytherin

Oddly enough, they seemed to have a hard time coming up with people for Slytherin

Quidditch Team

Teachers

And, finally the teachers from the school.

Very well done!

There were more schools, but you got the best and I’m tired of uploading pictures.

This section of the parade was ‘fun stuff’ – mostly vehicles of various types.

Old Fire Wagon

I think this was the one with the hand-cranked siren – very popular with the kids by the side of the road.

Fire ‘engines’ like this probably explain why most of Poland is built out of bricks, concrete and stucco – they’re awfully hard to light on fire!

Another Fire Wagon

This one is even less impressive than the last one.

Fire Truck

Now we’re getting somewhere – this thing looks like it would do a much better job with a fire.

Ladder Truck

Old Fire Truck

Kuba and his Grandfather

More Miners

Big Cannon

Note that we exported the god-awful Minivan to Poland – we should be ashamed of ourselves!

Small Cannon

Marek told me that they fired this off every year and seemed disappointed that they didn’t do it in front of the house.

Motorcycle

I’m not sure what this guy is doing, but he is on an old motorcycle and he has a flag.

Polish Hell’s Angels

I guess the Hell’s Angels aren’t very popular in Tarnowskie-Gory.

Gypsy (Roma) Children

I think these were real Roma.

More Roma

Boom!

Why yes, they did fire the cannon. It made a nice big bang and a smoke cloud and scattered burning paper all over the street. Great fun!

The highlight of Gwarki (at least for the non-beer-consuming kids) is the parade. We watched it from Marek’s parent’s flat, which is just a couple of blocks from Rynek. Since the parade went right by under the window I had a good view for a few pictures – like 300 of them.

If any of you from Tarnowskie-Gory want to correct my guesses please feel free to do so using the ‘Comments’ section below each picture and I’ll make the appropriate updates.

I’m going to break this down into three parts:

Part 1: Town History
Part 2: Fun Stuff
Part 3: Children’s Section (the theme this year was apparently Fairy Tales).

Enjoy!

The Parade Approaches

You can just see six people carrying banners that spell out ‘Gwarki’ – they’re behind the blue car.

Gwarki Banner

Miner’s Band

Apparently various groups of workers form bands, something that sounds a lot more European than what I’m used to.

Marek told me that the color of the feathers on the hat denote the rank of the miner – and yes, those really are feather plumes on their hats.

Harvest Display

This is some sort of a harvest celebration display. It was made of wheat stalks and had a large loaf of bread (mmmmmm, Polish bread – yum!) in the middle.

Knight

The first part of the parade told some of the early history of the town of Tarnowskie-Gory (if I remember correctly). I’m not quite sure where the knight fit in.

Peasant

And here we have a peasant, his ox and a plough. Notice he has his son to actually run the plough – nothing really changes through the years except the equipment (yes, Dad, I’m talking about you making me mow the lawn).

Dancers

Traditional dancers of some sort.

Mayor?

This guy is supposed to represent some sort of dignitary from earlier times – maybe the mayor?

Merchants?

I think these guys are supposed to represent the merchant class.

Ladies

Ladies in traditional costumes.

Random Guy with a Stick

I have no idea what he is supposed to be, but he looks important!

Cart Full of Slaves

I think Marek told me this was a supposed to be a cart full of slaves from when the Turks invaded. You can’t see the ’slaves’ in the back too well, but they looked remarkably well fed and dressed for being 450-500 years old!

Town Wine Merchant / Drunk

This was either the town wine merchant or the town drunk. Supposedly he used to ride on top of the barrell instead of behind it.

Polish Flag

King Jan Sobieski (III?)

This is supposed to be King Jan Sobieski (the third, I believe, but I’m not sure). He was instrumental in keeping the Turks from invading more of Europe than they already had and is considered to be Poland’s greatest king.

Hussars

If you’ve ever heard the term ‘Winged Hussars’ you now have a picture to go with it. It’s a bit hard to see the ‘wings’ but there are two vertical poles with feathers attached to them behind each rider. Apparently these made a truly scary noise when the riders charged into battle, not that they needed anything else to be considered scary.

Parade Queen

This is, I believe, the obligatory ‘Parade Queen’ – you can’t have a parade anywhere in the world without one, I guess.

More People in a Cart

Germans

Tarnowskie-Gory is in Silesia, which was part of Germany at various times. So, given that bit of information, you now have an explanation for the pre-WWI German soldiers in a Polish parade.

I noticed that there weren’t any post-WWI Germans, though – I guess nobody wanted to play that part, not that I could blame them.

Polish Soldiers

And here are some Polish soldiers, I believe from the early 20th century.

