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june noms
ah yes, the time of the month i like to talk about food is here. june has been so inspirational to me in terms of cooking. perhaps it’s all the fresh produce available… or the retrograde in mercury… or the warm weather! whatever the reason, i’ve finally had a healthy dose of inspiration to make a bunch of fun recipes. all of them were alex tested and approved, and he put up with all this food photography. what a guy. mushroom & caramelized onion risotto: a healthy favorite of mine made with the two vegetables alex formerly disliked. i used no butter and only a tiny amount of milk to make…
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hot hot hot
what a beautiful warm weekend we had here in south bohemia! between celebrating our “minus one anniversary” with spanish food eaten outside on the adorable street behind me (above) and seeing electric light orchestra in the middle of the budvar brewery’s loading dock…. to the fabulous annual slavnosti piva české budějovice (beer festival) and hanging out in the shade beside the river, it’s been a rrrreal good one. i’m enjoying a surplus of bergamot (lemon mint) and finally figured out that the thing to do with it is make MINT ICED TEA– the ultimate cooling summer beverage! and as it’s going to hit 32C (90F) today and for much of this…
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spring, lately
happy may, all! this week was rife with student cancellations (more than half of my students cancelled, for real), odd occurrences, and happy times. i chose this week to participate in daily diaries because of all the weirdness and happiness that has surrounded this week. on monday i had the strangest experience. i went to the university as usual in the afternoon, where i was about to have two lessons in the same building. unfortunately, there was a GIANT puddle of water on the floor in the lobby and the receptionist spoke very limited english, but enough to tell me that no students (and apparently, myself) were being let in. however,…
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what a week
they say the hardest part of doing nearly everything is taking the first step, which was last week. this week feels as though the first steps are starting to bud: my first german lesson since 2008 will be next tuesday (!!!) and we met with our chill and laid-back engagement shoot photographer to talk plans for the end of the month. last time i’ve had professional portraits taken was over ten years ago at age 17, so what better time than now to have a go at it again? even if we don’t use these photos for really anything, they will be such a special keepsake of our time living…
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Desperate Times
sometimes i feel like alex and i are like harry and lloyd from dumb and dumber. living together in a former communist central european country where we don’t speak the language with only each other to count on, when it comes down to it. i realized this yesterday, which was day three of the great unexplained power outage. at one point i sat there in my hoodie that doesn’t zip anymore thinking, okay. we have no food. we have no money. my employer is two days late with the paycheck. we have no hot water… we have no heat… my phone is out of minutes…. “our pets’ heads are falling off!”…
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Dark/Light
day two of unexplained power outage continues. arg. yesterday evening, i made swedish meatballs to celebrate leif erickson day (instead of columbus day) in the waning daylight on our gas stove lit with matches. it was funny to sit in the measly light of candles like the vikings must of done. today i took the plunge and had a cold shower. it wasn’t quite as bad as i thought. sort of reinvigorating in the middle of the day, to be honest! not a huge fan of the heat not working, but eh, we have blankets and tea. we will survive. besides the cold showers and no heat, i’ve actually been really…
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prague jokes
it rains today. gloomy, grey and dark and making me wish for spring’s arrival as soon as possible. i wanna get out there! on friday (as i wrote below) we were in prague for three hours in order to visit the foreign poice in zizkov. because our appointment unexpectedly lasted maybe a half hour, alex wanted to take an earlier bus back because he had work to do for his monthly reports. naturally i would allow this, but i kept teasing him with things we could do if we stayed in prague for an extra three hours to try and change his mind. “we could….. go shopping?“ no. “we could…..…
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the week of bureaucracy
this week has been the most exhausting one since i’ve moved to the czech republic. having the visa trip in the first part of the week was tiring enough as it was, and it took me literally two nights more worth of sleep to feel normal again. even riding the city buses to my lessons this week made me think…. “i don’t want to ride another bus somewhere for a good while”. the rule states that no more than three days after you receive your visa, you must register with the foreign police. we were fortunate enough to have alex’s boss marketa, who is czech, along with us for this…
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how to just barely get a visa
the past forty-eight hours have just been sort of a blur of long bus rides. we traveled to bratislava for the second time to pick up our visas, but it wasn’t all quite as simple as that. to obtain our visas, we had to show documentation that we have paid for at least six months of czech insurance, and could only pick up the visas within a half hour window. the bus we wanted to take that would eventually get us home before midnight would leave less than two hours from the visa pick-up time. recipe for stress! after barely making the bus TO bratislava in the first place, we…
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teaching english
i am now a long-term residence permit holder here in the czech republic! this means i’m legal to stay here for at least the next six months and am also legal to earn wages! this is extremely exciting, as it was definitely a huge concern even before leaving for europe. people often asked “howwww the heck are you going to stay past ninety days?” i had done some preliminary research and i felt pretty hopeful about it. plus, there was always my back-up plan of fleeing back to britain for a spell, or perhaps croatia. but britain in the wintertime wasn’t exactly what i was imagining, so i am dang…
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