WWII Week: Poland

Alright, I'm going to try and get a second blog in before tonight's dinner is ready (it's looking amazing!), so we're on to Poland. 

Poland made it into WWII week because it was the invasion of Poland which set off WWII. It's also the site of the most notorious concentration camp of them all, Auschwitz. 

All of that was obviously not so fun to share. But, also  if you're talking World War II and Poland, you get to talk about Wotjek the bear, the only bear to ever serve as a solider. Yes, a BEAR. As a solider. How did I never know about this? He was a little Syrian Brown Bear some members of the Polish army found in Iran. He carried ammunition and drank beer! The boys LOVED this story, understandably. And in Poland there's statues of Wotjek. 

You can wikipedia him, or find all kinds of other things about him. But there's a site called 'Badass of the Week', and they wrote a piece on him. Not exactly child friendly language. But it's still awesome. So there's that. 

Our landmark for Poland was the Wieliczka Salt Mine. The mine opened in the 13th century and produced table salt until 2007. Today it's mostly a tourist attraction with statues and elaborate chapels carved out of rock salt by the miners. There's even a reception room. You can totally get married in a salt mine in Poland, and that's kind of cool. 

The boys made their postcards. 

Most of them featured Wotjek, because of course they did. 

But Peyton made note of Copernicus. Apparently the first guy to determine the whole universe doesn't revolve around the earth was Polish. 

Hayden noted the history of war in Poland, always seemingly in the middle of things. (They smack dab in the middle of Europe). 

So, we had a lunch planned for Poland, since Asa was in the office. But it got pushed back, and then I learned about Polish Easter baskets. You can check out what goes into a traditional Polish Easter Basket here, but they put the whole thing together on Holy Saturday, take it to church to be blessed and then eat the food on Easter Sunday. 

We put our basket together on Saturday night, complete with all the items listed (we didn't have butter shaped like a lamb, but we did have a cake shaped like one, so that counts!) 

For Easter lunch we put out all the food and a few other odds and ends we had left around and called it our Polish meal. Of course we do still have pierogies in the freezer we'll have to get to sometime, but it works! 

Everyone liked this lunch, so even though no spoons were needed, we're giving in five spoons up! 

It might be a new Easter tradition. It worked better than our normal bunny pancakes, because everyone could pick off of it all afternoon when they were hungry. (You know after eating all that candy). 

Calib colored in Poland in a light green color. 

Next Up: France