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lately, november
hi friends! we’re almost at the end of the month now and i’ve seen the mild weather go from pleasant and sunny to cold in almost an instant… funny as i was just bragging about our warm weather as recently as last weekend. no longer! this month has so far seen golden autumn countryside walks, celebrating our second “czechaversary”, and the first weeks of hosting travel tuesday! here’s what else has been up… … eating: the past few weeks haven’t been too kitchen friendly. it’s honestly felt more like a chore a lot of times and i kept buying only ingredients for one certain kind of food. for example, one week we…
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living without stuff, pt. II
(alternative title: in which i realize that some stuff is good to have) a strange thought occurred to me the other night about all the food products so beloved to me that i haven’t touched for years; obviously not by choice, including cheerios, shredded-wheat cereal, campbell’s soup (don’t judge), and a whole load of other things that i can’t think of right now that i won’t even know i have missed until i see it again. not only that, but all of my belongings and clothing sitting in the family garage. next summer when i’m going through all those things i’ve forgotten about, it’s going to feel like christmas. what better to…
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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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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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lately, october
i am in an adjustment period. last week was the first week of my new fuller, busier reality: a huge load of lessons that i happily took upon myself in a measure to save money for both our alpine christmas holiday, the big wedding, and associated costs with visiting the united states year for almost two months on the czech crown, which right now is even weaker than usual against the dollar after most european economies took a bit hit last week on the global market. sigh. on the plus side: now is a great time to travel in europe if you make north american money. the weather is good…
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ode to czech republic
today, it’s early autumn in the heart of europe on the verge of the weekend. many leaves are now shades of yellow and orange, it’s sunny with warm breezes at 22 ˚C. when i walk along the cobblestones to the old town square and and gaze around at all the architectural beauty and the rolling bohemian hills in the background, i can’t help but imagine all the great people who have lived here before me and walked the same streets. nowhere is this feeling of history in the air more pronounced than in the hlavní město of prague, especially on a wander on charles bridge, heading east towards old town. the…
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řijen / october
i bring you: silly czechpat tales from the first week of october! on monday, i noticed a reasonably fashionable dressed young woman on the street… carrying a whole tomato that she had just taken a bite out of like an apple. had to text alex about what kind of silly country we live in. that evening, i famously had a huge ramble session with myself about life here and life in the united states that alex kept cracking up about. i was in a philosophizing mindset, thinking about how life might be if we moved back to the states, but i probably should’ve just wrote it down in a journal instead of…
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the american old west… in germany
a week ago, i popped into germany for a day to visit a nice little town called pullman city. the name doesn’t exactly sound very german because it’s actually an american westernstadt theme park, located in south-east bavaria just north of passau. the theme of an old-western american city from the 18th and 19th centuries is very strictly kept to. needless to say, i was really looking forward to this trip. i have been to the bavarian-themed village leavenworth in washington state many times, but this was actually the very opposite: an old american village in bavaria! (mind explosion) and a very popular one at that. if you’ve spent any time in…
