Democracy: A reason to celebrate

We get Monday off this week. Sure, yeah, it's lovely to get a free day, but that's not why
I'm eagerly anticipating it.

Monday is the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the end to 41 years of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. It "officially" started when violent riot police attacked a peaceful student demonstration in Prague; citizens took to the streets and in a few days, half a million people swelled through the city, demanding democracy. Some poignant and powerful photography:

The students lit candles and chanted ''we have bare hands'' - i.e. that they were unarmed. But riot police sealed off escape routes before attacking them. - From Radio Free Europe

The demonstrations grew rapidly. On November 19, riot police blocked a bridge to prevent protestors marching to Prague Castle, the seat of the Czechoslovak president. - From Radio Free Europe

Non-violent protesters filled the streets. - From Havel at Columbia

On November 24, the crowds had grown to 300,000. Vaclav Havel, a dissident playwright and former political prisoner, addressed the massive crowd from a balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square. He became President when Communism fell. - From Radio Free Europe

If you're in or around Prague, Expats.cz has posted a helpful list of things to do and see relative to this monumental day.

Also, Prague blogger Ricky Yates wrote an exceptional post about commemorating the Velvet Revolution on its 20th anniversary here.

On a related note, a Prague Maidan protest we saw in Old Town Square last weekend coincided (purposefully, I'm sure) with the anniversary of the Velvet Revolution.

Saying prayers for peace and stability in Crimea, and looking forward to celebrating the beauty of democracy here in the Autumnal Czech Republic.

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Liebster Love

Yee-haw! Czechesotans has been nominated for a Liebster blogger award :) The lovely and talented Cynthia from ADVENTURINGS, a blog about her Bohemian life in the Czech town of Ceske Budovice, put us up to the task.

First, here are my subsequent nominations:

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: How do people in Mongolia live? I didn't know, either! Loads of pretty pictures and interesting bits on yurts and things here, folks.

Mark in Maine: Mark is a gifted journalist from St. Paul, MN, who is now a Bangor transplant thanks to his professor wife. He has an eye for small-town detail that's both quirky and informative.

Tonbogirl: I'm a sucker for good design and creative clothing, and this visual fashion diary out of Bratislava is top-notch. Plus, writer Marika speaks like 5 languages!

Ricky Yates: Rev. Yates is an Anglican chaplain in Prague who writes extensively about Czech history and culture. Consider yourself educated after reading this one.

And second, here are my answers to Cynthia's questions:

1. When you think of the word “home”, what place comes to mind?
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, even though I was born in a teeny-tiny town in North Dakota and BW is from the 'burbs. St. Paul's Cathedral Hill neighborhood (the stomping grounds of F. Scott Fitzgerald) is where BW and I made a home together before getting the international bug.

Super St. Paul!

2. How important is it to learn the language of the country where you’re living?
What I should say: Oh-so important!
What I'm saying instead: It's easy to live in Prague and not know Czech. We are embarrassed by our lack of Czech, but the language is really flipping hard.

3. What was your biggest travel or expat “oops” you’ve ever made?
Um, like a thousand. In Thailand, I had a bad stomach, bought meds from a dubious pharmacist, and then got even sicker from the meds. Good thing the view was so spectacular!

It was pretty splendid once we survived the asylum

4. What is a city or place you LOVE that is totally off the tourist radar?
Kandy, Sri Lanka. It has a temple containing one of Buddha's teeth. It was awash in flower offerings and incense and people dressed all in white - just lovely.

In the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic

5. How do you like to unwind after a long day?
Me: Writing, playing with the dog, eating BW's cooking, walking around Prague. Most evenings, I'm marking papers or planning lessons. BW: Cooking, watching TV online.

6. If I gave you free tickets to fly anywhere in the world, where would you go?

Japan! BW wants to eat at a famous restaurant featured in the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi." I waitressed in a sushi eatery in grad school and am fascinated by Japanese food and culture. Origami, haiku, ikebana, nigiri - everything seems so precise and beautiful. 

7. What’s the best material possession you’ve acquired in the past two years?
My wedding ring. I'm not a "diamonds are a girl's best friend" type of gal, but BW designed it himself and it reminds me of a Mucha painting - and our commitment to each other, of course.

Mucha!

8. What inspires you most, creatively?
Living abroad, definitely. I tried to write a blog in the U.S. but just couldn't give it steam. I also like taking a boatload of random photos and using them as stimuli for blog posts/poetry/short stories.

9. Best book you’ve read in the past year?

Probably "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen. It begins in the St. Paul 'hood we left and follows a twisted plot line through the destruction of a "normal" American middle-class family. The writing is superb.

10. What’s your travel style like? Slow, fast, budget, luxurious….

We like to do home exchanges so we can stay in one place for a while and keep costs down. Plus it's fun seeing how other people live; here's a photo of a quirky spot we recently stayed in:

11. What are your travel plans for the rest of 2014?

Sumava and Cesky Krumlov (southern Czech Republic) in early July with my parents. Home to Minnesota and North Dakota for a month this summer, and probably the south of Spain for the Fall when BW's parents come to visit. Christmas somewhere exotic, hopefully. (Japan??!)

