Fun and Friends

This past month has been very busy for me for a variety of reasons including work and travel, but mostly because of fun and friends:

• I joined a great group of Cancan dancers and performed at a festival in Milwaukee after only three lessons,
• I competed in the North American National Champtionships with my wonderful team in Nashville and we took second place, and
• The Dayton Celtic Festival is this weekend - what a great way to celebrate my birthday!

The two most exciting bits of upcoming fun and friends events happen today and next month, respectively:

• I am getting together with one of my roommates from Prague, Alice, this afternoon before she moves to California for grad school, and
• My best friend, Amber, is coming to town next month (she lives in Minnesota - at least a 10 hour drive)!

I can't wait to see these lovely ladies! It will be so nice to catch up with them!

Greek Festival

Greek Festival 001
Originally uploaded by elizabethw

Last weekend, my sister came up from Cinci. We all went to the Greek Festival on Saturday night, and had a good time. We ate Trigonia (spinach and cheese!), gyros, and Greek veggie pizza (from Dominos). We drank greek coffee and beer. We met up with my aunts and cousins, and got to watch the kids dancing. We even toured the Greek Orthodox Church! It is beautiful. It reminded me a bit of St. Vitus's Cathedral in Prague--very ornate with beautiful stained glass. My dad said it reminded him of the Church of the Infant of Prague. It makes me nostalgic--and excited to go back for a visit in February.

These pictures aren't of the best quality because I took them with my cell phone camera.









It's officially festival season in Southwest Ohio. This weekend we have the taste of the Miami Valley and Urban nights downtown, and I intend to take full advantage of them. I may try to get out to the Renaissance festival on Sunday.

Brand Spanking New

Happy (belated) 2008! My new year is starting off pretty well--I have had a photo of Karlovo namesti in Prague chosen to be shown in Schmap's Guide to Prague. How exciting! I've also included a widget on the sidebar reflecting this. They chose my picture from my flickr page, and asked me to submit it. I had never heard of Schamp before, but now I'll definitely be checking it out next time I travel.

Pictures

I uploaded some pictures to my flickr page of my parents' visit to Prague way back in March. Once I take Christmas photos off my camera, I'll post them here.

United Islands of Prague Pt. 2

Here's a video of Jay & Alice dancing to a couple of songs by Skarface!

United Islands of Prague

Tonight, Jay, Alice, and I went to the United Islands of Prague Music Festival to hear some fun music.

I know what you are thinking: Isn't the Czech Republic a landlocked country? Doesn't it follow that Prague shouldn't have islands?

To answer your questions, the Czech Republic is landlocked, but Prague is fortunate enough to have the Vlatava river flowing through the center of the city, and there are quite a few islands on the river.

We saw quite a few things while at the festival, not all of them music, but entertaining nonetheless. One of the bands we caught is a ska band from France, "Skarface." I managed to take a quick video of part of their performance. Unfortunately, I didn't have the best vantage point, and a tall guy started to move into my line of sight, so the video is a little short. It was a fun evening all around!

Showers Galore . . .

Not those kind of showers, I'm talkin 'bout party showers (although it was kinda rainy earlier last week)! In the past 3 weeks, I have had the opportunity to attend a couple of different showers for my friends here in Prague. Both of these showers celebrated new beginnings. At the end of May, our women's Bible study threw a baby shower for our friend from South Africa, Alta. As this is her first baby, it is a new beginning for Mom Dad and baby. It was fortunate that we got the shower in before baby Isabella put in an appearance, because just 16 hours after our shower started, she arrived! How exciting :)



The second shower I was fortunate enough to attend was this past Saturday, an engagement shower for Tim and Laura.


Both showers were hosted at Villa Davis, which proved to be a wonderful venue both times!

