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those magical days
even though christmas is over, i do love that stretch of days between the holiday and the new year. nobody is really in town yet, everything is running slowly and mostly still, everyone’s playing, everyone’s happy… i am embracing it this year (as i mentioned in the last post) rather than feeling guilty for lack of productivity. if there’s any time to take it easy, it’s now! i hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! we started ours with a walk through krumlov and took ferdie on his first trip (with a bus ride longer than ten minutes). he did okayyyyy, until he upchucked on the floor of the bus! (mental…
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embracing a local christmas
this is now our fifth christmas in europe. i have to say, you’d think it gets easier but that’s not necessarily true. our first christmas, we had only been in europe for a couple of months and it was all the heart eyes as prague pulled out all the stops and there was nothing but perma-smiles. the next year, my mother visited. the following year, we had a picture-perfect austrian christmas at the wolfgangsee. last year we happened to be in berlin, but a funny thing happened. while i was in my personal “happiest place on earth”, i felt a case of “the sads” as we call them, creeping in…
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photo an hour | december
i’ve never done a photo an hour before, so i thought i’d give it a try… i personally am a huge fan of reading ‘day in the life’ posts so i hope you enjoy it too. this was sunday, december 4th, 2016, and was a special day as it was our first full day of being dog owners in the czech republic! 9:00 – as the first out of bed and dressed, i took ferdie out. it was looking exceptionally wintery that day, as you will soon see! 10:41 – breakfast! this breakfast just so happens to be my absolute favorite – paprika-dusted poached eggs on avocado toast with beans…
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preparing for a central european winter
winter is coming, friends! well, not too soon, but just soon enough to start thinking about whether or not you have the right stuff to last these cold, frosty months in the heart of central europe. the first winter i ever spent in europe back in 2007 was memorably freezing. as we followed our tall danish-german professor around berlin, the wind seared through my jacket like a hundred tiny unforgiving knives, while he seemed completely unfazed. we were all from the continental west coast, and we all were dying. i bought a couple of cheap coats at one of the various kurfürstendamm h&m’s, but none of these coats were big…
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gratitude
“so, when are you going back to the states?”well, we have some friends that are engaged, so probably whenever the weddings are.[laughing] “.. err… so, are you going to be staying there for awhile?”ah-hah, there it is. the question i get basically every time i talk to my dad on the phone. not that i want to get into what is happening in the united states at the moment, but i don’t really think i am a victim of the recession. well, in one way i sort of am, as i graduated college at the worst possible time in decades to try to find an entry-level position, even in a…
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a weekend in “czech canada”
slavonice seemed like exactly the sort of place i’d want to spend a winter getaway. small, beautiful, artsy, it’s a borderland town right on the edges of south bohemia, vysočina (moravia), and austria (only 2km away). one of the greatest reasons to visit, its flanked on the west by the beautiful nature of česká kanada (czech canada), called this because of the rich swath of forests, lakes, and other natural sites that sometimes make it almost indistinguishable from canada. the short train journey (under an hour) from telc was pretty magical… to see names of towns and landscapes we didn’t recognize as we crossed from moravia back into the edge…
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telč & its beautiful square
every year in february, excepting the year we had just moved here, we like to take a little february getaway. this is mostly because alex, as an english teacher of primary school aged children, gets a whole week for spring break! as a freelancer, i do not get a complete week unless it’s reeeeally important (berlinale!) but i can try to shift around my lessons in order to do something fun that week. this week, a sudden cold threatened my weekend plans. i woke up friday unable to speak with a normal human voice and having to cough and blow my nose every three minutes. but i have to tell…
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contentedness
so far this year, there’s been no big milestones, or “lily-pads” as emma calls them. but even so, life “between the lily-pads” has been rolling along. i was so thankful just to stick around in one place in january, and although february brings even more travel scheming and dreaming, i have just been perfectly content lately. content to be here, with life… not in a “my life is so exciting!” kind of way but just a quiet sort of happiness. my instagram, usually buzzing with photos of czech architecture i pass on my day to day life has even been quieter than usual. no need to take photos or write…
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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…
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winter, unplugged
temperatures here in southwestern czech republic have hit probably the lowest that i can remember since we moved here. three years ago living in prague, i remember some cooooold temps but it is rare that i am experiencing 2ºF/ -16ºC like it was this morning! i could hardly believe it. i’m from a place where it snows about once a year and that snow is duly celebrated, and then the next day or day after next, it all melts away. so imagine my happiness at a full week of snow– such a strange but welcome phenomenon! starting on the very first moments of the new year, it snowed and has…
