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the first day
yesterday the three year anniversary of living here in české budějovice, a small city in southwest czech republic. like the country of the czech republic, i realize i have a lot of milestones. i acknowledge each new year in europe, each year in the czech republic, and each year in the city, which are all different dates and in different seasons. but this one resonates with me particularly in terms of expat life and the success of our time living abroad. all of the snow we’ve been having really brings me back to the day we arrived: thursday, january 24th, 2013. i’ve already written about being picked up at the…
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winter, unplugged
temperatures here in southwestern czech republic have hit probably the lowest that i can remember since we moved here. three years ago living in prague, i remember some cooooold temps but it is rare that i am experiencing 2ºF/ -16ºC like it was this morning! i could hardly believe it. i’m from a place where it snows about once a year and that snow is duly celebrated, and then the next day or day after next, it all melts away. so imagine my happiness at a full week of snow– such a strange but welcome phenomenon! starting on the very first moments of the new year, it snowed and has…
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kitchens around the world
(add your kitchen to the list! more info at the end of the post) it’s been a quiet, sunny, winter week here. so uneventful that i was scrolling through photos i took last year and couldn’t help but notice how many photos i took of kitchens i stayed in. the thing that fascinated me the most about spending time in someone’s house is their kitchen, especially if they are from a different country than me. like most people, i only knew the kitchen in the house where i was raised and there, we do things a certain way. so it’s super interesting to see what others’ kitchens look like and…
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the books of 2015
i read eighteen books in 2015, but it still wasn’t good enough to complete my goodreads goal of twenty books. i was on pace most of the year, but the end of the year really snuck up on me and even with reading obsessively the last few days of the year, i couldn’t pull it off. however, third time’s a charm, the twenty books goal is happening in 2016. i want to cite the excuse that “i was busy”, but it’s true that i did read a lot…. of internet and blogs! i’m hoping to shift that focus more towards books over internet this year. as aziz ansari once said,…
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berlin christmas market rundown!
hey. so i know it’s january, folks are knee-deep in resolutions, self-betterment, and photos to prove you went running. but i have some serious intel about the christmas markets in berlin, seeing as i’d been doing this “research” the week of christmas, that needs to be released on the wild internet or the thought will either wither away in my mind or this post will rot in my drafts folder forever. and technically, the twelve days of christmas are still on ‘til the 6th, yo. so pin it, bookmark it, do whatever it is you gotta do if you want to know the low-down on which berlin christmas markets to visit!…
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a new year
happy new year! this year i didn’t feel much pressure to ring in the new year in any particular style. we went to our friend (and czech teacher’s) house in a nearby village on the afternoon of the thirty-first and had a frosty walk before we made it back to the house for punch, snacks, and chatting. in my memory, i cannot remember trying slivovice before (i know) until that day and i quite liked it. after many drinks and coming back home at a reasonable hour, i just couldn’t summon the ire to go out “on the town”, and even better that we could see loads of fireworks from…
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berlin christmas
i had my first christmas in the city this year, in berlin. and it was weird… but not in a bad way. (i am not counting the time we lived in prague because we were residents then, not there as tourists) when you’re in the big city for christmas and you don’t live there, especially when you live in a smaller city for the rest of the year, and especially when that city is your FAVORITE city, there is no time for rest. it’s time to do and eat all the things. so, then… is it really christmas? (do they know it’s christmas?) that can make for a very tired…
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a year of travels: 2015
oh man, you guys, this year. it was one of the best. although i managed to pack a ton of travels in the second half of 2015, the first half was alllll about that local travel while saving up my korunas to come back to the states for the wedding. i am feeling just so grateful with the travel opportunities that have popped up and looking forward to what might come in the new year! but first, let’s take a look at 2015 as it was… not much happened in january after the aftermath of our our austrian christmas, but we managed to make a few day trips and a…
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melding traditions
the other day, my student asked me in the middle of a class, “so if you celebrate the holidays here, do you participate in czech or american traditions?” (cut to a dream sequence) hmmmm, that’s an interesting one! it’s now my fourth holiday season here (and my first married christmas!) in the czech republic and i do love adapting to different christmas traditions, much like a sponge. (below, large shoe box full of cookies we were famously gifted in 2013) czech christmas cookies? this is an easy one to adapt to! particularly the linecký and the rohlíčky! it is so common in the czech republic for babičkas and maminkas to…
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home vibes
the dark days have me wanting to be surrounded by blankets, flannels and slippers. i actually totally forgot i had slippers (you might remember my post about them earlier this year when i gave a pair away!) and a big smile came across my face– “I HAVE SLIPPERS!” sure enough, at the back of my closet shoved away, there they were. when you forget you own things, it’s like second christmas. (further proof that i am settling into life here more and more) loads of tea lights and advent candles a glowin’ nightly… so much darkness has caused me to retreat to bed wayyy too early a couple nights this…
