Prague Recap: Behind the Scenes

As you may have seen the (many) pictures on Facebook, we somewhat spontaneously went to Prague for a few days between Christmas and New Year's.  We were waiting on Matthew's schedule for the rest of the month and were keeping our fingers crossed that he wouldn't have anything added for this week since Jackson would be out of school.   Normally Matthew will get his schedule prior to the beginning of the month, but December was different due to the move & official activation at this location.  So we held our breath and decided on the 26th to risk a trip. To play it safe, we limited the distance we were willing to travel and stuck to driving, so that we could get back if needed.  Luckily, he wasn't called and we spent 4 nights in Prague!

I booked our hotel the night of the 26th and we drove the 6 hours on the 27th.  It still amazes me that we can take a spur of the moment trip to a place like Prague easier and cheaper than taking a beach trip from Atlanta.

Prague was everything I hoped it would be and more.  I fell in love with the red roofs and brought them home with me in the form of a painting which now hangs over our fireplace.  It's warm and cozy. :)

One of the most pleasant discoveries was how much more celiac-friendly the city of Prague is!  I always research before we go anywhere now, and still take back-up food in case of any issues or if we get stuck somewhere for longer than expected.  And I was so pleased to find at least a dozen restaurants/cafes with gluten-free options!!  I plotted them all out on the map before we arrived and made a note of which attractions were close to each.  Celiac has taken a lot of spontaneity out of our lives, but in Prague, we joked that we were able to "plan to be spontaneous" due to the number of restaurant options!!

I can't describe the joy on Brandtley's face when we read menu options to him and then he would look thoughtful and consider each choice before making a definitive selection.  You would think he was choosing a fine wine based on the tasting notes of a sommelier!

His joy just gave us so much joy too. And then it got even better.  One restaurant we visited is 100% gluten free. When we told him this, he thought for a moment and then realization dawned on his face as he said, "So I can taste your food too???" He spent the entire meal trading bites and trying our food and happily dipping his gluten free bread into the shared dish of olive oil on the table.

In case you're looking for gluten free options in Prague, I've listed everywhere we ate here.

We spent the rest of our time walking and sightseeing and just experiencing this beautiful city.  We found plenty of kid-friendly activities but also didn't feel like we missed out on the culture or gave up on activities we would have done without the kids.

[The one activity we skipped this time was the Nuclear Bunker tour.  It sounded fascinating but was a full 2 hours, primarily walking outside, and between the freezing weather & time slots available, it didn't work out for us this time.  We passed one of the tours on the street and stopped briefly to listen, which made us even more interested.  If we go back, this will be one of our top priorities.]

The first night we arrived late.  After checking into the hotel, we ate traditional Czech food at Svejk U Karla and then walked to Wenceslas Square, which is more of a long rectangular street than a square.  At one end is the National Museum with the statue of St. Wenceslas in front of it (sadly we could not see the beautiful architecture of the museum due to restorations that are currently underway).  Located just off the square is the Palác Lucerna, which was one of the first galleria-style "malls" in Prague, built in the early 20th century.  It houses shops, cafes, and the Kino Lucerna - a beautiful movie theater that is still in use today. We returned a few days later and saw La La Land - a very fitting romantic moving in a romantic theater.

The Lucerna also has a sculpture parody of St. Wenceslas riding an upside down (dead) horse hanging from the ceiling.  I had not realized before we visited that Prague has a number of startling pieces of artwork that make strong political or cultural statements and these were fascinating to me.

The Hanging Man statue representing Sigmund Freud who is supposedly debating whether or not to let go.

Haunting Memorial to Victims of Communism

Over the next few days, we saw the Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square, the Old Town Hall, Charles Bridge (where many movies, including Mission Impossible were filmed), the Jewish quarter including the old Jewish cemetery, hiked Petrin Hill for views of the red-roofed-city from across the river, visited the Strahov Monastery and its famous library, walked by the Castle & Cathedral (also across the river), Lennon Wall, and went to a puppet show of Mozart's opera Die Zauberflaute at the National Marionette Theater.

In front of the Astronomical Clock

Astronomical Clock - a fascinating accomplishment created in 1410. In addition to telling the standard Roman time that we are familiar with, it also indicates Old Czech Time (a 24 hour cycle that ends at sunset each day & thus differs daily), the month, astrological symbol, sun's position, lunar cycle, the 12 equivalent hours from sun-up to sun-down based on daylight hours per day, and also has moving figures that appear on the hour.  It's really mind-boggling.

Very decorative building next to the Clock

Old Town Hall

View into the Jewish cemetery which looked like another world in the center of the city. 

On Charles Bridge

Enjoying the view from Charles Bridge

View from Charles Bridge

Jesus was giving out free hugs on Charles Bridge

Book tower at the main library.

Inside the National Marionette Theater

National Marionette Theater

View from Petrin Hill

Exterior of Strahov Monastery

The Monastery Library (Also the setting of a number of movies, including James Bond)

Stopping for a monastic beer in the underground caverns of the Monastery

Monastic card houses

The boys were impressed by the guards at the castle

More red roofs from the Castle 

Lennon Wall (or John Lennon Wall) which was used as an expression of political activism against communism beginning in the 1980s. Students and activists would nightly graffiti the wall (particularly with Lennon lyrics) and it would be removed daily by the authorities. Labeled "Lennonism", it inspired protests. Today it's a symbol of peace.

