Being a little kid is fun- Halloween in Prague

Halloween... a fun ole' American tradition of carving pumpkins, eating candy, dressing up as something either "slutty" like in the movie, Mean Girls, or something more tame.. like say... a ghost. It's fun that a child or children at any age can have!

This year we went to my friend Jen's house to carve pumpkins. Dave is out of town this year again for Halloween, but at least last year he was here for us to carve pumpkins together... not this time.. c'est la vie. For the festivities i made a yummy little treat for all my fellow "young at heart" friends.

Chocolate covered pretzels with sprinkles and the Czech version of M&M's, it was really good!

Keeping the old school tradition of Pumpkin carving alive, I went to Tesco about a week in advance to size up the perfect pumpkin for carving. I found them all in a little corral-like area in my Tesco and after sizing each of them up for 10 minutes, I finally came across this little beauty who would be my muse.

Burt, season 2, my muse for the evening of pumpkin carving

After some tough love we finally cut through Burt and started removing all of his guts and pumpkin seeds; we ate them later so the pumpkin was "recycled" for all of my California friends out there. I'm what you might call a traditional carver... i like to stick with the triangle motif.. it happens to be my favorite. We had some people who were pumpkin virgins that definitely got into the carving spirtit and got very creative with their pumpkins, but, like i said, I like to stick to tradition on things like pumpkin carving and my alabama football.

Burt's finished face... i liked his toothy grin!

Once we had all finished, some 2 hours later, we took all of the pumpkins, I believe about 1o or so in total to the roof of Jen's apartment building for a little photoshoot. We liked the idea of blending American culture in such a foreign city such as Prague, so the roof top photo seemed a perfect place to finalize that idea.

Some of our pumpkins (USA, Ukraine, Portugal, The Netherlands, Jersey, England, Czech Republic, Spain) we are a United Nations Pumpkin Patch

This is my favorite photo of the entire evening. I love the back drop of the city lights coming up from behind the bell tower, it's very old meets new. I wish i would have been able to get the castle in the back ground, but it was such a hazzy night that my camera didn't want to focus in on that... just the pumkins.

Pumpkins: (Jennifer, Iona, Me, CJ, and Leo)

Not sure what we will all do for Halloween day. I am just kind of hoping that I won't have this miserable cough so that I can leave my apartment for longer than 10 minutes at a time. I had a blast though making the dessert, carving my pumpkin, and finally toasting pumpkin seeds.

Mom's Birthday and my new do

October 15th would have been my Mommy's 57th birthday. My orginial plan was to do something sombre and a little depressing and then the day actually came and I decided that was no where close to what i wanted to do. Instead I thought about something that I would want to do with her and here is what we did.

Chicken wings in Zizkov! Basically my favorite wings place in all of Prague. It's a run down P.O.S. bar but it offers some amazing food and the beer is cheap... and watery... just like my mommy likes it!

Beer on tap (Gambrinus) and some yummy chicken wings.. perfect celebration for Ellen O'Brien

After our delicous meal we headed home via the #26 tram and decided it was time to consume the cake I had bought mom earlier in the day. This being a Thursday and all we decided to go "light" on the wine drinking as we both didn't want to be hung over for the work day ahead.

Happy Birthday Mommy! Wine and Cake for everyone!

I tried to eat all of mom's cake. I didn't really want to share it with Dave... it's just too good to share!

Mom's birthday ended up being a really nice day. The weather was horrible, but just being able to talk to friends and family really made a ton of difference. And also, being able to celebrate her birthday, the way that I wanted to with my mom also made a huge difference in my demeanor as well. I wanted something a little more light hearted and fun... i figured i owed at least that much to myself and to mommy! Happy 57th Birthday Mommy... i hope you had a wonderful birthday! I love you so much!

After Mom's birthday on Thursday I FINALLY went o the hair salon and treated myself to a hair cut. I haven't had my hair cut since Lisa's wedding in the beginning of June so to say that my hair desperately needed a new do is an understatement! I canceled the appointment twice because i never had enough money... finally, on pay day, i went to Salon Jet Set for my new do. Andrea was very helpful and insightful and for whatever reason i let her do what ever the hell she wanted to. This, is not something i do very often... especially with my hair. And, here are the results!

Lovely lady locks! I was so chipper after this hair cut that Dave thought I was a different person.

And a tilted view of my beautiful hair.. god i look good! (wink)

"Hair style is the final tip-off whether or not a woman really knows herself. "

~Hubert de Givenchy, Vogue, July 1985

To Germany and Beyond, well, just to Dresden

What do you know about Germany? "Besides the obvious, that they have beer, sausages, and i do not understand their language... not much."

