Happy Holidays

Season's greetings. Another week has flown by. We got back from Normandy on Monday and then continued our holiday celebrations here in Prague: we joined Molly's team for holiday drinks on Tuesday and had dinner with one of her MBA classmates on Wednesday.

Tomorrow we're heading stateside until after the new year. Looking forward to a few weeks at home - in both Seattle and Boise.

I've spent the last few days reviewing photos from our first 5 months abroad. I (finally) uploaded most of our trips into the web album. Give it a look if you have a few minutes.

To wrap up, here are a few photos from last weekend in Normandy with Jeff & Naomi. It was a fantastic weekend.

Happy Holidays.

Molly & Naomi in Honfleur

At Pointe du Hoc, near Omaha Beach

At Mont-St-Michel

Evening cocktails in Bayeux

Christmas Season in Prague

Happy Holidays all. Since my last post we've been basking in Prague's holiday glow.

To kick off the holiday season, we celebrated Thanksgiving by going out. Although we certainly missed everyone back home, we enjoyed a fine turkey dinner at the Intercontinental Hotel's rooftop restaurant. The view of Old Town is terrific from the restaurant and dinner was the norm. Well sort of: we only had one serving of everything...

On Saturday the annual Christmas Market opened in Old Town Square. It's quite the event. There are food vendors, drink vendors, and plenty of Czech crafts for sale. Consequently we've been frequenting the square this week to dine al fresco on sausages, mulled wine, Prague ham, hot mead, and trdelnik (delicious pastries). Other highlights from last weekend include a couple museum excursions (Mucha Museum & the Museum of Medival Art) and a concert at the Spanish Synagogue.

After several great weeks here at home, we're hitting the road this weekend. We're off to Normandy to rendezvous with Jeff & Naomi York. Until next week, here are a few photos from the Christmas Market. Cheers.

Oh right, we're in Europe

There are days when I forget we live in Europe. Those are days when nothing seems out of the ordinary. Then there are days like today, when I observe things that are rare, unique, funny, or just euro:

• On the subway a teenager offered his seat to an elderly woman. He didn't hesitate. It's a common practice still for men to offer their seats to a lady.

• A horde of tweens walked past our apartment. There were probably 12 of them, none older than 13. About half were smoking. And this wasn't behind-the-schoolyard-dumpster smoking. They were walking down the sidewalk, like any other day, with cigarettes blazing.

• At the grocery store I heard the 80's smash hit song Cruel Summer by Bananarama. When's the last time you heard that song? Then I caught myself whistling it as I walked home. (If you want a refresher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n6chxpEINs)

* * * * *

Here's another photo from Dublin. Morbidly funny, but a sign of the times:

Winter Descending, Dublin

There's no doubt winter is coming. We've had snow flurries every day since Saturday. Cold, windy, and snowy sums it up. We spent the weekend here at home, just the two of us. It was a fruitful weekend of trying new cafes and restaurants, visiting several museums (one art museum and the Museum of Czech Cubism), and we caught Quantum of Solace - complete with Czech subtitles.

Enjoying espresso and honey pie Sunday afternoon at Grand Cafe Orient.

Last week was short: Monday the 17th was Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day. The holiday commemorates anti-Nazi demonstrations on Nov 17, 1939 and anti-communist demonstrations on Nov 17, 1989. So Prague was quiet when we returned from Dublin. The rest of the week Molly was pretty busy at work. Her team was is town from all over Europe. I made a few social appearances as well...which I'll classify as "work" given my current employment status.

Our excursion to Dublin during the 14th-17th was a success. Here's a quick review:

• Friday - I got the lay of the land by strolling through central Dublin: St. Stephan's Green (park), Grafton Street (shopping street), Trinity College. Visited the Irish National Gallery. When Molls arrived we had dinner in Temple Bar to sample Dublin's nightlife. My daily Guinness consumption: 2.

• Saturday - After a full Irish breakfast, we saw the Book of Kells, Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Dublin Castle. Somewhere in there we also had lunch at the Bank (thanks Naomi, for the recommendation) and visited a pub. For dinner we had Indian (?). Oh, and the New Zealand All-Blacks (rugby team) beat Ireland in a much anticipated match. There were thousands of Kiwis in town just for the game. My daily Guinness consumption: 5.

• Sunday - Full Irish breakfast. Off to the Guinness brewery for a tour and, you guessed it, some Guinness. Then we spent the afternoon in Howth ('Hote'), a fishing village about 30 minutes from Dublin. My daily Guinness consumption: 4
  

Here are a couple photos. Cheers.

Molly & Molly Malone

Self portrait at the Guinness brewery

Prague Pups

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly a month since my last post. Is time faster in Europe?