Cesky Krumlov, via Wikimedia Commons

Finally, here are my 11 questions for my Liebster nominees:
1. If your blog was a song, what would it be and why?
2. What is one thing you reeeeally like about the town where you live?
3. What are you doing this summer?
4. Name a place you've traveled that you'd recommend to others and why.
5. Who is someone you look up to?
6. What drives you crazy?
7. Where do you do most of your blogging?
8. How do you spend your free time?
9. What is something cool you've found?
10. If you could switch places with someone for a day, who would it be?
11. What gets your creative juices flowing?

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Wedding? Planned.

Being in a foreign country means that mediums like iMessage and Skype are the bearers of major family news. Not ideal, but much better than the molasses-slow dial-up internet I had when I came to Prague for the first time nine years ago. Still, it took my sis almost five days to get a hold of us (thanks to a 7-hour time difference and a nutty end-of-term) to share that...dum dum da dum...

...she and DoubleB got engaged! Congrats, you splashy lovebirds, you!

I think I prefer this Morfo booth version of them, though:

Since sis and I are 1/8 Czech, I propose she and DoubleB get married here in Prague and wear "kroj", which is Czech folk costume. (Who's with me!?) I read that some Czech wedding traditions are making the groom wear a horse collar; having the newlyweds sweep up a broken plate; and requiring them to eat a shared bowl of soup with one spoon.

From Wikimedia Commons

Perhaps we could book Prague's St. Nicholas Church...

...serve a menu of fried cheese and potatoes...

...and have these guys, "Bohemian Bards", perform!

I think I've got it covered.

In all seriousness, this splendid engagement announcement has got me missing home in a big way. In honor of little sis, here's a gnome she felted for me, next to a shot of our parents, Ma and Pa NoDak, in their groovy college years:

Conversely, Mom and Dad W will be pleased to know that their bookshelf presence is a tad more modern :)

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Benefits of blogging

This blog exists for the sole purpose of keeping our rellies abreast of what we're doing way over here in the Czechosphere. Ex: We bought leeks from a Colin Firth look-alike at the farmer's market today! Lame for some, but the parents are plugged in. 

Yet, in a roundabout way, blogging has also opened a few interesting doors. We've electronically "met" other bloggers; we've acquired an arsenal of photos we otherwise mightn't have taken; and we've been offered writing gigs here and there. 

Anything that asks us to advertise a service we haven't used gets turned down, but I did accept an offer to do some freelancing for a web site, www.independenttraveler.com, which is aimed at traveling retirees. One of the assignments was to write the text for a slideshow about experiences in the Czech Republic that transcend the typical "tourist" stuff. Click on the picture below to link to see the finished product, which BW helped with, too. FYI - The photos that the publisher sourced are uh-maaaaay-zing!

Hard to believe our irreverent musings about Czech life and culture would interest anyone that much, but I also got interviewed as a local blogger (BW declined since I do most of the writing) by Internations.org, which connects expats around the world. You have to join the site in order to see the interview, though.

Considering this is the most famous we'll ever be, hey - I may as well post about it.

:)

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Remarkable woman

The Czech Republic has produced scads of illustrious people, from Sigmund Freud to Martina Navratilova to Madeleine Albright. And one of its daughters, not a celebrity or politician, passed away last week at 110 years old. 

Her name was Alice Herz-Sommer, and she was the oldest-known survivor of the Holocaust. 

(Yes, I realize this is like the third "obit" post I've written on this blog, but this incredible woman is worth knowing about. Read on.)

Herz-Sommer, according to this Associated Press article in the National Post, was born in Prague and spent two years in the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp, about an hour northwest of here. An accomplished pianist, she says music kept her alive. A documentary was made about her last year and was nominated for an Oscar:

According to Wikipedia, around 140,000 Jews were sent to Terezin and over 33,000 died there. An estimated 88,000 were moved to other death camps like Auschwitz, where most of them were killed.

We learned about Herz-Sommer just today, which was sunny and promising and ripe for tree-climbing (as you can see from our walk in Stromovka Park with friend Beet). How did we miss the news about her last week while we were in Paris? What a remarkable woman!

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Euromaidan memorial

Ukrainians are the largest group of non-natives here in the Czech Republic; they make up about 30% of the foreign population. And the edge of geopolitically valuable Ukraine isn't that far away - only about 250 miles border-to-border, though Kiev is much further. 

Prayers to the people of the Ukraine and to their tenuous interim government. I don't currently have any Ukrainian students, but I do teach quite a few Russians, and I hope current sentiment and the situation in Crimea doesn't affect them in any way, either. Needless to say, we've been glued to the coverage, wondering what will happen next.

This evening we went for a walk and saw a small memorial on Wenceslas Square honoring Ukrainians killed in the uprising. Just devastating.

On a related note, The Prague Daily Monitor reported that the Czech government will be airlifting and treating 23 Euromaidan protesters injured in the fighting.

