Kolo kolo mlynsky :::

Cross Country Cross Checking

2012-01-09T22:26:00.000+01:00

There's no snow in Prague right now, but the weather reports are full of the news of snow in the Czech mountains. I'm spending my work breaks piecing together snow reports, train schedules and Google maps in search of the closest open cross country track and day dreaming about our Christmas vacation in Switzerland.

We didn't have a lot of days free for skiing, but any free time we had found us out in the mountains with the children. They practiced their down hill skiing, built snow men and Caroline stepped away from the ski lift to go cross country with me once. The weather was too warm for ice skating on the lakes, but we're hoping that when we head back to Switzerland in February for ski break the Christmas thaw will have ended and the deep freeze set in for the season.

In the meantime, does anyone in Prague have a favorite cross country track they'd like to recommend? And are you skiing where you are?

Chord by Chord

2011-12-12T22:55:00.001+01:00

Years ago, in another life, I went to music school, and for four years got to indulge in that most nerdy of all analysis - music theory. By the time we graduated, if you handed me a score I could take it apart chord by chord and tell you its harmonic progression, no problem. Everyone in our class could, it came with the territory. We also had to chant the chords to "A Star Spangled Banner" while playing the piano as a prerequisite to crossing the stage at graduation, and one memorable night a bunch of us learned how to Texas two-step while singing the alphabet backwards, but those are different stories.

I've forgotten almost all my theory, and only twitter around with Caroline's piano music now, writing out the chords for improvised duets. I hadn't thought about the language behind the progressions for a very long time until our viol da gamba teacher from university posted today's video in Facebook. It's a terrific illustration of the way music is a language that we understand even if we don't know all the words.

If you're new to chord progressions, watch the video and pay attention to certain chords and their effect on you as listener (and also on the little doodle guy in the video). Watch out for those dramatic ii7s in particular!

I promise my next post will be something easier to swallow, but I couldn't resist sharing the little dude and his reaction to Mozart. Thanks June, for posting him!

Die Kleine Hexe

2011-12-09T12:30:00.000+01:00

Back in November, I posted about Sandmännchen and the package Caroline mailed to his show. Guessing she wouldn't hear back, a few weeks ago I bought C a small thank you for her effort.

At the time, Caroline's German listening skills were quite decent. Give her a few days in Germany or Switzerland, and she'd become positively chatty. But she'd never been able to decipher any of our German kids books, and while I understood simple books I couldn't reliably translate text into speech. I decided to find a bilderbuch mit DVD to help us both along.

Die kleine Hexe feiert Weihnachten arrived to much fanfare one Friday not long ago, just in time for the weekend. Caroline set its DVD on repeat and read the story over and over again, working on figuring out letter to sound patterns. She decided (and I agreed) that German is much easier to learn to read than English. When she was satisfied we all sat down to hear her read the story of a young witch's Christmas celebration.

The Little Witch Celebrates Christmas opens in the middle of a snow storm on Christmas Eve. We meet our little witch and find her feeling frazzled. All she wants to do is prepare her house for the Christmas witch's annual visit. Instead a covey of other witches and their mediums drop by, warming their toes in front of the fire and getting in the way. In the end, of course, everyone gets organized and helps out, the little witch realizes how much fun she's had with her friends and the Christmas witch thanks her for her generous Christmas spirit.

(Short pause while I consider a daily reading, starting around the 15th.)

So yes, it's a story with a nice moral, but it's also super to listen to on DVD because the story's reader has a marvelous voice. The weekend of the great Die kleine Hexe read-a-thon, C and I vied with each other to see who could most closely copy her accent. (Neither of us conceded. I'm more dramatic, and she voices k sounds to perfection.)

My working theory with accents is that if I put my heart and theatrical leanings into them I'll at least surprise someone. Thanks to our impromptu lessons, I'm hoping that when we visit family in Switzerland this Christmas I can not only surprise my nephew but read to him too. And Caroline is planning another reading marathon, this time with her cousin and James as fellow members of the team.

Mikulas Eve, at Miru

2011-12-05T22:06:00.001+01:00

The angels and devils were out in full force at Náměstí Míru tonight. Caroline thought she'd be too old this year, but changed her mind at the last moment. She's decided that next year will be time enough to change hats and don a halo or horns.

If you haven't been in the Czech Republic for Mikuláš Eve before, it's always on December 5th, the evening before Mikuláš' saint's day. Starting around 5 pm, trios of saints, devils and angels head to the big squares around Prague to hand out candy to children willing to sing a song for a bonbon and agree to a yearly review. Kids take the drill seriously; we saw many a long face on our walk to the square tonight. Once past their first talking to, most children cheer up considerably. Caroline sang for at least six trios before we persuaded her to head home to see if the real Mikuláš had stopped by. James refused to talk to a single saint.

Sure enough, at home the children found treasure bags of candy waiting for them (with only one well wrapped potato as a warning from Saint Nick to behave). James sighed with contentment, happy to be home and free from the devils. Caroline hummed her song of the night and decided to start working on her outfit for next year.

{1} Caroline sings a song for one trio; {2} Two devils catechizing a kid on the street (no 4 year old was harmed in this picture, but he did look guilty afterwards); {3} It's a busy night at Mirak, the angels have to catch up by phone; {4} The devils have already met up, but they're more interested in snacks than quizzing little kids; {5} St. Mikuláš and his devil and angel team up to ask Caroline if she's been good this year; {6} A devil with tail hanging out, bell at her side.

Zdeněk Miler, 1921-2011

2011-12-01T12:00:00.000+01:00

Zdeněk Miler, Krtek's creator, died yesterday. I've written about Krtek, the little mole, before. He is the most gracious and kind of Czech illustrated characters and a dear friend of the children. He's also a constant in young kids' lives here, ours not excepted.

Mr. Miler will be much missed.

Unser Sandmännchen

2011-11-30T23:07:00.001+01:00

Every evening just before 7, a little fellow with a red felt hat and cotton beard visits German kids' TV, taking his viewers around the world on all manner of rides. Monday might find him on a carpet in India, Tuesday, a submarine under the sea, Wednesday, he‘ll guide a troika into the wilds of Russia. The little man, Sandmännchen, visits children in these far off places and watches a short cartoon with them before he sprinkles moon sand into the air and sends his audience to bed. He’s a popular figure in our house, and if Caroline is not too busy with homework, the kids like to curl up together on the sofa and watch his show while we make dinner.

When she first started watching, Caroline was terrified of Sandmänn's power, and would hide her eyes or run from the room when he blew his sleepy sand. A big eight, she laughs at her baby self now, and watches the show with the vast superiority of someone who knows all the words to its nightly song.

"Sandmänn" the kids yell when he appears. I'll scoot in from the kitchen to see which clip is on, cuddle James and talk to Caroline about the fairy tale behind the story or the puppet featured this time (the show is more than 50 years old, so there are many styles to choose from). Then I'll jump back to finish cooking while the children watch the cartoon that's being introduced. Thanks to these shorts, C has learned a fair amount of German, so she'll often summarize for us over dinner later, with James adding his two cents to the story.

Part of Sandmänn's long running appeal is that children can send letters and drawing in to the show. If they're very lucky they'll have their pictures shown on television and even get a prize. After watching for so many years, Caroline decided that before she got too big, she'd send in her own contribution. She drew an illustration from one of her favorite cartoons, wrote a short letter in German, and mailed her package off.

She's still waiting to see if her picture will show up one evening. It's been a few months though, so I recently decided to take matters into my own hands. But that's a post for another day.

Kinder, liebe Kinder, es hat mir Spaß gemacht.
Nun schnell ins Bett und schlaft recht schön.
Dann will auch ich zur Ruhe gehn. Ich wünsch euch gute Nacht."*

Children, dear children, we've had a lot of fun.
Now quickly, to bed and sleep well.
Then I will also go rest. I wish you all good night.

*The last stanza of the last song of the show each night.

Náměstí Míru Christmas Market

2011-11-29T21:07:00.001+01:00

Blue skies and above freezing weather this weekend made it easy to explore the Christmas market at Náměstí Míru and take lots of pictures. The sun (sun!) and shadows kept tempting my camera though, so I gave it free rein, and decided a portrait of a bush was my favorite picture from a morning of clicking shots of Christmas booths.

For those of you with access to the market, do drop by. I'd vote Náměstí Míru the nicest Christmas market in town and am particularly fond of the hot apple cider at the crepes stand just across from the tree. You can drink it with or without a dash of rum. Yum.

(As usual, click on the collage to see a bigger picture.)

Czech R and Ř

2011-11-28T22:36:00.001+01:00

"T-D, T-D, T-D-ahhhva. T-Dava," said Caroline, standing at attention in front of her kindergarten’s director, years ago. "T-D-am. T-D-aktor," she continued, giggling a little as familiar words turned to nonsense. She repeated the list again, faster this time. We were in the director’s office and Caroline was learning to roll her Rs.

"T-Dava, T-DRava, Trrrrrrrrava." It didn’t take many visits for Caroline to catch on. Rs in Czech are easy to pronounce once you realize that they begin in the same place in your mouth as a D, and then roll. Soon Caroline was rolling her Rs with great drama and length, applying her lessons to every R in Czech (as you should) and every R in English (as you shouldn’t).

We learned rhymes together, lines like:
Trubač troubí, vytrubuje, trubka se mu blýská. Trubač troubí tramtarata, trubka zrovna výská.
(All about trumpets and trumpeters)

And my favorite to say really fast:
Franta frká: frky, frk, holub vrká: vrky, vrk
(Frank has to blow his nose, a dove has to coo)

From R, lessons moved on to Ř. An Ř is typically the last sound children learn to pronounce when they are growing up here, because of its difficulties. Caroline's teacher explained that an Ř is a rolled R spoken through nearly closed teeth. She had Caroline practice by baring her teeth like a wolf and whispering her Rs to create the famous rrrzh sound. "Řepa, řeka, řekla, řekl", Caroline worked on her word list until she finally graduated to a nursery rhyme:

Řežu, řežu dříví,
až jsem celý křivý.
Cut cut wood,
I'm already all crook'd.

This time, the lessons were useful for more than just Caroline. I worked along with C until we could both bare our teeth and pronounce our Řs. Remember the fairy tale from a few days ago? Tři oříšky pro Popelku becomes easy to say if you can remember to roll your Rs, and keep your teeth together. If I were to mangle an English phonetic spelling, it might look like this: Trrzhee orrzheeshky pro Popelku. Go ahead and try, then let me know how it goes!

Notes:

In Czech pronunciaton, a háček, or hook, softens letter sounds. Š = sh, ž = zh, č = ch, etc.
Here's a sound file for tři.

Advent Wreath Time

2011-11-27T22:56:00.001+01:00

All over town Advent wreaths are on sale, in various states of readiness. You can either buy a wreath off the shelf or be bold and make your own. Foam core wreaths, hot glue guns, candles of all color and decorations of all types - the world's your oyster when it comes to construction. We made our own again this year (minus the glue gun), and even James helped decorate. This evening, Caroline set the table to show off the wreath, and even though dinner was simple (thankfully, as I'm feeling like a stuffed turkey myself), it felt like a special occasion - a fitting way to end our Thanksgiving weekend and begin the holiday season.

A Thanksgiving Special - Tipsy Sweet Potatoes

2011-11-26T14:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday and today are our days to celebrate Thanksgiving, so we're cooking up a storm over here, which doesn't leave a lot of time for writing. In lieu of something longer, I thought I'd post the sweet potato recipe that's become our party favorite, at least for adults. The kids prefer marshmallows,* which just leaves more for us!

Tipsy Sweet Potatoes
4 pounds of sweet potatoes or yams
1/2 stick butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
5 TB dry Sherry

Preheat oven to 425F/218C. Wash your sweet potatoes well and stab them several times with a fork for ventilation. Bake for about an hour, or until you can easily run a knife through one.

Slice potatoes in half and scoop pulp into a large bowl. Add butter and brown sugar to potatoes. Using either a potato masher, a big spoon or (if you've got one) an electric mixer, beat until smooth. Add Sherry and salt and pepper to taste. Transfer to large pan.

When you're ready to serve, rewarm the potatoes on the stove, stirring often.

*Are you in Prague, looking for marshmallows that don't taste like strange fruit? Head to Marks & Spencers for vanilla flavored goodness. M&S also stocks Sherry.

"Tři oříšky pro Popelku" or "Three Hazelnuts for Cinderella"

2011-11-25T09:01:00.001+01:00

Germany may have been home to the Grimm brothers, but the fairy tales they collected grew in both Czech and German lands. Like regional recipes, these stories share common ingredients if not a common language, more similar to each other than to the saccharine sweets whipped up by Disney. Three Hazelnuts for the Ash Girl,* or, as you might know it, Cinderella, is one such tale, and the clip above** shows the first scene from a famous retelling of that story.

Famous in central Europe, that is, especially around Christmas time. Produced in 1973 in Czechoslovakia and Eastern Germany, and distributed in both Czech and German, Tři oříšky pro Popelku has turned into a Christmas classic, broadcast each year in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Switzerland and Norway. We saw it for the first time in Switzerland a few years ago, and now watch it in German there, and in Czech at home.

What makes this a Cinderella story to add to your calendar? The score certainly helps, and the scenery - forest shots in real snow, a squalidly real manor house, one of the more picturesque castles in eastern Germany. The dialogues work as well, batted back and forth by a comic cast of characters who breathe life into an old story flattened by familiarity.

But that's not why it's so re-watchable. I'd give credit to a script twist that turns Cinderella into a strong role to play and to the actress who plays her - Libuše Šafránková. It is the beautifully clever face of Popelka as she rises from the ashes, defies the usurpers who have taken over her home, and wins her prince and freedom that makes this a Czech fairy tale to remember, and to watch again, come Christmas.

* Tři oříšky pro Popelku, also known as Three Gifts for Cinderella in the UK, Three Wishes for Cinderella in the US and Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel in German.

** Dubbed into English and shown on the BBC years ago. You can watch the complete movie on Youtube in English, but the sound quality is much better on DVD.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T14:00:00.000+01:00

Hope everyone in the States is having a wonderful Thanksgiving, and enjoying the holiday. We'll celebrate Friday and Saturday, but I certainly have Carolina on my mind today.

Mountain Daydreaming

2011-11-23T12:00:00.000+01:00

We haven't reached Thanksgiving yet, and already I'm obsessed with...no, not Christmas, though it is looming around the corner shaking its bells and holly at me like a merry bogeyman. I'm obsessed with acronyms like NAO and AO and whether or not they are going to be negative or positive and will we or won't we get that very much needed precipitation that could turn to - snow.

