December 5th and it's Sinterklass or St. Nick's Day. Also Happy Anniversary to my in-laws Betty and Charlie! So being little devils (see below), Gary and I skipped the last scientific session of the day and caught the arrival of St. Nick instead. We managed to get a good perch at one of the side bridges of the three bridges leading into the main square (Prešeren Square - named after the famous poet whose birthday of December 3 is a national cultural day with most museums free), and camped there expecting a massive Macy's style parade. Probably should've clued in that Prešeren Square is pretty tiny and therefore doesn't leave much space for floats to congregate, but we still somehow became massively surprised when there was exactly ONE float and it was St. Nick himself!
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| Good Old St. Nick |
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| Prešeren Square, with St. Nick towing along a children's choir dressed in white. |
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| Things are of infinitely smaller scale here in Europe than in North America. Besides the one-float parade, the choir did all of two short carols and that was it (one was Jingle Bells), as in the entire parade and concert! The entire thing lasted less than 45 minutes! |
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| Aside from the choir, St. Nick was accompanied by a troupe of devils, who handed out clementines to the children in the crowd afterwards. I managed to get a picture of one such devil, along with that dude in the red suit... |
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| My artistic shot of Prešeren Square. Looks like all these phasers or blasters beams hurtling towards the building. Achieved this effect by setting to a 1/2" shutter speed and zooming in slightly during the long exposure. Thanks to Peter Ferguson from the Welland Camera Club for the inspiration! |
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