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Year of Life & Travels: 2019
Hello all! Hope you had beautiful holidays if you were celebrating! The Czech celebrating period seems to go for about two weeks so I am still enjoying the beautiful downtime, lit candles, all of our decorations and tree – this time is honestly one of my absolute favorites of the whole year, even though Christmas is over. We’ve just had a nice holidays in the Salzkammergut lake region of Austria, not very far at all from Salzburg (but in the smaller villages). I will post about it soon but I wanted to get to the annual and much anticipated (by me, if nobody else) ‘Year in Life and Travels’, 2019…
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Destinations
A directory of all places I have written about since this adventure (and blog) began in 2012, in order of their appearance. Please pardon the mess while all the new links are added! (Check the archives or search in the meantime) glasgow arisaig isle of eigg isle of skye oban farmlands isle of iona & mull isle of islay edinburgh best memories of scotland hello, londonthe bb bakery bus tourbrixtonlondon during the holidaysthe cotswoldshow to get your dog to the UK from the EU two weeks in paris one & two 9 day itinerary what to do in autumn in paris a montmartre story when travel is scary: return from…
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at summer’s end
it’s time for the round-up of that season i hold so dear. watching summer fade at this time every year makes me feel like saying a sad goodbye to a best friend and a “see you next year!” what did you do this summer? i spent the first half in south bohemia, went to karlovy vary at the end of the school year, teaching barely over a week of summer camp, then flying to canada and the united states for the other half. we spent a full month in my home state of washington, over a week in michigan, and even a couple days exploring vancouver. it was just about…
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isles of lavender
happy august! one of the best months, at least for those of us on a teacher’s school year. we saw in july at the karlovy vary film festival and saw it out sitting around a camp fire deep in the woods of western san juan island, washington. this year, we’re spending our august in washington state and a bit of michigan near the end there. it has been such a nice and comfortable transition from prague to vancouver to here on fidalgo island (and many areas around the puget sound) for the next few weeks. a bit of a far cry from my study holiday last august (3+ weeks studying…
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festival magic + my top 5 films seen at this year’s KVIFF
ahoj all, i’ve been in the middle of summer camps (sotiredomg) just wanted to pop in after our annual trip to karlovy vary for the film festival. even if it took me all dang week to finish this post. in case you’re new around here: hi, i’m cynthia and i like to have film festival vacations in beautiful hilly spa towns where we get up at 6am to go stand in box office queues! joking aside, we’re getting into a real routine when it comes to this festival, but the most notable change this year is when we arrived to the box office on thursday shortly after getting in, we bought…
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a year of life & travels: 2017
today is new year’s day and it’s time for a recap of last year! it was another great year of being based in southwestern czech republic, feeling like home both here and back in my home country (and realizing that “home” is just a construct), and going to some magical places. let’s revisit them, shall we? i changed the title of this year’s post to “life & travel” because, as i learned last year, travel isn’t everything and it is also important to capture what else was going on in one’s life. although for this post, it still remains the focal point. (don’t worry) so without further ado…. in january, we…
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at summer’s end
i love the annual tradition of doing these summer’s end posts – i think they’re a great way to catch readers up on what’s been happening lately around here as well as a good time for reflection. normally i would do this post right before the official start of autumn, but let’s face it: autumn has come early this year. last year we were graced by record warm temperatures and a beautiful indian summer (babí léto) which brought with it many september garden parties, beer garden nights, and hikes well into the autumn season. this year, as if like clockwork, autumn graced us on the first day of september –…
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july things
hello all! i’ve been a bit of a summer camp haze for a little while, but i got up today and realized that it is july twentieth and it weirded me out a lot. my favorite month full of all thing summer and fun is flying by! you know what i got up to at the very beginning of the month, in karlovy vary! i spent an uneventful independence day (because, let’s be honest, it’s usually not so much fun abroad unless you’re traveling or at some kind of expat party). although, one of my favorite fourth of julys so far was spent nine years ago in switzerland at a…
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in the heart of the spa triangle
on our way up to karlovy vary for this year’s festival (more to come on that later), we stopped by petite mariánské lázně (marienbad), only a handful of kilometers from the german border where we arrived by an excellent, fast pendolino train. in addition to karlovy vary which we know quite well by now, i consider mariánské lázně to be another town that makes up northwestern czech republic’s famed “spa triangle” (with františkovy lázně making up the third point). i had heard enough about this little town (called one of the most beautiful in the country) to want to make a little stop there… and i was fully dedicated to…
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a year of travels: 2016
2016 was (mostly) all sunshine and rainbows over in these parts: i can’t believe (unlike previous years) that we managed some travel in every single month of the year. it really goes to show what you can find in your own backyard if you embrace it. last january, almost a year from now, we experienced highly frenetic weather: the earlier part with a cold burst of snow (the only of that winter!) and in the latter part, temps around 12ºC, which made day trips to places like třeboň (above) ideal. we dined on “carp fries” at supinka restaurant (the best fish restaurant probably in the country – highly recommended!) and marveled in…