Snow in the mountains, for sledding, snowmen, cross country skiing. Snow for getting us out of the house and into that peculiar crystalline world we make our way through at top speed or slow, measured tread.

My sister and I are sifting through snow news right now. Trading 10 day weather reports, and articles summarizing the European winter forecast. I've caught myself humming our sacred snow song** from high school. (One that never worked, I should add, but we were in South Carolina.) Even James has caught the snow bug. "Snow?" he asks each morning as he snuggles up to check the weather with me. "Just a cyoud Mami. Ok."

Right now the mountains we visit most are barely dusted in snow, and almost as dry as they look in today's collage, though much colder. These pictures are from a late August trip to Switzerland. The weather was dry and hot, the opposite of what we're hoping for this winter. The mountains that day had a daydreamy, end of the season feeling to them, as if they too were paused, waiting for the new season to begin.

Are you ready for snow? Or do you prefer dry and hot, thanks very much?

* NAO = North Atlantic Oscillation, AO = Arctic Oscillation
** Snow, snow when are you falling

A Short Food Rant, Just in Time for Thanksgiving

2011-11-22T17:03:00.001+01:00

Last week one of the leading Czech newspapers, Hospodářských noviny, came out with a story slamming Czech food suppliers for the low quality ingredients they use in some of their products here. HN compared the same products in Germany, manufactured by the same parent companies, and found that the reason food tastes better on vacation is because, as we’ve always suspected, it is better. In Germany, ingredients are higher quality – less byproduct, more real. And, get this, on several occasions the German food item was found to be cheaper to buy than its weedy cousin sitting in supermarkets in the Czech Republic. Outrageous.

But not surprising. Stories about low quality food in supermarkets have hit the news before: for years a rumor floated about that the big grocery chains shipped their bruised fruit and veggies from Austria and Germany to their Czech Grade A bins. We gave up buying vegetables and fruit in the big stores when Caroline was born, and now only shop at our neighborhood’s Vietnamese green grocers. They seem to care about quality, and sell tomatoes that have flavor, and onions that aren’t flabby. We shop at small stores specializing in meat, cheese or bread for the rest of our groceries. And then there are the farmers‘ markets. You can see why I’m such a fan.

Many Czechs take a more extreme approach, and leave the country for their groceries. In a recent poll, 1/3 of Czechs report that they shop abroad for food and clothes. Not for all items of course, but that’s still a lot of revenue crossing the border every day. Stories like this give me hope that eventually the big retailers will wake up to the departing revenue, adjust their prices to a regionally competitive level and offer the same quality product that their parent companies offer abroad. After all, I’d rather shop at home and spend my vacations exploring something other than the jam aisle in SuperU.

An Old Fashioned Portrait

2011-11-21T21:39:00.001+01:00

Rather than post pictures of yet another darkening sky, I thought I'd brighten us all up with a collage from late October, when we were on a short trip abroad. Any guesses on the country? (Ellen, you can't play ;-).

Note added: There are nine more days of NaBloPoMo. I've got a long list of possibilities to write about, but rather than hear about the syrarna* around the corner, wouldn't you rather send in a question and I'll do my best to answer it? (Within reason, I've never been able to figure out why Clara Schumann married Robert, despite the seance our music theory teacher conducted freshman year).

* cheese store

Ice Skating Season Begins

2011-11-20T22:33:00.001+01:00

Outdoor skating rink, Na Františku, opened its ice this weekend, in well timed synch with the Prague Christmas markets. After a few days of accidental meanderings by Náměstí Míru to test out the market's treats, we decided ice skating might be just the right antidote for all the cider we'd tried this weekend.

Sunday afternoon found us adjusting last year's skates to the children's feet and packing up for a trip to the rink. Na Františku is right on the river, a little less than a kilometer's walk from Staroměstská metro. Most of the walk takes you through the Jewish quarter, with its beautiful art nouveau architecture and shop windows galore to enjoy while you walk by. Thanks to the entertainment, it's an easy stroll.

We arrived just after the start of the evening skate (4 pm, have I mentioned that's evening now?). In no time at all we had figured out tickets, a bench for our stuff and how to untie the triple knots in my skate laces. Time to try out the rink.

When you grow up in the South, you don't spend a lot of time skating on ice. Roller skating, yes, and these days roller blading, but I can count on two fingers the number of times I ice skated before we moved to Prague. I'm missing that kid conviction you keep as you grow up with a skill, and each year I wonder if I'm really going to be able to skate when the season begins. Skating backwards holding on to James' hands distracted me, and once I was racing around the rink with Caroline the bumps worked out, my feet stopped trying to remind me they preferred other footwear and all was well.

{1} We eventually borrowed a hockey goal frame for James to push around the rink. It worked better than holding my hands, but he's still not as excited as Caroline is about skating.
{2} If skating's not your thing, there's always basketball, and a playground too.
{3} By the end of the day, the ice had taken a beating, but was still firm enough for some fast footwork.
{4} The Spanish synagogue, one of my favorite buildings on the way back to the metro.
{5} Since the kids were starving afterwards, we ended the evening at a pizzeria downtown that is unusually kid friendly.

Gertie the Dinosaur

2011-11-19T22:14:00.001+01:00

An academic husband comes with benefits you might expect – the ability to translate Latin inscriptions at a glance and quote "The Waste Land" at just the right moment, a library of books you’d never buy for yourself, but like to read on occasion, a schedule that allows at least a week off for Christmas. Later you discover that someone who can memorize long passages from Ovid can memorize just about anything, and is a walking database of Beatles songs as well.* And that anyone interested in early 20th century poetry might find early 20th century films just as cool.

Which helps explain why we’ve spent the last few weeks watching silent movies and cartoon shorts each night before the kids go to bed. The animations come from a top 50 cartoons list picked out by a scad of animators almost twenty years ago,** and now listed in Wikipedia for easy reference. The earliest cartoons have a tendency to the surreal, with nightmarish worlds getting built and then twisted inside and out at the whim of the animator, and they are mostly not my favorite. We all developed a fondness for Gertie the dinosaur*** though, and I thought you might like to meet her too.

* I can’t guarantee this quirk in every academic, just mine.
** The list was published in The Top 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1000 Animation Professionals, by Jerry Beck.
*** You'll probably know her parent, Winsor McCay, through his most famous character - Little Nemo.

Puff Pancakes

2011-11-18T15:39:00.001+01:00

Do you ever make German Pancakes?* When we were children we loved them extravagantly, but in my fickle teenage years I moved on to other food favorites, like chocolate malted milk shakes, soft shell crabs, shrimp of all variety. Apparently there is a gene for puffed pancake adoration though, because when I introduced one to the family at dinner this week something amazing happened.

Silence settled over the table. Peace reigned. And everyone ate their food.

All of it.

After we finished, there was a reverent pause, and then Caroline asked if we could have pancakes every Monday from now on.

This was all very satisfying to a cook who might please one or even two people at the table but rarely manages to slip anything fancier than an egg by the third. The moment was marred only briefly after C asked what made it taste so good, and how did I make one? When she found out the ingredients, and how easy it is to do, she stomped her foot and said "You fooled me, that's not fair!"

To show her the benefits of simplicity, I decided we’d bake one together. Today’s the second day of school holidays for the children, and they were home with their babysitter, Lucie, while I worked. When I took a break for lunch we stirred together our pancake. Caroline measured, James cut the butter, and they both handled the important task of watching their dinner grow.

There are many pleasures to be found in food this simple: it takes minutes to make, and uses the most basic of ingredients. It’s the type of dish that turns lemon juice and powdered sugar into magic, and it melts in your mouth when you eat it. But perhaps best of all, you get to watch your pancake grow as it bakes, in a sequence usually seen only in time-lapse video. We held our breath while it inched its way up to full height, and then, suddenly, sagged down again with a sigh.

After we ate, the children swarmed me and pelted kisses all over before I headed back to work. Lucie and I laughed, and I decided that I might be persuaded to make another one come Monday.

*A German pancake is also known as a Dutch Baby in the States.

Ingredients
2 TB butter
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
2 TB sugar
1 glug of vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 425F/215C. Add butter to dutch oven and place in oven.
Meanwhile, use a fork to mix flour and milk together well, removing all lumps. Once mixed together, add 4 eggs and stir until smooth. Stir in sugar, salt and vanilla, open oven and swiftly pour batter into the dutch oven.
Let it bake for 20 minutes if you like something more buttery, longer for crispiness.

Serve with powdered sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Two Squares' Take on Democracy Day

2011-11-17T23:07:00.001+01:00

Today’s joint celebration of Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day and International Students Day meant a day off from school for James and Caroline, but not, apparently, a day off from study. Caroline organized a music class that included plenty of breaks, jingle bell practice, and the well timed „fite with James“ module. After Caroline assured me she meant pillow fighting, not swords, we left them to it.

Eventually the kids started sparring outside their curriculum, and C and I split off from the guys to head out on a ramble. As you can see from the collage, we managed to catch bits of what was happening around the city today - public speeches and demonstrations at Václavské náměstí, and a construction scene at Náměstí Míru, where the Christmas markets were going up.

On the way home from our walk, C told me what she'd learned about November 17th in school this week. Back in 1939 the German ruler of Bohemia and Moravia killed a group of students and their teachers and closed down Czech universities. Since 1941, countries around the world have celebrated November 17th as International Students Day,* in honor of those killed. The date has double significance here, as a student demonstration on November 17, 1989 helped spark the Velvet Revolution.

* The US celebrates "International Education Week" in mid November, in a nod to International Students Day.

In November

2011-11-16T23:42:00.001+01:00

In November, the earth is growing quiet. It is making its bed, a winter bed for flowers and small creatures. The bed is white and silent, and much life can hide beneath its blankets.

In November, the trees are standing all sticks and bones. Without their leaves, how lovely they are, spreading their arms like dancers. They know it is time to be still.

-from In November by Cynthia Rylant

Each fall, when the school year starts, we rummage through the children’s book cases and find In November. Its slow pacing and winter world feel exotic then, and we pretend shiver as we read it through at bed time.

November arrives, and with it scarf and hat weather. It doesn’t usually snow, but the skies hang low over our heads, walks lose their pleasure, and when we come in from the cold the first person finished shedding their layers heads to the hot water kettle to make some tea.

At parties and in email, we start to plan Thanksgiving dinner with our friends. We each have a traditional dish to bring, and we search the internet for one or two more ideas to try. In the weeks before Thanksgiving we bake more, and leave the oven door open for its heat when we’re through.

In November, the smell of food is different. It is an orange smell. A squash and a pumpkin smell. It tastes like cinnamon and can fill up a house in the morning, pull everyone from bed in a fog. Food is better in November than any other time of the year.

At bedtime tonight we piled blankets on the children and read In November again. The words felt different, the pictures too. The outside world has slowed down to the same pace as the text, it mirrors the paintings with their beautiful simplicity. The story has turned from exotic to true.

Floating Resolutions

2011-11-15T20:45:00.001+01:00

I like month-long projects. A few years ago, before James was born, I decided I’d try to do a little art every day for a month. It was a most creative time, and the happiest mid winter I’ve ever experienced. Thanks to NaBloPoMo, this month I’m trying to write and take pictures every day. And two months ago? In September, Caroline and I set up a challenge for ourselves. I’d pick out a new outfit for her each school day for a month, and she'd get dressed in time for us to photograph the results before she left for school. I upped the ante by betting I’d figure out outfits without buying anything new for the year beyond a pair of boots and the school dress of C’s heart‘s desire.*

For a month of school days, Caroline got dressed without complaint. Our portrait sessions worked wonders on two grumpy morning people, and after a few days we started to get goofy. One Monday, I asked if she could please try some floating. It became a game each day as she tried to jump as high as she could and I tried to find enough light to keep the results from being a complete blur. When the first of October rolled around, we were both a little sad when I didn’t pull out the camera. I put together the collages for C that night so we could see her side by side.

Now when Caroline is stuck deciding on an outfit for the next day, we'll check the collages to help make her choice. I get a kick out of skimming through the pictures and watching how they progress through the month, how we finessed the jump and tried it out in one spot or another around the house, which days left enough time for braids, and which for only pony tails. And Caroline and I are already plotting a new challenge for January, we'll keep you posted on what our next month-long resolution might be!

*Because she doesn’t have to wear uniforms, she thinks they’re cool.

Pan Fried Anchovies from Croatia

2011-11-14T12:00:00.000+01:00

It's Monday, how about a fish story?
*******
These beauties were caught off the coast of Croatia the day before we met. One glance into their eyes, and I fell in love. I'd never cooked with anchovies before but suspected that any fish this fresh had to be delicious.

Once home from the farmers market, I found out that anchovies are a cinch to cook. The fiddliest part is the prep, because of the multitudes. But don't let that faze you. It's just a matter of washing well, off with their heads and a thorough gutting to avoid the innards and their bitter flavor. Once your anchovies are beheaded and gutted, rinse them once more and dry inside and out. (Getting rid of extra moisture keeps fish from turning soggy when you're pan frying.)

The hard part's done. Set up a dinner plate with a few cups of corn and wheat flour and salt and pepper to taste. Then roll your fish through the mix, making sure they're covered from head to tail.

Now heat up a big pan full of sunflower or olive oil on a burner that's big enough to get your oil hot but not smoking. You'll want about 2 cm/.5 inch of oil in the pan. Once the oil is ready, drop your fish in and fry until they are golden brown, about one minute per side.

Drain your anchovies with a big slotted spoon, nestle them onto a bed of paper towels and lunch is served!

We dined that day with our fingers, squeezing lemons over the fish while they were hot, adding ketchup for the kids, who ate with gusto. We did too. It was fare to remember.

Ingredients
1 kilo fresh anchovies
1 cup wheat flour
1 cup corn flour
2 tsp salt
ground pepper to taste
sunflower or olive oil for frying
lemon wedges and ketchup for the table

To Market, to Market, and Jiggity Jig

2011-11-13T15:54:00.001+01:00

Saturday morning found us retracing our St. Martin’s walk of the night before, carrying shopping bags and James‘ bicycle in place of lanterns. The fall mists had disappeared with the drop in temperature and all was sunny and cold. Caroline and I took turns finding signs of winter as we walked. Rose bushes bundled up in earth duvets, frost on the grass, hats and gloves on everyone we passed, even the dogs in the park were dressed for the weather.