See the next section for more pictures.

The second day we took it easy and went to a BBQ at the lake. Marian(sp) and Danka(sp) had rented a small cabin at a local lake and invited everyone out. While they are quite similar, there are differences in how Poles and Americans do a BBQ. For instance:

American BBQ:

1. Buy a bunch of beer and ice it down
2. Buy a bunch of meat to cook (probaby burgers, hot dogs, brats, steaks)
3. Buy a bunch of Charcoal Briquettes or Propane for cooking
4. Buy lighter fluid if using Charcoal
5. Drink lots of beer
6. Light enormous fire in grill. Make sure you get a good ‘whoomph’ with either gas or charcoal lighter fluid.
7. Burn meat over grill
8. Drink more beer
9. Go home

Polish BBQ:

1. Everyone brings various types of booze – Vodka, Beer, Whiskey, Wine and anything else they can think of
2. There is more food variety – I had some extra-tasty pork chops, chicken and finally ‘croquettes’
3. Use real charcoal for cooking. Give the Americans a very strange look when they tall you about Match Light Charcoal – and what it’s made of.
4. Start drinking anything that is handy. If this includes a bottle of Johnny Walker at noon, that’s fine
5. Light charcoal using, apparently, a small piece of paper and a single match. Fan vigorously with anything flat (like a dust pan or a stolen sign).
6. Cook various things over said fire, up to and including bread and ‘croquettes’
7. Eat, drink, repeat until all food and booze is gone

Grill Work

This is Marian preparing the grill. I’m not quite sure what this technique is called, but involved a dustpan (empty) and, eventually, smoke and sparks.

More Preparations

And here I am with the booze. Note the low level in the Johnny Walker bottle – it’s about 2:00 pm and a Jacek and Marek have given it a good working over.

Tiskie, by the way, is much better than Zywiec.

Comments

• Jan-6-2006 14:49:30 by M Nobles:
  Nice!

And More Preparations

And here is Marek doing his own prep-work.

Boat Ride

You could rent paddle boats from a place just down the street – I think it was something like 4PZL for 30 minutes, which worked out to something like $1.25.

Lake View

A view of the lake shore from the paddle boat.

Boat 8

Yep, we got Boat #8! I don’t recommend it for your boating pleasure – it squeaked.

Boats on the Lake

More boats on the lake.

Whee!

Polish BBQ Gone Bad

The picture says it all.

Polish BBQ Gone Bad II

We left DC on September 8 but didn’t get to Tarnowskie-Gory until the afternoon of the 9th. Marek picked us up at the airport and we headed back to town. I don’t exactly remember everything that we did that evening, but it mostly involved going to the carnival in the town square and then out to a restaurant for dinner and a few drinks.

The Town Square

A general shot of the main town square (Rynek) in Tarnowskie-Gory. Normally there isn’t all the carnival-related ’stuff’ that you see here.

More of Rynek

I have some better shots that I’ll post in another page.

New Photo

Marek and Asia’s son Kuba. He’s 5 or 6 and is obviously having the time of his life.

Kuba Again

Yes, he’s really having a good time.

Traditional Dancers

There was a stage set up in the square that various acts were performing on. Unfortunately, I did a lousy job of stopping to take pictures – this is about the best you get.

Town Hall

This is a partial shot of the Town Hall – it’s a pretty big building and it’s not easy to get a picture of.

Carnival Rides

What can I say – it looked like your typical small town carnival.

Tina’s Favorite Ride

You’ll have to ask her why this was her ‘favorite.’

Euro Wheel

Yep, it’s a Ferris Wheel – or, in this case, the extra-special version called the ‘Euro Wheel.’ I have no idea what the difference is, beyond the location.

Crazy Dance

More carnival views.

Kuba Waiting for the Train

There was a little train running around the tracks that kids could ride. Kuba absolutely had to ride it. Here he is waiting patiently with Asia to get into the engine.

Kuba Boarding the Train

Kuba Driving The Train

He looks very excited.

Kuba Driving the Train

And now he looks very serious – driving a train is apparently hard work!

Restaurant Courtyard

This is the courtyard of the restaurant we went to for dinner. This wasn’t open when I was last in Tarnowskie-Gory nine years ago. In fact, the number of nice restaurants has gone up considerably.

Just Looking…

They were setting up for a band to play in the restaurant courtyard and Kuba was absolutely fascinated by both the process and the equipment. He slowly got closer and closer, all the while making sure it was very obvious that he wasn’t touching anything.

Bumper Cars

Here are Kuba and Marek driving the bumper cars. This is the only place in Poland where one can legally drink and drive

Final Shot

And, finally, one more shot of the bumper cars.