Like a Visual Echo

This weekend (last weekend in May--sorry for the late post!) has been an interesting one, but mostly a beer-filled one. It seems that the more time I spend in the Czech Republic my beer consumption increases exponentially. When I first moved to Prague in September, I was not a beer drinker at all. I would maybe drink Corona or Blue Moon back home, but beer was not my first choice for an alcoholic beverage (always enjoyed in moderation!). Given the fact that when at a restaurant/pub/bar here in Prague, beer is the beverage that will give you the most value for your hard earned crowns (and the influence of beer-drinking friends), I can say that I am now a beer drinker. Mind you, I'm not a big beer drinker--one or two will do for me (add in the fact that they are served here in 1/2 liters), but a beer drinker nonetheless.

Case in point:

Friday night I met up with some colleagues from work at the Riegrovy Sady Beer Garden to indulge in a refreshing beverage after a long hot work week. I was there a couple of weeks ago with my roomies and Sunny, who blogged about it then.

That Saturday, I visited Pilzn to visit the Pilsner Urquell Brewery with some work colleagues. We had a nice time touring the brewery, learning more about Pilsner beer, and even got to taste some unfiltered/unpasteurized beer in the cellars underneath the brewery! It was a lot of fun.

Immediately following our train ride back to Prague, I met up with one of my roomies and her friends from Ireland for the Prague Fringe Festival at one of the local pubs in Vinohrady. They were here to perform in the Fringe Festival as "The Voice and The Verse."


The Voice & The Verse:
Bringing together four of Ireland's most exciting musicians and poets, ”The Voice and The Verse” is a montage of poignant lyrics and infectious melodies that promises not to disappoint
”Too damn good to miss” - The Village Voice, New York
”Major forces in the canon of contemporary Irish poetry” - The Galway Advertiser

Nothing like a Never Nude

Although it is still technically Spring, summer weather has hit Prague with a vengeance. (I say this now, and in the middle of the week it will be cool again) It seems like with the coming of the warmer weather, the unofficial dress code here changes drastically. The heat hits, and the clothes come off. I have never before in my life seen so many low cut tops and short shorts & skirts (outside of a nightclub) before. And these sightings have been during working hours--and even in some businesses! Friday when I was waiting for my tram at I.P. Pavlova, I saw a woman wearing a crocheted top. Normally, this would be a non-event, but this top was more like a cover-up you would wear to the beach, not the office! Additionally, it seems like Czech women no longer feel the need to wear supportive undergarments while wearing gauzy white tops that leave nothing to the imagination.

It's not only the Czech women whose wardrobes have changed, Czech men have hopped on the bandwagon as well. In my previous post, I detailed the continuing story of our washer woes here in Prague 2. Thursday afternoon, a repairman came to "fix" our washer. More on that later. What surprised me so much that I had to have photographic evidence, was his outfit. Apparently, cutoff shorts are fair game here. I had in my kitchen living proof that nevernudes are not only present in fictional tv shows such as Arrested Development. They exist here in Prague too, only this nevernude forgot the rest of his outfit on Thursday! Compare these photos and judge for yourself:


Here is Tobias Funke of Arrested Development wearing his cutoffs. The narration for this situation/development in the series goes like this: "Tobias was a nevernude, which is exactly what it sounds like."



This is the washing machine repairman, and my landlady. Notice the socks with sandals, and the nevernude cutoffs. I think we have a worldwide phenomenon here.

The Saga Continues . . .

Just when I thought it was safe to have clean clothes, Washer-Gate 2007 continues.

My roomie has guests coming in tomorrow, so we were cleaning up a bit around the flat tonight. We were washing some bedding for them to use while they are here, as we were all under the impression that the washer was working properly. I mean, it had been working since it was "fixed" last week, so we assumed that all was fine.

I guess that was our first mistake, cause you know what happens when you assume? You make an ass out of u and me. About 10-15 minutes after the cycle started, Alice walked into a kitchen with at least 2 inches of water covering the floor.


As you can see, we had a major flood. Alice quite helpfully took this picture while Angela and I were bailing out the kitchen before she jumped back in to help. It wasn't quite up to biblical proportions, but it sure felt like it to us! 8 full buckets of washer-water later, the floor was semi dry.

We sms'ed our landlord, who came downstairs to check things out, even though it was almost 11 at night. I think that the final diagnosis is that it is not shutting off when filling up, and overflows. So now we have a broken washer again, at least until a repairman comes to "fix" it again or we get a new one.