We were heading back to Jiřího z Poděbrad, this time for the Saturday farmers market. It’s only the second year that we’ve had a farmers market in our neighborhood, and even though we’ve been regular Saturday visitors since spring, each weekend I feel like a kid on Christmas morning as we turn the corner and find the stands still there with their bounty. French bread, cuts of lamb, Czech pastries that taste homemade, apple cider, fresh eggs, sausages of all variety, vegetables and herbs...and best of all, fish. Fish that is so nearly fresh I can poach, pan fry or steam it, knowing full well it will taste like fish and not like an unfortunate trout that has lingered too long in the freezer.

Since the sun was out, I took lots of pictures to try to capture the charms of the market. The top photo in the collage today turned out to be my favorite, showing off the stands with their Czech flag motif just above the hustle and bustle. The rest of the pictures come from our walk over: Caroline sleuthing for signs of winter, a graffiti covered metro air vent, frost in the park. The center picture is of one of my favorite industrial art works. It's a metro air vent too, and I love it to pieces for its cartoon character personality.

What does your farmer's market look like, and does it still run in the winter?

Music to Work By (It's Better than Coffee)

2011-11-12T21:22:00.001+01:00

Daily* blog posts aside (and last night's parade), I've worked a lot recently, staying up past midnight most nights as our team finishes projects, and starts a few more. It's November, our busy season, and I know that things will quiet again in January. In the meantime, there's music to listen to, and work to get done. Off I run!

* Because it's November, and NaBloPoMo.

Lanterns on St. Martin's Day

2011-11-11T21:01:00.001+01:00

Candle-lit holidays come every few weeks now til the end of the year. St. Martin's Day fit the bill tonight, and Caroline's school celebrated with a lantern* parade through the streets of our neighborhood. Caroline and her friends led the parade with their teacher; we were cordially acknowledged and then ignored as C turned her attention to the important business at hand: voices to be warmed up, lanterns held high and the parade kept from wobbling too far off its path towards Jiřího z Poděbrad, one of the main squares nearby.

St. Martin's day in central Europe is traditionally the day new wine turns from stormy to clear. To celebrate, vineyards from around the country set up stands in the square to offer up tastes of their young wine.** After the classes gathered to play recorder and sing, parents sorted out children and headed straight to the wine stands to receive our reward - svařené víno, or mulled wine! Fingers warm for the first time since the parade began, we headed home, lanterns still lit and children humming, ready for the weekend.

* Paper lanterns, with candles. The type of lanterns that boys like to play swords with.
** The festival began at 11:11 this morning, in a nice nod to the date, and borrowing a tradition from our German neighbors.

Palmetto Frond Forts and Other Fun

2011-11-10T21:52:00.001+01:00

Joan from Charleston Daily Photos recently mentioned kolokolo on her blog, and added kolo to her low country blog roll. In thanks, I decided to dig into my photo files from the summer for some pictures of one of our favorite places in the world, Johns Island, S.C. I also asked Caroline if she'd like to be a guest blogger today. She kindly agreed:

"My favorite place to play is on Johns Island. Johns Island is full of trees. There are palmetto branches to play with when they fall. There are live oak trees that are so tall you can’t climb them and see their top. They make a wonderful roof. My cousins live there and play with me. We build houses out of palmetto branches. It is exciting because the wind blows hard and flaps the palmetto fronds. We play that we are Indians, and have palmetto swords. I can’t wait to play Indians again when I go back."

Mushrooms or Mulled Wine, You Choose

2011-11-09T21:25:00.001+01:00

Stores here are torn between fall and Christmas decorations right now. I'm favoring the fall for at least a few more weeks, though as soon as the Christmas markets open and mulled wine season begins, I'm sure I'll be singing "Deck the Halls" along with the rest of the choir!

The Color of Fall in Prague

2011-11-08T17:20:00.002+01:00

Prague's trees don't turn spectacularly crimson or orange, but for a week or so each November, they do line our streets with gold. This weekend the trees and the sun conspired in a final fling of color. Everywhere we walked we saw people taking pictures of the leaves, and the children ran beneath the trees to try to catch a leaf before it reached the ground. We wound up at one of our favorite nearby parks, Grebovka, where the fallen leaves made carpets of color, perfect for scuffling through.

Breakfast with Pumpkins

2011-11-07T18:45:00.000+01:00

Is it just me, or do these jack-o-lanterns look like they're plotting to take over the breakfast table?

Reading Times Two

2011-11-06T15:16:00.000+01:00

Liz from Lizardek asked about the books in my post office tower. Because I read mostly on a Kindle now, only a few were for me – Mariana, by Monica Dickens and a book on Chinese brush painting. The rest are Christmas presents for Will and Caroline. Caroline's stash includes The Saturdays, A Wrinkle in Time, and The Horse and His Boy. Will reads kolokolo, so I'll keep quiet about his ;-). I love to give and get books for Christmas, and before I bought a Kindle, always looked forward to the days after Christmas when I had enough to read, and more! So satisfying.

Now that Caroline is reading English fluently, having lots of English books around for her to choose from gives me the same satisfaction, and we pour through online book lists to figure out what we can find for her to read next.

"Reading English fluently." Three words to savor even more than a tower of books. A few days ago, Prague Monitor’s Emily Prucha posted an article in Half-n-Half about reading in Czech and English. Her story of her daughter's first foray into reading English reminded me of our own bi-literal try. It's a longer tale than I usually tell here - to make up for it, I promise I'll stick to pictures tomorrow!

Kindergarten, or školka, in the Czech Republic is very different from the UK or the States. Kids learn to change clothes on their own, dance the mazurka, and brush their teeth thoroughly. They draw pictures, sing songs and practice lots of socialization skills. They don't study the alphabet, numbers, or much of anything academic and it's generally a relaxing few years. I thought Caroline's last year in školka might be the perfect time for her to get the basics of reading in English behind her, before she needed to switch to Czech.

It didn't take. Caroline believed books were for us to read to her, and she told us so, loudly. Then first grade came along, and all focus switched to learning to read and write in Czech and to sit still in class. Each was tough at first (especially sitting still). By contrast, the basic English her class studied was easy – she did no work and always knew the answer!

The one word Caroline learned in school those first few months was "jumper." She also picked up a cute British accent she’d use at supper sometimes. English remained a blank book, so by January I decided to go guerrilla. We worked on spelling lists while we walked to the store, wrote letters on the weekend, read picture books together at night. If she did all her chores, she took over my computer and played on Starfall.com. Czech is a phonetic language, which makes it beautifully simple to learn to read. English is not. The spelling disgusted C. She refused to believe it could be so illogical, and words like "two" spent weeks on her spelling list. I dug up similarities between Czech, German and English to explain word spellings and turned English's long history into spooky bed time tales. After a while, Caroline decided that English was weird, but cool.

Then second grade arrived, and Caroline found school a lot easier. English class started to get boring. Her teacher and I put our heads together and agreed that I’d help Caroline after school just as usual, but this year she'd give C credit for the extra work. If she had an essay or book report to write in Czech that week, she’d write one in English too. I found workbooks for her and we spent many a Sunday morning playing school.

Last spring Caroline started to read in English for fun. She still writes book reports in both English and Czech, and in the ESL classes each week at school she either works on vocabulary or reading comprehension on her own. She’s joined an after school English class run by Class Acts, and her teacher there inspires her to work even harder. Her essays have become funny and more fluent. It still feels like pulling teeth to get her to sit down and work on writing, but she’d carry a book around and read all day if we let her.

Looking back now, I’m proud of C for her perseverance, grateful to her teacher for the extra motivation, and very glad that James has a few more years until first grade!

And you? If you have kids at home learning two or more languages, what's your best advice for handling the everyday challenges of helping them learn to read and write the languages they're not focused on in school?

Dresden

2011-11-05T11:50:00.000+01:00

Only two hours north of Prague, Dresden is my favorite city 'abroad' to visit when friends and family come to town. We spent Czech Independence day there last week, basking in late fall sunshine and even trying out an Italian gelato or two. The weather was too good to miss by walking through a museum so instead we walked the city, stopping only for ice cream and some early Christmas shopping.

1. The wings of Zwinger
2. Stop, in East German
3. A piece of the world's largest porcelain painting, the Fürstenzug*
4. A slightly later representation of power on the Cultural Palace**
5. Construction and the Frauenkirche
6. James in his Paddington coat (he's eyeing the ice cream)

* Completed in 1907, the painting was barely damaged by the February 14, 1945 bombing that destroyed most of Dresden.
** Completed in 1969, and called "Der Weg der Roten Fahne", or "The Way of the Red Flag".

How to Eat a Sundae on a Fall Friday

2011-11-04T07:45:00.000+01:00

I think the pictures speak for themselves ;-). These are from Friday a week ago, when we headed to Dresden on our fall holiday. More pictures to come!

A Tower of Books

2011-11-03T07:47:00.000+01:00

Czech post offices have come a long way in the twelve years we've lived here. You don't need to use your elbows to keep your place in line any more - order tickets and clearly marked windows preserve politeness, as do the friendly twenty-somethings who speak Czenglish behind the counter. I might miss the quirkiness of getting to talk to someone named Pani Bezchlebova or Pani Bezvodova*, but I don't miss their personalities.

So when I took my package slip to the post office the other day I was surprised when the Hillfiger-clad clerk frowned at the slip instead of flashing his usual smile, and even more surprised when he disappeared from his window and didn't come back. Resigned to a long wait, I'd read halfway through my passport's "notable quotes" by the time he returned.

"Go west young man!"** I read as he slid back in front of his computer. But he only looked at me and shook his head, saying he was afraid the tower would be too much for me to grab home. I switched to Czech and promised that whatever tower he had to offer, I was willing to grab it without fail. Shaking his head again in a way that made me remember Mrs. Without-bread fondly, he piled twelve boxes on the counter, stamped my mail slip and let me go.

I staggered home happily. Who could resist an armful of books? One of my friends recently traded SEO advice for a big book order from the bookdepository, and Christmas had just arrived!

They're hidden away for the next few months, except the top two - early presents to myself for the SEO work, and for carrying them all home without dropping a one.

* Loosely translated as "Mrs. Without-bread" and "Mrs. Without-water," these two ladies worked side by side at the post office near our first flat in Prague.
** Horace Greeley, U.S. Passport

Door to door trick or treating

2011-11-02T09:45:00.000+01:00

When it comes to candy, kids have a long memory and remarkable powers of persuasion. By the end of the day yesterday, Caroline and James had talked us into "just a little" trick or treating. Well prepped on our roles, each grownup hid behind a door in our flat and met the costumed crusaders with candy and Halloween chatter.

James seemed to find home style trick or treating just fine for him and paraded about with pirate hat, sword and hook as if he were out making the rounds in the States. Caroline was more circumspect. "It's better than all pretend," she said, as she counted out her candy, dividing it carefully with James, "but next year can we go outside too?"

A Czech Cowgirl Halloween

2011-11-01T10:38:00.001+01:00

For the last few years the Prague Botanical Gardens has hosted hundreds of kids and their parents for a pumpkin carving, sausage grilling, balloon filled extravaganza on Halloween. We decided to tag along this year with friends and try it out. Carving pumpkins on a table set sideways on a hill isn't my favorite crafting activity (add a folding picnic knife and pumpkin gore for the full shudder), so I'll skip right over that part. We did love the carved results though, and the mulled wine and klobasa fast made the dissection scene a faint memory. Small kids ran about waving flaming pumpkins while bigger kids toasted more sausages around a bonfire, and a band played the blues into the night.

First Day

2011-09-01T13:49:00.012+02:00

On the first day of school,* moments pass by lightning quick. Emotions change just as fast.
a. A boy can't help but get excited when he's all dressed up and ready to go!
b. He's joining the big world - time to eat his breakfast just like Dada.
c. J gives C a brotherly ok on her school outfit. It's her first day too! (3rd grade already.)
d. But to calm his nerves, some guitar strumming seems just right.
e. There are moments where the big world seems a little too big.
f. A talk in the coat room with his babysitter (his true love) cheers him up.
g. After all there are trains to try out.
h. And wait, there's a car!
i. In no time at all, he's made a friend. Bonding over the tool table already.

* Nursery school

The philosophy of sandwiches

2011-08-12T23:13:00.004+02:00

It’s a beautiful August day here in the Czech Republic, cool and glowing with light. Walking home from a meeting, my mind is full of those easy going late summer projects that make life feel as if it will always be so – my latest hunt for jeans that fit James‘ long legs, deadlines for a project launching soon, a new book to read. I stop at our local deli to pick up a few chlebíčky for lunch and think just how right they are for a wonderfully normal day in Prague.

Chlebíčky, in case you haven’t met, are open faced sandwiches made from slices of bread spread with a sauce topped with ham, roastbeef, smoked salmon...imagine your favorite deli food and you’ll find it on a chlebíčka of some sort. I’ve never met one that isn’t then garnished with a slice of tomato, egg, pickle, or (my favorite) a thin slice of lemon. Almost any Czech lahůdky, or deli, offer at least ham and roastbeef. They’re perfect for a quick lunch, for party food or an afternoon snack with the children, and despite their toppings, wrap up well to carry home.

Our neighborhood has several delis that sell chlebíčky but if I’m really hankering for something different, I head to Prima Chlebicek, over on Londynska. Check out their site for its range of sandwiches, and you’ll see that they don’t suffer a lack of selection. The choice is so rich it’s most fun to go when you’ve got several people to buy for so you can try out more than a few.

For a sandwich with a side of history, you can’t go wrong with a visit to Jan Paukert Lahůdkářství, or Jan Paukert’s Deli. One hundred years or so ago Mr. Paukert not only opened the first deli in Prague, but he also invented chlebíčky. Apparently a Czech artist asked for a meal he could easily carry and eat with one hand. Mr. Paukert assembled a small slice of bread spread with mayo, some salami and swiss cheese, and presto, chlebíčky were born. The little sandwiches became the rage at parties, delis opened up all around town, and both the sandwiches and the eateries have been around ever since.

Will asked me once why I liked chlebíčky so much. Besides the obvious tastiness of anything meant for party food, I like sandwiches that focus more on toppings than bread. And I love that something so Czech has not only survived but thrived despite more modern fast food, staying wonderfully normal, perfect for lunch on a late summer’s day.

Spring!!

2011-03-09T13:33:00.005+01:00

Pictures from last winter, before James renounced his pacifier, and after he discovered the pleasures of dressing up!

Sunshiny Day

2011-02-10T10:08:00.003+01:00

It feels like Spring around here, which must mean it is time for me to peek out from behind my work computer and take a few pictures! In the meantime, I thought I'd share a short clip of James and his approach to the weather (and sunshine!)