Last weekend Dave and I finally took a trip outside of the Czech Republic for the day. And where did we go? Germany! I have never been to this land of WWII, beer, oktoberfest, and sausages so I was extremely excited when we jumped into a rented car Saturday morning to start our little drive to Dresden. Quick history lesson: Dresden is where all of the Czechs go to buy goods.. it's about 1/2 the price as the Czech Republic and more of a selection, which usually means you aren't getting ripped off like you are here. Also, the allies during WWII completely destroyed the city.. literally leveling it to the ground. All of the buildings were rebuilt using old brick and new brick... it's a really cool city and very friendly!

Saturday morning was cold here; about 4C. I had asked Dave earlier in the week if we would have problems with snow, since it was rumored that the Czech/German border would get some snow over the week. Dave said no.. and I never checked the weather forecast, if i would have listened to my mother I would have known better, but alas we started on our roadtrip adventure! TomTom a.k.a. Tania took us through the Northern Czech mountains on a two lane stretch of road that lasted about 70 kilometers... it was beautiful and really a lovely drive. About half way through we noticed we were heading into the mountains... no problem we thought. But, as we started to go up we saw snow...

View of the really pretty road and the mountain we began to climb right after Teplice, Czech Republic. So much for no snow that weekend!

The trees still have all of their leaves... And most of them are still green!!!!

Well, being the good little travelers that we are we didn't think much of it. Perhaps it was just a little dusting... nothing to be concerned about. But, as we climbed the mountain we became accutely aware of just how much snow had actually fallen during the week... and it was more than a light dusting. Once we reached the top of the moutain there was no sun, no leaves, and about 2-3 feet of fresh snow with more starting to come down as we were driving. To say that we were nervous would have been an understatement. We definitely floored it to the German border and decided we would not be taking the same way later on that evening.

Top of the mountain... no sun, no leaves, just a lot of cold-fresh snow. BBRRRRR....

Once we got over the border and into Germany nothing really changed except for the fact that there was even more snow here than there was in the Czech Republic! I was excited jumping up and down in my seat like a 5 year old child, though Dave, the driver, was not as eager about jumping up and down until we were finally in Dresden, and away from the snow and ice. On our way we went through the cutest little German town... red and yellow buildings with the traditional German style architecture (it reminded me a lot of Helena, Georgia.. except here i was looking at the real thing). Toward the middle of the town they had a ski slope... which was open for business!!! Dave and I thought about stopping in and getting our ski on.. but we had a date with Dresden and we were ready to get there.

Cute little German town over the border... keep in mind it was noon when we drove through the town; i know it looks like 4pm.

Finally, around 1pm we finally made it into Dresden! The trip itself is only supposed to take about 3 hours but it took us about an hour extra since we drove through all of that snow and Dave was careful to be the extra cautious driver... which i of course appreciated!

A really interesting mosiac next to the river, Dresden, Germany

After such a long drive I was feeling a little hungry and well, was getting a little antsy for my first German beer. Apparently, it's very similar to Czech beer, which I LOVE, but just for the sake of experimenting I thought it best to really see for myself. The verdict, yes, it tastes very similar if not almost the same as Czech beer... so basically it was awesome!

Pretty much my favorite things all together: potato soup with sausages and veggies, and a nice dark "sweet" beer. God... my life is amazing! P.S. This is where Dave did all of my translating... he speaks German well!

After my scrumptios lunch we walked across the bridge back into Dresden to do a little more sigh seeing, beer drinking, and of course shopping, because like good Czechs we also know that everything is cheaper in Germany!

Cutest picture ever!!!

So, back across the bridge there is a really great park that looks over the river and onto some government buildings. I love parks, 1) because they are usually very beautiful and well manicured, 2) most importantly because they are free!

This was suppose to be my catalog photo for the military... don't you see all of the matching colors? PURPLE!

After all of our walking around the city, in parks, buildings, monuments made Dave and i VERY thirsty for another German beer so we went into another pub where Dave found the love of his life! What you thought that it was me.. lol.. oh, you guys are funny! No no, Dave found a pub that serves a 1 liter beer (like the ones in Oktoberfest!) Since, Dave could not go to Oktoberfest because evil DHL told him he had to go to a meeting instead, Dave pretended like it was his first beer there and we had a nice time sitting and talking. Of course we didn't have the same atmosphere of drunken men and women, women in crazy german outfits carrying 7 of those bad boys at a time, but it was still fun watching him drink it!