View from Charles Bridge

There is a restaurant on the rooftop of the U Prince Hotel with fantastic views of the roofs surrounding Old Town Square.  We stopped by to warm up with a coffee and take in the view.

Other fun things:

Beer spas are a thing. 

You can take a city tour in an old car - similar to a horse & carriage ride, which we also saw. The kids loved seeing the old cars drive by.  We preferred to experience the city on foot, though.

Apparently cannabis is legal and makes a great combo with absinthe or beer???  We saw these and other similar products in convenience store windows throughout the city!  

We also took an afternoon side trip to Plzen, which is the home of the Pilsner Urquell Brewery where pilsner style beer was first created and which is one of the oldest continuously-operating breweries.  This was a great day trip! After a brunch in Wenceslas Square, we hopped on a train at the nearby central train station and for less than $20 roundtrip for the four of us, took an hour & a half train ride for a brewery tour.  The kids were fascinated and Jackson left with a new ambition to become an engineer to design brewery bottling plants.

We brunched at the sidewalk cafe Como (which has GF options!!) outdoor on Wenceslas Square under the awnings & heaters.

Inside the Prague train station

A plaque for Woodrow Wilson in the train station

Prague train station

On the train

The gates at Pilsner Urquell

Legend is that if you can throw a penny into the hole, you will have sons.  Jackson and Brandtley are both destined to have daughters.

In the underground caverns of Pilsner Urquell where we saw the actual beer in production in these barrels. 

Fresh taste from the barrel

mmmm!

As I type this, I have a hard time believing that we did all of this in just a few days!  We had a blast and enjoyed every minute of Prague!

Tschüss!
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Gluten Free in Prague

We highly enjoyed our trip to Prague and the experience was greatly enhanced by the fantastic gluten free food we found!  I scoured TripAdvisor, blogs, and Celiac sites for restaurant options, made a list and plotted out a number of restaurants on a map so that we could be as spontaneous as possible in our sight-seeing (a hard task with Celiac).  I was pleasantly surprised throughout the trip to see several additional cafes with gluten free options, which had not been listed on any of the sties I had searched. (I'm now adding these to TripAdvisor).

Below is a list of the restaurants and cafes we visited, along with our selections.

1.  Svejk Restaurant U Karla - This restaurant has an entire gluten free menu of traditional Czech food!  When we travel, we prefer to experience the traditional food of our destination, which can be difficult to do with a gluten free requirement, so this restaurant was awesome!  The menu was so extensive that we ate here twice, and Brandtley tried schnitzel for the first (maybe only) time!

They serve gluten free beer in addition to tradition selections

Beef Goulash with Dumplings - available gluten free

Jackson ordered an entire pork knuckle...and finished it off!  

Being goofy to show his excitement for schnitzel!

2. Al Riso - This is actually an Italian restaurant, but is 100% gluten free! We all traded bites and shared food, including pasta which was so good you would never guess it was gluten free.

Brandtley happily dipping his bread in the shared olive oil

3. Como Restaurant - A Mediterranean restaurant on Wenceslas square.  A bit more upscale, but not expensive or dressy for brunch, which was perfect for a family meal.

Lovely atmosphere with outdoor seating under the awning with heaters in the winter

4. The famous and historical Cafe Louvre - We visited Cafe Louvre for breakfast.  Does not have many gluten free options, but had a gluten free apple coffee cake on the menu.  We ordered this for Brandtley along with soft-boiled eggs and fruit - both of which are among the only naturally "safe" foods for him without having to be designated gluten free by the restaurant.  Since the eggs come served in the shell, we help him peel/crack them and the insides are gloriously gluten free!  Other than liking to eat soft-boiled eggs myself, I love love love that these are readily available in Europe, making eating out for breakfast a somewhat easy reality for us.

5. Diversion Bistro - This cafe was not on any of the sites that I searched, but they have several gluten free options on the menu.  Also, I had not found many restaurant options on the west side of the river, but we stumbled across this one and stopped in for lunch. It's a tiny place and the owner was very accommodating to Brandtley's needs when we explained that he could not eat gluten.

The fit health breakfast was easy to adjust to gluten free by ordering the hard-boiled eggs and leaving out the muesli and toast.  We also left off the cornflakes and the owner increase the amounts of the other items to accommodate the proportions.

6.  There were a number of coffee shops that have gluten free macarons or other gluten free cakes/cookies.  One that we stumbled across was right next to the Kino Lucerna (next door to Restaurant Monarchie) but I unfortunately can't find the name of it now, which had gluten free cake options.  We also went to Restaurant Monarchie one night before seeing a movie at the Kino, but Restaurant Monarchie does not have any gf menu items.  Thankfully we were prepared with a separate container of food for B.  Another was Bakeshop Cafe & Bistro where we enjoyed macarons and meringues.