First Sunday in Advent

2010-11-28T23:24:00.005+01:00

Caroline looks forward to the first day of Advent for months because, as she says, it's candle lighting time! Advent wreath candles, that is, helping C count down those long-for-her weeks until Christmas.

Since our wreaths are made out of fir and dry out quickly, I usually wait until the very first day of Advent to buy one, visiting the local floral store and the fancier shops in the malls. This year we didn't find anything we perfectly liked, and I had just about decided to buy the most passable version and prune it to satisfaction when I remembered that some of our Czech friends make their own wreaths.

Sure enough, a little digging around in our local shop turned up ribbonless wreaths, candles to spec and all the decoration you might want. We picked up a tiny mushroom in honor of Eurolush, golden pine cones which reminded me of the South, and dried cinnamon and oranges for C who thought they smelled divine.

Just before dinner, we constructed our wreath - C shows you how. Her favorite addition, held in the wings till last, is the angel given to her by one of the ladies in a neighborhood store. It was a present given to her for a smile and a long question in Czech. For her it represents serendipity, for me it's a reminder that behind stern public faces there are soft hearts. Soft hearts and hands that make beautiful wreaths, then light their candles in our December dark.

Thanksgiving in Prague

2010-11-28T22:50:00.012+01:00

We don't take time off for the long Thanksgiving weekend, though I do get a little free and easy feeling, as if I'm on vacation rather than writing proposals until midnight. That's thanks to Facebook and the holiday high my friends from home catch on Thanksgiving Eve, when everyone turns giddy for a few hours before they head off for the long weekend.

So, no Thursday holiday but we did get to reap the rewards of another friend's day off and the huge turkey feast he cooked to show the children just what Thanksgiving is all about. It was a delicious turkey, and the food nearly made me weep (since he couldn't find cream of mushroom soup for the green beans he substituted bechamel, he's that kind of guy). The kids thought our story of the pilgrims and Indians more interesting than the food, but at least we all agreed that the crunchy Thai dried onion mix (our local replacement for french fried onions) was good on just about everything, not just the green beans.

Prague Thanksgivings come in at least twos, sometimes more, and Saturday is our traditional fancy dinner, celebrated with another set of friends, no children, until the wee hours of the night. This was our eighth year together, and there is something so civilized about being able to talk through a meal that we haven't yet invited the kids, though we did debate it. We eventually decided that as soon as they like turkey, they can come.

Next year it's my turn to host the kids for a Thursday night meal. We'll tell stories, I'll have onion mix and ketchup ready at hand to spice up the turkey and mashed potatoes. And I'll look forward to our Saturday night supper, sans children, but full of fun, good conversation and long lasting memories. Cheers to you Miss Marjorie C!

Dashes

2010-10-06T21:23:00.014+02:00

Before school started, I flew over to the States for my grandmother's 90th birthday and a whirlwind weekend in NYC. My battery did not last through the trip, but I did take a few hundred or so pictures, and particularly liked the two that top the collage. They just looked so New York to me.

The pictures on the bottom row stand as my Czech contrast. The first is the front of Hotel Pariz, downtown, and the second is a picture from way back in September on Caroline's first day of second grade.

She's having fun this semester, thanks in part to being back in her old classroom with her old teacher and all of her friends from first grade. Theoretically, that means she can concentrate on other, more important, bits of school. An interview with C about what those bits might be goes something like this:

Interested Parent: Learn anything new today?
C: Ummmm, nope.
IP: Nothing at all? How did Math go?*
C: Hm...I can't remember. Oh, I know! I learned how to boil rice in a bag today, so we don't have to steam it any more!**

* Every now and again we like to tax our brains with the odd problems in Caroline's 2nd grade math work book. The hardest are so cleverly illogical they've stumped even the professor in the family for a good ten minutes.

** C thinks we're crazy to eat sticky rice from a rice steamer and keeps trying to tempt me with tales from the cafeteria of goopy Czech rice covered in sauce. I may have to send her to South Carolina for some rice habilitation!

I'm with the band

2010-07-24T15:24:00.002+02:00

Imagine, if you will, a project that keeps on growing, time frames that can't, and hot hot weather pushing house temperatures up past 90. Antidotes included working long hours, ice packs as foot rests and the occasional stop to smell the flowers and take a few pictures.

Caroline has been at camp for two weeks but we're picking her up tomorrow and James cannot wait. He's in a stage where he loves all things Caroline. Since she's been gone, he's insisted on sleeping in her bed every night and he helped me pick out this picture of the two of them today.

Caroline blogs on her birthday

2010-06-29T21:36:00.010+02:00

This morning was very wonderful. It was so cool because today is my birthday. For breakfast I had a chocolate croissant and an egg and also tea out of my special tea cup. It is a special tea cup because it is Mommie’s and mine. On the teacup is a picture of a frog. His name is Jeremy Fisher. I got dressed after breakfast. I put on a short sleeve stripy t-shirt, jeans with picasu and my blue heart necklace. I then brushed my hair. My hair today is short because yesterday I went to the hairdresser. The hairdresser is my favorite hair dresser because the name of the store has my name in it. It is Salon Karolina. I like short hair because now I can brush it by myself. The End.

Fore and Aft

2010-06-10T17:27:00.003+02:00

In a few weeks these flowers will be gone, to be replaced by the children's favorite entertainment on a country walk - little white berries that go !pop! when you step on them.

C picked this bouquet for me, and after we'd marvelled over the cute little freckles on the flowers, we decided that the best way to keep them forever would be for us to take their portrait.

So I did. Here it is Caroline!

A Day at the Spa

2010-06-04T15:44:00.007+02:00

We've visited spas before at Kolokolo, heading to Třebon three times in the last few years. This year our sitters went to new spa just north of Prague in Lázně Bělohrad. After giving them a few weeks to discover the best cukarna in town, we went to visit.

The spas our sitters stay in are health oriented, not aesthetic, and this particular spa focuses on peat bath treatments and lots of exercise. We didn't try the mud baths, but we did go on a walk around the town and into the countryside, passing by the {1} fields of new wheat as we walked. Most of the spa buildings are new, but {2} this one is a reconstructed building that was part of the original spa built in the late 1800s.

All of the spa buildings were in beautiful shape, and the town nearby was bustling and full of commercial life. Once we walked downtown to the main square, we discovered the unreconstructed side of the town, including {3} Lázně Bělohrad's local chateau. It may be crumbling into decay, but its guardian eagle still stands proudly by the main doors. I liked the irises the town planted to keep the eagle company. {4} The main square is a mix of Asian dry good stores and Czech butchers. The facades are beautiful but, like the chateau, crumbly.

{5} I thought it apt that the most prominent building in town was not the chateau, or the city hall but...a pharmacy.

{6} Walking in the countryside, we passed carefully maintained gardens and country cottages, and this well channeled stream. It seemed a lively answer to the {center} town map I found stenciled on the chateau's wall.

cukarna = sugar shop, or candy store. A very Czech version of a coffee/ice cream parlor, they usually stock any candy you can imagine and are delightfully child friendly in a way that a formal coffee house is not.

The World Outside Her Door

2010-06-03T14:54:00.011+02:00

We're in the middle of a bad weather stretch of days - rain and chilly temperatures. My tomato plants are not pleased. The weekend promises better things though, and in anticipation I've updated kolokolo a bit. I widened my template to make room for bigger pictures, changed the colors (yet again), and added a new, probably temporary, header. Funny how a little sprucing up can make everything feel cheery again!

All the photos in this collage are from May and a particularly valiant sunny day. C, if you can't see her, is standing in our building's hallway about to head out. I made sure to be armed with my camera that day because I knew the light would be beautiful on the buildings. They are all from the late 19th, early 20th century, which was when our neighborhood really came into its own. I particularly like these two towers and how different they are. One of them is a water tower and one a church tower. Can you tell which is which?

***********************
Lynn is right - the Vinohrady Water Tower is the beautiful neo-renaissance building on the left, and the Congregational Hussite Church is on the right. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the Hussites here.

Pillar to Post

2010-06-02T11:32:00.006+02:00

Prague photo galleries are full of black and white photos of architecture, bridges, sign posts and people from the 1950s through '89. Every image I have of the country in my mind, pre-revolution, is in black and white. As if all the color were seeped out of the landscape by the politics of Communism.

But of course Prague wasn't black and white before 1989. The city had values and variations then too. Today I decided to play with what an old photo might look like, in four color. Here are two photos I took of a resolutely Prague view - one in black and white and one, for contrast, in technicolor. Which do you like better?

Tricky, I know!

Spring storm over fields

2010-06-01T21:37:00.005+02:00

There are times I love the tyranny of perspective.

Springing into Two

2010-05-18T23:00:00.002+02:00

James turned two a few weeks ago, and is on a determined bounce into growing up. He's happily moved into a big boy bed, he tries to make his own breakfast, he loves to put his train set together, he sings along with us (and Caroline's music player) and he really thinks that if he just repeats after C, he'll have conquered all the words that matter.

Caroline says he's fun these days, especially when they play The Game. When asked what The Game consists of, she explained the rules very patiently. To quote :
#1. Run around the house fast,
#2. When I see James, or he sees me, stop and scream.
#3. Run again.

Stromovka Spring + our Wolf Story

2010-04-25T15:22:00.007+02:00

Rouchswalwe asked if Prague has reached beer garden time yet, and I'm happy to say that it has! For the last two weekends we have gone rollerblading in our favorite park - Stromovka - and in the evening, after a good several kilometers of pushing James in his stroller around the park, a beer outside is just right.

The top and bottom row of pics are from Stromovka, the middle row are on the way to a beer garden in our neighborhood.

But before I completely turn my back on Winter, one more story for Eleanor: Our family, inspired by my brother-in-law, has a history of attempting crazy outdoor adventures. This might mean snow shoeing through three meters of snow AND towing a sled behind (on the stomped down snow shoe path). Or it might involve one person biking on two bikes along the tow paths of the French canal system, because that was the fastest way for us all to get to dinner on time. The list goes on, and has led me to always carry emergency rations when I hang out with my b-i-law, a pocket knife, a match or two, bungee cords...

I'm not naturally adventurous, but these habits have grown on me, and it doesn't feel like a vacation unless we try something a little bit challenging. For our Easter trip, that something involved cross country skiing, darkening day, and two sisters who were not going to let a snow storm get in the way of their planned afternoon ski trip. Thus it was that on the evening before Easter Sunday, while snow fell, the wind blew and the residents of the Engadine valley hunkered down for the night, my sister and I set out on our Easter adventure.

The cross country paths were snowed over, but the wind was at our back, and we reasoned that we'd make ten kilometers in an hour. Three hours later, after what turned out to be my favorite trek of the holiday, we arrived home. We were tired, but content. Because no one else was out, we could ski side by side and talk the entire way. The fresh snow made the hills easy to get up and down, we'd shared a chocolate bar to keep up our energy (rations, naturally) and even though we were completely snow covered, we were happy we still had the habit of adventure. But three hours? How to explain this to the guys at home, taking care of the children? Then around the corner came the first person we'd seen all afternoon - led by his dog, bounding in the snow. And our wolf story came into being.

Winter's come and gone?

2010-04-10T23:37:00.001+02:00

I left you in deep midwinter, full of promises of more pictures to come. I rarely apologize for not hanging about but this time I feel I owe you at least a quick catch up.

So, work work work, no time for photography, work work work and of course children. Does that sum it up?

No?

Then how about some pictures.

(1) About a month ago, the snow in Prague began to melt, and even the drifts disappeared finally.
(2) Signs of spring began to abound, along with odd Easter trappings.
(3) So warm was it, we started to hang out in restaurant gardens, and
(4) James discovered shades.
(5) Prague stayed gray, but warmed up enough for us to take weekend walks across the river.
(6) After three months of working till midnight nonstop, it was time for a holiday. Easter break found us headed to Switzerland to meet up with my sister and her family. After trying to drive over a Swiss mountain pass in a snowstorm, we turned around and made the trip through the mountains on a car train instead. Highly recommended, magical (says me), just the right bit scary (says C). Will slept through the whole ride.
(7) The winter ends with a great milestone passed - C learns to ski in Sils, Switzerland. She's absolutely great at running up hill in her skis. (It was a prerequisite to using the tow rope - the perfect motivation!)
(8) The view from the children's ski school.

More Blue

2010-02-25T06:58:00.006+01:00

More pictures in blue. Every step closer to our pension on this walk made me feel I was a step closer to being warm again, and the pictures definitely said the same thing to me.

About the blue - I've been trying all winter to take an evening shot of the snow and capture the blue of night fall. In Prague the city lights turn everything yellow and I thought that I'd need a filter to find my blue. But no, all I needed to do was drive south to the border and take a walk in the countryside as the sun faded. A friend of mine (also a camera buff) walked with me and we decided that taking a walk in the country wasn't just good for pictures. I'm glad I live in the city but I love being able to get out into forests and fields when we can.

These pictures are all taken in the south of Bohemia, just below Cesky Krumlov and a few kilometers from the Austrian border. We stayed in a little lake-side pension there and spent the weekend cross-country skiing and visiting Cesky Krumlov in the snow. More pictures tomorrow!

Winter White

2010-02-24T09:55:00.002+01:00

Or rather blue. I thought winter this year would last forever. Today it's above freezing. Before I run back to work (which has buried me much more than the snow) I thought I'd post a picture of Bohemian fields covered in snow. Stark and beautiful.

Snails in the Shell, Graffiti on the Wall

2010-01-23T21:37:00.012+01:00

For Saturday lunches, we like to turn out fast but tasty spreads of flavor. Summer finds us bringing home food from the Lebanese deli close by, or maybe the Greek store, or the Italian grocery...cold cuts, bread, olives, cheese and something different like octopus salad or falafal and baba ghanouj.

Teeth chatteringly cold Saturdays in the winter call for something different. I headed out this morning in 15F/-9C degree weather to do our Saturday morning shopping. Living downtown, far from the megamarkets, that usually means stopping at three or four little stores along the way. I stopped at five or six just to keep my eyelashes thawed. The last was a French cheese and vegetable store, where I picked up enough cheese to satisfy the many tastes of the family and then - on a whim - twelve butter and snail filled shells.

Nestled in aluminum foil to keep from tipping their butter out, they baked for ten minutes in an oven set to 450. We each had four and dripped the juices all over toasted bread to finish up. "I love snails," Caroline said. James said "no comment at this time." Which came out, "uhmmm, cheese". Will asked me to make more tomorrow.