TGIF

Ok, so yesterday got progressively better. I talked to my mom and sang happy birthday to her, the washing machine repairman came and fixed the washing machine. (That was a very interesting experience--he spoke no English and I speak no Czech, so we communicated with a lot of gestures.) And, I ended the day with a worship team meeting for Faith Community Church (planted by this World Harvest Team ) which was wonderful. There is a team visiting from their home church in Charlotte, including parts of their worship team. The night ended in an impromptu jam session! I wish I had brought my camera.

Bummer

I stopped by the Albert at Karlovo namesti this evening to pick up some fixins for my meals this week. I even got 3 of the yummy blackcurrant yog(h)urt drinks, but I forgot to bring a bag to pack up all my stuff in. As the checkout ladies (or trolls) scare the crap out of me, I managed to not get an actual albert bag, but used a produce bag to pack my groceries. This was a bad decision--the bag with my 3 yog(h)urt drinks in it fell as I was stepping out of the tram at I P Pavlova, scattering 2 drinks under the actual tram. I'm sure they got squished as it rumbled by on it's way to namesti Miru. :(

Happy Birthday, Dot!

Thursday night, Sunny, Shanna, Laura and I went to a wonderful Italian restauarant ( Trattoria Cicala ) to celebrate Dorothy's birthday. We ate some wonderful authentic Italian food (I had tortellini filled with cheese in a spinach & cream sauce--excellent!) and just had a very fun evening. I heartily recommend this restaurant to any Praguers.

Happy Hands Club

I was at the office today, when I noticed that there is some kind of Christian concert going on in namesti Miru. I heard the song, "Blessed Be," and managed to look out the window to see what was happening. There was a group of Czechs doing either interpretive dance or sign language to the song--I didn't get to see much of it, just the end. It's so wonderful to see something like this here in Prague, when the majority of the population are atheist.

It did, however remind me of the scene in Napoleon Dynamite with the Happy Hands Club. I managed to track down an image, just for you. :)



I promise that I will post pix of my parents trip to Prague soon!

I've been incommunicando for awhile, all because my parents arrived in Dresden with friends in tow last Wednesday. We've been playing tourist for the last 6 days, and I will post later about that whole experience with lots of pictures. Right now, I have more important things to post about. ;)

ETA: Posts with pictures starting on March 22!

By request of Sunny, I'm posting a picture of St. Patrick's Day at Pasticka. Someone brought a green wig, and a few of us gathered there tried it on (not including me! I wore green on St. Pat's like any self-respecting Irish person would). This picture is of my roomie Alice and her boyfriend Jay, also an English teacher here in Prague.

Slainte!

For the non-Gaelic speakers out there, Slainte (Slan-cha) is the toast you say when drinking. :)

Last night, we ( Sunny, Red and I ) went to Pasticka to meet some friends for St. Patrick's Day. It's not exactly an Irish pub, but it did have Guinness on tap, which was what counted.

It was an odd sort of St. Patrick's Day for me. I didn't dance at all, I didn't have my shamrock garland on, and there was no Irish music at the pub. Instead, we were treated to Rammstein all night long. hmmm. I kept imagining the song, "One of These Things Is Not Like the Other." But I was with good friends, and we had good fun, which is what is important.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy St. Patrick's day!

Promise Delivered

I babysat tonight for Petr & Rebekah's daughter, Magdalena. She was a perfect angel, and slept the entire time. These are the best babysitting nights. :)

While babysitting, I got a chance to start reading Lost Women of the Bible by Carolyn Custis James, as chosen by Shanna for her (our?) brand spanking new women's only bible study to start this coming Tuesday morning. It's very engaging and engrossing, not to mention thought-provoking and interesting. Thanks for choosing such a wonderful book, Shanna!

Getting back on topic (title), as part of my payment for babysitting tonight, Rebekah introduced me to the wonderfulness that is Coffee Heaven. She brought back a White Chocolate Mocha for me, and boy did it deliver on the name! I really was in Coffee Heaven. This makes up for the fact that there are no Starbucks in the Czech Republic. This could be dangerous for me . . .