Floors, continued

Because changing your house around is almost as memorable as going on a trip, and because I was inspired by a blog pal to put in our new flooring in the first place, I thought I'd add some pictures and show off just what we've done to the place.

The idea for our new floor came from Christina from Mausi. Her February post on her new kitchen floor (designed to look like flagstones, but much easier to install and cheaper too) got me started researching similar options here. With the help of our flat's owner (the most accomodating landlady in the history of tenantry), our own version was installed with very little trouble - a laminate that looks just like parquet.

Truly the only hitch in the whole plan was that I had to pretend to be a mute Czech person for several days while we got the floor installed (our landlady didn't want my American accent to drive up the price). The results were worth it though, and on the last day after everyone was paid and I could speak again, Caroline and I danced around on our new floor and I thanked the installers in my awful Czech. Then we all drank our instant coffee together with great comraderie before the floor layers left with their carefully stowed cash and our old carpet (to be turned into more cash? We didn't ask, but it didn't show up in the trash).

The next day the painter came and the next adventure began. Luckily we paid ahead of time so I didn't have to pretend anything, and he finished his work in one long day.

It is amazing what a lick of paint around the place will do - while Will still hasn't decided if he can see any difference between our old white (and grottily grimey) carpet and the new floor, he did tell me the other day that he thought the painting had turned out rather nice.

Floor before painting
After painting

Happy Birthday C!!

Today is Caroline's birthday, Happy 4th C, we love you!!

New floors, fun colors

This week we’re putting down new floors, plastering and painting a few rooms in one fell swoop. Because of the chaos (and because I’m missing my normal work perch and have moved into C’s play area) Caroline has spent a lot of time out of the house, visiting our babysitters and their families. But despite babysitter camp occupying her days, she still keeps careful track of our progress and at night her pretend is all about painting.

Today when Caroline woke up, her first words were, “Can I come out to see the painter man?” I picked her up, pajamas and all, and we peeked into the room, while she explained to me that our wall, it was yellow, but the man would paint it blue and in the end it would be green!

Green walls I’m sort of hoping to avoid, but it was pretty cool to hear her thoughts on color mixing. We spent our breakfast adding up colors. Our favorite sum: bright red chairs topped with a yellow lemon pointing to C’s play table - deep orange, of course.

Breakfasted and dressed, Caroline trooped off to the zoo, discussing painting technique with her sitter in her variety of Czenglish. First nahoru, then dolu, you know? Up and down. Vis?

Drums, horn, the opening bars to “Fanfare for the Common Man” sound. I stand at our bookshelves, and try to decide what to read to such music. I stand as straight as can be, and laugh when I find myself ready to put hand to heart. Then I remember - it is nearly July. Already, the Ambassador’s invitation to a July 4th reception hangs on our refrigerator, reminding me it is midsummer.

The music nudges memories of other 4ths too - watching fireworks over the Capitol from the banks of the Potomac; picnics on my grandparents’ farm surrounded by hundreds of relatives and family friends; a pig picking along the North Edisto, where food came second to the freedom of running wild with cousins, lighting sparklers, swinging from ropes into the cold black river; later, playing Barber and Copland to audiences melting in the heat of south Georgia, still gracious enough to thank us for the music.

Now, I’m always thankful it isn’t as hot here as it is in the South this time of year, but I miss the celebration. We celebrate the 4th mostly by explaining its significance to our friends. This 4th we’ll be in the middle of coming back from one trip before heading off to another one. We don’t have any plans (the Embassy party is this week to avoid the Czech holidays) but tonight as the music plays, I decide that I’ll celebrate by listening to all the Copland and Barber in my collection; I’ll gather up Gershwin and Charles Ives, John Cage and George Crumb, and hit play.

Summer Solstice

Rain has fallen all across middle Europe today, hiding the sun and the solstice. This afternoon I snapped a shot of our balcony before the sun could completely disappear. I've got strep throat, and couldn't celebrate the day as I might wish, but I did enjoy sitting on the step between our bedroom and balcony, waiting for the storm to break. It arrived in great claps of thunder, no lightning to be seen, and then a massive downpour.

Summer means travel

A few Fridays ago a very nice guy from Czech Radio interviewed me about living in Prague as an expat. Maybe it was the hiking map I’d just bought and the beautiful weather waiting just outside the café, maybe it seemed a safe angle to take, but my answers had a decided slant to them. You can judge for yourself:

Why did you move to the Czech Republic?
Because we wanted to travel more and knew we wouldn’t have time if we lived in the U.S.

What do you see is the difference between Czechs and Americans?
Czechs are more experienced travelers, at least in part because they have a great deal more vacation time than Americans!

