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Keep Smiling
A conversation occurred this week (which I mentioned in this Instagram post) in which a certain secondary school-aged class of mine, when asked what they liked about České Budějovice could think of almost nothing, but then finally offered 1) The train station is near the bus station. (this is the case in almost every Czech city ever) 2) There are a lot of things and services here. (in comparison to a small village) And that was literally it. No single teenager in my class likes České Budějovice. This is something which I take with a couple grains of salt, of course because one, they’re teenagers and they don’t like anything,…
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This Festive Season
Sometimes people ask me if I’m going back to the States for Christmas and the answer always seems to be… no. Don’t get me wrong, I deeply enjoy being back in my hometown for the holidays, away from the big city bustle. Every year when we would get on that on-ramp away from Seattle, there was something incredibly peaceful about driving north on I-5 and watching the sprawl slip away. Driving around the island on Christmas Day, Sufjan Stevens‘ album always playing on the car stereo. The white skies, tall evergreens, the sea. Again, I have to use the word peaceful, but a certain, specific peace only this kind of…
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Language Progress + Thoughts on Solo Travel
“That was a really good lesson. I felt like we sort of… are getting it now, you know?” A moment Alex and I shared after our Czech lesson today. We started taking Czech language seriously in autumn 2015 – that means it’s been now over four years of really studying the language. Before that, I had taken a couple classes sporadically the year I first arrived although they didn’t amount to much as I was a total beginner in a class with people who clearly had some sort of grasp on the language and a teacher who couldn’t explain Czech grammar in my native tongue. Four years of serious study!…
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7 Things to Do When You REALLY Miss a Place – Homesickness Cures
I am an expert place-misser and I know many of you can relate! You go around the world and leave your heart in so many places, with many people, and then go back to where you live and just sort of slump around for awhile in those periods of heavy homesickness. And hey, homesickness isn’t just for your hometown. Travelers, wanderers and expats all know that the concept of home is a tad bit more complicated than that. Without a doubt, I believe it can be in another place where you leave your heart and it hurts not to be there sometimes… especially when you’re fresh from a trip to…
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Notes From the Road: Poland
twenty two days is a heck of a length of time to take a trip. woo, boy! certainly our most ambitious to date, save for the time that we were actually vagabonds in late 2012. but this is a different story: fitting in a big summer trip before the school year starts up. the transport: we’ve been mostly taking buses and booking on the road a couple days before. i didn’t anticipate this much bus-riding, as buses tend to make me a bit nauseous. i look forward to train trips when they happen so i can read books and walk around in a generally unrestricted fashion. also, trains are unimpeded…
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Living in Europe, pt II
there’s this weird phenomenon that starts to happen after about a year of living abroad: it becomes harder and harder to imagine returning home. the thought is scarier and scarier…. not only because we still are not confident about where we would work, where we would live, and what we would do…. but because that would also mean leaving life over here. which is pretty great. i mean, gosh! i live in europe! every day i feel lucky to enjoy life here. meeting other expats that have stayed here for years is quite interesting too; to hear their take on living in a small czech city vs. prague vs. the…
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Iceland Uncovered: How My First Ever Trip to Iceland Went
right around new year’s day, 2011 (about a year and a half before this adventure began), i won a sweepstakes contest to win a trip to iceland. i was naturally ecstatic about this development, as i’d been dreaming about the country for years. about two and a half years ago, i went on said trip. however, after my return the photos i took never really surfaced anywhere and weren’t really shown to anyone… because at the time, the trip was not my idea of an ideal vacation. it left a bad taste in my mouth and a chill in my bones. to be fair, there were circumstances unrelated to iceland…
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7 Things to Do When You REALLY Miss a Place – Homesickness Cures
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It’s Not Me, It’s You: The Remnants of my Berlin Dream
i love berlin. everyone who knows me knows this. everyone who knows me and doesn’t know this, should. i first visited in 2006 on a whirlwind month backpacking central europe where it was by far my favorite stop on the trip, made even more fun by the fact that i knew some locals living there at the time (uw german department professors and affiliates) and they really pulled out all the stops to show me a good time. dinner parties, city tours, an evening at a crusty prenzlauer berg bar trying different flavors of berliner weisse– i loved it all. my friends there convinced me to take german language classes…
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Grinda Island
hello! i have returned from sweden yesterday. deciding not to post or really spend that much time online was a conscious decision so i could spend all of my time in the moment. and i am so happy i did! sweden felt very familiar to me– it was friendly, welcoming… and even their word for “hello” is “hej” so it sounds like everyone is greeting you like a friend: “hey!” instead of the formal “dobry den” (good day) that i’m used to here. first i wanted to share about one of my absolute favorite parts of the last eleven days… i stayed in a cozy cabin on a little island called…
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On Loss
it has been a sad weekend here in budejovice. and washington. and michigan for that matter. one of the coolest chicks i’ve ever met, candice bailey, passed away saturday morning in seattle. she had been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer the year before i met her, but you would never know it because of how full of life, energy, and spirit she always was. alex met her in high school and they had been good friends since then (fourteen years!). in 2009, candice (who with her husband had recently bought a fixer-upper house in the madison/capitol hill area) invited alex to move into the basement apartment and help fix…