We've got a can of snails we brought home from France last summer. We've got butter and parsley. That seems pretty much all you need to make your own. So I will. And maybe this time I'll remember to take pictures of the shells before we scoop out all the goodness!

**********
{The graffiti lady in the top photo seems very city-like to me, so I thought I'd add her to a post about city living. The tag above her head reads "AIR".}

Understanding Exposure, a Start

2010-01-18T21:10:00.020+01:00

{1} Prague castle in the snow; {2} toy trumpeter braves cold, poses at 6; {3} a sledding hill straight from Breugel; {4} C, kindly putting up with me and my photo taking ways.

And another book review...

Understanding Exposure, by Bryan Peterson *****

Peterson writes like a teacher, one of your favorites maybe, the one with the knack for using simple stories to clear up complexities. He starts slowly, explaining as he goes so that you can easily keep up. He hangs memorable tags on abstractions, neatly parsing aperture scenes into three types ("storytelling", "who cares" and "single theme") so that by the time you get a few chapters in, you can already start filling in his tags before he's finished. Success.

I like that he ties theory to his own photography too, showing just where in a view he takes his metering, and why. He suggests exercises, he explains every (gorgeous and well printed) photo in his book. His method is basic, and it works. I tried all the exercises twice, and read each chapter twice too, just letting the ideas sink in. It took me a few weeks to finish, just to make sure I got it.

And it worked. I did get it. I understand exposure; shutter speed and aperture are no longer mysteries to me. Depth of field, no problem; light metering, a cinch!

At least in theory. Whenever I understand something better technically, it takes time for that technique to show up. I start thinking too much, and thinking kills my ability to see. Or maybe it's the ton of snow and children demanding sledding time. No pictures, Mommie!

Everyone needs their excuses, right?

Even Understanding Exposure. It is a fabulous all around introduction, but I did miss a few things. Peterson skips focal length completely, and he rushes through filters as if the bell were about to ring. (Really rushes, it's sort of startling).

Still, if you're just getting to know your DSLR, or want to know what to do with the M setting on your better-than-a-snap-and-shoot, I'd check the book out. I gave Understanding Exposure a 5 star review on Goodreads, and I also gave it a kiss* when I finished. High praise indeed ;-).

*Thanks Meg, I really did love it!

Snow in the City

2010-01-09T20:47:00.009+01:00

Enough snow for sledding arrived in Prague last night and we hurried to the park this morning to make sure we didn't miss our chance before it melted away. The snow is beautiful - powdery and perfect for sledding; not good for snow balls, says Caroline.

{1} Sleds replace strollers when the snow gets thick; {2} trees iced in snow; {3} C stops by a graffiti door; {4} James still does not believe in snow, but he humors us; {center} ready for her first ride of the day.

As always, click to see a bigger picture.

New Year books

2010-01-08T09:47:00.018+01:00

Picture unrelated to post, here for the red berries and snow. View from Braunwald, Switzerland.

I try to write down every book I read using Goodreads, and this year I thought I'd make a point of adding a note to each title to try to remember it better. Luckily Christmas and my family were kind to me and I started the year with a nice tower of books to get through. Unless anyone objects, I think I'll start posting my list on Kolo too (more posts, what an idea!). In the meantime, here are my books read so far this January:

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Peril at End House, Agatha Christie ****
The usual twisty turny Poirot plot; a perfect page turner for New Year's eve and day.

The facsimile edition added an extra star to my review - imagine a light, six inch high hardback, old-fashioned type printed on sturdy vanilla stock. The book fits just right into your hands and reads gorgeously. If you like Agatha Christie, I absolutely recommend searching out these facsimile editions, they seem to be available in the UK and Germany. If you're an expat, check The Bookdepository for the lowest prices and free shipping.
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Girls in Trucks, Katie Crouch ** 1/2

Living abroad, I'm plenty nostalgic for glimpses of my hometown and the area where I grew up and if I find a book that talks about South Carolina marshes, chances are I'll read it. Remembering Katie from our childhood choir and finding Trucks on my sister's shelf turned this book into a definite addition to my reading list. For once, the details about Charleston and the lowcountry didn't disappoint and I was happy to discover that becoming a writer doesn't mean you must forget the mosquitos and stinky pluff mud that add that certain something to romantic river views.

About the book though - Girls in Trucks is marketed as a novel, but it feels more like a collection of short stories laid out in chronological order. The main characters spin in and out of the stories without resolution, the perspectives change, the language shifts - all frustrating in a novel but typical in a collection of stories. Katie is an apt short story writer too, and possesses the wit and ability to spin bon mots and endings which keep these stories satisfying and lodged in your memory.

Would I recommend Girls in Trucks? If you'd like to dip into a few chapters, yes. If you want to read a novel about a developing set of characters (particularly the protagonist), maybe not. Most of the book, I couldn't bring myself to like the main character at all. I thought a pickier editor would have split her into two - she seems sharper and possibly more autobiographical in some chapters, and then hammered into a simpler and more frustratingly destructive and sterotypical shape in another. As the book ends, she resolves too swiftly upwards in a hockey stick curve that feels editor driven. I'd recommend keeping an eye on Katie as a writer though, and trying to catch her short stories as they appear.
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Sick Heart River, John Buchan ***1/2
Long descriptive passages often find me (im)patiently plodding through a page (or, hmm, just flipping right by it). John Buchan's descriptions are another story - he writes words into pictures with such clarity I read them again and again to enjoy the view along with the fast paced plots and characters I'd love to meet.

Buchan's last book, Sick Heart River, has a slower plot pace and is much more introspective than the rest of his books. The painterly descriptions remain, and because of the slower pace, they stand out even more than usual as graceful, unusual images.

It is in many ways a final book - like most authors closing down their imagined world, Buchan spends a good bit of time tieing up shutters, and preparing his characters to set off toward a further shore. He even sends the protagonist, Sir Edward Leithen, north to a land that reminds me of the country Frodo sails to at the end of the Lord of the Rings. (Spoiler alert) But here Buchan does a curious thing - rather than setting Leithen to sea with a hero's farewell, he turns the tables and ends his writing world with a humane, counter fairy tale ending I found touching and unusual.
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The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, Agatha Christie ***

Another Agatha Christie facsimile edition, this time a collection of short stories.

The book begins with Poirot in the country enjoying an old fashioned Christmas, complete with turkey, Christmas pudding and a thick blanket of snow. The stories are enjoyable, and the mysteries somewhat easier to solve than most of her books because the clues arrive condensed. If you can hold out until next December, I'd recommend Christmas pudding then - it's an ideal over-Christmas read for those nights when just one story will do.

A Swiss Winter Wonderland

2010-01-07T22:24:00.011+01:00

Christmas in Zurich is about as magical as you can imagine - with lights reflecting off lake, candles balanced on tree and even a round bellied fireplace perfect for a Santa slide (see fireplace behind Caroline). Sibling happiness reigned!

After Christmas we spent a few days in the mountains. Because we were sledding and cross country skiing, we mostly avoided the crowds and got to venture into some quite remarkably remote places. My sister introduced us to the highest upper valley in Switzerland, Urnerboden (population 40), where we skiied, sledded, and watched the dog teams race across the valley floor (sadly, I didn't have my camera when they ran by).

Solstice and ornaments

2009-12-21T21:16:00.003+01:00

We've had snow aplenty here in Prague, and I meant to go outside and take lots of beautiful pictures of the rooftops covered in snow, Charles Bridge covered in snow, the castle covered in snow. Only thing is, I've discovered that I'm a dreadful wimp when it comes to taking pictures in ice cold, finger freezing weather. I step outside, camera in hand, walk a block and then dive into a coffee shop till my eyelashes unfreeze. Then I repeat myself, and finally I scamper home to warm up by sitting on top of a radiator.

Today though, the shortest day of the year, was a gorgeously sunny day here in Prague. Please imagine sparkly streets covered with Christmas shoppers and people running around going to their last business meetings of the year (that was me) while I show off a few of my favorite Christmas tree ornaments, all from the Czech Republic or Austria.

{1} Ferris wheel made of beads and bells, {2} beaded bike, and a strange little insect I made myself, {3} a hedgehog looking like it belongs in a creche, {4} spinning top and a mushroom for Eurolush, {5} sleeping cat, {6} beaded train, {7} embroidered shoe - the first Christmas ornament I ever bought years ago in the Viennese Christmas markets.

I hope everyone has a really Merry Christmas and happy holidays. Ya'll take care and for all of you with snow, enjoy the fun!!

The Christmas tree comes home

2009-12-15T21:49:00.003+01:00

C loves Christmas trees, even if they feel as prickly as hedgehogs. At least she's learned to wear her ski mittens when she picks them up!

Living close to a Christmas market, one of the many things I look forward to in December is the chance to pick out a tree and walk it home with us. It was freezing Saturday, and I worried about our tree guys' fingers, but they very nicely held up many a tree for us to consider and then wrapped up the chosen one in its wrap for our walk home, all the while smiling and talking away to Caroline about Christmas and Ježíšek* and was she really going to carry the tree all the way home by herself?

*Ježíšek is little baby Jesus, who delivers presents to Czech children on Christmas Eve in lieu of Saint Nick, who has after all visited only a few weeks before.

Mikulas Eve

2009-12-06T16:11:00.010+01:00

Half of Vinohrady showed up to see the trios of devil, angel and Mikulas in Namesti Miru last night. Caroline practiced her song before we headed out, but stayed nervous until her first trio checked their big book and told her she'd cleared customs - this year at least the devil wouldn't be bundling her off in his sack - and as always, the angel told her that if she sang nicely they'd even give her some candy. So she did.

On the way home we passed a trio getting ready for their big show. Here a proud Mikulas gets his beard glued on by golden angels.
This might be my favorite picture, ever.

Namesti Miru Christmas Market

2009-11-30T23:16:00.013+01:00

At the end of November each year market stalls pop up round the base of the local church, a Christmas tree stands tall and piped in music reminds us that the Advent season has begun. One of a handful of markets in Prague, Namesti Miru's fair ranks as my favorite not only for its around-the-corner handiness, but because it sells Christmas doodahs designed not just for tourists, but locals too. We walk by many times during December for ornaments, stocking stuffers and mulled wine and we're sure to be there on St. Nicolas Eve, helping Caroline brave the angel/devil/Nicolas trios as they ask their yearly "have you been goods".

{1} Christmas tree, and stalls open for business, {2} a master trdelnik maker prepares to hand over his treat, {3} but first one more roll through the cinnamon! {4} A Nutcracker and Frosty hang beside a most beguiling donkey and merry-go-round at the ornament stand.

trdelnik = a sweet pastry baked around a hot metal pole, finished with sugar, cinnamon, hazelnuts and sometimes cocoa.

Prep work

2009-11-27T17:58:00.006+01:00

Without a Thanksgiving buffer, Christmas decorations show up even earlier here in Prague than in the States. I've spent the last three Decembers excessively working until the day before we head out on holiday, and each year I've missed the chance to walk the city taking pictures and enjoying the season. This year promises to be much quieter, and I'm looking forward to the next few weeks and getting to enjoy and share all the stops Prague pulls out for the holidays. Here are a few pictures I thought might help set the scene!

{1} Star light from street view, {2} gateway into a nave, {3} a delighted cherub, {4} stained glass industrial style, {5} C shows off our latest project...

You might know the Czech Republic for its beautiful ornaments. Blown glass balls and twisted spiral drops, santas and hippos and an orchestra of glass instruments - you can find them all in the Christmas markets. But my favorite Czech Christmas decorations are the old beaded ornaments shaped as ferris wheels and bicycles, sleds and bells, stockings and airplanes. Every year I try to add one beaded ornament to our collection. Antique stores are my best bet for a good find; I've found beauties as far away as Vienna, and as close by as around the corner from home. This year, with more time on my hands, I decided to try to make a beaded addition myself. The star Caroline holds is the first result. Next up, I may try a bicycle of my own. Photos to come!

Leaves fall, balloons fly

2009-11-21T23:14:00.005+01:00

{1} C in front of a photo of student crowds in the early 70s, {2} big leaf, small hand {3} another leaf for the collection, {4} no, we can't keep this leaf as a pet, {5} cupcake eaten up a tree, while watching the river go by, {6} through a looking glass, {7} poster from 1989, the balloon is back.

A toast to twenty

2009-11-18T23:34:00.007+01:00

Twenty years ago yesterday, students gathered in downtown Prague and marched through the city in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of International Students Day.* The police and the students clashed, one thing led to another and in a few days there were more than students demonstrating - the unions were out in force, the people were in the streets and democracy was in the air. By the end of 1989, the first free elections in more than forty years were held and Vaclav Havel voted President of Czechoslovakia.

Yesterday 10,000 people marched the route again. We walked parts of it earlier in the afternoon, but when the crowds got thick, veered off with the children towards home. It was an odd, uneven celebration, one that didn't feel weighty enough for the event. In the end, the best bits of the day were the personal stories told by our friends as we walked through downtown and talked about what used to be here, what used to be there, and especially about the march twenty years back; how no one knew just what would happen afterwards, and how much has changed since then.

* International Students Day marks the day in 1939 when the Nazis shut down Czech universities and sent more than a thousand students to concentration camps over protests and anti-Nazi demonstrations. Nine students and professors were executed without trial.

More than the sum of its parts

2009-11-09T21:59:00.006+01:00

Twenty years ago today the East German police stepped down from their guard towers, put the safety locks on their guns and allowed West Berliners and East Berliners to walk (not run) across the sandy no-mans-land and climb the wall into each other's territory.

Caroline's teacher told her class about the wall today, and asked each student to find out what their parents remembered of the day.

What I remember: a long walk across campus after a late rehearsal, news called between students on the sidewalk, a dash up the stairs to my dorm to turn on the radio and hear for myself. The radio announcers were uncommonly excited; in between feeds from Berlin of the celebrations, they explained what was going on and what it could mean. I kept the radio on well past midnight, listening in the dark to the remarkable news that the Cold War could be over, and the Berlin Wall just a wall, soon down.

{1} Rondo-cubism meets new Prague architecture {2} mushroom hunters in the forest {3} seed pods by a stream {4} the ruins of Okor {5} James, looking very fall like {6} cubist wallpaper and reflections of the 19th century {center} graffiti, as usual.

Slanted sun September

2009-09-29T23:03:00.001+02:00

A quick post in between sneezes.

We didn't venture out of Prague this weekend but we did keep up our walking. Despite its slant, if the sun shines, we want to be out enjoying its efforts.

At the end of September, linden leaves cover the sidewalks [1], but there are still leaves in the massive ash trees that branch above the smaller trees [2].

