Friday Dec 23rd Xmas Shopping -Supermarkets Are busy -

Waitrose Xmas. Photo by Trevor Sharot.

 Everybody is out buying in supermarkets in London, my family tell me. I am at home with a cold, despite being double jabbed in Singapore, against flu and Covid, my 5th jab.

I was online in a toastmasters international meeting, Singapore International Dynamic, run by President Edward in Belize. Our theme was Xmas food around the world.

He had a great background of trees. In Belize their Xmas meal includes local food such as beans and rice.

President Edward of Belize.

 We started with a table topics or imprompty speech session, 2 minutes each on local festive food for Xmas or any other holiday we celebrate.  I showed Waitrose Xmas cake. I also had extra props. Stollen, the marzipan filled sweet roll cake, from Germany, but Waitrose haas their own brand. For Hannuaky, which this year coincides with Christmas, the food is latkes, grated potato pancakes, ike has browns or rosti, and donuts with dozens of kinds of fillings..

Donuts, for Hannukah. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

He warned us about procrastinating. Don't leave your shopping until the last minute. Some shops will close early, even lunch time on the 24th, so their staff can prepare for Xmas Eve.

Last year Edward went out to buy presents at a department store and food at a supermarket. 

Supermarket - Closing Time. 

All went well until his wife phoned and reminded him to buy the cranberry sauce. 

By now the traffic had built up, exacerbated by a minor, but inconvenient traffic accident. Unnecessary stress.

The supermarket was still open but had closed the doors as it was already full of customers. Luckily he spotted a friend inside and was able to get his friend's attention and shout, Cranberry sauce!

Nearby was a seller of local Rum Popo. He bought that to give to his friend as a thank you for the favour.

What is rum Popo? The brand name for Local rum, with added ingredients, like an egg nog. The lady who made and marketed it was credited with turning around the Belize economy. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rompopeop

Rum 

 As Shakespeare said, all's well that ends well.

The moral of the story, don't leave things until the last minute. 

I had left my back ground to the last minute. I hastily looked for a suitable picture to load up. I found one of myself with Christmas crackers.

Then I found a picture showing the candles for all eight nights of Hanukah with an increasing number of candles. The last night, number eight, is on Boxing Day, December 26th.

Christmas and Hannukah backgrounds for the International online Toastmasters meeting on Friday Dec 23rd.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rompope

https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club

Where to See Weird and Wonderful Hundertwasserhaus House, The Dancing House, and Other Offbeat Quixotic Buildings

 

Hundertwasserhaus, Vienna, Austria

Hundertwasserhaus, Vienna, Austria

Interior

Interior. 

Where can you see the weird and wonderful Hundertwasserhaus houses?

There's one in Vienna, capital of Austria. And the Quixote winery in California, USA. 

Hundert is German for hundred which is a translation of the architect's name in a Slavic language (the word for hundred is sto). He hated straight lines. He loved bright colours.

It looks pink but it is the green citadel.

Hunderthaus Plochingen

Hundertwasser kirche. Kirche means church. The K is pronounced k, like the Scottish Kirk for church.

Kunst haus means art house or art gallery.

Ronald McDonald Haus. (Haus is German for house, and pronounced the same way.)

Uelzen Station.

USA

Starting in the USA, there's the Hundertwasser designed Quixote Winery.

The first weird building I saw was in the USA, was on holiday in New York when I was a student and I visited the spiral Guggenheim art Gallery, commissioned by the millionaire Gugenheim family. I had read Peggy Guggenheim's biography. Her ancestor went down on the Titanic. She inherited the family fortune and became a patron of the arts.   

When I lived in the USA we went to see Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright. Expect the unexpected. The building is not looking at the waterfall but built over it, with water underneath making a paddling pool where you could sit with your feet in the water.

 Now, next on my list is the Quixote Winery in California. Mr Hunderwasser  is the architect. I am sure it is quixotic.

EUROPE: Austria, the Czech Republic and Spain

Over in Europe there's a Hundertwasserhaus in Vienna, Austria.

We have seen the dancing house.

The Dancing House, Prague, Czech Republic.

Czech Republic

The world's well known weird and wonderful buildings include the Dancing House in Prague, Czech Republic.

