Hope of New Fields

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

So, Prague recorded its heaviest snowfall for the past 17 years this weekend and hundreds of people were without power. A state of emergency is still in effect in many regions and national and international train travel has been disrupted by the exceptional snowfalls; between 40 and 60 centimetres of snow fell across the Czech Republic over the last two days. While beautiful, it also makes mere walking a feat...one of miah's students told him that over 300 broken legs were reported in one day.

I took this today near one of my lessons...I like the contrast of the graffiti on the fountain and the old church...

some cars near our flat...

our street...the mounds are perfect for making igloos which is exactly what the kids next door have been doing all week...

in the city centre...

Friday, January 8, 2010

new year's eve = czechs love their fireworks

we arrived home from barcelona on the 30th and due to being a bit tired and not wanting to spend loads of money going to a party, we decided to stay home and have a nice dinner and share a bottle of wine we recieved from our landlord as a 'happy new years' gift. as it turned out, we didnt need to go anywhere because it became apparent that a: fireworks are legal in the czech republic and b: every czech person in our neighborhood took the liberty of buying lord knows how many and lighting them in their backyard...in their lawn, in the street, under trees...it didnt matter. this event began at about 7:30pm and finished at about 12:30am. miah took some pictures from our window and had fun playing with different exposures...here are the results:

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Sketches of Spain...

so we decided to spend our christmas in barcelona and after weeks of waiting...we sat at the bus station and had to wait some more...

upon arriving, we checked into our hostel and grabbed some sangria...and enjoyed the view

same building come morning time...

on our first day (dec. 26th), which is typically one of the busiest shopping days in America and the UK, all the shops were closed down in honor of Christmas...which was quite refreshing, so we just wandered around the city...

we stumbled upon a passage to a cathedral...

it was really nice to be in a beautifully sacred place during this time of year...

first Gaudi sighting....

this however was open: the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Absolutely huge and amazing...

with lots of work from one of our favorite artists, Antoni Tapies, who is a home tome hero there...

also, a crazy retrospective of the experimental composer/artist John Cage....which will be talked about more in depth on miah's blog soon (toothinajewelrybox.blogspot.com)

tapas and wine for our 3 year anniversary dinner...

Catalunya square...

we decided to walk back to our hostel in the rain...and found the Arc de Triumf...still not sure who coined this building first...paris or barcelona?

super fun window display...

of course, the Sagrada Familia....

the weather was warm almost all 5 days we were there...so we hit up the beach...

since prague doesn't get all the american films that we're in to...we found a small independent cinema on a quaint street filled with boutiques, coffee shops, creperies, and bars...we decided this is definitely where we would live if we ever moved there...

for any one who knows Jarmusch's films, this seemd like an homage to the popcorn vendor in Permanent Vacation...

we saw Donde Viven Los Monstruos (i.e. Where The Wild Things Are...yes Leighanna, Shelly also cried at the end)...and this one...

the famous Gaudi Park Guell...

so about a week before the trip, miah had a strange dream about large octopus tentacles coming through our ceiling...then we saw this and kinda freaked out...