A flat fiasco, now fine

BW and I ended up in our current flat on a fluke; we never planned to be here. We loved our last place and had no intention of moving - but we got displaced when our landlady decided to relocate back to Prague. It was a pain because...

1) We had to find another flat during the busiest part of the school year
2) We were confined to Prague 6 because our adoption paperwork was in the pipeline and switching districts meant re-starting the paperwork process, and
3) Prague 6 is not an inexpensive place to live; we had to find something within our budget that had room for a new child.

We visited a number of flats, many of which had various stains, chips, black mold and/or seedy agents/owners. And then we found this, our ideal sanctuary:

It was exactly what we'd hoped for!

But when we went to sign the papers, the man who'd promised it to us sheepishly told us that his mother (who owns the building) had promised it to someone else - an elderly woman. Deflated, we started the hunt again.

And then a week later, we got a phone call - the flat was available again. Say what?

Sadly, the elderly woman who'd leased it had passed away. I absolutely did NOT want to get the flat under those circumstances (and I promise I did not slip cyanide into anyone's tea). But we were still without a place to live and of course we said we'd take it.

Turns out she'd had the beautiful, airy white walls painted in shades of turquoise and salmon. So we asked for them to be returned to white, took a trip to Ikea, and moved in.

BW misses the central busyness of our first flat in Prague, but I'm enamored with our new 'hood - it's green, quiet and full of kids and dogs. And a good wine bar. Here's a trip around the block, on a grey February evening:

We're lucky to be right next to a tram stop and a bus stop, just around the corner. It's 10 to 15 minutes into the city centre, depending on whether you change to a metro or not.

This wine bar, which translates to "the green monk," is a quirky, cozy spot where we nab glasses of Czech wine for 25kc ($1) and a wide selection of cured meats and cheeses.

 Just across the street is a tasty Czech restaurant that also does a killer fish and chips. There are old Czech film posters on the walls.

Continuing on, I like how this statue of Ivan Konev waves hello to passersby. He was a highly decorated Soviet military commander who was front and center in the liberation of Prague from the Nazis.

On Konev's square is a funny little wooden playground and - although it looks brown now - loads of grass for our pup to run through.

According to this sign on the edge of our block, our street was named in honor of the village of Terron in Northern France; a Czechoslovak brigade fought there against German troops and "occupied the German position," it says.

 Across the street from our building, there's a lovely primary school with a campus full of birdhouses, a running track, a gazebo and more. Sometimes they'll hang kid art on the surrounding fence when it's warm out.

 Here are some Google Maps screenshots of the area in Springtime. Spring can't come soon enough!