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nyepi: a quiet new year
while i was at iceland airwaves, i managed to catch ólafur arnalds’ much-buzzed-about set on the first day at kex hostel in reykjavik, and he played a beautiful song called nyepi. while i enjoyed the song, the message behind it made much more of an impression on me: nyepi is the balinese new year’s “day of silence”. (have you heard of it?) arnalds explained that he lives there much of the year and had recently participated in this day of silence in which the city actually turns off the internet, no electricity is used, no travelling is permitted, no work, nor music or loud noises, and people generally just sit…
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year of life & travels: 2018
it feels cliché to start with “it’s been a year for the books”, but it’s true. 2018 has been my favorite year abroad since 2012, the year we started our adventure and moved to the czech republic. i touched on a few reasons why i thought that in a previous post but it’s mostly due to progress: progress with feeling at home here and building a life, huge progress in communication and language learning, and some of the best trips and memories to date. i feel like this is the year that living here, despite the trials we’ve gone through, has really clicked for us. all things coming together and…
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a simpler sort of christmas
hello all, i hope you have had a magical christmas wherever in the world you celebrated it, if you are in fact celebrating, that is. once again, we had a truly czech christmas here in budejovice. normally we get almost two full weeks of holiday for christmas, and we opted to stay put this year mostly because 1) iceland, which i felt was almost like a christmas in and of itself, but also 2) our visa issues (from receiving it to reapplying for our next) making us a bit lighter in the wallet this time of year. but no matter, we had decided to fully embrace a simpler sort of…
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imagine peace on viðey island
as one of the main reasons we went to iceland was to celebrate my mother’s birthday as a family (which luckily happened to be directly after iceland airwaves ended), i started thinking of something memorable we could do together. one of the first thoughts that came to mind was a day trip to viðey island. you may remember how much i like tiny islands? having been to flatey (which is only just a tad bigger) in the west fjords on my last trip, two years before. it is really not often talked about, but there there are a handful of tiny islands in the kollafjörður bay (of which viðey is…
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november, lately
hello all,happy thanksgiving week! it started snowing sunday night and there was a blanket of snow on the ground by monday morning – and still snowing (despite what the photo above from a lovely day last month shows!). i really got in a more wintery mood in iceland as there were no leaves on the trees anymore and festive decorations all over the main streets, but there is absolutely nothing like a blanket of snow on a monday morning to get your week going! (if you like snow, that is) since coming back from my trip, i’ve just felt like there are endless things to do – catching up on…
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airwaves glory days
i just had one of the best weeks of my life in iceland. now, i don’t want to get this crooked: it’s not because iceland “the vision”, magical fairytale place you hear mentioned all the time these days. reykjavik is a cold, dark (in the winter), windy place. it’s sprawling as all get out. it’s not always picture-perfect colorful buildings. even so, i have ended up falling in love with this city and country whose culture and music i so revere– that icy, treeless grassy nordic island. that’s what this ‘best week’ business is about. it’s also chalked up to the festival of my dreams (iceland airwaves – an annual mostly icelandic…
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a (near) perfect foggy autumnal prague day
i always think the question of “your perfect day” is an interesting one. what would a perfect free day in the big city look like for you? i think about this a lot, especially when i have limited time in a place. we decided to pop up to prague for a one night getaway (dog in tow) about a week ago for the public holiday. actually, celebrating a century since the foundation of czechoslovakia in 1918! pretty cool to be in the capital for this momentous day, even though the weather was so awful we didn’t even want to bother with the firework show. i awoke at a pleasant hour…
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october, lately + bake off update
hi guys. it’s been a strange start to the school year this time around. i’ve had a few work switcheroos and cancelled lessons throwing me for a loop – not exactly the kind of thing you want to have happen a month or so before you go on a big trip. ohhh, did i mention i was going on a trip next month? more perceptive readers will know i tend to post my travel plans on this page as soon as i’ve scheduled them, but i haven’t yet got a chance to mention that next month, one of my biggest travel dreams is going to come true. one that i…
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in berlin: teufelsberg
have you ever heard about a place that so captures your interest and imagination that you end up thinking about it all the time and even dreaming about it? that’s how teufelsberg in berlin was for me for years (similar to seljavallalaug, which i finally went to in 2016!) and as today’s beautiful, crisp sunny autumn weather seemed like a perfect sort of day to go to grünewald (the large swath of forest to the southwest of the city where teufelsberg is located), i thought of it today. and writing about it. but you might be wondering – what is teufelsberg? those who don’t have a knowledge of german language…
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august in berlin, week two
happy september (aka “back to hogwarts” day), friends! i am relishing this anything-but-lazy saturday morning, planning to tidy a bit, do my first bake along with this year’s great british bake off which just started this week, and finally, some work continuing my german studies. in order to finish the current textbook i’m revising and working through by the time i start again with my lessons, i’ve calculated i have to do one textbook unit every three days… challenge accepted! so it is “back to books” a bit this month for me. anyone else going “back to school” somehow? continuing speaking about august in berlin experience – catch up on week one here.week…
