Bye Bye Buffalo

If you haven’t ever visited Buffalo New York, you really should.  Not this week as it is bitter cold but go most any other (Chicago is colder and you’d go there…). No really, I mean it! The park system was designed by Olmstead (same guy that sculpted and landscaped Central Park, NYC).  He also designed the grounds around the old mental asylum made from Medina red sandstone built by architect HH Richardson; it will knock your socks off.  Explore the Albright Knox/Burchfield Penney ART Museum area or try ice bicycling on the Erie Canal in downtown (or kayak in the summer). Study Tiffany stain glass windows in our churches, learn the history of making Carrousel horses at the Herschell Museum, or tour one of several Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes in the area.  Niagara Falls is a quick 30 minutes north; try the jet boat ride up the lower rapids in the summer.  Feast at any of the many places Diners, Drive Ins and Dives has visited, eat Lake Effect ice cream, or go to the home of the original chicken wing, the Anchor Bar (some natives like Duff’s better– let me know which you think is best).  Come celebrate Dyngus Day, tour Millionaire Mansion row decked out for the holidays, or sip your way through one of the many pub crawls.

To all of this, our family says a fond farewell.  Our friends here are exceptional.  We will miss you so very much.  The moving van is loading, blowing snow and frigid cold and all.

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Our next adventure begins in the new state of …. well, that’s a post yet to come.

Happy Dyngus Day 2014

If you are polish, live near a large polish population, or just generally live in Buffalo, NY, you’re ready for Dyngus Day.  Smigus-Dyngus (“wet Monday”) is a celebration held on the Monday following Easter in Poland; Polish Americans call it Dyngus Day. Traditionally, boys throw water on girls they like -as well as spank/poke them with pussy willow branches (Monday for the boys and girls do the same on Tuesday).  Here in Buffalo, we are equipped with water guns (no super-soakers please) and buy our branches down at the Broadway Market.  Um.  Along with some delicious pierogies and kielbasa.  The parade/celebration starts at Central Terminal and winds it way through our ethnic Polonia.   …And maybe the after hours include a few pub crawls.  Sometimes it’s through rain, sometimes snow, but today it is 70 and sunny!  It’s finally looking like spring and Buffalo will celebrate with “fests” continuously throughout the spring, summer, and fall. When the nice weather comes, WE ARE READY!

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