We had dinner there. The furniture is equally offbeat. The chair backs were weird shapes. The waiters gave us paper and crayons to create our own works of art.

Spain

In Spain see the hotel Marques de Riscal, which we saw on a side trip from Rioja in the north.  It is named for a famous winemaker Marques de Riscal, which, I believe means the marquess of Riscal. I imagine he commissioned the building as a home or hotel. The designer is Frank Gehry.

Quite a long drive from Rioja, down side roads into a small village in the sides of a valley. Off a side road and just uphill looking down on the village, built into the cliffside, hidden, but huge when you reach the car park. Ofbeat from the get go. Up to the bedroom, along a winding corridor. The door number written in chalk on a slate board, as if they might change the numbers at will. The bath was in the middle of the bedroom. 

See videos and photos of Gaudi's cathedral, and house, in Barcelona, Spain.

AUSTRALIA

In Sydney, see the Sydney Opera House, designed to remind you of a ship's sails.

Useful Websites

Overview with pix of several Hundertwasser buildings.

https://www.touropia.com/hundertwasser-architecture/

https://quixotewinery.com/

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Buildings_by_Friedensreich_Hundertwasser#/media/File:Hundertwasser_Quixote_Entrance.jpg

http://milenaolesinska.blogspot.com/2017/08/friedensreich-hundertwasser.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_House

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, has lived in the UK, USA, Spain and Singapore.

Reading Hebrew Tombstones

 

Popular symbols include:

1 The menorah, seven branch candlestick for the seven days of the week, not to be confused with the larger nine branch candlestick for the eight days of Hanukah plus the candle which lights the others.

2 The Star of David, a star with six points, often two triangles. Muslims call it the seal of Solomon. One theory is that it was derived from an ancient amulet trapping evil in the points. 

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/4474319509042475984/6135780680510583369#oint

Two hands on the tombstone.

Here is the lion on a Jewish tombstone.

Enormously popular tour of the cemetery.

You see the lion on the right.

 Are you interested in a tombstone of an ancestor, a famous person, or the graves in a cemetery on a Jewish tour of a city such as Prague?

In Prague I first became aware of the symbols on tombstones.

The Prague cemetery is the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. You can do a half day or whole day tour taking in the Jewish museum and cemetery.

Symbols include those for the twelve tribes, some of whose names are first names or family names such as Leo or Leve for lion, so you see lions, harts, pourers for oil, hands in prayer. Symbols for the priests (called Cohen) and the assistants (called Levi).

You also see the initial letters in Hebrew for here lies. The letters for a man are different from the letters for a woman.

I have hunted all over the net but this is a simpler version from wiki:

'Some common themes appear on many Jewish tombstones. Two hands with outspread fingers indicated that the dead man was descended from priestly stock (Kohanim) who blessed the people in this fashion, and a jug was carved on the tombstones of the Levites as an emblem of those who washed the priest's hands before he pronounced the blessing.

Some gravestones show a tree with branches either outspread or broken off, symbolizing the death of a young man or an old man respectively; or they have a cluster of grapes as an emblem of Israel.

The Star of David (Magen David) occurs frequently.

Sometimes figures symbolized the name of the deceased, as the figure of a lion for Loeb, a wolf for Benjamin, and a rose for the name Bluma/Blume.'

Ashkenazi (German and north European) tombstones are upright. Sephardi (Spanish and southern European countries) tombstones are flat.

Useful Websites

https://www.jewishgen.org/infoFiles/tombstones.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_language

About Angela The Author

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President  Public Relations, Immediate Past President.

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

Garen Tee on using story telling in business, on bha.learncool.sg . 

Recent meetings of BHA included an educational session on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, always first Wednesday evening, 7 pm Singapore time. Next meetings 1st Wednesday evening is Wednesday June 2nd at 7pm; and third Saturday afternoon, June 19th 2pm Singapore time.  

Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See next post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

The World's 50 Most Beautiful Cities

Fifty cities - just the right number to do one a year for a lifetime? two a year if you are over fifty.  On a round the world air ticket?

Do you agree with their list?

Paris comes first. French wine and French food add to the enchantment. Yes, I love to return to Paris. 'Je ne regrette rien,' (I don't regret anything) as Edith Piaf sang.


In Europe, London is high up the list.

 Prague sneaks in at the end.