What do you like to do on the weekends?
Travel around the countryside.

A tak dal.

By the end of the conversation, I’m pretty sure the interviewer had decided I was a travel nut and as granola-y as they come. He asked me if I’d ever consider moving outside the city to the country (since I apparently spend all my time there). Citified as I am, and never having been asked this particular question, I was caught off guard and vehemently said “no way!” My reasons were pretty weak and I believe I mentioned an overweening love of vegetable stores and potable coffee at least three times before I stopped burbling and changed the subject.

It was an interesting question though, and I whiled away some time on the subject while walking back to my office.

Why I prefer to live in a city:
1. I love to walk and get somewhere I need to go. I love that I can walk for kilometers around Prague and still be in an interesting area and not on a highway.
2. A house in the country requires a lot of work. I begrudge time spent changing light bulbs. At times I do wish I had that maintenance bone in my body, as I love visiting chatas and camping out in the country, but I just don't possess it.
3. I like living in a place with enough people for me to blend in with and be ignored on those days when I don't feel like chatting.
4. In a city there is always a new person to meet. (See, I’m not a misanthrope!)
5. Have I mentioned vegetables? There are four veggie shops within one block of our flat. They compete to see who has cilantro, even in the winter.
6. In a city, there is always something new to experience: a new restaurant, an exhibit, concerts, new playgrounds. This is also why I like to travel.
7. I like the idea that there is an English bookstore within a few blocks of our house, just in case.
8. And then, there is the coffee.

Southern Bohemia weekend

Left to right, top to bottom: 1. Caroline poses with coaster 2. Tabor town square 3. Třeboň spa 4. Třeboň's river folk 5. Caroline assembles a bouquet 6. Gateway to Český Krumlov 7. Sky view from Krumlov castle 8. Moat garden around Třeboň 9. Peonies in spa garden

Weekend in the Sun

This weekend we drove to Tabor, Třebon and Cesky Krumlov to visit our babysitters at their spa and to introduce Czech towns to my father. The weather continued hot but the skies were magnificent and this picture from Cesky Krumlov shows off the amazing light we revelled in all weekend.

Added bonus - if you peek closely you might even be able to find Caroline watching the boaters slip over the weir! (She is not in the stroller, as she emphatically reminded me ;-).

Scenes with a three year old

I may have to rethink movies with Caroline. This just in after a particularly painful thirty minute reenactment of cousin Colin in The Secret Garden. In case you don't remember the 1993 movie adaptation, bed-ridden Colin has a powerful set of lungs and the ability to throw himself heedlessly to the floor in a fit worthy of a three year old's awe. Tonight after watching the movie with me, Caroline rehearsed Colin’s tantrum in lieu of going to bed. She particularly worked on the high pitched screams interspersed with sobbing bit. When I started to sing along to match her highest shriek, she giggled but kept up the show until I turned off the lights and left her to her own devices. She is now humming to herself somewhere around middle C. Peace in our time.

C’s adoption of Colin at his worst isn’t too surprising. She has a habit of admiring the bad guy in a movie. During The Incredibles phase our household went through a year ago, Caroline liked to pretend she was the Bad Boy (aka Syndrome) and imagined every shoe into a rocket boot. When we pull out Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers, she hales Feathers the penguin as an old friend. I’ve caught C practicing speedy rail laying with her train set in case she needs to help Feathers out in his next venture. At least Feathers keeps his voice down.

And really, Caroline’s not so chatty either - talking about her day ranks way below flossing teeth on her list of fun things to do. She does like to act though. Today while we waited to sign her up for kindergarten, she tagged behind one prospective school mate, following him everywhere until he climbed up a slide backwards. Marie and I had just told her in both Czech and English not to climb up that very slide, and she obediently watched without following him, but then she turned to us and, flat of hand gesturing towards boy, twisted her mouth and narrowed her eyes so that we all could know she was thinking, "And yet, HE can climb the slide?" "Our little actress," Marie said, "our herečka." (Sadly, despite her example of instantaneous cross cultural communication, C did not get into that kindergarten - we're holding our thumbs for the next).

Ultimately, while Will and I might shake our heads and imagine that Caroline suffers a severe case of Paradise Lost syndrome (that classic condition most readers of Milton fall prey to, characterized by guilty admiration for the evilest character in Christiandom), I suspect that C just realizes most bad guys get juicy parts and short lines - just right for a less than chatty actress, with a world of faces at her command.

Spring arrives at kolo kolo

This weekend we made jam. Strawberries, mixed with sugar and lemon and stirred into a bubbly froth of jam. Strawberries, lifted from their paintbox of color in the windows of our greengrocer, a red so red the purple pink radish in the next box vibrated ever so slightly out of key.

