Hope of New Fields

24 days...

2010-01-20T14:55:00.002+01:00

...til the end of this season.

sister winter pt. 2

2010-01-13T13:58:00.004+01:00

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...

new year's eve = czechs love their fireworks

2010-01-08T10:14:00.003+01:00

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:

Sketches of Spain...

2009-12-31T14:14:00.017+01:00

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...

view from the highest point in the park...

more exploring around town...

another Gaudi sighting...

a huge open-air market off La Rambla...

Chris Columbus statue at the port...

underneath it...a fitting protest

back to 'our' street one last time...

at the airport...pretending to be in a good mood but we REALLY didn't want to leave.

side-note...

2009-12-23T17:27:00.003+01:00

For those of you who are interested, Miah has started a blog (at the urging of his wife of course) giving his well-articulated thoughts on music, art, film, literature etc. Have a look if you feel so inclined.... www.toothinajewelrybox.blogspot.com

sister winter

2009-12-22T11:36:00.005+01:00

The view from our window lately...

not far from our flat...

This was before the snow at Namesti Miru. They set up these little Christmas Markets all over Prague that sell some gifts, hot wine, and some traditional Czech food...

The country is known for being almost entirely athiest, but in front of every Christmas tree in the city is a nativity scene...

That being said...this one was clearly photo-worthy..

On the Charles Bridge...of course

start wearing purple

2009-12-15T12:17:00.009+01:00

before the show...

us and vanessa...the coolest canadian we know

on the tram.. with monogrammed road sodas

clearly having a good time...

This video that miah took gives a perfect feel for the show...

2 Things That Can't Possibly Come Any Sooner....

2009-12-08T13:13:00.007+01:00

1) So for Christmas, in true Sazdanoff fashion, we impulsively decided to buy tickets to Barcelona! We've never been to that part of Europe and we couldn't be more excited. It's going to be much, much warmer than Prague and more importantly, we won't have to crack open an English textbook for 5 days. Shells has already researched all the cool record stores, bars and boutiques so all we need to do is get on the plane. Here are a few pics of what we're looking forward to...

2) Also, as most of you already know, Animal Collective is pretty much our favorite band and one of it's members, Panda Bear, has a solo side project that we love equally as much. Well, Panda Bear never, ever goes on tour but it just so happens that he is doing a rare 3 day tour in Europe and we just got tickets to see him in January! Oh ya, the show is in Berlin, one of our favorite cities in the entire world. The count down has already begun...

DOX Contemporary Art Gallery

2009-12-04T11:17:00.008+01:00

come sail away...come sail away...Below is a piece by Czech's most favorite/hated contemporary artist David Cerny. It's called 'Entropa' (Entropy and Europa mixed) which mocks each country's most offensive grievance or blatant contradiction....i.e. France is draped in a "Grieve!" banner which means "Strike!"; Sweden is represented by a large IKEA-style self-assembly furniture box, containing Grippen fighter planes (as supplied to the Czech airforce) ; side note...the open space in the top left corner is where the UK should be...but since they are known for isolating themselves from the rest of Europe they are missing from the piece.

It is extremely popular, but as you can imagine it has created quite the controversy.

And then there is Romania as a Dracula-styled theme park which blinks and emits ghostly sounds periodically...next to it is Belgium presented as a half-eaten box of praline chocolates and above is the Czech Republic which flashes controversial quotations by the Czech president Vaclav Klaus Below was what initially looked like a blank wall, but when we held a black light up to it we discovered an array of deeply perceptive phrases and light-hearted drawings...be sure to watch the video..it was our favorite quote.

Velvet Revolution! Nezapomente!

2009-11-18T09:07:00.010+01:00

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of when communism fell here in the czech rep and of course the wife and I got in on some of the action. In true underground fashion, there were student marches, political speeches and rock concerts during the all day celebration. We had a lot of fun being apart of this monumental moment in history and took a few pics while we were at it:

a beautifully warm day to mark the occasion....

they put up some displays in front of the actual stores where people used to have to wait in line for food......crazy

night began to fall...

grabbin some pizza and watchin the big screen all 1984 style....

a huge memorial for those who fought against the curtain....

fuzzy fireworks in the distance....

an amazing pic that really just sums everything up....

some late night czech rock n' roll....

NATURE ....GOULET!!

2009-10-29T11:45:00.008+01:00

Yesterday was a Czech national holiday and since we live about a minutes walk from the woods, we decided to do some more exploring. Here are a few pics:

as thoroughly unoriginal as it is, you always gotta take one from this angle...

warm, fuzzy shot.....circa 1970's

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood..." anyone?

staying alert + carrying a walking staff = survival 101

it's impossible, you can't resist this....

our wishbone tree...

one final 'group shot'...

from fall to winter...

2009-10-15T16:25:00.006+02:00

so its our first experience living in a place with seasons...for those still in AZ..we have learned that there aren't only 2 seasons, but actually 4!!! Yes, yes I know its shocking...we were shocked also. we have been trying to document fall but it came and went so quickly...heres a few pics..

the sunset from our window...

our neighbors/landlords invited us to an expats market...

got this vintage skirt from the market... this is near our flat...

the tree outside our gate..

this is what we woke up to this morning...winter is here.

...off to work...

miah was trying to document the snow in my hair...

outside one of my classes...

