Centaurs, Communism and Skating at Easter

A late update, but we went to Prague in March. This is great timing because they had Easter markets, and here we are trying the local delicacies.

We were there for the figure skating word championships.

It was fantastic, but our pictures look mostly like this.

So let's focus on more fun stuff! We went to the Museum of Communism and here is Barry with Marx.

I think you have to be serious in the Museum of Communism, like this.

Communists made mosaics, which in this case resemble some pandemic paint by numbers.

In addition to communism, the statues (Atlantes) seemed to suffer many burdens.

There was a lot of sculptural suffering.

This guy is trying to feed a pill to a cat, and I know how he feels.

Here are Barry and Andrew posting in a fancy doorway, as you do.

We went to the library, and it was beauteous.

But the only book we were allowed to see was this one? It seems to be labelling the anatomical and other parts of a rather short centaur.

Here are some pictures of Czech historic figures, many of whom supported their pious celibacy with bad haircuts.

To take a break from the heavy culture and history, I took Barry and Andrew to a miniatures museum.

This is what they thought of that.

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Fun with Lubes and Tubes

Look, here is Barry with a big green tank!

We visited the former Lube Blending plant in Woodlands, northern Singapore. Isn't it industrial chic?

(It will soon be safely demolished, don't worry.)

According to our (non-oil expert) guides, the tanks were painted green so as to not offend the Sultan of Johor. It's best not to offend sultans, I guess.

So you gotta mix the oils from the tubes correctly to make the lubes. One of them is called Osmanthus, but not related to the flower.

There's a lotta tubes. Unsurprisingly, this system has been replaced with computers and automation.

Vacant plants are fun! We pressed buttons.

You can see that Barry is sick with power.

We couldn't fix the internet though.

No containers showed up.

Despite the obvious temptation, we followed the signs to not randomly get into the tanks and suffer from fumes because that would be embarrassing.

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The Lithuanian Hill of Crosses is a thing

In Lithuania there is a place called the Hill of Crosses.It is where you go and plant a cross in any style you like. I chose none.

This started in the 1800s, and continued partly (mainly?) as a peaceful protest against ongoing unwelcome regimes.

You have to plant your cross carefully so that it doesn't fall down. I assume some people use cement but I only saw a few people and a couple of monks, who are also people, but no cement.

You get to pick your cross style, such as fancy metal, airplane, orthodox cross with the circle to represent the sunshine.Tree Jesus, crosses made with old parts, boring small crosses. There are an estimated 500,000 crosses, and I saw all of them!

Some of the crosses have some great carving action.

But it can get quite messy.

I prefer the totem pole style cross, personally, and I think cross planters should embrace more colours.

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Cabbage and Old Believers

The prettiest church I saw in Riga belonged to the Old Believers. These are the oldest of old school Russians, who are not keen to move on beyond the 1600s.

The inside of the church was fun and colourful.

Russian biblical family portraits get crowded and bumpy because of all the halos.

They like their icon pictures. They like wearing robes and long beards. Speaking of robes, I went to see the old city walls and found this guy, who would be terrifying at night.

The food in Latvia was delicious but not the most photogenic.

Lots of smoked fish and delicious cabbage dishes. You don't wanna see pictures of cabbage.

Smoked fish remoulade. Ugly yums.

Paired with unusual liquor such as this totally cherry bar, which is actually Ukrainian.

For dessert there is lots of halwa in fun flavours

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