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embracing czech holidays in tábor
december weekends in europe are one of my (new) favorite things. there’s always something going on somewhere that accomplishes my usual goal of doing something festive. so when i heard about a killer one-day-only vanoční trh (christmas market) in tábor, a smaller south bohemian town situated on the rail line between české budějovice and prague, it was decided. i had no prior reason to go to tábor as i just assumed it was another small bohemian town. it’s actually got an important load of history behind it. the name of the town translates to ‘camp’ and is famous as the medieval hussite stronghold of bohemia, lead by jan žižka. if you…
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homey for the holidays
it’s incredible how a couple of songs, like smells, can transport you to a different state of mind. music carries so many memories and it’s always around the holidays that i’m digging out all of my favorite christmas albums from years past, some from genres i would never normally listen to and others from genres i wish i could listen to more! and isn’t it funny that all of the memories attached to our favorite songs were from times that just sort of slipped by? times that you didn’t actually know would later become a cherished memory? i sometimes wonder this as i listen to my new lucie bílá christmas album…
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my czech expat christmas: guest-posted
today is the first weekend of advent, friends. to me, this means that the christmas markets are open and the tree lighting ceremony happens to be tonight: a wonderful evening of drinking vanočni punč, eating trdelnik, and listening to live music in the old town square. better than a birthday. join me as i gush more about my excitement for this season and explain some czech christmas traditions over on a guest post over on my buddy van’s blog, snow in tromso. she is doing this fabulous “christmas around the world” series featuring a different holiday guest-post every saturday… something i can really get in to! a little change from…
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favorite czech & slovak cuisine
instead of write about my all-time favorite food while traveling, i chose to narrow the focus a little: czech & slovak cuisine (and no, that’s not czechoslovakian cusine because although the two countries were intertwined for decades, they’ve been doing their own thang for over twenty years). and i have to say: czech food is so much more than just pork and dumplings. in fact, i’ve been doing a “no pork” thing for almost a year now and there are still so many dishes to try that would please carnivore and vegetarian alike. some of my favorites include… česnečka (garlic soup). a garlic lover’s dream! the czechs don’t skimp on the…
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a forest wander. have you ever gone out for a hike or walk and just end up somewhere completely different than you had originally planned for (by accident)? this happened to me on a lovely sunday hike through the forests of nearby rudolfov (an old nearby mining village, pictured above). i definitely had a different destination in mind but was shocked to find myself right back to where i started! but oh well, at least the walk was good… and scenic! november can be such a great time for walks, especially in this mild, golden weather which is fading fast. lastly: you know you’re really in the czech countryside when…
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falling in love on the road
some love stories from the road involve a certain special guy or girl, but mine are with a special city. i have told many a tale here about my undying love of berlin, but while i was studying there i unexpectedly fell in love with a different city. a city that i fortunately happen to live very close to now. she’s praha, the golden city. the city of a thousand spires. and while i visited her for the first time a year before this, it wasn’t until the next year when i really opened my eyes to her and saw all her quirky brand of loveliness. i was hanging out in prague…
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halloween abroad pt. III
i love halloween. it always reminds me of roasty, sweet smelling jack-o-lanterns on a cold night and eating candy while watching halloween cartoons at home under the glow of the orange pumpkin lights in the window. so after a pair of mediocre halloweens spent abroad (one in paris, the other here in budějovice), i’ve decided it was time for me to step up my halloween game. this… this would be the year we actually plan a good costume, dress up and go out, ready for the best of what czech halloween had to offer. in the lead-up to the holiday, i planned plenty of quality halloween programming. after the viewing…
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autumn, unplugged
when you’re so excited to spend many a morning in bed reading blogs, a three day internet outage really isn’t timed so perfectly over a leisurely five day weekend. times like that sometimes make you wonder what your other hobbies are. (i just know that they exist… i think) let’s just say my german got a decent amount of refreshing and i made loads of headway on a book i wasn’t so sure about but finally got into. although annoying, those periods of unplugging are good for the soul. and yes. i said five day weekend. tuesday was czechoslovak statehood day: the day in 1918 when czechoslovakia because an independent…
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adjusting
sometimes i feel content to live in my own little american paradise in my flat with peanut butter, popcorn, nintendo games, and banter about the latest john oliver video segment. there are some days when leaving the house and realizing that you are in a foreign country isn’t the first thing you feel like experiencing. although these are the same streets i’ve walked for over a year and a half, sometimes everything just feels too foreign for my mood that day.but then, when i find myself in a motivated and ambitious sort of mood, there are times where i think i should be adjusting better especially since i chose to…
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prahably, october
we were in prague for the weekend under the pretense to take in the signalfest– a newer festival in only its second year a little bit like berlin’s festival of lights. however, the whole deal with signalfest is that it’s only over a couple days instead of a couple weeks and the projections are actually short films (around 5 minutes long), projected on famous prague landmarks and incorporating the architecture playfully into the film as well as some almost 3D effects. so, signalfest was pretty cool. except that prague was packed. i mean, to the gills. thousands of tourists descended upon the city for the weekend and it was near…
