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goodbye to winter
last weekend, we had the final snowy and sub-zero temperatures of the winter. as winter isn’t quite over yet, it seems rather presumptuous to assert this, but a good look at the ten day forecast gives me reason to believe that the spring rumblings have officially begun. so what better than to do all the best winter things?after waking up in flannel sheets with doggie cuddles and a long leisurely breakfast of omelettes, we headed out to buy ice skates. as this was the last cold weekend and the rivers (malše & vltava) had frozen, i was darn well going to get myself ice skates as i had promised myself…
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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…
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of czechs & germans (a short history)
lovers of european history, i’m calling on you today! the town i live in may be called czechimpossibletosay české budějovice, but it used to just be known as budějovice or budweis for decades, especially in the 19th century when czechs and germans lived side-by-side and it didn’t really matter who was a czech and who was a german. people here at that time just considered themselves “budweisers”.* although rifts were there at the end of the 19th century, it wasn’t until after the first world war which brought about the end of the austrian-hungarian empire and the creation of the czechoslovak state that the division started rapidly deepening, although from the…
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july things
hello all! i’ve been a bit of a summer camp haze for a little while, but i got up today and realized that it is july twentieth and it weirded me out a lot. my favorite month full of all thing summer and fun is flying by! you know what i got up to at the very beginning of the month, in karlovy vary! i spent an uneventful independence day (because, let’s be honest, it’s usually not so much fun abroad unless you’re traveling or at some kind of expat party). although, one of my favorite fourth of julys so far was spent nine years ago in switzerland at a…
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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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teresa’s valley in early spring
last weekend, we had weather over twenty degrees here in south bohemia. on the first few days of april. what a fantastic development! i am used to the perpetual central european winter that finally subsides sometime after the middle of april, but nothing like this! i think almost every single person that day was outside somewhere – especially in their gardens, if they had one. i saw these temperatures coming from a week away and i’ve been waiting to get back into that day-tripping spirit we felt so strongly our first spring here (for years ago), so we headed to teresa’s valley (terčino údolí) near nové hrady (a town a…
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loving local: at june’s end
do you ever plan things way in advance only to realize, when the day gets closer, you don’t really want to go through with that plan anymore? that’s what happened to us this week, as was the first really “summer holiday” week for the both of us, we had talked about going camping ages ago until the week got here and i started having major decision anxiety. (holler to all of my fellow indecisive friends; the struggle is real) really, all i want is just to spend a little downtime at home or puttering around budějovice. it has happened: that sobo life has taken hold of me. (but watch in…
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celebrating summer, art, + love in krumlov
ahhh, the good month of june that ushers in the long-awaited summer season. still the unpredictable spring weather, yet we can rely on its warmer temperatures and suddenly, everything is a-buzz. no longer am i hibernating indoors because how can you when there is so much to do? outdoor festivals and concerts under the stars, barbecues with good buds, and open-air theater. we are lucky here in south bohemia that one of the best and most well-known open-air theaters is right here in our region, located in český krumlov. not only is it an outdoor theater, only open in the warmer months, but it’s a revolving theater (otáčivé hlediště). that…
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spring around here
officially, spring has sprung and since easter weekend, we’ve had a handful of gorgeous warm days here in south bohemia with highs above 22ºC! (although you wouldn’t know it by how bare most of the trees here still are!) i’m still not quite used to this continental european “spring”. it seems to come in mid-april, still with bare trees sometimes, and by early june, we are blasted with either heat-wave temperatures (or rain and floods, depending on the year). spring is a blink-and-you-miss-it affair, unlike western washington with our first cherry blossoms blooming in late february! i’m really trying to get into it this year, though… embrace those mild temperatures…
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what month is it?
… because it’s certainly hard to believe that it’s january. after “hibernating” the past two weekends, we had a delightful saturday wandering leisurely through trebon: around the ponds, through the historical city center, & to a fancy little fish restaurant called šupina a šupinka where we feasted on carp fries and fish soup. i was in the mood for a true “sobo meal”, and i know a lot of czechs make fried carp for the holidays (often in the form of a rižek, or schnitzel) but some families do the carp “chips”. and hey hey, those were really delicious! i certainly didn’t fancy myself a carp lover, but anything šupina prepares…
