march, lately – Adventurings

001. a rain-soaked main square
002. vincentka. czech mineral water and apparent secret cure of everything that ails you
003. prague’s beautiful art noveau obecní dům
004. finding this mural of the main square in an empty lot!
005. my favorite nábřeží (quay) reminds me a bit of paris
006. doubling down on denim for george harrison’s birthday
007. we’ve passed the hundred day mark! (on our new tea cup chalkboard)
008. my winter reading-nook
009. alex is locally published! (in cz/en budejovice rag, milk & honey)

and some march thoughts!

// czech republic, like most of the european continent experienced beautiful sunny 13 degree temperatures during the weekend! this has inspired me to plant some herbs (finally!) in the kitchen and am planning a planter box to put out on the balcony in a few weeks. why i’ve picked the spring/summer i go to the united states to finally plant flowers makes little sense… but i miss gardening and i couldn’t wait any longer!

// we are deeply pondering dog ownership over here in budějovice, no doubt fueled by one of our regular wine-soaked discussions about becoming dog owners, perhaps later in the year or early next year. it would be a big change and we’d have to rethink how we travel but it’s something i’ve really been chewing on lately.

// although alex is dealing with a foot injury, we’ve been trying to get back into walking shape again in preparation for a our big hiking holiday next month. even a 6.5km walk north along the vltava river on sunday sort of took the wind out of my sails! i guess that is bound to happen after a winter of hibernating.

// in german class, it’s become time to finally stop ignoring the fact that i don’t really understand cases (accusative and dative, specifically) and how and why i should use their various pronouns. my lehrerin has been saying like, “ach, poor cynthia! this must be so horrible for you, because in czech we have seven cases so we understand them!” and it’s really all i can take. so, i found these excellent youtube podcasts that have been soextremelyhelpful with understanding this wretched grammar… and now it’s not so wretched anymore. i would highly recommend a watch if you struggle with this too!

// on the topic of german class, i totally shushed someone last week with a stern “bitte”. but how can i learn with two people talking on top of each other? (feeling sort of guilty) there was probably a nicer way to do this.

// on the film front, still plowing through the last of the oscar nominees on our sunday movie night with: two days, one night (skip unless you love marion cotillard), wild (really good adaptation), selma (a powerful must see), and leviathan (russian; beautiful but depressing).

// was feeling really antsy on saturday so i persuaded alex to come out to a ska-punk show at velbloud with me, which turned out to be crawling with skinheads. this didn’t bother me at all until i started getting weird vibes from the opener band and alex swore he saw two dudes doing a nazi-style eagle salute and a couple other hand signs of this nature. i never had a problem with skinheads because every faction of the scene has their own beliefs and the movement was never originally rooted in fascism and white-power, but it did make both of us very uncomfortable after awhile to be there.

// switching to a much more veg-heavy diet with the coming of spring and after a brief fall off the healthy wagon which i can try to blame on a combination of brryndzové halušky

(slovak cuisine week!) and making amanda’s m&m blondies twice in three weeks. (but they are so delicious!)

// my beloved ihome speaker that i had listed as “one of my favorite things i brought to europe” has sadly burned out after 2.5 years of heavy usage, but an identical new one is on the way from amazon.de. i have to admit that i was not aware they even shipped to the czech republic so i’m in a really good mood about it. i swear by this product, but i want to know: how do you listen to music (out loud) while traveling or living abroad?