Caroline and James get all dressed up to go out [3 & center]. After some discussion, C agrees to narrow her bow choice down to one - bow and wearer [6]. James may, or may not, have been relieved.

A gratuitous graffiti picture, recently discovered [4]. And glass bottles in a neighborhood bar [5].

As always, you can click on the picture to see a bigger image. And did you know that the Czech word for sneeze is kýchat ? Oddly apt. Kerchoo!

Czech Paradise

2009-09-26T10:26:00.013+02:00

I've recently picked up a book called 77 výletů s dětmi po Čechách, or 77 trips with children around Czechia, and it is full of hikes, bike rides and stroller walks through the country. Last week friends of ours organized a hike in Český ráj along one of the trails mentioned in the book, and we tagged along to try it out.

We'd been in the area before (Český ráj is an hour from Prague, perfect for weekend trips) but never with a stroller. Thanks to the well chosen path, we missed the many stairs and steep paths around the rocks that make Český ráj famous, and the stroller survived the trip with no problem. The kids swarmed around us and then divided; some dragged behind and some wandered into the woods. (It's more fun to pretend to be Shrek and the princess when you're climbing over rocks and hiding behind big trees than when you're strolling up a path full of grownups.) We kept our eyes out for mushrooms, but only found chicken of the woods, and a few beautiful Amanita muscaria.

For anyone wanting to try out the trail, drive north on the E45 to Turnov, and turn onto 442 towards Sedmihorky. Take the first right after the Sedmihorky train station, and drive up the road to Sedmihorky Lazne, where you can park and find the many trails leading into the hills. We hiked to Valdstejn that day, about a 6 km hike there and back.

Vinobrani 09

2009-09-24T21:18:00.009+02:00

September is Vinobrani time. It's the new wine season when wine festivals across the country feature stands stacked with liters of burčak or stormy wine - the grape's cider. Wine festivals seem almost always to include fun fairs too, and costumed reenactors [4&6], booths full of handmade toys and gingerbread valentines [3].

Last weekend we drove to Roudnice nad Labem to check out the Lobkowiczs' vinobrani celebrations and visit some friends. The weather was beautiful, just right for a vinobrani day, and the children loved running from booth to booth trying out the wooden swords and shields (C added a shield to her collection), and begging for the very many choices of candy and helium balloons.

Roudnice is built around the chateau [1], which stands just above the Labe river. The Lobkowicz family is gradually restoring the chateau now, and it has the air of a decayed beauty with a well built roof promising better days ahead. We arrived early, before twelve and burčak time, but not too early for sausages [5], or for several rides on the merry go round [center].

First Grade!

2009-09-14T22:14:00.005+02:00

Caroline is an official first grader, since the first of September. She's very proud of her new role, and is enjoying all the trappings of being a prvňáčka, from the art suitcase (seriously loaded down with art supplies, I look forward to seeing the results) to the special backpack shaped like a briefcase, which every prvňáčka, or first grader, proudly sports.

C's first day of first grade was more ceremony than study. Her Czech family, our babysitters, arrived early that day, and we all walked together to her new school. It felt like a festival day, with groups of families and new students calling out to each other as they passed on the sidewalk, heading to their classes. Once arrived, C found a spot near her friends, oohed and ahhed over her new books, and tried to pay attention to her teacher in the midst of a frenzy of picture snapping and occasional sob (mostly from the parents, the children were quite brave!). The kids took turns introducing themselves, the teacher read her opening remarks, and an hour later school was over for the day.

Each day for the rest of the week C's school added another hour to the first graders' schedule, working up to four hours a day. Caroline told us that mostly they were learning to behave, but that they'd also learned to talk Martian - spelling out words just the same way any self respecting Martian might demand to be taken to 'your lea-der". The first word they spelled was, predictably, Mama. The second? Praha.

Visit to the mountains

2009-07-31T21:45:00.006+02:00

Once a year we head to the northern border of the Czech Republic, to a little ski town called Rokytnice nad Jizerou, deep in the Krkonoše mountains. A perfect mountain weekend calls for a camp fire, a hike, some nature study and at least one stop at a hospoda for Czech food. It almost always rains too, so there is usually plenty of time for just hanging around and talking to our friends or reading books.

Last weekend we drove through torrential rains to Roktynice. We ate lunch and watched the sun appear and then, once again, the perfect mountain weekend unwound until Sunday evening fell and it was time to drive down into the city for the week ahead.

Caroline's birthday

2009-07-21T06:35:00.000+02:00

1. C and James breakfast together, 2. Caroline feeds James, now she is 6. 3. C at her birthday party. 4. Cupcakes 5. James decides to get down and walk (first time!), since it seems to be a day for celebration.

C's sixth birthday was on her first day of summer vacation, and she woke up bedazzled by all the sleep, strange for a Monday. She remembered straight away though, that it was her birthday and that she was the grand age of 6. Then she looked in the mirror, stared herself up and down and said, "But I don’t feel older. Am I bigger? Are my hands bigger than before?"

Six to C means being grownup, so she decided to be regally polite, and invited James to join her for breakfast at her red table. She even pulled out a chair and poured him some cereal so they could "dine" together. (James plays with cereal, rather than eating it, but as long as he stays in his chair, the flakes don't go too far).

While she breakfasted, we decided that for her birthday dinner she'd like knedlicky with a red sauce. She reassured me that it was easy, much easier than what Dada and I usually made and if I would just get some tomatoes and mash them up she was sure they'd taste fine on the dumplings. And she told me, confidentially, that it was really okay to buy the knedlicky in the store, almost no one made them from scratch any more.

Breakfast finished, and a little time left before our babysitter arrived and I headed to work, we squeezed in a reading from "Now we are Six."

So wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
"What would I do?" I said to Pooh,
"If it wasn't for you," and Pooh said: "True,
It isn't much fun for One, but Two,
Can stick together, says Pooh, says he. "That's how it is," says Pooh.

That's how it is, Mommie, said Caroline. And I gave her a hug and a twirl for being six and my girl.

Where we left off

2009-07-18T22:53:00.002+02:00

Summer solstice pictures from June. I pull them out to look at the green and purple every now and then. I love the Maxfield Parrish clouds, and remember how swirling still the longest day of the year sky seemed, light at nearly ten.

A month later and where have I been? Mostly perched in my office chair with pen in one hand, phone in the other - my battle implements against the economy and the inevitable slow down of a European July. 6:30 comes, and I stop typing long enough to make dinner and play with the children for a few hours, then they are in bed and I am back at my desk until midnight. And so it goes.

Poppies, midsummer Saturday

2009-06-20T23:04:00.001+02:00

Hapu

2009-06-18T22:13:00.008+02:00

There is a cocktail bar we love here, called Hapu. Even after 8 years of drop by visits, we still don't know where its name comes from, but to us Hapu means cool atmosphere, drinks that deserve to show up on a dessert menu, and lots of memories. I've still never played the giant guitar yet though.

Happy Weekend!

Hapu
Orlicka 8
13000 Prague 3

Design ideas everywhere

2009-06-15T21:16:00.012+02:00

I'm trying to learn how to see with my new camera's eye, so I'm taking lots of shots and then thinking through my favorites. These are more pictures from our Trebon trip. I think they're telling me I see patterns everywhere, I need to work on my cropping before I get to Picasa, and boy is it fun to take pictures that you can blow up to high resolution and not find noisy specs in them!

Besides their clarity, I liked these pictures because of the way they made me think about design, both in photos and in buildings and signs. Here are some of those thoughts...

[1.] Curlicue shop sign. It says Drogerie kosmetika Judita or "Judith's cosmetics and bath supplies." A good reminder that local brands don't need to be immediately readable, and hey, ironwork is in!
[2.] Are Southern Bohemian facades designed to look like fluffy clouds, or is that just me?
[3.] Flower shots are addictive. Plus they count as design - look at those natural color contrasts.
[4.] Again with the S. Bohemian facade, here's another example of a building with sky aspirations (see those curly cloud corners?) The details aren't clear here, but the painting shows God and Jesus discussing the earth, while a devil of some sort writhes in the lower clouds. Home Baroque.
[5.] Symmetry in flowers is fun too (not to mention that playing with the depth of field in a new dslr while shooting flowers is like eating chocolate cake for breakfast.)
[6.] I love how the rigid patterns of the leaves contrast with the doodley ironwork of the tipped up chairs. Deliciously summer.
[7.] Squares are prolific in Czech street and facade design, especially in Prague. Are squares an urban thing? These squares didn't seem to fit in Trebon the way the curlicues did.
[8.] Leaves against the sky take just the right balance of light to get right. I took this by accident, then shot thirty more hoping I'd figure out the trick. Naturally, my first shot was the only one that worked.
[9.] Center - a small door that picks up on Trebon's sky and sunburst themes and delivers its message with beautiful simplicity.

The Lilies of Trebon

2009-06-09T22:05:00.006+02:00

We spent the weekend in our favorite Czech spa town, Třeboň, visiting one of our babysitters. It's June, but don't tell that to the weather - it has spat rain and chill at us for several weeks. I worried we'd be rained in all weekend too so packed books, paper and pencils, and found a room in a pension that was big enough for all four of us and then some.

My worries came to nothing. We did happily wear our winter coats Saturday morning, but by Sunday, shorts and t-shirts were in season. Saturday's market tempted us all out and around the old Třeboň square, where Caroline and her friend Kačinka looked at every single thing, and I may have taken a picture of every single thing, myself.

Luckily too, because as I scanned through my pile of pics from the weekend I noticed a theme emerge, a lily theme. And in one of the market shots I found a basket of wooden lilies, glowing if not gilded. The floating variety showed up in a canal just outside the city walls and in a fountain just inside the castle's.

Why are lilies so popular in Třeboň? I'd guess because it's a water town, right in the middle of the carp pond region of the Czech Republic, and just beside the largest of those ponds, Svět or the World. Even the town clown is water related, he's the local representative of the vodniks, water sprites who haunt ponds and lakes in the Czech Republic and are appeased by tobacco thrown into the water by fishermen before the carp haul begins each fall. (Note to self, I wonder if Třeboň's vodnik hoped for a plug himself!)

Phoenix

2009-06-03T18:27:00.007+02:00

I'm back! Actually I got home Monday night, but after an infinitely tiny amount of sleep all weekend, I really did not return until yesterday, or maybe this morning. How little? Thanks to jetlag, a minor flood and flights home I averaged 3 hours of sleep every night I was gone. Luckily the conference was worth it and I'm glad I've seen Phoenix at all hours of the day.

Here then are an assortment of pictures from the trip. From the left:
1. Sunrise over mountains and city, 2. Camelback Mountain from the airport (the camel is lying down, naturally); 3. native terrain; 4. patio misters working full blast to keep diners cool; 5. dressed up and ready to roll; 6. cactuses at sunrise; center: hotel escalator.

As with every collage, I'm struck by the coincidences. For example, my legs look remarkably like the cactuses to their left, do they not? More artistically, I liked how the hotel hung art that fit with their region (center), and reflected the sunrises that are understandably famous. I was actually glad to be jetlagged and awake at 4 since it gave me the chance to see the beautiful side of the city before it got very hot.

And thanks to being up and about early every morning, I managed to avoid getting rained on when the guy above me fell asleep in his bathtub with the water running. Blessings all around! (He survived with all but his ego intact, my suitcase and bed were not so lucky.)

A bike ride, and curlicues

2009-05-27T22:47:00.010+02:00

1. Street graffiti, 2. House banisters, 3. Chestnut leaf shadows, 4. Shadows on the staircase ceiling, 5. C on Silver, showing us her pedaling technique.

Since my last post I've taken tons of pictures and written several half posts, only to leave all by the wayside as I remember one more thing I need to do before I head off for the weekend. This morning I'm flying to Arizona on my first solo trip since James was born. It's a whirlwind visit - fly in Thursday fly out Sunday - but I'm still taking a half empty suitcase, just in case I can get some Stateside shopping in.

As it's a business trip, I've become obsessed with trying to figure out what people wear in Phoenix to meetings when it's 100F outside and 75 inside. Other semi-senseless worries include trying to decide what to do on a plane without two children to entertain (C suggested stickers and an activity book), and wondering if James will forget me in four days.

But life in the Kolo* household is not just travel this, travel that. We're really more about wheels. Somehow going to camp helped C decide it was time to learn to ride her bike. She got home Friday and declared her passion. Saturday we spent the morning googling the how-to's and the afternoon trying them out. Thanks to a simple step break down, C started out coasting down a grassy hill, pedaling down that same hill, and then learning to steer round a handy tree. She took the practice very seriously, insisting on trying each step five times before moving to the next, and by the end of our first bike try, had graduated to concrete and the skating slope in front of a local school.

Sunday we packed bike and stroller off to our favorite park, Stromovka, to try out some of the paths there. Stromovka is just by the river and is wonderfully flat, with wide paths ideal for roller blading and biking (and the occasional horse).

Chanting "I think I can, I think I can" under her breath, C picked a path she could coast down, remembered how to balance, and took to the pedals. Instead of stopping after a few feet, she kept going and biked first 30 yards, and then more. By the end of the day she was confidently pedaling past dogs and other bikers, the purple helmeted princess knight C and her horse/bike Silver, ready to roll.

*Kolo, by the way, means wheel or bike in Czech, so it is quite appropriate that we're a biking household these days!

Can you tell what I brought home yesterday?

2009-05-22T18:35:00.007+02:00

No, not James. And Caroline got home today, tired, smudgy around the knees, but deliriously happy about camp and all the fun stuff she and her friends got to do: ride horses, eat lots of fruit dumplings, discover ant houses, hunt for mushrooms, dress up for a carnival. The stories are still unfolding as she remembers or pulls another souvenir from her suitcase.

But yesterday. Around noon I walked into the biggest store of its kind in the Czech Republic. Swarms of guys wearing black t-shirts, beards and sandals were crowded around the displays and I couldn't push by them without running into one or the other multi-pocketed bag. After taking to the less exciting corridors, I dug up a shop assistant reading manuals in a corner and cruelly interupted his reverie on the new Xyi8300 (at least I think that's what it was). Putting his latest dream down, he reluctantly showed me the top two models in my price range.

Ten minutes later, I was on the phone to my business partner. Twenty minutes, and I walked out of the store with a grin even the jaded shop assistant could understand.

And then the fun began.