Italy- Venice
Yes, Venice is there.


German flag.

Germany
The Romantic Road has several photo to die for places, but many are tiny villages, Rothenburg, stop, snap, move on.

Belgium
The beautiful city is Bruges. Known for chocolates. And lace. And little bridges over the water.

Poland
If you were to take only the old town of a city, you might have a different list. I would rate old Warsaw which has been rebuilt from paintings. Cracow has a stunning main square, but too small to count as a city.








Switzerland
I loved the cities in Switzerland such as Zurich with its Chagall windows in the cathedral, and also Lucerne with the covered bridge, but you could do them in a weekend, a day if you picked the right day and were fast.



Britain
In England London is definitely a city. But what about Cambridge? You could fill the list with American or British cities alone. But what if you had to pick one city from every country?



The USA
Yes, San Francisco had to be in the list.

What about Canada?
I would hardly call Toronto a beautiful city. I prefer Montreal.

Asia
In Asia I would certainly rate Singapore.






 I choose to live there much of the year. The giant waterfall in the mall next to terminal two at the airport.































The flower filled drive from the airport. Stunning modern architecture. Chinatown, Little India, Gardens by the Bay

Let's just suppose you are compiling a travel agency brochure, or in this case a flight and destination guide.

How do you define a city? By size?

By enough to do for a week's holiday?

What will you do while you are there? In Canada enjoy the maple syrup and bring some back.

In New Zealand and Australia, hunt down some manuka honey.
 In Britain look for marmalade.

Useful Websites
The World's 50 Most Beautiful Cities
Australian Manuka Honey
https://www.comvita.com.au/purest-source/manuka-honey/rangeAU
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81nuka_honey
Singaporeair.com

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

The most Beautiful Synagogue In Europe?

I visited the synagogue in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria. The synagogue is already open, although still undergoing renovation. You can see the columns with gold decoration around the tops, the huge central chandelier, the ceilings painted blue with stars.

Al around are the numerous six point star,s called magen David, or star of David. The six point star is known to Jews as the star of David and Muslims call it the seal of Solomon. The floor also has stars with more points.

The so called museum is at the moment (June 2019) just one case of objects on the left. Join up with another visitor if you don't know what the objects in the case are, but you can read the captions and check up on Google. For instance, there is the curved ram's horn used to blow loudly with great effort during the service of New Year.

It might help you to recall that the seven branch candelabra is for the Sabbath. 

Seven branch menorah in Sofia's synagogue.In Bulgaria.

The festival of lights in the autumn is Hanukah. The eight' branch candlestick', actually a nine branch candlestick, is called a hanukiah.

There is  small entry charge. One case on the wall on the right has items for sale, such as music, and head covering for men in satin look material in bright colours, such as green (kippot in Hebrew).

Keep looking and you keep seeing more intriguing objects. On the floor on the left is a glass panel you can walk on revealing what was discovered underneath, broken pieces of stone with carvings.

I was very impressed with the synagogue. I thought it was the most beautiful I have seen, of those open to the public. Maybe I should get out more.

Sofia Jewish Tour
I took a Jewish Tour, a free walking tour of Sofia. To our surprise the tour did not stop at the synagogue. But you can visit it on your own. We found it with the aid of Google maps on our mobile phones, aided by Tripadvisor.

Synagogue Museums in Europe
Other synagogues to visit in Europe include those made into museums in Amsterdam in The Netherlands and in Prague in the Czech Republic.

About the author
Angela Lansbury, author and speaker. Author of Jewish Travel Guide.

Learn to Recognize Hebrew Letters And Shalom - how and who and why?

What use is Hebrew to a traveller, outside Israel?

Israeli flag

Hebrew appears on buildings in many European buildings, synagogues, gravestones in Jewish cemeteries, labels on kosher food in supermarkets, Jewish or Israeli restaurants in American, London, South Africa. Former Jewish quarters. Jewish museums worldwide. Repurposed buildings. Amost every country of the world.

The lower clock on the Jewish Town Hall building in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, with Hebrew numerals in counterclockwise order

If you can recognise the words Shalom, Kosher, and Israel you are starting to learn the Hebrew alphabet.