Dave.. drinking his beer also know as his God!

me and my baby beer

So, all in all, Germany was awesome. We got home later that evening around 11:30pm. Not bad for a days drive... beer, snow, a decanter and a glass bowl for snacks..and of course time spent with my amazing boyfriend! I can not wait until the next time we go to Germany!

Indian Summer- September Adventures

God was certainly smiling down on me when he gave me a little bit more Indian Summer to look forward to before the onset of the cold Czech winter's that I am not looking forward to.

In the middle of September me, Jen, CJ, Leon, and a missing Christina (who became ill) dressed up and went to a Fashion TV party at a club called LS. The idea was a true girls night out... cocktails, fancy dresses/clothing, a night out with gossip! Well, our plan went well until around 12:00am. We all decided that we had had way too much to drink and we were all in need of a bed. Our ladies night was a blast.. for the three hours we all participated in it.

Jen and I before heading out fo the evening. We look so beautiful, if I do say so myself!

That next weekend was the fabulously wonderful Burcak Festival, or the celebration of "young wines". Basically the idea is you take the grapes, twigs, stems, and basically anything and put it in a big barrel and let it ferment for about 5 days. After that you bring this brew to Prague and sell it. It's an amazing drink that manages to work as a laxative and headache inducer all in the span of three hours... it's a wonder drink. This year the festival was colder than last year, so our eagerness to continue drinking was pretty short lived. We had fun nonetheless and bought yet another bottle of the Kosher wine... really yummy and fabulous!

Dave and I sitting on a hill in Troja, the site of the Burcak Festival (vinobrani) 2009.

I was told last week about a bio/organic market that was happening in Prague not far from where we live (biojarmark). I MISS farmer's markets so much and the idea of getting to buy some more organic fruits and veggies was almost too tempting for me. But, when we arrived and I realized they had traditional folk music too complete with costumes i was in festival heaven. We did a bio wine tasting, bought yellow carrots and had just an amazing time! Plus the weather was amazing, i LOVE the indian summer!

Traditional folk music and costumes at the Bio Jarmark festival last weekend.


The festival grounds. Lot's of little stands and people with small children all buying fresh organic produce. So much fun!

Finally, a dear friend of mine from Georgia, Sarah Densmore Faughtenberry, was in town from Oktoberfest over the last three days. We went out for dinner last evening with her, little kingston to be, her husband, and another couple from Atlanta. Dave met us out after where we went for drinks at the Buddah Bar in the center of Prague. It was so great to see old friends again and I am definitely looking forward to seeing everyone again when I am there in May 2010 for my sister's graduation!

Sarah and I at Buddah Bar. It had been 10 years since we had seen one another!

Daddy Comes to Prague

Daddy came to Prague at the beginning part of September for 3 days and 4 nights! It was a blast to have him here and for him to see the city that I, for now, am calling my home. My dad was blown away by our apartment, and loved the area of the city that we live in (about 20 minutes from the city center). It's a completely different view of Prague than the area that I was living in before the move. Cleaner and Safer are probably the two best words to describe the new community we are living in. Daddy, me and Dave waiting at our local train station (nadrazi vrsovice) on our way to Kutna Hora. It's an old mining town about an hour away from Prague that is known for it's Silver but more importantly the Bone Church!

One our many adventures was a day trip out of the city and into the Czech Countryside. Most of you have seen some of my adventures through out the Czech Republic, but I wanted me dad to get a taste of just how beautiful this country is. (plus, it looks a lot like Illinois... it's weird). We arrived in Kutna Hora a little after 11am and walked into town and to the Bones Church, about a 15 minute walk from the train station. Inside the church was bones... EVERYWHERE! There is something along the lines of 40,000people inside the church who were used as decorations! One of my favorites is the one below. It's a coat of arms! Creepy!

The Schwartzenberg coat of arms at Kutna Hora. One of the ruling families of the Czech Republic during the Austrian-Hungarian empire. It was just weird... and a little satanic.

After out interesting sight seeing adventure we caught a bus into town. We walked about the quaint town of Kutna Hora and then decided to go to a pub and try the local brew. While it is no where near as good as say, Gambrinus, Pilsner Urquell, etc, it still had it's own unique flavor and taste.

