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Autumn, Lately
This year hasn’t been a banner year for the old bloggity-blog by any means. It’s hard to write when a) you are doing a million things and this space has frankly taken a back burner, b) there’s too much to put online, or c) somethings that are going on, you wouldn’t want to put online anyway. It’s also dispiriting when your favorite blogs on the interweb have a) gone dark or b) gone behind a paywall. (If you’ve got a cool blog or know of one, holler at me in the comments because I’m out of ideas!) I miss blog reading. Remember the days that everyone would post their daily…
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A Little Post about Olomouc, Czech Republic
We took a little “hello fall” trip at the end of September to Olomouc – a city in the Moravian region of the country (about five hours by train from Budejovice) that has long been on our travel list – a very handy thing to consult when you’re not sure what your next destination will be. A city break made the most sense seeing as the epidemiological situation at the moment wasn’t not bad and just in case it goes sideways again, it would be nice to spend time in a city. Also the fact that it is in a completely different area of the country was exciting – it’s…
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At Summer’s End
Ahoj, friends – what a break it’s been since my last post in July. As you know, I’ve been in the USA for most of that time, only just returning back to the Czech Republic at the beginning of this month. I unexpectedly decided, especially with everything going on, that during that time producing anything was not it and that I really needed to just take it all in. Input instead of output. I do think that we all need time like this at certain parts of the year or even month to not put anything out there and to just listen. Normally around this time of year, I would…
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Das Sommerhaus (Getting to Know Vienna)
So, it’s early June 2021, things are starting to open up, but you don’t feel super comfortable with travel yet (even though you will be fully vaccinated), yet still want to book yourself a nice relaxing holiday without having to jump on an airplane (there will be plenty of that this year). For me, the ideal situation was to visit our neighbors to the south in Austria, only a three hour train ride away and open without restrictions to vaccinated travelers. As we hadn’t (at time of booking) visited a big city since before the pandemic, we were both game to head back to Vienna. Although I went briefly for…
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Summer, Lately + Prague Eats!
You know it’s summer when it’s stormy and the reality TV shows are back on! I wish I could write here more often, and I hope I will, but writing a post takes so, so many hours of editing and perfecting. Maybe I’ll do more but “imperfect” posts? (says the perfectionist) Ah well. July, one of my absolute favorite months is now fully under way and things are in a much better place for us here. Coming out of May was rough (as you might’ve inferred from the title of this post) but the wrapping up of a school year always makes me so happy, as do celebratory post-school-year trips…
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Where to Stay In Prague
You may know that accommodations are now open again all over the Czech Republic – we’ve even had our first overnight stay (in eight months!!) in nearby Český Krumlov last week which was just luscious. In the spirit of the re-opening of travel, I thought I’d put together this list of recommendable hostels and hotels I’ve stayed in on my many stays in Prague, from super budget to splurge plus some details about why you might want to stay in that specific neighborhood, whether it’s your first time in Prague or tenth. HOTELS The Archibald (Kampa Island, Mala Strana, Prague 1) $$$ What I like about the Archibald is that…
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How to Recover From the Complete Mess of the Past Eight Months Now That It’s June
Go outside. Leave your house. Just to practice leaving it, really. To build up your confidence with leaving the house again. It’s going to take some time. Consider the mornings, when there’s not many people. Consider a regular practice of nice evening post-dinner constitutionals in the light. It’s the end of spring and hiking season is here! Plan a hiking or walking trip, even if it’s raining a bit. Maybe even if it’s pouring! Walk through the park and marvel at all of the green. Meet a friend for a socially-distanced coffee as you are almost fully-vaccinated but not quite. This month you’re going to have the first swim of…
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Gardening With What You’ve Got
Having grown up with my backyard an actual forest and spent my childhood playing in streams and in dark woods, I can’t imagine my life without an outdoor component at home. I would move! Since adulthood, I’ve been gardening everywhere I’ve lived in some capacity, although it’s gone through plenty of different iterations. I’m fortunate to have had a balcony for the past 8+ years here in Budejovice, and although north-facingand almost constantly shady, it is perfect on the hot summer days of Central Europe when you can’t stand sizzling in the sun anyway, and I love the light summer evenings, sitting outside with a cup of tea and a…
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My Up and Down (Will it? Won’t it?) Vaccination Week
I have mentioned in what feels like every recent posts that the vaccination roll-out in Europe is sloooooow. In the Czech Republic up until now, it really felt like it could not be worse. Not even did it take until March before I actually heard of people I know getting vaccinated (then, just doctors or the elderly), there were reports left and right about how difficult it was for foreigners to get vaccinated. Whether it was that their foreign-sounding name didn’t fit into the system, or their private health insurance (not the public state insurance that Czechs use) was not an option when registering. I spent March and April in…
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How I Come Alive Again
Hello friends, happy May wishes. Although writing here hasn’t been a priority here lately, you know I’ll always be coming back ’round to this space. We last talked a month ago right after Easter. All month long I was calling April “Second March” or “The Marchiest April Ever” which is nooooot a compliment. March is typically my least favorite month and now I probably will always think about it as “Corona month” – the month when it all started. This end of winter and spring period was really, really tough, especially most of March and April. I had not been in a poorer condition than in the past ten years,…
