The Santa Run

It's that time of the year again! Yesterday, over 1700 Santas arrived in Toruń to take part in the annual Santa half marathon. The 21km run started in the main square before heading up Szosa Chelminska through Barbarka forest and finishing at the local athletics stadium.

A friend of mine - Howard Marshall flew in especially from the UK to take part in the marathon. He was raising money for the UK educational charity The Rendezvous Society and also did it in commemoration of Dennis Mitchell - the charity's founder who died last year.

Well done Howard!

As some of our TDP readers may recall, back in December Howard Marshall travelled over to Toruń to take part in the Santa Claus Half Marathon. He managed to raise 500GBP for the UK charity Global Footsteps.

You can read our coverage of his visit to Toruń here:

http://torundailyphoto.blogspot.com/2009/12/santa-half-marathon.html

http://torundailyphoto.blogspot.com/2009/12/santas-in-town.html

Here he is a couple of weeks ago presenting the cheque. Global Footsteps is an educational charity which aims to foster inter-cultural relations between linked communities. It is based in Cheltenham, UK which is twinned with Gottingen, Germany which itself is twinned with Toruń!

You can read more about Global Footsteps at www.global-footsteps.org .

On Thin Ice!

Yesterday, the sun was shining and the skies were clear and blue. So, I decided to take Howard for a brisk walk on the other side of the River Vistula to see the ruins of a Teutonic castle...but we never made it!

We started walking down what we thought was a natural path. As we walked further and further...we started to notice cracked ice and water all around us. We soon realised that we weren't actually standing on a natural path...but rather a natural tributary of the River Vistula!! With the sun shining and the ice melting...we decided not to hang around too long!

Sex Sells

In the UK, you would never have a large public banner advertising a local sex shop. Though of course you can find many sleazy sex adverts hidden away amonst the pages of glossy UK magazines.

Here our friend Howard, who recently popped over from the UK, points out a local Toruń sex advert.