Caroline goes to Camp

2009-05-20T17:13:00.014+02:00

Postcard from camp, I'm guessing there are three horses and she is getting to ride one! And happily, she hearts us. The back of the card says, nice and simply, "CAROLINE IS O.K., BUY"

Every year, Caroline's kindergarten spends a week at Škola v prírode, or school in nature. Half the school's teachers go and most of the předškolní, or 5 year old kids, too and for a week ahead of time, it is the only thing that the mothers picking up their children talk about.

This is C's last pre-school year, her year for kindergarten camp. Back in March, she brought her camp instructions home, and we started going through it line by line. I thought we'd have most everything already, but then again, I'd heard that the girls shouldn't pack dresses, and Caroline rarely wears anything else. So we poured over the list to make sure she'd be set to go.

There were all the standard things you'd expect, like a pláštěnka, or rain poncho, and holinky, gum boots, but it took me several calls to friends to figure out exactly what oteplene sustaky might mean. (Apparently, a track suit lined in flannel on the inside and nylon on the out. Now I know what they are, but I still don't know their name in English!)

Thanks to C's babysitters and several expeditions, we managed to find everything, even the elusive sustaky. The night before she left, I read C her clothing list and she ran back and forth collecting everything while I marked her name on each piece and we folded it away. All packed, down to the smallest bear and largest rubber boot, and I thought we were finished for the night. But no. "Mommie," C said, "can you teach me how to take a shower?"

So it was, on the eve of her first overnight camp, at nearly six years of age, that C decided it was time to step under water and voluntarily get her face wet. What else new will she learn this week? Come Friday, I'll let you know.

The Art of Missing Someone, and a Museum Visit

2009-05-19T08:15:00.028+02:00

1 &2. Local graffiti, 3. Nearly empty chapel, 4. Spring at Mamacoffee, 5. Tactile exhibit, 6. Door from chapel, Center. Master of Theodoricus paintings*

Friday, Caroline waved farewell, swung backpack onto shoulder, climbed up bus steps, and headed for the country. As we waved goodbye to her through the bus's tinted windows, I did a quick mental calendar check, because surely she’s still only five. Why did it feel like she should be carrying a guitar and wearing sunglasses behind those dark windows, off to see America. And why were we crying when she’d be back in a week and anyway, we’d all been looking forward to her kindergarten camp since Christmas?

Imponderables. I moped a bit and then threw myself into a spreadsheet so I wouldn’t think for the rest of the day. By the time Will came home from work I was so deep in numbers it took me until the next morning’s coffee to recover my equanimity. We spent Saturday the way we usually do, shopping at our local stores, strolling by mamacoffee for an espresso, pushing the stroller through the park to check out the latest flowers, and keeping my camera ready for any new additions to our local graffiti.

This Saturday though, the green grocers wanted to know if we’d heard anything from the children yet (their daughter and Caroline were bus buddies). The Greek store cashier asked where the little holčicka was and the drug store cashier volunteered that maybe the weather was on its way to getting warm after all. We walked home and I couldn’t help thinking that big cities are full of little villages and I was happy right in the middle of ours, even if it took C heading to camp to remind me.

The next day, still getting used to the quietness of space without Caroline, we decided to do what we hadn’t had a chance to do for nearly six years - visit a museum undisturbed.

Or at least nearly. We lulled James to sleep strolling across the sway and rattle of cobblestone, and arrived at the Convent of St. Agnes happy to have won sixty minutes of quiet. We spent a few of those minutes wandering around the ground floor looking for pictures, lost in a maze of corridors, convincing ourselves that the art collection must have moved. We found empty chapels and a tactile exhibit for the blind (complete with a braille typewriter for leaving notes), we circled the gardens again, and just as we were about to leave, discovered the staircase up to the galleries.

The Convent houses the Czech National Gallery’s medieval art collection, beginning the exhibition with a wood carving from the very early 1200s, and ending it with prints from the mid 1500s. Sometimes, in an art museum that covers the medieval to modern, I’m happy to stroll past the rooms of madonnas and saints to get to the renaissance. But that morning, with a sleeping stroller, and a collection dedicated to the Gothic, we slowed down and took the time to look.

We were the only visitors, the guards decided we were harmless, and we were free of children, so we spent the rest of our hour arguing all we wanted: about the goldfinch in the madonna portraits (from the apocrypha or not?), the Theodoricus blank books and their bindings, the apostles and just who might be Judas, and the aptness of poor Catherine clutching her wheel. We had a deliciously nerdy time, and James slept until the last gallery.

When he woke, he wanted to be carried, and his wiggling turned the paintings back into art to rush by. It was time to go. We stopped to pick up a book to try to solve a few of our morning debates, and headed home.

And if you’re wondering how Caroline is doing, the latest news from this morning is that she hasn’t cried one bit, she can’t wait to ride the horses today and she’s been a perfect milá, or dear. Pshew.

****
Goldfinch – the jury is still out on this, Will thinks they are related to the birds in the apocrypha which the infant Jesus brought to life from mud. The National Gallery guidebook suggests the association of goldfinch with thistle bushes, thistles representing the crucifixion, the goldfinch thus foreshadowing the poor babe’s later fate. My guess is that it could be a combination of the two, depending upon where the tradition started from and if that group of artists even had access to the apocrypha books.

Blank books – it’s pretty unusual to see blank manuscripts already bound, as most medieval manuscripts would be prepped by assembling parchment into folios, scoring the skins for neatness, writing and illuminating the text, and then binding the whole. My vote is a tabula rasa motif, but Will is not biting.

*Master of Theodoricus paintings from the Virtual walk through of the gallery. Understandably, no cameras are allowed in the actual exhibition.

Chestnuts in Bloom Over the Vltava

2009-05-09T18:07:00.001+02:00

First year roundup

2009-05-08T23:44:00.006+02:00

James, from 0 to 1 in no time at all.

The pictures are so you can bear the long long post that follows. I’ve recently been tagged for three (THREE) memes. An unusual number, considering the last time I was tagged in my eons/aeons of blogging was never. If you don’t mind, then, I’ll be babbling on about myself and my opinions even more than I usually do. I promise I’ll try to add unrelated pics each time to keep it interesting.

This meme is from Eurolush, via Duvyken.

What are your current obsessions?
Digital SLRS (to buy or not to buy, which one, and when?), the impossibility of keeping a house straight and toys in it, asparagus.

Which item from you wardrobe do you wear most often?
My red flannel pjs. Luckily in Prague it stays cold until June so I can wear them at least 9 months of the year.

What's for dinner?
Pho soup doctored with tomatoes, spring onions, dried mushrooms, and extra bits of chicken and ham; eaten with chopsticks.

What's your greatest fear at the moment?
I’m flying to Arizona at the end of the month on a business trip and it will be the first time that I've left James overnight. Will he remember me when I get back? Will he be wearing clothes when I get back?

What are you listening to?
The hum of the fan belt in my computer (everyone except the computer and myself is asleep).

If you were a goddess what would you be?
Does a muse count? I’d like to be the muse of music.

What are your favourite holiday spots?
France, particularly the Ardèche and bits of Brittany. I also love visiting European cities for long weekends. Copenhagen, Dresden, Zurich, Vienna, Bratislava all make wonderful weekend trips. I am currently looking forward to visiting Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Berlin soon.

What are you reading right now?
I’m reading Swallows and Amazons to Caroline right now, and Keeping the World Away, by Margaret Forster, to myself. I picked up a new mountain of books in Switzerland over Easter and have felt like a kid ripping through a pile of presents ever since. Gleeful gluttony is what it is.

What is your guilty pleasure?
Reading books when I should be doing everything else, not having to fold laundry, taxis.

Who or what makes you laugh?
My family for sure - Caroline in particular is very funny and dramatic. And Will has a wonderfully dry sense of humor.

What is your favourite spring thing to do?
When spring arrives, my first thought is "Time to go on a trip to Germany to buy fresh asparagus!!" In March I start checking German news sites to find out when it will be in the markets. Also, spring in general means travel to me, and lots more light for photographs.

Where are you planning to travel next?
Berlin. It is only a few hours away by car and I can’t believe we haven’t visited yet.

What is the best thing you ate or drank lately?
It would have to be the Colombian meringues from Essen. Also, a wonderful muesli cereal made with grated apples, white yogurt, and oats soaked overnight so they turned fluffy and delicious. Yum! And, of course, the deviled eggs from last weekend.

When was the last time you were tipsy?
Probably last Saturday, though I could still feel my toes so I'm not sure if that counts.

What is your favourite ever film?
I adore Singing in the Rain. Music, physical comedy, no plot and dancing - what more could I want? I also really love the movie Once. I could watch the scene where the couple first plays music together over and over.

What is the biggest lesson you've learned from your children?
That stubbornness is most definitely inherited. Also, that reading out loud is much more fun than I could have imagined.

What song can't you get out of your head?
“Ghost,” by Neutral Milk Hotel. Very rocky, but I love it.

What book do you know you should read but refuse to?
Ulysses, by James Joyce. I’ve bought the book and every James Joyce day I pick it up, determined to read a chapter, but never get through it. Maybe this year?

What is your physical abnormality/abnormal physical ability?
I have never lost a limbo contest, even when I was 8 months pregnant. I’m pretty flexible. Of course, this might also demonstrate a certain competitive streak I'm rumored to have.

What is your favourite colour?
Red for small goods, orange for accents, light sea blue for walls, dark blue and burgundy for shirts, green for grass and trees, white for plates at a table, silver for candlesticks and gold for rings. I love color, but have never been able to pin down a favorite.

Following the rules of the meme, I tag Poppy in Provence, Meg, Lucy, Liz, and my sister, Ee. I'm leaving her unlinked until/unless she accepts the challenge!

May Days

2009-05-07T08:12:00.006+02:00

Holidays fall fast and thick in May in Europe. Last Friday, May Day, we celebrated our first May holiday and James' first birthday, all at once!

How did we spend our May Day? From left, counterclockwise:
[1.] Playing on the recently refurbished Riegrovy Sady playground, now one of the nicest playgrounds I've had the chance to push a swing in.
[2.] Baking and decorating fairy cakes, and then gobbling them up.
[3.] Taking James to his first beer garden to meet up with friends.
[4.] Prepping for the cocktail party we threw Saturday to celebrate surviving a year with two children. I made a ton of food, including deviled eggs. Yum. These two plates represent approximately 5% of the tastiness outlaid.
[5.] Gratuitous cow pic I added for the fun of it. The word in Czech for cow is krava, and we suspect that a Czech family by the name of Kravin had a good sense of humor, way back when.

Dandelion time

2009-04-27T23:35:00.007+02:00

Every Prague park hosts dandelions this time of year. They seem to grow taller here than in the States, with flower heads that stretch halfway across my hand. Caroline has a hard time resisting picking them. She tells us that "every childrens like dandelions" so she must too.

This weekend, I took a few apart to show her their seed filaments (still unaired) and the sticky milk from their stems. In this picture, she's trying to set sail a few petals before they separate from the seed.

***
In other news - C and I decided* that we'd send out postcards to everyone who commented on Heidi's house. Not everyone gets a Heidi postcard from Heididorf, but everyone gets a Heidi postcard. So now all I need are addresses. You can email me from my profile page.

*I'm a softie, and found that I couldn't, after all, bring myself to draw names.

Heidi's Home

2009-04-21T15:20:00.013+02:00

Have you read the children's book Heidi? When we were little, I read Heidi every fall for a few years, curling up with the book and a bowl of crackers and cheese to tide me over the first delicious chapter. I loved how different her life on the mountain was from our low country marsh and water world, and I'd get sniffily every time I read about her trip to Frankfurt and how she longed for her home and for her grandfather and friends. Thanks to log cabin replicas, I thought I had a good idea about the mountain hut she lived in, but I grew up wondering what her alp and the view from her window might really look like.

My sister moved to Switzerland ten years ago, and since then we've spent many of our holidays there, exploring Zurich and the mountains nearby. But I'd never been to Heidiland, so on the last day of our Easter trip we decided to go visit the mountains where Johanna Spyri gave Heidi a home. Caroline is just the right age for an introduction, and it would give us a chance for one last walk before we headed back to Prague.

Heidi's alp is south-east of Zurich, very close to the border of Lichtenstein and not far from the most western tip of Austria. The mountains here are toothy and steep, and jut up from the river and the valley with no knee-high hills to soften their edges. We drove off the highway from Chur, and in less than five minutes were heading directly up hill through Maienfeld and then past orchards and up to the Dorfli, the small hamlet where Heidi's Aunt Deet and mother were sprung from.

Dorfli, renamed Heididorf, is now a collection of mountain houses with nice cars in the driveway and beautiful, postage stamp gardens. Behind the houses, heading up the slope yet again, stands a small museum, a goat pasture and a house modeled after Heidi's grandfather's hut. Caroline was enraptured with the hut, and she went searching about the rooms to find a few of the grandfather's three legged stools, to climb up the ladder into Heidi's bedroom and best of all, to sit on Heidi's bed and feel the hay mattress.

When we left the hut, we visited the goats, who were having a slow day napping in their shed. They perked up when they saw visitors with goat feed and one handily jumped the fence to beg for his share. He ate the bag too, in a last moment spurt of gluttony. Then it was time to head back to our cars and wend our way to the highway (this time through back roads that took us through more orchards, a Swiss military encampment and many small, nearly empty, villages.) As we drove, I read Caroline the first few chapters of Heidi. We have been reading Heidi every night since.

Our copy is a new edition we picked up at the museum for Caroline. While we were there I also bought some postcards of Heidi illustrations. When Will asked me who they were for, I said, for Kolo readers of course!! So if you've followed me this far down the page, and would like a postcard of a Heidi scene, I have three to mail away. I'll do a random pick on Friday, just leave a comment, and let me know your email address if I don't have it already.

Photo by Julia@kolo. Illustrations by Maria Kirk, from The Project Gutenberg Ebook of Heidi.

View over Lake Lucerne

2009-04-20T11:38:00.017+02:00

[1.] Fountain in front of the Grand Hotel, currently closed for renovation. [2.] View over Lake Lucerne. [3. and center] Caroline on the ferry. [4.] Wild flowers and tree on top of Bürgenstock. [5.] Tavern characters welcome guests for lunch. [6.] Adams family warning sign, very high up indeed.

What is more Swiss than an alp or a lake? Easter Monday we decided to visit both, and faithfully followed our brother-in-law, Micha, along two-lane roads that went up and up in dizzying curves and swoops until we stopped, in the middle of a field, across from a lone fire station.

A terrible back seat passenger, I stumbled to the grassy bank by the parking lot, declared that we'd landed in paradise, what a nice field, and was it true we didn't have to drive anywhere ever again? Caroline and her cousin Julian started to collect buttercups, and the baby met grass and decided the spikey stuff just wasn't for him.