27 is the new 7

2009-09-29T14:26:00.010+02:00

For Jeremiah's golden birthday we took a trip to the Prague Zoo since it is apparently rated the top 6th zoo in the world and we are both kids at heart.

the zoo is so big that it took us over 3 hours to see everything!

the polar bears were adorable...swimming laps like it was their jobs

a rainbow skink...

these peacocks weren't in an enclosed area...you could just walk right up to them it was crazy!
(they have the same mentality about the bat exhibit...you walk in a dark room and there is a glass divider which only goes up to your waist...one flew out at our heads and we screamed like little girls....don't judge you would have done the same)

one of the strangest looking birds we have ever seen...don't know the name but we think it was in jurassic park (1, 2, or 3?)...

there were beer gardens and playgrounds everywhere...you can also bring your dog to walk around...genius.

view from the highest point of the zoo...

slowly going the way of the buffalo...

teen wolf....

the goat on the cliff....

one last shot before the camera died....(we'll document the penguins and crocodiles next year :)

momma and daddy saz came to visit...

2009-09-25T14:07:00.011+02:00

one of the many flower shops...

so proud of slivovice (plum brandy also made in macedonia) even though he doesn't touch the stuff...

walking around Mustek...

with mom...

dinner at this great lebanese restaurant...

baklava--early birthday 'cake' for miah minus the 27 candles...

our beds for the next 2 nights...

miah's parents took us to Tesco--the Super Target equivalent and bought us about a month's worth of groceries...epic.

before...

...after...

getting some turkish coffee...

a market near old town square...

resting at a park...

on the Charles Bridge

our home--crazy...

us at an amazing vegetarian restaurant...

Food & Liquor??

2009-09-22T14:24:00.004+02:00

since we've been here we have started noticing restaurants with ridiculous names and themes...here's #1...

we walked passed it again earlier today and noticed that the menu and the servers' shirts had the logo from his last album on them...and the best part of the whole thing is that there is ZERO affiliation to the rapper other than the owner just so happens to like his music. so the question is now is lupe cool with this and is he getting any sorta kickback?? any help would be great...

dinner with friends...

2009-09-13T14:19:00.010+02:00

we have some friends who moved into this amazing 12th century flat right in old town square. it is completely full of antiques. they have had a bunch of us over a couple of times for dinner and drinks...heres a few pics...

the flat also came with a piano among other things and jess was the only one who could play something..turned out it was 'my heart will go on' aka the titanic theme song...hilarious

our good friends vanessa and tanya..

(r-l) meghan, troy, meghan's friend, elisa

proof...

2009-09-13T14:14:00.002+02:00

botanicka zahrada

2009-09-04T16:11:00.000+02:00

we have the next week off before we start teaching so miah and i are trying to explore more of the city we haven't seen yet...this afternoon we went to the botanicka zahrada (botanical gardens). It was cloudy and cold and so beautiful...

berlin

2009-09-02T15:15:00.000+02:00

Monday morning we had to be at our school at 5am to drive to Berlin, Germany to apply for our visas (why you have to apply outside of the Czech Republic is beyond me?). The school drove us to Berlin in their bright green preschool bus...which was hilarious. It took about 5 hours to get there...its crazy to think that it is the same distance from Phoenix to L.A. We arrived there at 10am and were done by 11:30. The school was going back at 1pm but we had decided to stay the night at a hostel with some friends and catch a bus back to Prague at 11:55pm the next night. Here are a few pics...

Us in front of Reichstagsgebäude...
A famous church...

In the arch of the church...

In front of the door to the church...

This is us with our friend Sven from school..

The moon was in the right spot...

City + Art + Camera

2009-08-26T13:30:00.000+02:00

Here are some pics we took just walkin around the city the last couple days. Looks like we're in good company.....

ya we're not crazy about driving either
Damien Hirst's 'Life, Death and Love' at Galerie Rudolfinum

famous czech landscape painter Josef Manes...hence the fitting landscape
amazing graf everywhere
some fellow pacifists!

beautiful yet eerie light scupltures

super powerful

the famous Dancing House...by Frank Gehry and Vlado Milunic

magical any time of day

Our little home...

2009-08-09T15:14:00.000+02:00

Our collaboration:

closet:

bano:

an extremely necessary purchase:

...along with these 2...

This Will Destroy You

Young Mountain

(limited edition pink vinyl)

Blood Brothers

Crimes

(limited edition green and white vinyl)

Going out with friends from school:

Seb, George, and Paul:

First Week...

2009-08-07T14:27:00.001+02:00

So we've been in Prague a week now and we already feel at home. Its such a beautiful country thats exploding with art and culture...not to mention the weather right now is in the 70s. Our neighborhood is quaint and amazing and our neighbors are super nice. We haven't had a whole lot of time to explore the city yet because our school's training is super intense this month (think 8am-8pm most days), but its really enjoyable and the teacher's are fantastic. We even got to plan and teach our own 45 min english lesson to czech students on our third day here, so we're learning to teach pretty quick. Shells also turned 25 this week so we went to an amazing vegetarian restaurant called Clear Head, which we'll definitely be frequenting a lot. ok here are a few pics so far........

Our flat (first floor, to the right):

Our street:

Our street sign:

How adorable is this sign for a kids park?

walking to our neighborhood market

view from our window

foreign food aisle (i.e. refried black beans and tortillas!)

taste of the motherland

one of hundreds we pass

river tram, charles bridge and prague castle

chillin after shells' 25th b-day dinner

our school

goodbye gasoline...hello walking and 3 month transit passes!

At Last...

2009-08-04T20:12:00.001+02:00

We are here.