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Week 13, 14 & 15 of 2024 (In Review) – Easter & April Heatwave
The weeks have flown by and I dropped the ball a little bit, so reviewing the past three weeks: Easter week and the first gorgeous weeks of our current month, April. Truly hope to be on time in about a week from now bringing us current. Man, besides this cold snap Central Europe is undergoing at the moment, haven’t we been so spoiled this year? Easter week was generally uneventful and wholly relaxing – even more so than spring break. I was so pleased that it was our little one’s first time participating in Easter traditions like an Easter egg hunt around the living room on Easter Sunday and his…
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Quiet Days & My First Easter Lamb Cake {Recipe}
Happy spring, I hope everyone’s made it through the other side of winter okay! We just had Daylight Savings Time (worth every minute of evening light, in my opinion) so the warmer days and lighter nights have made everything so much better. Sometimes I think I could be a winter person, finding the season more pleasant with each passing year. Then the first warmer, light days of the year come and it’s like, nah. It was another weird March. The virus is still raging around us here in Czechland, and in fact, the first half of the month, we were bound to our own municipalities. Fortunately just in time for…
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On Silencing the Noise
If there’s anything that has come of this whole self-isolation (today, April 20th being Day 38 for me), it’s that I envy the heck out of people’s sunny backyards and garden spaces. I am ever so grateful to live in a flat with a nice balcony, but not having my own outdoor space is a hard pill to swallow during these times. I suppose it’s inevitable when you want to do and see everything, when you want to live everywhere. I was lucky enough to grow up with a huge backyard at my disposal. In the nicer months, there wasn’t a day I wasn’t out there. I never realized until…
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find your spring bliss {south bohemia easter hiking weekend}
hi all, i hope you had a nice easter! it’s our tradition to go on a trip every easter (as here in the czech republic, we have a nice long four day weekend – five if you’re lucky!) and as this year it fell deliciously late into the season, we opted for another countryside hiking trip. last year’s trip was much too cold and bleak, and this year, all i wanted was sun and relaxation with a bit of hiking, which led us to the czech/austrian borderlands, basing ourselves in vyšší brod, a kilometer or two from the border. we had been to vyšší brod once before as we started…
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bohemian forest, pt. II
three years ago, we spent our annual easter trip in šumava national forest (also known to german speakers as böhmerwald, bohemian forest). it was a simple hiking holiday where we stayed near lake lipno in a cheerful pension with a terrace and was so sore from all that wandering. isn’t it funny that sometimes the simpler trips can turn into the best ones? we’ve been talking for the past three years about what a nice time that was, and so thought it was time to reprise it this year. šumava is a big place. it is a huge protected forest area extending from the south at the austrian border near…
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what you need for a merry little czech easter
the country in which i currently live, the czech republic (or as some are trying to make happen, “czechia”), is currently not known for being a very religious country. they certainly have had their share of religious leaders and famous reformers (such as jan hus and jan of nepomuk), but communism pretty effectively killed off what dedication to religion remained, and the country currently stands as one of the most areligious in europe. which is then interesting why last year, in 2016, the parliament successfully voted to make good friday (or rather as czechs call it, big friday – velký pátek) a public holiday, which will officially go into effect…
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budabest
hi friends! did you have a lovely easter? i just kind of peaced out of the blog for about a week… i actually did write an easter post but last minute packing took precedent. if you were following along on instagram, you might have seen that we took off to budapest for the long holiday weekend! this year was the first year that (finally!) good friday was a public holiday… which means now i don’t have to feel guilty for taking that and thursday off, heh. it is so difficult to write about this holiday besides saying that it was just magical… all of the heart eyes and sparkles come…
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travel dreamin’ 2015
my goodness, the weather is dreary this week. two weeks ago i was in such a fantastic mood because of all the sunshine (even though it would always get right in my eyes during yoga), but now we’re back to the typical total spring weather: heavy wind, flash showers, cool temperatures. i woke up to a thin blanket of snow on the ground outside… some cruel april fool’s joke, no doubt. it’s helped to daydream about fairer, distinctly more french locales lately. i am so excited that my mom and i are planning on meeting up to celebrate her milestone birthday in style… in gay paris! not only am i…
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bohemian forest
hello friends! just spent a lovely few easter days staying at a pension by lake lipno and hiking through the bohemian national forest, known here as šumava. this was my big chance to actually get out and explore the country that i find myself living in instead of being swayed by more famous or sexier destinations. in the year and a half i’ve lived in czech republic, i’ve only planned one holiday here… something which needed to be remedied! the šumava forest area is in the south-west corner of the czech republic, hugging the borders of both germany and austria. it’s not only full of beautiful forests but many hills…
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lambcake
on wednesday afternoon after i returned home for the day, i noticed a large white box (with breathing holes… ???) sitting on the kitchen counter. having no idea what to expect, i opened it to reveal this… the most elaborate and precious holiday food creation that has ever been gifted upon us. THE LAMB CAKE. i squealed with equal parts joy and confusion. for a couple days this massive cake (called beránek) has been shrouded in confusion and mystery, until i was discussing czech easter traditions with a student yesterday and i found out that lamb cake is a thing. every mamka and babička makes one… and they simply won’t be stopped. you…
