• Summer

    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…

  • Summer

    SEPTEMBER LATELY (& bake off week 2+3)

    hi friends! some happenings of the past couple of weeks… SELF-STUDY maybe it’s the back to school fervor combined with more time than usual before all my courses start again, but i’ve been positively swept up in a very literary and studious obsession lately. between furiously reading the best book i’ve read in years and trying to finish my german course book from the summer before my lessons begin next week (with a bit of herbal studies sprinkled in when time allowed), september has been very scholarly for me. of course, the amount of language study still can’t compare with doing the intensive course and homework last month, but i’ve still…

  • Summer

    a time and a place

    this time of year always gets me thinking around my time studying in berlin, incidentally, ten years ago. this time of year when it would get dark at four o’clock and the sky would turn from neon-grey to a shroud of black. it was the coldest novembers i have ever lived through. so cold and dark, but i was deeply inspired and knew full well time was of the essence to make the most of my semester. this is my berlin – the short days, the long nights. although the summers are fantastic and are like a prize for making it through the other eight months of the year, cold,…

  • Summer

    november, lately + pumpkin miso soup (recipe)

    i have been having the worst time putting words on paper (er, screen) lately. i suppose this is the teacher’s busy time of the year and i continue to take on so much, that i forget to take time. i consider this a big “life lately” dump so i can start fresh and start recording more of the day to day stuff. going back almost two weeks ago to halloween – we had a great one. alex and i reprised our costume from six years ago (our first halloween together) as wayne and garth from wayne’s world and it almost went even better than the first time.  we like to utilize halloween as…

  • Summer

    spooky october movie series, pt III

    spooky movie time! do you know what you’re watching on halloween yet? as you may know, alex and i do a sunday night movie series every sunday throughout october (i’ve taken to calling it ‘goth advent’ because of our recently obtained black skull candle) this movie series was born because there’s only so many viewings of ‘hocus pocus’ you can take! we’re on a mission to dig up some lesser-known but perfectly halloween-worthy films, old and new. here’s what we’ve got up to… i hope it may give you some watching inspiration! (rated on a scale from 1 – 5 “ghosts” based on how appropriate i feel the film is for…

  • Summer

    autumn dreamland

    one thing i really like about living in české budějovice is its proximity to some pretty interesting places. we are only two hours from both prague to the north and linz, austria to the south. of course, because of international public transport tariffs, prague is by far the more affordable place to head of the two when you’ve got a free day and wanna soak up some big(ger) city lovin’. especially if you are a loyal české dráhy (czech trains) customer like i am and rack up enough points on the regular to earn free train tickets (public service announcement: if you live in the czech republic and frequently travel…

  • Summer

    autumn moravian wine trip, take two

    living in central europe, autumn conjures up feelings of, among other things, harvest with plentiful beer and wine. i am fortunate to live in a country that currently does both quite well, but you have to travel a little bit to get to the wine part, which is the south moravian region; essentially, the southeast corner of the country bordering austria and slovakia. after we returned from the united states, it was time to kick trip planning for the rest of the year into high gear, and i somehow managed to find a couple nights’ accommodation on late notice in an area we’ve been wanting to see for a little…

  • Summer

    lately, september

    when you have too much to write about and get behind with recording life’s happenings that you just don’t even know where to start anymore so you don’t post. sound familiar? well, it’s finally  time to talk about september & all recent life things here in south bohemia! it’s clear to me now from my post earlier this month that i was hur-ting. still getting over a serious bout of homesickness involved with leaving washington, i was not over it. it took about two weeks or so but everything found itself back to normal here in budejovice. fortunately early september brings fun markets and happenings like the annual vltava žije…

  • Summer

    friday things: thanksgiving weekend

    it seems that after the initial dust cloud settled after the first week of the american election, things starting to feel a little happier, thank goodness.  so i bring you five happy things for the end of this third week of the month, from recent trips to expat life successes… 1. vienna! we enjoyed a long weekend in the austrian capital last week. although busybusybusy, it was so good! shopping, eating schnitzels as big as our ‘eads at figmüller, seeing the pointillism exhibition at the albertina (i do adore this museum), wandering around the innere stadt until our feet felt like falling off, and of course… plenty of cakes and…

  • Summer

    a first taste of southern moravia

    of all the belated trips, a visit to the southern moravian region of the czech republic (southeast, north of the vienna-area austrian border) was the one that has been pushed off for much too long. i mean, how did we just only now go there? well, i can tell you it likely will not be the last time, because i found moravia just lovely. everyone from over here in south bohemia often says that the people from southern moravia are the most friendly, and this has got to be my experience as well, just from a short weekend away at the end of october. not only that, but the scenery…