Many Czechs have a retreat in the country - a little place where they can escape from city life for the weekend. A chata is a little cottage - often located near a stream or in the forest, surrounded by flowers, fruit trees and garden vegetables. Danna's "Snow White Cottage" was one of these cottages - a stone's throw away from our house, and just the right size for a Princess and seven little men. The grass, still damp from last night's rain was spotted with mushrooms of all varieties. Mushroom picking is a national pasttime here, and it's a fairly common sight to see people returning to town on the metro, carrying baskets laden with their latest finds!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Snow White's Cottage
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Phone via Internet
405-308-4100
Give us a call sometime - just keep in mind that we're six hours ahead of the East Coast of the US, nine hours ahead of the West Coast. Confused? Check out the "Prague Time and Weather" section at the top left of the Blog.
Looking forward to chatting with you!
Monday, September 24, 2007
The Boxes Are Here!

Sunday, September 16, 2007
Dinner in a Dungeon

Temperature: High 72/Low 54
Location: Prague Castle & Old Town
OK - here's the start of a new series chronicling our Date Nights while here in Prague. At 1 per week (assuming we can find a babysitter), 52 per year, this has the potential to be quite a series!
Click here for a Google Earth KMZ file with our route. Click the camera icon within Google Earth for pictures along the route. Don't have Google Earth? Download it here!.



Click here for the rest of the post!










The tables on the ground floor were full, so we ventured down a circular staircase to the cellar below. Heavy wooden tables lined the stone walled chambers, and we settled down to a well deserved dinner of Goulash and Pork Chops, accompanied by a (very small) Neperlava voda (non sparkley water) and (very large but typical, 1/2 liter) house beer. Delicious!





A quick walk through the near-deserted streets of Old Town took us to the Staromeštska Metro stop and our ride home.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Mama said there'll be days like this
Did you ever wonder why baby blankets were so big? I hadn’t either, but now I know why. It was my 2nd day in our new home in Prague as a stay-at home mom of 3 small kids. At 8:50 am the doorbell rang. Not only was I still in my pajamas, but I was nursing my 2 month old baby. YIKES!! I considered having my 4 year old answer the door, but decided against it. I grabbed a baby blanket, threw it over the baby and part of me and opened our front door. Fortunately, the guy at the door was from the embassy and he was just delivering our mail that had been piling up the last 3 months. I was thankful that he didn’t gasp or faint at the sight of me wearing a baby blanket.
My plan was to get dressed as soon as he brought in the 5 boxes of mail. However, while he was delivering our mail, 2 other men showed up to work on 2 of our chandeliers. (There are 2 chandeliers in the living room and family room that are so low that even I – at 5’6”- have bonked my head on them.) By this point, I had stopped nursing Kyler, but I was still in my pajamas—agh! The mail guy left, but before the chandelier guys finished, Mr. Zack came by to fix our heat. (Yes, it was the first week of September and we needed our heat on!! I’m going to freeze this winter!!) Mr. Zack left as well as the chandelier guys. Finally a chance to get out of my pajamas! But alas, it was not meant to be! Roddick, the local security guard, came by to show me how to set our house alarm.
At last around 10 am I was able to get dressed –hallelujah! (Notice I didn't mention getting a shower!!) Just in time for our air freight shipment to arrive – 6 HUGE boxes! Wanting to get a jump start on unpacking, I immediately started taking stuff out of boxes. It seemed that each pile I put down, Jad and Danna decided to play with. In a matter of minutes, the living room and dining room were an absolute mess!! Books, clothes, toys, and kitchen stuff was strewn across tables, furniture and the floor.
It wasn’t even noon yet and 7 different men had been in the house either fixing something or delivering something. Crazy chaos best describes the state of the house (and how I felt). After getting lunch ready, I was so looking forward to the kids’ nap so that I could have some peace. Ding-dong, the doorbell rang for the umpteenth time!! This time it was the internet guy ready to get us connected. I wasn’t about to turn him away even though Danna was on the verge of a meltdown and the baby was crying. Thankfully, he got us set up with the world wide web in less than an hour and we had no more visitors the rest of the day! Whew!! As the lyrics go, “Mama said there’ll be days like this, there’ll be days like this my mama said!”
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Travelling downtown

For any of you planning a visit, here's a cheat sheet for getting downtown. Keep in mind that the times below factor in a stroller and three kids (and a little dawdling for photos along the way.) An average commute would talk 30-40 minutes, depending on how well you time your arrivals at the various transfer points. The various stops are hyperlinked to their corresponding timetables - the underlined stop on the timetables is where you are, the times listed are usually broken out into Weekday, Saturday, and Sunday schedules. Things seem to run pretty much on schedule around here. A 20 crown ($1) ticket (you can buy one from the first bus driver with exact change) will get you all the way there. Remember to validate the ticket on the bus as soon as you get on (there's a machine near each door.) Click here for all the details!



9:38 - Leave the house, and walk through the neighborhood to the Nad Habrovkou bus stop.


You can either take the bus all the way to Dejvická and jump on the metro, or hop off two stops down the road at the Horoměřická stop, and catch the #20 tram which will take you directly to your final destination at Malostranské náměstí (the central square of Malá Strana). We took the metro this time.




At this point, you can either catch the number 12, 20, 22 or 23 trams from the Malostranská tram stop right outside the metro station, or enjoy a beautiful walk through the gardens of the Wallenstein Palace to Malostranské náměstí - the central square of Malá Strana. We chose the leisurely stroll through the gardens, admiring the statues, fountains, and wandering peacocks. The Palace is now the home of the Czech Senate. At a brisk pace, this walk would take 5-10 minutes, about the amount of time you'd spend waiting for and riding a tram.







From this square, the Charles Bridge is just a stone's throw away, to the East down Mosteka street. We walked one block South to Tržiště street, turning right (West).

Funny Signs 1
Here's the first - not too far from our house:

Here's a hint - this sign is very close to the first one:

Monday, September 3, 2007
The first taste of Prague

We muddled through an order from the menu using our handy Czech phrasebook, sign language and a fair amount of grunting, and ended up with the Denní menu (Daily dish). Two steaming plates of noodles piled with pork goulash appeared in short order, accompanied by a bottle of mineral water (for Erin), a 1/2 liter of the pub's namesake golden brew (for me) and a plate of Klobása sausage for the kids. Total damage? 227 Crowns ($11) to feed the four of us (those eating solid food) sure beats McDonalds! Oh - and the drinks? 250 ml. of water cost a crown more than twice as much beer! First report on Czech pivo (beer)? We both had to agree that it was good! Even to the two of us who lived several years in the microbrew capital of the world (the Pacific Northwest) without ever acquiring a taste for the the stuff.
If this first meal in town is any indication, I think we're going to be able to adapt pretty quickly to our new home in the Czech Republic!