A question on the facebook polyglot page was about the word shalom. I replied:

Angela Lansbury Shalom means peace and is a greeting, same as the Arabic salaam, no vowels here. The vowels are written above in Hebrew, looking like diacritics for tones in French and other languages. Reading from the right, as in Arabic, sh, l, silent letter to which you can attach a vowel dot, m.

The Hebrew alphabet was used to create the Greek alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet used by the Russians and with slight variation by the Bulgarians. (The Bulgarians would have it the other way around.)

Who likes to learn Hebrew - and Greek?
Scholars and students of the bible. Priests who want to learn Hebrew and Greek to understand the bible, for Christans the New Testament as well as the Old Testament.

The Hebrew alphabet is also used to write Yiddish, which contains a lot of German words.
The first letter of shalom is Sh. It looks like a W. 

Symbol	Name	Transliteration	IPA	Example
שׁ (right dot)	shin	sh	/ʃ/	shop
שׂ (left dot)	sin	s	/s/	sour

You can learn to recognize Hebrew letters on

Useful Websites
Free website learning course
duolingo.com

Conversation and lessons with speakers of the language
Fee 
italki.com

https://www.facebook.com/groups/polygotcommunity/?multi_permalinks=2317929445092481&notif_id=1560233138126677&notif_t=group_highlights

italki.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, atuhor and speaker. teacher of English and other languages. if you want a lesson to get started in any language just contact me in person in Singapore or the UK, or online.

How to cater for kosher guests and hosts

You will find Jewish and kosher places in America, the UK, Australia, Singapore. After I spoke about Jewish weddings on a radio station in London, I said that I was a travel writer and was asked to go back and talk about sites connected with Anne Frank. First Holland, then Germany, Poland, the USA. 

The USA has Jewish connections in history and modern times.

Then Jewish Prague. I discovered there were Jewish trails all over the world, with shops, and restaurants. 

I went to visit a family who were housewarming in Hendon, London, not London, Canada, but London, UK, who had guests who were kosher. I did not know what to take for tea but decided it was safer to take flowers rather than food or drink. I was right.

Guests and Kosher Food
The guests brought home made cakes and fruit as a gift. They also had a challah cover (bread cover for the Sabbath meal) embroidered with the names of the engaged couple. They must have ordered that earlier.

Guests and Kosher Drink
The hostess out of consideration for guestss had a bottle of kosher Prosecco.

I asked the hostess, "Where did you get that?"

She replied, "I don't know where it's from. But lots of shops around here sell kosher food and drinks. All over Hendon and Golders Green and Temple Fortune."

Even shops with non-Jewish owners and staff stock a large amount of kosher and Halal produce. In London, Tesco does.  You can also buy on line.

Another solution is to use paper plates and new or disposable cutlery for guest who are kosher or halal or vegetarian.

If you are looking for a gift, you can buy online or from shops in London, England (which may have restricted opening hours), and Israel.

Landlords And Tenants
As a landlady I was asked by Hindu residents to supply only new or unused plates. I just rushed along to the supermarket and bought a set of four of everything, brand new, cheaply, on offer.

In-Laws
You might have to visit in-laws with dietary restrictions, or cater to visitors from overseas. A friend of mine who was Christian (Catholic) married to a Hindu,

In Singapore I went to a Toastmasters International meeting at the annexe of a Hindu temple. Hindu temples are in many areas of Singapore.

Singapore flag. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

We had a discussion about what ingredients we could use for a cake. Not just vegetarian, banning meat, but the stricter vegan rules banning milk products such as milk and butter, as well as eggs.

Anything connected with lard from pork or beef fat, or meat products, was banned. But since the temple used milk in offerings, it was decided that milk would be permitted.

For many years I had been in a puzzle over this. Really, the simplest solution is to just ask. People are usually delighted to tell you whether they need something special, or if they are more liberal, that you need not bother.

Kosher Gifts
You can buy a tee-shirt with the slogan 100% kosher from Amazon.
I fell about laughing when I saw a shabbos toothbrush.

https://www.amazon.co.uk (slogan 100% kosher teeshirt)
https://www.lehmanns.co.uk/shabbos-toothbrush
http://www.contemporaryjudaica.co.uk


www.lonelyplanet.com/Australia
https://new.goisrael.com/
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com
visittheusa.co.uk
visitsingapore.com
visitlondon.com

Author
Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer. Please share links to your favourite posts.