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From Sochi to Prague

And the final Czech 2014 Sochi Olympics medal count is... (drumroll)...

from Wikipedia.com

EIGHT! 

We cheered the Czech Republic and the United States on in all sorts of places, from a cave bar in the Old Town to through the windows of cafes in Paris to a living room filled with teenagers.

That's right - we had 14 kids in our flat the night of the opening Olympic ceremony. I had taken them to an international Drama competition in Prague, and since it was near our flat, we had them over for pizza, charades and Olympics. It was actually amusing because every 10 seconds some kid was cheering for their home country. Yay, Japan! Yay, Poland! Yay, Israel! Etc. And you should have heard the dramatic gasps when the fifth circle didn't open.

By the way, while the students weren't exactly Olympic medalists, they did win "Best Original Script" and "Best Supporting Actress" against teams all over Europe - and that probably felt just as special to them :)

And, coincidentally, their play was based on Mount Olympus!

 Our own Greek gods and goddesses

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RIP Shirley Temple Black

The headlines everywhere are referring to the loved and late Shirley Temple as "famed childhood actress" and "Hollywood star." It's true - she's known as the cute kid with the corkscrews - but little do many know that she was also Shirley Temple Black "the diplomat."

From Biography.com

Temple Black served as a U.N. representative in the 60s and Chief of Mission in Accra, Ghana, and Chief of Protocol for President Ford in the 70s. In 1989, she was appointed Ambassador to Czechoslovakia under President Bush. She's reported to have been well-liked and felt honored to serve Czechs and Slovaks during the Velvet Revolution, in the final months of Communism.

From CNN.com

The U.S. Embassy in Prague just released a statement on Temple Black's passing, which can be read HERE.

Also, the Prague Post has an article about Temple Black HERE, which also links to this footage of her in former Czechoslovakia:

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BW's day

všechno nejlepší k narozeninám (happy birthday) BW! You're an incredible husband, best friend, dog dad, top chef, stage golem, travel partner and so much more.  I'd be remiss not to make you feel as red-letter as possible today. The birthday plans...

18:30 reservation at Lokal in Mala Strana

from hotelopia.cz

A gift certificate from Shakespeare and Sons bookstore

from Prague-praha.org

Some jazz and a nightcap at U Maleho Glena

from U Maleho Glena's website

And some strawberry bublanina at home for dessert since I can't get the ingredients here to make your normal pistachio birthday cake 

before

and after

Cheers to many more birthdays and adventures! <3

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Click and comment? Thanks!

Hey all! We've entered an expat blogging contest; want to help us out? 

1) Click on this badge and read our new post, "10 Ways to be a Better You in Prague":
 

 2) Leave a comment that is 10 words or more. You'll have to give e-mail verification to do so, but they won't publish or use you e-mail. It's just to track responses.

3) Accept our deepest e-gratitude! (I'm giving you a virtual hi-five right now.)
Sorry- no pictures on the contest entry; I didn't realize that until after I'd written the post. Thanks for giving us a boost!

BW: How can we win this contest?

Cousin Liv: Offer shiny Czech coins? Or beer.

Me: Winning this blog thing would be a WAY better present than the huge hunk of Toblerone a student dropped off. (And that was a pretty rad gift- just a little hard to gnaw on.)

J-dog: I'm so excited! My parents are applying themselves!

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RIP Lou Reed

Unless you live under a rock, you're aware that musician Lou Reed passed away in NY. It's a big deal here because he was close with former Czech President Vaclav Havel, and his music helped influence dissidents (like Havel) who spurred the fall of Communism. Read more in the Prague Post HERE.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal

There's a lot of bootleg internet video of Reed's performances in the Czech Republic, so I had to sift through a bunch to find this gem from 2009. It's a concert to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution (nonviolent end to Communist rule). In it, Reed sings "Perfect Day" with soprano Renee Fleming, and you can see a close-up of former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (who is Czech) in the audience. A really moving performance.

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Missed the (house) boat

Exactly one month after we move into our Prague flat, Househunters International sends me an e-mail; I had written them back in May about our upcoming move. Argh. I love that show, and it needs an American participant who doesn't whine about dishwashers being too small or not being in close enough proximity to a mall. 

We've read about HHI being a fake show, so I'm tempted to write back just to see what the dealio is!

In other house-related news, good progress is being made on the rural North Dakota cabin. Ma and Pa R facetimed from the site so we could see the foundation. Very impressive!!! Too bad Househunters International probably won't be in the Cheyenne River valley.

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A quick scribble

The first week of teaching means I don't really have the fumes to do much blogging... but I wanted to point out that ChiropractorK and DJ were here Thursday through Sunday and their visit was a blast! A post on our shenanigans is forthcoming...

In Kutna Hora, Czech Republic 

In other news, Ben is being sent to London in mid-September for a business trip. He is continuing to feel his way around Prague and acclimate.

@PragueCastle

 Lastly, there are just two bizarre things I saw near our flat recently. Ciao!

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