I’VE MOVED….

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www.thebigfatworld.com

see not that hard!!

Stalin is my BFF: Statue Park (Hungary)

Where did all the communist tributes to the masters and people of the Soviet Empire go after the wall? Statue Park outside of Budapest of course. This is a treasure trove of Communist past. You can see all the movers and shakers of a fallen era, including the ubiquitous Stalin and Lenin. Don’t forget to snap a picture of you in a Trabant and visit the gift shop before leaving. I picked up a coffee cup with the immortal and very accurate words:
Wake Up! Drink Coffee! Work for State!

Yipee, Communism is the Super

Raise your hands if you love Communism

Lenin, such a dreamboat

Life in East Berlin Museum

One of the best museums to give you the daily duties of a young East Berliner during the cold war is the DDR museum, located on Museum Island in Berlin. They jammed every aspect of life into this site so visitors can see a replica of East Berlin apartment, common foods, social life, music, tv (in the capacity it existed), videos showing how the uniform apartment blocks were constructed in something like 69 days. Of course, you can see East Berlin’s most famous engineering marvel and export, the Trabant.

East Berlin replica flat

DDR washing powder

Grocery shopping in DDR

http://www.ddr-museum.de/en/

Top 10 things to do in Poland

Poland is a country between a rock and a hard place and has suffered terribly for this geographical inferiority. With the signs of communism slowly fading, there are a variety things one must see, smell, hear, say, and taste while passing through. Here is my top 10 list.

1. Visit Krakow market square

2. See Warsaw rising museum in Warsaw. Great museum about the Polish revolt against the Nazis in 1944.

3. Learn the word Prosze (pr: Pro shay) It means please, thank you, that one, this one, excuse me- a real Swiss army knife of a word

4. Have a refreshing pint of Zywiec, the national beer of Poland

5. Go to the coastal town of Hel (pronounced the same) up in the North near Gdansk; So you can saw you’ve been to Hel and back

6. Eat pirogies russkie (potato,onion filled)

7. Visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps; a sobering experience you will never forget

8. Go see the Black Madonna in Czestochowa, the most sacred place in Poland

9. Try the cherry liquor  Wisniowka (pr: Vish- Novka) after dinner.

10. Take in the scents, sounds, and views of the many bright yellow rape seed fields all along the country side.

Vietnam is Communist?

Well, Vietnam is not considered one of the axis of evils but this booming country is still ruled by communist powers. While not to the extent of its communist cousins like North Korea or Cuba, Vietnam’s communist evidence isn’t hard to find, if you keep an eye open for the beloved Ho Chi Minh.

Hmm, could this be a communist propaganda statue?

Ho Chi who?

Hammer and Sickles are dead give aways

No not Ho Chi but a Vietnam Vet look alike on top of Rex Bar in Saigon

Poland and the Opression of Past

Poland is a cultural landscape of past and present. The most alarming signs of the recent past are most evident in it’s capital city Warsaw. Smack in the middle of the center city is the palace of Culture and Science, a monstrosity of a building given to the Polish people by the benevolent Stalin.

Palace of Science and Culture

Another homage to that time is the Warsaw Rising Museum, a beautiful assortment of videos, pictures and artifacts showing the uprising to the Nazi occupation of Warsaw in 1944. A MUST SEE for any Warsaw visitor.

Warsaw also had one of the largest Jewish ghetto’s in all of Europe and little evidence of that remains, except the map of the original ghetto walls and 1 slab of wall. I believe you can find this last remaining wall hidden within a courtyard of an apartment building. All major guidebooks tell you how to locate it. If you look closely at the picture, you can see the Science and Culture Bldg in background.

Original Jewish Ghetto Wall

Adios Mio!

Don’t forget your rosaries and holy water when you get to San Pedro, Guatemala nestled in beautiful Lake Atitlan. Evidence of the Creator and son are ubiquitous in this local enclave. If you don’t beleive me, check out these photos.

God Loves Me

Jesus, the only hope for you!

Jesus likes El Caminos???