Category: Uncategorized
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80th Anniversary: Liberation Day in Plzeň
How can a sequel top the original? A tall order in any situation, but in this case, our second trip to Plzeň’s liberation festival (Slavnosti svobody) occurred on the 80th anniversary of the occasion. Furthermore, I had conducted some family research in the time leading up to this year’s Slavnosti svobody. I researched my grandfather’s…
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Ice and Fire: Prague Between Seasons
Mid-April is an interesting time in Central Bohemia. And by “interesting,” I mean it is uncanny how virtually every element of the weather is identical to my native New England. Cold, snow winters. Hot, humid summers. A refreshing autumn after the oppressive summer heat. And while spring is a welcome change from the seemingly eternal…
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Liberation Day!
Dateline: 5 May, 2024 What an event. What an experience. What a day. An authentic WWII US Army tank leads the way through PIlsen’s Republic Square, to the delight of joyous onlookers The 8th of May is a national holiday in the Czech Republic, as that was the day that Germany officially surrendered to the…
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One Year Prague-a-versary
Dateline, July 2, 2023 One year. One year since connecting flight from Dublin landed at Havel international airport. One year since I first set foot on the mainland of the European Continent. One year since this great adventure began. I celebrated with a very casual afternoon at the Letná Beer Garden.. As I purchased my…
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Forever Amy Concert Review
Dateline, July 16, 2022 Some people in this world are great singers. Others are great songwriters. And some are very good singers and songwriters. Amy Winehouse was one such person. There are very few people in this world who have the gift of matching music to words. Paul McCartney has it, Carole King has it,…
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Giddy as a schoolboy: first trip to Prague Castle
Dateline: July 15, 2022 What better time than to write about my first trip to Prague castle than after the disappointing box office debut of Indiana Jones and the diaper of dysentery? Prague castle is situated just below the crest of a hill and overlooks the historic neighborhoods of Staré Město and Malá Straná. Conversely,…
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Adventures in grocery shopping
Dateline: 4 April, 2023 When people told me that Americans have difficulty adapting to shopping in Prague, I simply had to see it to believe it. And my goodness, after living here for nearly a year, this Sunday morning marked quite another saga in this interesting and unexpected adventure. First, a little background: Since the…
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Another Milestone
Dateline: March 3rd, 2023 Two milestones, actually. The first milestone is that I now have a cell phone service plan with a European provider, so I am no longer at the mercy of my prepaid sim card. The other milestone was far more important in the grand scheme of things, and tasted much better as…
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Reflecting back, looking forward . . .
Dateline: 29 December, 2022 What a long, strange year it has been. So much has happened to me just in the the last three months alone that I don’t even know where to begin. I had a wonderful summer in Prague. I completed my certification in teaching English as a foreign language. I started my…
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Dynamic Dalí Sculptures Provide Daily Dose of Culture
Dateline, July 14th, 2022 Somewhere floating out there in cyberspace is a photo of inside New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, standing beside Salvador Dalií’s most famed piece, The Persistence of Memory. Oh, wait, here it is! Memory. It distorts. It decays. Sometimes, it destroys. I wanted to displays all of these feelings as…
A Connecticut Yankee in King Wenceslas's Court 