What To See in Dusseldorf, Germany: Gehry buildings, and Goethe Museum

Here's Germany. There's a lot of it.

Germany. Ja. (German for yes.) A chance to practise my German.

Problem
Should I go to the ProWein event in Dusseldorf? Wein is German for wine. Any point in combining business with pleasure? Should I extend my stay beyond the event? What is there to see in Dusseldorf? I have about a year to make up my mind.

ProWine / ProWein
Germany (Düsseldorf) - 17-19 Mar 2019. The great advantage of ProWein in German is that I like German wines. From the popular Liebraumilch of Britain in the 1960s to the more expensive Icewines.

It's a pity that the ProWein event is not in the autumn, because a big parade and celebration is in November.

However, regardless of the time of year of my visit, I can instantly select my top three places to see in Dusseldorf:

1 Goethe Museum.
(I think there's another Goethe museum in Nuremberg, but we had just half a day there and it went on the main museum about the more recent WWII history.)

2 The landmark Gehry building.
Twisted towers. I have seen two Gehry buildings. My favourite is the Dancing House in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. The building is also a wonderful restaurant. It embodies the twisted tower concept. The Dusseldorf building features another twisted tower effect.
The other one was the Guggenheim museum in Spain. This had the twisted roof concept.

Building designed by architect Gehry in Düsseldorf, German.

3 Cartwheel Fountain
Now cartwheeling is unusual. One story goes that a bride riding to her wedding was feeling despondent, until she saw people doing cartwheels and they made her smile.
Nobody else, no other city, has cartwheeling as a theme for fountains and buildings.

A statue of a bride appears on a pillar. Statues of people on pillars are scattered through the city.

Famous People From Dusseldorf
1 Heinrich Heine who wrote the songs and poems beloved of the German people. The university is named after him.
2 The inventor of an ingenious language of symbols, easy to learn by handicapped children.It's simpler than sound languaged, and has simpler descriptions of the parts. Instead of verbs it has action words.

Düseldorf's Food Factory Shop Visit
Go the mustard factory shop and you can taste their strong mustard. It's not all strong, savoury stuff. Flavours include strawberry.

Learning German
If you are considering going to ProWein, or going to Germany in 2019, you have a year to advance your understanding of German. I did the Duolingo free online German course.

Useful websites

http://www.antor.com/members/germany (Tourist boards)

Their website teacheds you: Gute Reise! (Have a good trip!)

www.germany.travel

wikitravel dusseldorf

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Düsseldorf

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Seeking more information about everyday items, and about unusual places. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Kinetic (moving) Kafka sculptures in Prague, Czech Republic and Charlotte, N Carolina USA

Kafka moving statue, by artist David Černy, photo by Jindrich Nosek (NoJin) from Wikipedia.

I have my own photo of this somewhere. But I have taken so many pictures that I have exceeded the capacity of my laptop and had to remove the older ones to make room for new ones. 

Problems
What can you see and do for free in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic?

Is everything old? The hilltop castle is old. The Charles bridge leading to it is full of old sculptures. I love seeing historic things. But eventually a feeling of unease takes over, as if I am watching another era, looking at long-dead photos and sculptures created by long-dead people, not living now but living in the past.

Answers
Modern sculpture, even if the subject is old, helps you feel you are seeing a modern, living city, and supporting current culture.

Useful Website
You tube video of kinetic head of Kafka, each horizontal layer moving to create a changing vision of a giant head. Particularly suitable for a depiction of Kafka, as he wrote about Metamorphosis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc39FFMIzK4

Would you believe, another version is in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. Amusingly named Metalmorphosis.

Wiki says:

METALmorphosis is a large (7 metre, 13 tonne) kinetic sculpture of a human head, by Czech artist David Cerný. The sculpture is in the Whitehall Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, where it sits in a large reflecting pool.

The piece is executed in polished stainless steel. The sculpture is made of 40 layers articulated into 7 pieces that can rotate individually. Originally, the sculpture could spout water from the head's mouth.

A later and larger work, Head of Franz Kafka (Czech: Hlava Franze Kafky), a bust of Franz Kafka made of 45 tonnes of steel, is in Prague.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photogrpaher, researcher, author, speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.