All about amber - visit the Amber museum, see a public Amber exhibition annually, and in the trade, go to business to business jewellery and gem exhibitons

Photo by Angela Lansbury.

I learned about Amber in Poland from the Jewellery & Gem Show.

The city of Amber is Gdansk on the north coast, the Baltic Sea coast of Poland. You can visit an amber museum, attend an amber exhibition every year, and get your amber authenticated as real. Two lovely ladies, Alexandra and Margaret (in English, in Polish you add some sh sounds) told me all about it when I met them at the Jewellery Gem World show in Singapore in September 2022.

Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Apparently, amber feels warmer than synthetics. It is still living, has been evolving hundreds of years, and is still able to change. It is affected by heat, will change colour.  

They showed me a chart of amber colours. If you visit the annual amber exhibition in Gdansk, you can buy amber. Detour to their stand to get it tested. Any problem? It's rare, but has been known. You could protest to the seller (the retailer who might say they too, were misled by the wholesaler). Sh. Don't say I told you.  If you want a certificate from them at the exhibition you have to pay. For most people just knowing they had real amber would be enough. 

Why would you need a certificate? To tell your family. To keep. To show an insurance company. In case you want to sell your jewellery later, or buy better pieces and would like to release the earliest ones you bought. To be sure you were not buying piece of plastic.

Visiting the amber museum has shot up my wishlist. I have their magazine which is in Polish and English, very handy if you are keen to learn a few words of Polish easily.

Shakespeare Week 12-18 March 2018 - quotations you may know and places to visit

Shakespeare. From Wikipedia. Photo by Brice Stratford. See Wikipedia for permissions.

Shakespeare is the worl'd best selling author of fiction.

Born: 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon

Died: 23 April 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon

Spouse: Anne Hathaway (m. 1582–1616)

Problem
Shakesepeare's birthday is celebrated on April 23rd. We can't be sure of the exact day, but he was baptised on April 26th and it was usual in those days to be baptised the third day after birth. Since he also died on April 23rd, that seems a suitable date. St George's Day is also April 23rd, so a good day to celebrate Shakespeare and England and the English language.

1 Shakespeare said so many things we quote. How can I remember them?
2 Where can I go to learn more about Shakespeare?

Answers
QUOTATIONS
Wikiquote will sort you out. Not just the quotations but exactly which play and where the words come from and who spoke the words. These are my favourites, short and easy to remember:

As You Like It (1599–1600)[edit]

Main article: As You Like It

• All the world's a stage,
  And all the men and women merely players:
  They have their exits and their entrances;
  And one man in his time plays many parts.
  • Jaques, Act II, scene vii.

Hamlet (1600–1)[edit]

Main article: Hamlet

• Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
  
  • Polonius, Act I, scene iii.

• To be or not to be, that is the question.
• Hamlet, Act III, scene i.

• HENRY

  Act III[edit]

  
  

  Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
  Or close the wall up with our English dead!
  • Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
    • King Henry, scene i

• Julius Caesar (1599)[edit]

  Main article: Julius Caesar (play)

  • Cowards die many times before their deaths;
    
    • Caesar, Act II, scene ii.
  • Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
    I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
    The evil that men do lives after them;
    The good is oft interred with their bones.
    • Antony, Act III, scene ii.

    • The Merchant of Venice (1596–7)[edit]

      Main article: The Merchant of Venice

      • All that glisters is not gold.
      • Prince of Morocco, reading Portia's note, Act II, scene vii; this is the source of the popular paraphrase "All that glitters is not gold."

• Twelfth Night (1601)[edit]

  Main article: Twelfth Night

  • If music be the food of love, play on.
  • Orsino, Act I, scene i.

  • Timon of Athens (1605)[edit]

    Main article: Timon of Athens

    • We have seen better days.
      • Flavius, Act IV, scene ii.

      • Macbeth (1606)[edit]

        Main article: Macbeth

        • Come what come may,
          
          • Macbeth, Act I, scene iii.
        • Is this a dagger which I see before me,
          
          • Macbeth, Act II, scene i.
  
  
  CANADA
  The Stratford Festival is an internationally recognized annual repertory theatre festival running annually from April to October in the city of Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
   

UK
Your obvious first choice is the UK, starting with Shakespeare's birthplace in Stratford upon Avon. But if you are just in London, you can visit the reproduction round theatre, as well as a monument to Shakespeare in a church, and see his bust on the front of the Guildhall building.

POLAND
Every year in August in Gdansk.

Visits
POLAND
http://esfn.eu/festivals/the-gdansk-shakespeare-festival
http://www.gdansk.pl/en/

UK
Reproduction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, England

Reproduction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, England. Photo by Another Believer in Wikipedia. See Wikipedia for copyright terms.

Stratford upon Avon:
Shakespeare's Birthplace
Anne Hathaway's Cottage
Theatre
Shakespeare's Grave in Holy Trinity Church

Shakespeare's grave in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, England, UK. Photo from Wikipedia, originally in Flickr by David Jones. 

London, England
Theatre
Reprodcution of the circular Shakeapsear's theatre in the round.
About ten minutes walk from London Bridge underground station. On the banks of the Thames, near the Tate Modern art gallery and the bridge over the Thames river.
The Globe
21 New Globe Walk
Bankside
London SE1 9DT.
Great website with clear directions on how to get there and an aerial video of the theatre.

Church
Bust on Guildhall

Shakespeare bust on outside wall of Guildhall, London, England. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

visitbritain.com
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com (London, England)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

If you want your own Shakespeare bust, for your home or a museum or celebration of play, it will cost you about £66 plus delivery. A bust suitable for indoors might not be suitable for the garden, but one suitable for the garden might do for indoors. However, it depends whther you want a smooth surface or something more robust and weather-proof.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ceramic-William-Shakespeare-Bust-Statue/dp/B007R61UO0

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have other posts on Guildhall. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Kindertransport statues on stations in UK and Europe

I'd read about the statue on a London station showing the Kindertransport children and Winton who organised the transfer of endangered children to London, from 1938 to the eve of WWII in 1939, saving the childrens' lives. When I went to check for a photo on Wikipedia I discovered photos of statues at stations all over Europe. 

Frank Meisler Kindertransport memorial (2006) stands outside Liverpool Street Station.

From Wikipedia, whose caption says it's a tribute to the British people for saving children from Nazi terror. Who were the heroes who helped? Nicholas Winton who organised the transport. But he did not do it all alone. Who else? The Quakers, the members of Parliament, the people who raised the £50 per child required, a lot of money in those days, so the children would not be a burden on the state, the welcome committee who met the children and found them hostels, then the kind and generous families who took in the children, not just for a few days, or weeks, or years, but because some of the parents of the children died, for life.

Gdansk statue at station. Gdansk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast.

Winton's Prague memorial created by Flor Kent.

The Kindertransport is one of the good news stories to come out of WWII.

The children ranged in age from the smallest to teenagers. Some went on to Canada and the USA.

December 2nd, the date of the first transport, is celebrated as Kindertransport Day.

I have just shown the statues you can see on stations when you travel. For details of statues and the history of the Kindertransport see the Wikipedia article on Kindertransport.