Namesti Miru Christmas Market
One of the many things I love about our neighborhood is the local Christmas market. One of a handful of markets in Prague that opens up at the beginning of the Christmas season, Namesti Miru's fair ranks as my favorite not only for its right around the corner handiness, but because it sells Christmas doodahs designed not just for tourists, but locals too! We walk by many times during December for ornaments, stocking stuffers and mulled wi

Prep work
Without a Thanksgiving buffer, Christmas decorations show up even earlier here in Prague than in the States. I've spent the last three Decembers excessively working until the day before we head out on holiday, and each year I've missed the chance to walk the city taking pictures and enjoying the season. This year promises to be much quieter, and I'm looking forward to the next few weeks and getting to enjoy and share all th

Leaves fall, balloons fly
{1} C in front of a photo of student crowds in 1968, {2} big leaf, small hand {3} another leaf for the collection, {4} no, we can't keep this leaf as a pet, {5} cupcake eaten up a tree, while watching the river go by, {6} through a looking glass, {7} poster from 1989, the balloon is back.

A toast to twenty
 Twenty years ago yesterday, students gathered in downtown Prague and marched through the city in honor of International Students Day.* The police and the students clashed, one thing led to another and in a few days there were more than students demonstrating - the unions were out in force, the people were in the streets and democracy was in the air. By the end of 1989, the first free elections in more than forty years were held and Va

More than the sum of its parts
 Twenty years ago today the East German police stepped down from their guard towers, put the safety locks on their guns and allowed West Berliners and East Berliners to walk (not run) across the sandy no-mans-land and climb the wall into each other's territory. Caroline's teacher told her class about the wall today, and asked each student to find out what their parents remembered of the day. What I remember: a lon