blog 60: march showers bring...

spring is coming. how do I know? the first spring thunderstorm is happening as i type! the thunder is booming and the lightning is flashing. one of my favorite things to do is to get in bed and huddle under the covers and fall asleep to the rain on my window. what a lovely way to bring in the spring :)

love love love from under the covers!

blog 59: oh for the love of strawberry oatmeal.

As most of you know, my favorite food in the entire world is the strawberry. just simply, strawberries. no sugar, no whipped cream, not in anything or chalked full of anything, just plain and simple strawberries. (preferably grown in our garden, just outside our house back home.) and this has been the case, ever since i have even existed.

Around the age of three (guesstimate) my mother discovered something wonderful. quaker strawberry instant oatmeal. and this, for years and years, is what i would eat. everyday. for breakfast? sure! lunch? sure! midafternoon snack? sure! and even when i didnt like what was served for dinner, strawberry oatmeal was a fine substitute. as my grandparents well know from when christopher and i would weekend with them, in the morning set me up at the counter with some strawberry oatmeal, a bowl, and a spoon and im good to go for the rest of the day.

So im sure you can imagine my dismay when i found out that the czech republic has never even heard of strawberry oatmeal, let alone quaker instant. (imitation brands are simply not the same.) So as i have searched high and low, i just cannot seem to find it anywhere on this silly continent. bummer. big time.

However, i was in tesco (our british grocery store) the other day and i was purchasing a new slew of tea (often times my substitution of a snack) and i found a wildberry multivitamin tea. sounds yummy AND healthy, right? so i get home, open the box and set the kettle up. my first sip and i almost dropped my cup. this tea was strawberry oatmeal in liquid form. tastes EXACTLY like quaker. so wonderful. so although its not quite the same as the 10% oats, 5% strawberry, 85% sugar mixture that quaker has perfected, it will do until i move home to a country that has the sense to stock their shelves with strawberry oatmeal.

until then? i suppose it's tea time.

love love love from prague :)

Blog 58: Just me, myself, and Julia

I have no problem eating in restaurants alone. As long as you have a good book you are never alone (right, dad?) In the states I would frequently grab a quick lunch as I was out and about and pull my trusty book out of my bag, and boom: lunchtime entertainment.

But here it is even more wonderful to lunch alone. The streets are lined with darling cafes with overstuffed chairs and couches beckoning. With a group of friends or alone with a book, these are my favorite places to relax.

Today I had a half day of school and decided to run some errands and treat myself to a lunch out. I grabbed my kindle and secured myself a table in a cafe. Now, this is the part where I expect to get a lot of reading done, but nine times out of ten find what my neighboring tables are talking about too fascinating to progress much in my book. But in Prague, the beauty lies in the fact that I can really only understand about every fourth word being said, and listening in seems to be too much work for a really inane conversation about someone's sick dog (to the lady sitting next to me today: i hope he gets better soon!) Due to this, I end up getting much more reading done and enjoy a pleasant lunch; just me and (today) Julia Child. (Side note: I am currently reading Julia Child's My Life in France and would highly recommend it.)

What a wonderful way to start the weekend :)

love love love from prague!

blog 57: where rhianna and i brunch...

What a lovely, lovely weekend. Prague gave us a glimpse of spring, with warm weather and bright sunlight flooding the streets. People were out and bustling about, so the streets were filled with families, couples, and friends finding their way around the newly sunlit city. The sunshine purely changes the city; that's all there is to it. It's such a bright and happy place, and as crazy as it sounds, even the cheskis are happy :)

Saturday morning we started our day out at our usual brunch spot, Radost FX. It's our favorite place to brunch, considering it has the best breakfast food we have yet to discover in prague, a happy inviting interior, and is centrally located. I also just found out it is where Rhianna shot her music video please don't stop the music. We watched the video while we were waiting for our food, sitting in the room where Rhianna filmed her video. Bonus!

After brunch the day was filled with sightseeing and wandering around in the sunshine with Carrie, Abby, and Farah. There may have been some boutique shopping and ice cream eating involved as well. We ended our weekend by watching the olympics and making homemade eggplant parmesan. A wonderful weekend, and a wonderful glimpse of spring. Let's keep that wonderful weather coming, Prague!

love love love from a bright and sunny prague :)