The essential city break

To entice you to come visit, here's an 8-minute "city break" video on Prague from the Travel Channel. It covers most of the main tourist sites, including Wenceslaus Square, which is a 10-minute walk from where we'll be living.

But after watching, I'm left wondering... where did the host get that huge freaking flower on her lapel?!

Read More

Boxed mayhem

If you had to jam your most prized home items in a pallet of cardboard boxes, what would you choose? We didn't really know either, and despite judiciously putting things in "take", "maybe", and "leave" piles, I think we may have ended up packing some things we really didn't need to (i.e. a foot-high garden gnome and an entire Ziploc of curry powder). Thankfully, my mom was here for four days last week and helped us with organizing our labyrinth of a basement as we started to box things up. Thanks, Sue!

Simultaneously trying to pack for an international move AND show our condo to potential renters does not a sane person make. One hour, we'd have this tangle of mayhem:

Like how I used a filter to make it seem more ominous? :)

...And then I'd get a call that our rental agency wants to show the place, so I'd have to make it look like this...

2 hours later!

Thankfully, our shipping dude is picking up the boxes tomorrow, so the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't pack job won't last too much longer. Here's our stack thus far:

We have a lot of stuff.

Read More

Czechs in the news

I'm trying to catch up on Czech news before heading over so I don't come off as an ignoramus. A few notable media blips...

The devastating flooding in central Europe in late May/early June was international news that many of you  saw:

Courtesy of ru.euronews.com

And then there was the recent bribery scandal in the Prime Minister's office:

Prague Summer: A Tale Of Corruption, Spying, And Sexual Intrigue That Brought Down A Government

In lesser-known international news...

- the Czech track-and-field team is "dominating" in European meets

- it's been proposed that Speaker Miroslava Nemvoca become the country's first female Prime Minister (thanks to the scandal and PM resignation posted above)

- the Czech real estate market is solid (and expensive), with half of foreign buyers in Prague being Russian

- the county's first set of quintuplets was born in early June 

Alexandra Kinova, AP

Read More

Found a 'hood

We will not have to sneak J-dog into a hotel or sleep under beer garden benches our first few nights in Prague; we've found a furnished apartment (or flat, as they're called over there). We send the deposit today and hope that someday we'll get to meet the owner of that jazzy purple car out front.

The flat is located just a stone's throw from the city's historical center AND to BW's delight, it has bright orange leather furniture. 

Here's a link to the neighborhood we'll be living in:

http://www.expats.cz/prague/article/czech-culture/prague-districts-vinohrady-part1/

Read More