spring has arrived?

above, facades of buildings of lannova trida, ĉeské budějovice– or “budweis”– the german/more international version everyone calls it when speaking in english.

life is good here– alex celebrated a birthday last weekend and we celebrated in true low-key alex fashion: talking a walk, doing whatever at home, going out to a nice czech dinner, and watching a movie he loves (the professional). unfortunately the next morning i came up with an unfortunate bout of mild food poisoning so the past few days have been getting back to normal for me. (coulda been worse, but i’m pretty sure i have a stomach of STEEL) below, one of alex’s all-british birthday gifts…

the unofficial arrival of spring came on monday, when temps rose into the 50’s!!! no more snow, i think. i spotted the first blossoms in na sadech park! sun, some spring rain, and we’re looking at hitting 60 F on sunday. many czechs are saying this is the longest winter in over a hundred years. not necessarily the coldest, just never ending.

and speaking of the czechs, we’ve determined they are an all-right people! when you come to czech republic, you will undoubtedly discover a phenomenon that we call “the prague metro face”– most often seen in older, scowling czech ladies with terrible haircuts on the buses, metros, or trams. why do they look so angry? what are they scowling about? are their faces frozen like that? attributed perhaps to a communist past? it’s a definite thing you see all over the country.

this isn’t the greatest first impression, but coming to budějovice we have met many more czechs: our students, bosses, and landlords. and everyone is so dang nice and welcoming. alex and i laugh about the fact that no less than like seven people have offered us their bicycles to use for the time we are here. and just yesterday, three different czechs have instructed me (unasked, might i add) about all the great day trips to take from budějovice.  and everyone has the same opinion that the one hundred billion CZK tourist boat project in CB is silly and a waste of money.

looking forward to spring and exploring south bohemia in the near future! oh, and friends if you’re reading this and we haven’t talked for awhile…. drop me a line and say hi.  it can be a little lonely sometimes across the atlantic in a strange former slovak republic where nobody speaks english.