Some people may say that I write about places I love with an almost contemptuous edge: highlighting all the imperfections, pitfalls and irritants while largely ignoring the seductive quali...

Old Town hosts a wide variety of tourists and an even wider variety of scavengers feeding off the tourists. Personally I'd say forget Staré Město. Why brother with Old Town when Mal&aacut...

The Hanging Coffee is located in Malá Strana on a steep little side street that tourists walk all the time to get from Loreta Monastery to catch a tram down below. Like most of the Center...

"Did you know--" I love the way Jan says those three words: each one of them perfectly pronounced and fleshed out respectfully like a native speaker would never do. As if they are of critical...

First time I saw a bed in the Czech Republic I thought "Oh it's a futon" and was quite pleased with the idea of it. I don't mean a futon like we have in America: a poor man's sleeper sofa conven...

"So ... where are you from?" "New York." "Cool, like my friend Tim―he's from Buffalo. Where abouts?" "Long Island." "Long Island ... Mmm New York Islanders." Lisa plopped down nex...

When Andrea cooks, as I mentioned before, it's a big momentous affair. She has a singular talent for cooking large elaborate meals but she also has a singular talent for eating them. You tho...

On several occasions Jan and I walked down to the video store to supplement his collection, but mostly he just bought stuff. He would come home with movies he hadn't seen or heard of, buy them a...

'm wearing an old pair of brown sandals, my chipped, stripped and bitten toenails exposed for all to see. Remarkably they are in better shape then they have been in the past. There is no blood c...

I figure I have about three months. When I first settle in a new country everything is so fresh and new around me. There's so much to capture, analyze, negotiate and mull over that there is n...

The first time I met Roman (don't pronounce it the way you want to, a's in Czech always have a subdued 'ah' sound to them) he was standing in the middle of our foyer with a confused look on his ...

There's nothing quite as disastrous as when the Post-Sex-and-the-City ambitions of American women collide with the common sense of practically everyone else. They say that American girls are eas...

Living in Prague 6 for Andrea was a constant battle between economics and social satisfaction. The location out of the Center made it possible for us to live well, and Jan's good graces made it ...

This... This Canadian/Czech hybrid we’ve been tugging around with us for the past two hours or so, is my fifth Petr. He walks with us comfortably, shrugging off polite invitations to ca...

Most English teachers come into the career unambitiously and discover―quite shockingly―that it is an actual job. A job that includes 7 am classes, written reports, and hours of unpaid grading an...

It took Jan a while to bring up the subject. When he finally did, it was in his car as we zipped through any number of ridiculous looping detours that connect one part of Prague to another. The ...

Since Andrea was on one of her cell-phone-free reconnaissance missions, she never did get back to me on mushroom hunting in the mountains and I didn’t try too hard to contact her beyond a ...

Early in the morning we clumped down to the dining room where Vladka-- the owner, chef and barman-- had a traditional breakfast of sausage, soup and bread rolls waiting for us.   Actually...

There's nothing quite as sweet as a backlog of streaming television. I had three episodes of House M.D., one of Gilmore Girls and two hockey games to watch and an inevitable mountain of laundry ...

“This way! This way!” We crept down a dirt pathway that was being overtaken by lush green ivy through the Imperial Gardens. The Castle seems almost like a worm hole through space ...

Octavian spent another weekend on our couch and so did Jeff-- not together mind you! Lately it seemed like they were rotating camping privileges. They would stumble in with Andrea at some odd ho...

Every Sunday Jan would wake up around 9 and clean the bathroom in his underwear. I won't comment on how uncomfortable the habit or the complete lack of ass (no shape, like looking at a flat plas...

When we got home Andrea and Octavian were in the kitchen. Happy banter floated through the air. Jan and I had like minds about some things and we both immediately headed to check our respective ...

The crappy thing about living in Prague 6 is that I work mostly in Prague 4. Don't be deceived by the district numbers. True, Prague 1 and 2 are the center of town but after that all bets are of...

It was the evening before the Saturday Andrea and I had officially scheduled as "Thanksgiving" when I realized that she wasn't coming. Andrea was AWOL. Again. I hadn't seen nor heard from her in d...

Our dinner table was built for four people, ideally two adults and two offspring. Three full grown adults is doable. Four full grown adults is possible but slightly uncomfortable. With myself, J...

  I remember this story Meghan told me once:   “Shouldn't nail polish remover be ... I dunno, call me crazy but ... next to the nail polish?”   “I would ass...