I could have stayed there all day (I was sure we could find bottled water, if not the fire station did have hydrants nearby) but just as we were starting to hook daisies into chains and discuss snack options, Micha looked up from the map he'd been pouring over since we arrived and called his troops to order. Time to march!

We started our hike in the Obbürgen valley.* It wasn't, at first, the most scenic of routes, though we did pass a long barn filled with whispering cows and a radio turned to country music. But it was stroller friendly and snow free, and after pushing the stroller, carrying the baby, and cajoling Caroline up the mountain (in turns), we felt we'd earned our lunch. The view from the top of Bürgenstock is gorgeous too - Lake Lucerne stretches out far below, the hotels that line the ridge are Magic Mountain worthy, and you can see alps nearly to Austria.

After lunch at a ridge top tavern, we hiked down a path steeper than our route up. The guys carried the stroller over the bumps and my sister and I swung Caroline between us and reminded her of the ice cream just a few kilometers away. We found her cornet at a ferry stop on the south side of the lake, and she nibbled it up while we waited for our boat (and drank martinis, yum). The ride across the lake was short but wonderful, and on the way back to my sister's house I dreamed of houseboats on the lake, and hikes in high summer. Switzerland in August, here we come!

* You can also reach the top of Bürgenstock by funicular. Built in 1888, the Bürgenstock Bahn is the oldest electrical funicular in Switzerland.

Zurich in the spring

2009-04-17T17:04:00.008+02:00

A week ago, we drove from Prague to Switzerland to spend Easter with my sister and her family. They live just outside Zürich in a little town on the lake, but every time we visit, my sister and I try to plan a morning in the city.

Switzerland is rightfully known for its trains and public transportation, and on our trip downtown, I wound up taking plenty of pictures of the train stations we passed through. Probably the most iconic image from that morning shows [1.] our platform's clock five minutes before the S-bahn arrived.

[2.] The children didn't go with us, but James saw us off. He was aptly (and accidentally) dressed in his choo choo train overalls. Keeping with our theme, the children played trains all weekend.

[3.] The train station in my sister's town is just by the lake, beside a villa that has been turned into the town hall. The town has set up a parade of sculptures for visitors passing by.

[4. & Center] After making the requisite visits to book and toy stores, we stopped by Jelmoli, one of Zürich's biggest department stores, just before we headed home. We visited nearly every floor to cross off the last of our list - yogurt glasses, an Easter dress, straw for baskets, and coffee pastilles (a jelly bean alternative). Our last escalator ride took us to the basement where we ate Asian food at stand up counters before heading to the train station.

[5.] Electrical wires for trains in Switzerland all seem to be above ground, most likely to avoid the dangers of on the ground electrical lines.

[6.] Waiting for the train home, we people watched and I snapped the last of my station pictures.

Imagine, this is not here - Prague's John Lennon Wall

2009-04-09T10:06:00.017+02:00

We're still settling down from the excitement of Sunday, with occasional lapses back to bubbly when a new story pops, or another cool photo gets unearthed. One of our friends who talked to both the Obamas had a story posted on Mrs-O.org (a fun fashion blog I'm partial to. Go, check it out!), and yesterday we were the lucky recipients of a picture of Caroline waving at President Obama as he shook hands after the speech. I'll post that picture as soon as I get permission from the photographer.

But April weekends aren't just about Presidential drop-ins. No, this last weekend we also celebrated from afar the birthday of Will's sister, Meg. We had just mailed her one of our favorite illustrated books - The Wall: Growing up behind the Iron Curtain, by Peter Sis - and I wanted to make sure I had the latest view of the book's main character. So Saturday we took a tram to just below the castle stairs and wandered through the little alleys connecting the mainland to Kampa Island until we found just the street we wanted.

Running along Velkopřevorské náměstí, not far from the Charles Bridge, this is the wall where Czech kids and the communist regime of the late 1980s clashed over graffiti and freedom of expression, just before another wall fell. Its name, the John Lennon Wall, comes from the tradition of having a portrait of Lennon, lyrics from his songs, or as you see above, a peace sign with Imagine painted into it. Today anyone can write on the wall, it isn't illegal, and when tourists come to visit they often do.

These pictures are for Meg, to show her what that wall looked like last Saturday, and to show you the most famous Czech graffiti spot of them all. Happy Birthday Meg!!

What a day!

2009-04-06T21:58:00.009+02:00

1. Sunday, we woke early and by 7 or so were squeezing on to a tram headed to the castle. It was a very crowded tram, and also a very quiet one.
2. We were so early the security gate we came through was nearly empty - a nice surprise.
3. C was in a great mood! Apparently early mornings agree with her ;-).
4. The morning haze over Prague never quite lifted throughout the speech.
5. Our tickets placed us right next to the Czech government stage. They arrived a lot later than we did. The police were out in full force, both on the ground and...
6. ...perched on the surrounding palace roofs.
7. One of C's friends from choir found us a few hours into our wait, C was ecstatic. If you watch C-Span, we've heard that both C and her friend appeared on TV.
8. The club wielding Titan guarding the castle's gates looked like it was about to take a swing at the press club. They seemed unfazed.
9. President Obama, gesturing during his speech. It was remarkable. A transcript is here, but listening to it live and feeling the excitement all around us made it seem even more powerful.
10. Unlike the audience, the current Czech government did not react with a great deal of enthusiasm to his speech. Central here are the ex-Prime Minister Toplanek and the President, Vaclav Klaus.
11. Caroline, listening to the speech. When President Obama declared that when he was born, few people would have predicted that someone like him would one day become the President of the U.S., Caroline called out from her perch on Will's shoulders - "We did that!!"
12. Michelle Obama joined the President as he finished the speech, and they walked hand in hand down to greet the crowds. Caroline's "Hello Mr. President!" got a wave.

An amazing day.

President Obama's Prague Speech Spot

2009-04-02T22:17:00.012+02:00

...or, the Prague square soon to be seen round the world

This weekend, President Obama is stopping off in Prague to deliver his only public speech during his current European visit. His trip is a big deal for the Czech Republic, and already you can hear the helicopters making their practice swoops over our roofs. The U.S. embassy has cranked out its warden messages, Facebook notes, and website notices to the thousands of people who want to come to see him speak, and anyone living along the main road from the airport to downtown knows that they have to keep their windows closed, and cars should probably avoid the avenue altogether.

But if you are a resident of a country that does not sing "Kde domov můj?" at its hockey games, or drink pilsner as if it were the local ice tea, you may be wondering where exactly the President's people have chosen to have him speak, and perhaps, why?

Sunday, April 5th, at 10:00 a.m. President Obama will speak at the castle end of Hradčanské náměstí, or Hradčany Square. Pronounced h-rad-chan-skeh nam-yes-tee, Hradčanské náměstí is a long, narrow square just beyond the Prague Castle's main gates. It isn't by any means the largest square in Prague, but it has the advantage of being surrounded by buildings that are mainly museums or government buildings, the roads approaching it are easily secured, and it has a spectacular view of the castle behind it.

I thought you might be interested in seeing what the square looks like on a normal day, when perhaps thirty people are out and about on its pavement and greens, rather than thirty thousand. Please note the very vigorous guard holding a club over the right side of the gate, and his slightly stiffer, yet live, counterparts in the sentry boxes beneath him.

Edited to add: Here is a photo of Saturday's view of the Square. The guards still stand in their boxes, and I wonder if they will also be there for the speech? (Note from Monday: The guards stood sentry the entire time, even when they were behind the stage.)

Coffee, Cakes, and Ceramics

2009-04-01T14:00:00.010+02:00

Essen isn't all about mines and heavy industry (though the Krupps family have played an important part in its history for hundreds of years). It also has street markets the equal to some of my favorite in France, cute boutiques and coffee shops, and at least one bakery that would stand out in even the most cosmopolitan of cities.

We Saturday shop in Prague, visiting local stores to pick up staples and surcees for the week ahead. It's one of my favorite times of the week and about the only reason I can imagine waking up early on a weekend morning. So when Manuel and Isa, the friends we stayed with in Essen, invited us to join them on their Saturday stroll we jumped at the chance. We visited Essen's farmers' market, stopped off at a bio grocery, and took a break for coffee before sending the strollers with their bags of flowers, cheese, sausage, vegetables and a chicken or two home with the babies and a contingency of grownups to carry the bags up the stairs.

Then C, Manuel and I headed to Manuel's favorite bakery, Criolla. A bakery run by a Colombian couple, it offers cakes, meringues, pies, caramels and even homemade marshmellows. But not the vanilla flavored marshmellows you might be thinking of. These marshmellows were meltingly delicate passion-fruit flavored morsels of goodness. If you've ever imagined the Turkish Delight in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, that is exactly what they taste like. We also acquired two cake quarters for after lunch coffee and they turned out to be the moistest, most lemony cakes I've yet to eat. But the crowning glory of our taste test were the chocolate meringues. Chewy insides with outsides that melt in your mouth, they were so good, Will declared them the Best Ever Meringues and I had to agree. If you happen to be in Essen, I say, hie thee to the bakery, you will not be disappointed.

After lunch we took a tram-metro* to the mines of yesterday. There we visited a pottery studio housed in one of the old buildings of the mine. The Keramische Werkstatt Margaretenhöhe had an open house exhibition of their pottery, and we were lucky enough to be invited along to see the workshop and wares. We toured the studio (big enough for five potters and the many pots, plates and bowls they prepare before glazing, small enough to charm the children with its boathouse feel and bamboo garden) and ate more cake and coffee before heading home for the evening. It was a very cozy day, as Caroline said.

*We rode underground and above ground in it, and it looked like a tram, so I gave it the clunky title of a tram-metro. Perhaps someone else can tell me what these cool cars are called?

The World's Most Photogenic Coal Mine

2009-03-31T14:51:00.009+02:00

Back from a whirlwind trip to Germany! Just so you know - thanks to new highways springing up all over Germany and the Czech Republic, you can now drive from Prague to Essen in six hours and thirty-eight minutes. I do love the autobahn.

One of the highlights of our visit was a trip we took to the Zollverein Coal Mine. Closed since 1993 and a UNESCO site since 2001, its buildings have since been converted into museums and studios, but the iron works still stand. Saturday we visited an open-house pottery exhibition in one of the surrounding studio buildings, and took the time to take lots of pictures.

Clockwise from the top
1. View of the mining facility from the bus stop.
2. Lantern and wheel.
3. Giant drill bit.
4. Wheel mounted in concrete.
5. Ladders along a wall.
6. Side view of the main mine shaft. At its deepest, the mine is 500 meters deep.
7. Coke processing plant smoke stacks.
8. Old signs and reflections.
9. Entrance to Zollverein.

Saturday Market

2009-03-30T19:00:00.001+02:00

Market pictures from Essen, just in.

1. Ostrich, emu and swan eggs, ready for Easter
2. A paradise of flowers
3. Canopies and radishes, for canapes?
4. Van side, filled with tasty pastries.
5. C with tulip bouquet.

Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds

2009-03-26T22:12:00.002+01:00

...to horse, away!*

Or to Germany rather. We're heading to the North tomorrow to visit friends and catch a blues show. Requisite stops include a toy store (C is very excited) and the biggest book store we can find (for me). I've never been to Essen before so the camera is well charged and I'm hoping the sun will make an appearance. I'll take a few for you!

*Egregious quote, presented solely to tie picture in with subject matter. The photo is yet another picture from our walk last weekend (I know I know, I'm flogging that hike to death, but trust me you'd rather see the castle than yet another picture of the odd roof-top lake outside my window - even though it DID have ice on it today. Very exciting.)

Prague Street Poetry - Wings of Hope

2009-03-25T17:20:00.012+01:00

Saturday we discovered this poem drawn on a wall at the foot of the castle steps. A little googling found its author, Jan Skácel and its title. He published "Naděje s bukovými křídly" in 1983 in a book by the same name which means, roughly translated, "Hope with beech wings."

I translated the rest this morning. The original has more subtlety to it, but I hope you can catch its notion of the new day waiting to be shaped like an angel still to be carved from wood. How that day can be angry but that it is within us to transform it. How we fly forth on the new day's wings of hope, staying grounded by the heart of what we carve our day from.

(The beech is characterized as a messenger tree in Celtic folklore; the linden is the national tree of the Czech Republic and in Roman mythology, a sign of fidelity. Make of this what you will.)

Here is the poem in Czech

"Naděje s bukovými křídly"
Jan Skácel

Novému ránu rožneme svíci
Je neznámé a nemá tváře
Jak anděl v dřevu lípy spící
A čekající na řezbáře

Někdy se na nás anděl hněvá
Anděla máme každý svého
A naděje má z buku křídla
A srdce z dřeva lipového

Blue skies above the castle

2009-03-24T21:45:00.004+01:00

It's snowing, sleeting, and spitting rain here today, but who wants to see that? Instead I thought I'd show you some more pictures from our walk Saturday. These are all from the castle. And yes, I know, it is a bit shocking to see three photos in a kolo post. I feel extravagent!

[1.] Gate into Prague castle gardens

I'm not sure who has the job of polishing these gate fittings, but they've definitely been using their elbows to good effect. The gardens are still closed until April, so we only got to peek.

[2.] View of the castle from the moat side. From here you can see a broad swath of St. Vitus' cathedral, the round Powder Tower, and a goodly portion of the walls of 16th century houses that line a small lane around the cathedral. If you could look down you'd see a deep ravine, called the Stag Moat after the deer that used to roam through it. For a virtual tour, click to the castle's official website.

[3.] Cathedral steeples and bell tower. The bell tower has many, many stairs in it.

Light Fantastic

2009-03-23T20:31:00.003+01:00

One of the constants of our life in Prague is that friends move. This year we have had to say good-bye to a record number - four sets of friends in three months. Saying good-bye is particularly hard for Caroline, who has come to believe that California is a sort of paradise where friends disappear to, never to be seen again. Over the weekend we said our farewells to another family - this time heading to the slightly closer but more unpronounceable land of Massachusetts. Before we had to say good-bye though, we all took a long walk together through the Prague castle and down the hill to the river.

The weather was perfect that afternoon and I took hundreds of pictures. This was one of my last, just as the light started to lose its luster. It shows the shore of the Vltava, a ferry turning around in the river, and Old Town in the background. This is one of my favorite views of Prague - I like the casualness of the shore meeting the water and the spires in the background, and I hope it is a view for our friends to remember with pleasure too. Bon voyage Kelly, Alain, Paige and Colby!