I started the jam first thing Saturday morning, before coffee and after tea, after peanut butter toast but before Caroline woke up. I can’t make pancakes in the morning without burning them, but pouring a kilo of sugar into a pan, squeezing 2 lemons and mashing a pound of berries I can do. While I stirred (over low heat until all the sugar is absorbed, and then over high), Will washed our empty jam jars from last summer’s grocery spree in France and made more toast to test out the first sampling.

"Jam is ready when a spoonful of liquid gels when dropped onto a cool plate," the recipe said.

The next drop met bread. The first jar disappeared in two days.

Our babysitters don’t quite trust my cooking, and this morning Teta waved off an offer of a taste with a reminder that she was on a diet. "13 days and 5 kilos so far!" she said. She’s eating rohlik and grilled chicken, and as much iceberg lettuce as she wants. On occasion she'll drink coffee too.

But she made Caroline toast for breakfast and conceded to use the jam. It wasn’t peanut butter, after all, and we didn’t have anything else in the pantry. (Our sitters feel that peanut butter should only be consumed by Americans over the age of consent). Caroline ate all her toast and asked for more, and then Teta asked me, was it was possible I had made this jam, it had such a nice smell and what was the recipe? Teta, here’s the recipe for you - it goes well with rohliky too.

Saturday morning, 6 am

Saturday, I woke at 6 and took the tram to Mala Strana, to watch the sun rise over the castle and see Charles Bridge without tourists. There was no one about except us....
and a bunch of photographers with their tripods at the ready.

After the sun rose, we headed to Old Town Square, to enjoy downtown free of the hordes. It was my first visit to the clock without a crowd pressed around, and so I took a few close ups. My favorite of the morning:

After the clock, the next step was breakfast. There was a crowd at the bakery. The service was surly, the coffee most welcome, and the sheep dogs most hairy.

Then I came home, just as Will and C were waking up. An excellent morning. 

Photos of fall

A few weeks ago, Nerd's Eye View sent me to a super recipe for plum dumplings over at Mausi. When my plum supply was replenished (it is the year of the plum, I'm told) we ate many many many until C was sick of the sight of them. When I came home from work one day, I found a plum dumpling surprise awaiting us, thanks to a long nap and a very kind babysitter! C had no problem eating these. We rolled them in breadcrumbs and powdered sugar and they were very good. But I still want to try the German recipe for comparison.

Our courtyard - the new Vermont for seasonal foilage tours?

Who is the Emily Postova of Prague?

Because I need to meet her, or at least read her book. I mean, I thought I knew a few things about Czech manners. I knew to always take off my shoes when I walk into someone’s house, even if they tell me not to. I knew to always offer someone something to drink when they first arrive in the office. I knew to eat with both hands showing above the table at all times and to keep my fork in my left hand instead of switching it back to the right. I knew how to use forks and knives as signals to my waiter that no I’m still eating (fork and knife at 8 and 4 o‘clock on my plate), or yes I’m done (fork and knife neatly aligned at 3 o’clock). I sort of thought I had my protocol down.

But then.

Just a few days ago, I was out with a good friend of mine, eating Chinese in the middle of nowhere. It was very bad Chinese food, and we were the only people in the restaurant, but it was also the only restaurant within a kilometer of where we were working. So there we dined. And suddenly, my friend said:

F: Julia, why are eating your food that way? Where’s your knife?
J: A knife? For all the giant pieces of identifiable meat that are not on my plate right now? What are you talking about?
F: Because it is bad manners to only eat with a fork.
J: Next time I’ll ask for chop sticks. We’re eating Chinese you know.
F: I mean, generally. You’ve got to always eat with your knife and your fork, like this. Didn’t you realize? (He demonstrates.)
J: Aha! Now I see!! (The light breaks and years of wondering why Czech people needed a pusher to get food on their fork are suddenly clarified.)
F: And if you want to be very polite, you keep your arms tucked by your side. No elbow flapping.
J: (Considering my elbows) I really hope everyone knows I’m an American when I eat out or they’d think I had horrible manners.
F: Don’t worry, they do.

And with that, we changed the subject.

Are you asleep yet?

Caroline’s favorite song of the moment, as she has decided it should go:

Bruder Jakob,
Bruder Jakob,
Dormez-vous?
Dormez-vous?
Morning bells are ringing,
Morning bells are ringing,
Ding dong ding. Ding dong ding.

The Czech version her babysitters sing:

Bratře Kubo,
Bratře Kubo,
Ještě spíš?
Ještě spíš?
Venku slunce září,
Ty jsi na polštáři,
Vstávej již,
Vstávej již.

Imagine the two versions in a round. That's our house right before nap time.