Daddy and I drinking the local brew in Kutna Hora

After a good day in Kutna Hora we arrived back in Prague around 6pm and took my dad out to dinner to have "typical" Czech food. I took the gulash, Dave the ribs, and my Dad the pork knee. To say that this thing wasn't over whelming would be an understandment. Some how, Czechs on the whole are not even remotely fat... but they do have high blood pressure. And the picture below is one of the reasons for that tricky little sucker.

Daddy's pork knee. Yes, it comes on a metal skewer and that is what it looks like exactly when the waiter brings it out. My dad was shocked and a little terrified, but he powered through it and actually really enjoyed it!

The last night with daddy was really bitter sweet. I was so glad that he had come but was less than thrilled to have him leave the following morning. I took dad to a restaurant in Mala Strana called Cafe de Paris. It's a favorite of the cute couples.. (me and dave). We had wine and amazing food and had a nice long talk about Prague and life in general. Afterward we went across the street to the Mandarin Oriental hotel and had lovely cocktails and called Katie to say hi.

Dinner at Cafe de Paris in Mala Strana (the lesser quater)

I had a fantastic time while my dad was in town and can not wait for the rest of my family to come and experience the wonderful world that is Prague.

Events: July and August; everything in between

July started with a little train trip to the Rock for People festival in Hradec Kralove (about an hour north of Prague). This is where I celebrated American's Independence day.. Happy Birthday America! We camped; yes, I camped! Listened to great Czech bands and really great British bands, that actually always seemed to be drunk. We were really lucky in terms of weather… perfect blue skies. The big downfall was how scorching hot it was the entire weekend that we were there. Literally living in a hot tent, using port-o-johns that smell, having been baked in 85+degree weather, and only being able to drink beer left me very happy to be home with a flushable toilet, a warm shower, and finally a comfy bed! The beer situation I continued at home; as some of you know, it's cheaper to drink beer here than water… its expensive!

 

Mid- July we were invited to go dancing out in Vinohrady with some amazing friends of ours! I personally have always loved dancing and anytime I can go to a particular "establishment" for dancing I am more than happy to take up the offer. *It's the kind of club where no one likes ladies*. This was Dave's first experience at such a club, and he finally was able to see what it feels like to be a woman in a man's world. It was nice to have him come back from the bathroom and say, "This guy just totally checked me out in the bathroom, and made sure that I knew he was looking at me. I feel dirty." Now ladies, how many times have we all said that? Quite a few right…. Ahhh, he's learning without ever having to go through any changes!

 

The end of July we celebrated our dear friend Sasha's birthday. Lots of wine was consumed and a lot of cake was eaten. It was a very good night to be merry! We finished the evening with a little rendezvous to a club where more drinks were consumed, which resulted in my leaving shortly after. Apparently, moving to a mostly beer drinking country has lowered my ability to consume mixed drinks. It was a fun night and a great time to get together with the ladies!

 

Many of you know that I LOVE the zoo. Really, I was fighting the 5 year olds for a place up front when the polar bears were playing in the water. I guess you could say that I am a big kid at heart… or just a feisty adult. I somehow managed to talk Dave into a fun day of looking at animals and putting up with my 6 year old behavior. Our favorite had to be the polar bears!!! It was a great day of beer drinking, animal watching and over all good time. I can't wait for our next Zoo adventure!

 

7 months and a total breakdown

Well, the 6 month anniversary and going home were pretty "easy", if i could use such a word to describe my mood upon arriving in Los Angeles, clearing mom's closet full of clothes, and finally seeing friends in an environment of a less morbid make up, were by far an easier adventure than what i had made them out to be here in Prague. But, today has been awful. I'm not sure why, and i sure as hell don't understand. I miss my mom... i miss her a lot today. I hate that most people will never understand what it feels like until later on in life, though i am quite sure it won't make it any less difficult than what I'm going through now. It will suck just as equally across the board. 7 months seems like such a random time/number to be grief stricken again.. 6 months I get; 1 year i totally understand, but 7 months?! When did 7 months become a valid number for measuring time? I keep thinking that as "time goes by" it will get "easier". And here's the big surprise... it doesn't get easier... it becomes more tolerable. Yesterday was tough as well. Nothing says miserable quite like seeing moms and their daughters together in the shopping mall to really get old water works here flowing. I hate that I can't call her on the phone, write her an e-mail, send her a text message, write her a letter the good ole' fashion way. Everything about it is just miserable. As with most things in life, i know the sadness of today will fade and perhaps tomorrow i will be joyful with all that life has given me. Today however, i will feel sad, miss my mom, and wish that things could have been different.

I love you mommy...