Catching up: We made a quick trip stateside a couple weeks ago, to pickup our long term visas. Then last week we hosted Naomi & Jeff for a couple days. Naomi flew mid-week from Lisbon and worked from the MS office here with Molly. Jeff joined us for the weekend. We did some sightseeing, but mostly just hung out, enjoyed some beer (too many of them), and traded expat experiences (while Molls & I are expat rookies, Jeff & Naomi are veterans having been in Lisbon for well over a year). It was a fantastic weekend.

This week Molly's working in Reading (London) today and tomorrow. Then we're spending the weekend in Dublin. Should be a true Dublin experience too: the forecast calls for morning fog and light drizzle. Looking forward to it!

Now that I have a few posts under my belt, I have a little plan figured out for the blog. Here's a small observation about Prague. I'll throw these out periodically...

Dogs in Prague
Pups are real common around town. And they go everywhere with their owners: restaurants, bars, shops, the subway, you name it. Today at the coffee shop I was greated by a yellow lab when I walked in. It belongs to an employee of the shop and he's quite good at greeting customers. Being a dog lover, I enjoy this aspect of town. Then there's this fact: the vast majority of dogs are walked without leashes. They typically walk right beside or even behind their owners, never approaching anyone else. This might be an urban dog characteristic (rather than a eurodog characteristic), but it's new to us. Pretty cool.

With those earth shattering observations I'll call this post complete. Have a good weekend everyone, cheers.

PJ&B Visit

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit with PJ & Bronwyn. Unfortunately they departed on Sunday and we miss them already.

Their visit was a flurry of activity. Highlights included a visit to the brewery near Strahovsky Klaster Monastery (for their special fall brew), a day trip to the town of Kutna Hora, and hosting them as our first dinner guests in the apartment (although we didn't cook - we picked up pizza; full disclosure).

Molly and I are now heading stateside for the next week to take care of a few things. I'll continue here with much more when we get back. Until then here are some photos from PJ&B's visit.

Kutna Hora is home of the Sedlec Bone Church. Its walls and ceiling are decorated with the bones of 40,000 people from the middle ages. One of the oddest things we've ever seen.

There's more to Kutna Hora than the bone church. It's a nice little town with a big cathedral (boneless), several squares, and great views. We also enjoyed some of the local brew, black for the boys and light for the ladies, at Pivnice Dacicky ('Piv-neet-say Dach-itsky'). With the beer we ate a traditional Czech lunch of smoked meats, dumplings, and gravy. Then we took a nap.

Hanging in our apartment on Saturday night.

Today's Happenings

We have some more guests in town: PJ & Bronwyn (Molly's brother & fiance) arrived yesterday on the train from Berlin. We got right down to business. I showed them Old Town Square, took the tourist alley to Charles Bridge, and then hit a beer garden in Mala Strana (the neighborhood across the river from ours).


Today they're visiting Prague Castle, in the rain unfortunately. Molly and I had our Czech language lesson at noon, so that gave PJ & Bronwyn some time on their own. Tonight will probably include some combination of Czech beer and Czech food. And we'll spend tomorrow and Saturday continuing to show our guests around town. Then they're off to Paris on Sunday. To wrap up, here are a couple photos of Prague Castle and Charles Bridge (since we're on the subject). Cheers.

Dobry den (Good day)!

Greetings from Prague!

Unbelievably it has already been 3 months since Molly and I relocated here from Seattle. What have we been up to? Here’s a quick synopsis:

• Entertaining. We hosted our first guests when old friends Jami & Preston and Jeff visited. Their dedication is without equal: Jami & Preston were at our apartment when I arrived in town. It was great having guests during our first weekend (kudos to them too for their patience: our apartment was empty and Jeff had to sleep on our couch cushions on the floor). Molly's parents also just visited for 10 days. We showed them all around Prague, spent 4 days in Vienna, and day-tripped to Cesky Krumlov (small town in CR).

• Moving in. We moved into our apartment without issue (officially jinxing all future moves). The movers delivered our “stuff” on time and nothing was broken, missing, or smelled unusual. Then it took me about a month to unpack and get organized. I paced myself.

• Exploring Prague. We’re just getting our feet wet. The city is beautiful and we love our neighborhood in particular. More posts to come.

• Traveling. We’ve been on the road a lot. Getting settled here in Prague has been slowed by all the travels (but we're making due). More posts to come about our trips to date:
• A week in London & the English countryside
• A weekend in Dresden
• A weekend in Budapest
• A week in Paris & Amsterdam
• 10 days in Greece
• A weekend in Copenhagen
• 4 days in Vienna

And that briefly sums up our first 3 months abroad. We have been pretty busy, but it's been a great experience so far. In future posts I'll delve into more detail about Prague and what we're up to. I have a couple months of catching up to do, so there's plenty to tell.

Na shledanou. (Good bye).