The Dishwasher: In which commonplace things are surprisingly different

I've mentioned before that one of the hardest parts of international adjustment is when commonplace practice is no longer commonplace.  Suddenly you feel like a toddler as something you've done every day during your adult life becomes a challenge.  Sometimes this is expected: filling out a one page form in German can take an hour or more since I first must translate the questions, draft my answer in English, then translate my answer back to German, then try to check that my translation is close to correct so that I don't unintentionally change the meaning of my answer.

Others adjustments are unexpected but anticipated. I now have 9 different kinds of chili powder in my cabinet as a result of my quest to find something that would make a pot of American "chili".  (Side note: chili has been successfully made!)

But sometimes it hits you like a brick when you can't figure out how to perform one simple task and the answer is something you wouldn't have arrived at in a million years.

Take for example the dishwasher.  I have had a love hate relationship with this thing since we've arrived, and I think we've finally reached an understanding.  Thanks only to the help of a Jedi-master, otherwise known as another expat who has been here 2 years and knows All-The-Stuff.  She also taught me how to pay bills.  I shall now refer to her as Obi Wan.

So. Perhaps I've never paid attention or perhaps I just had a basic dishwasher in the 10+ homes I've lived in over the past dozen or so years in the U.S., but I've always just bought a box of powdered dish detergent (or individual capsules if I wanted to be fancy) at Kroger or Target, poured it in the slot in the dishwasher, and pushed the start button.  And magically my dishes were cleaned. You do that too?

When we moved into our house here, I picked up a box of what I thought was dish detergent at the store and started running the dishwasher.  Due to Brandtley's diet, I cook nearly every meal, which results in a lot of dirty dishes for a family of 4, even if I hand wash larger items. But our dishes were not coming out looking right.  I could tell that they had been sanitized by hot water, but they were streaky, filmy, and just not clean.

I read the instructions, which might as well have been in Japanese.  And in fact, when I looked up the instructions online, they did come in Japanese! And French, Spanish, Italian, and several other languages that were not English.  About that time, our shipment of furniture arrived, along with a half-full box of Kroger dish detergent, which I tried using and our dish cleanliness improved immensely.  But I knew this was not a long term solution.  The time would come when that box would be empty, and I could not run down the street to Kroger to replace it.

Come to find out, it's hard to understand a poor translation of something that you've never heard of.  The instructions kept referencing "the salts" and the "rinse aid". Both of which are necessary to use in addition to the detergent. They each have their own separate compartment to go into, and a light on the control panel reminds to you refill them when they are empty.  Who knew you needed 3 products just to run the dishwasher!?!

Now I have all 3 and my dishes are sparkly clean!  Oh. Except that eventually I will also need a 4th product to de-calcify the machine on a regular basis.  But I'll leave that for another day....or month. :)

Can anyone tell me if I should have been doing this in the U.S. too?? Confession: this was my first dishwasher manual to read, ever. So, it's entirely possible I've been using them incorrectly my entire life and it just never made much difference due to water supply/calcium levels where I've lived?

Detergent

My "Special Salt" which I originally tried to use as detergent...

Klarspüler gel

The compartments in the door for the detergent and klarspüler.  The detergent compartment looks normal enough, right? The Special Salts actually go in a hole in the bottom of the interior of the dishwasher, which I would probably have never looked at if not pointed out.

Dreikönigstag

Life has been quiet this week. Matthew has been out of town, and Jackson was still out of school. The past few days, we've stayed in and recuperated from ice skating.  I'm determined we need to go back again before the rink closes if for no other reason than the fact that Jackson would rather give up. The kid hates anything he perceives as failure, even though he can be one of the most driven people I know when he actually decides to accomplish something.

Yesterday was Three Kings Day or Dreikönigstag in German (also known as Epiphany), which signals the end of the Christmas season.  In Germany, Three Kings Day is celebrated by small groups of children (3-4) dressing as the three kings who visited Jesus as a child.  One of them usually carries a staff with a star on it, and they walk door to door.  They are called Sternsingers (Star Singers) because they will sing a song when you open your door to them.  Then ask for a small donation to a charity and then your house is blessed and an inscription written in chalk over the door.

We ran into a teacher from Jackson's school with 4 children doing this on our street a few days ago but had already left our house to go somewhere, so we were not home to have our house blessed. I had hoped more would come by, but if they did, we must have missed them.  Unfortunately, I did not think to take their picture...but to make this easier to visualize, I pulled a picture from online of what it looks like...

These letters are left up over the door to the house all year.  We first noticed them while looking at apartments during our visit in early September.  The year is divided at the beginning and end of the line (this picture must have been taken in 2011). The * is for the star. The letters have two meanings: they are the initials of the Three Magi: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, and also an abbreviation for the Latin words "Christus Mansionem Benedicat" (May Christ bless the house). The crosses (+) represent the protection of Christ. Such a beautiful tradition.

This morning, I got up before Matthew or the kids. Well, not really...the kids were awake, but they got to stay home playing in their room while I made a trip **by myself!** to Knauber, which has become my stand-in for Target.  It felt SO freeing. 

Although I could wander in Knauber for hours, admiring the trendy dishware and pretending to myself that I could be crafty if only I had the colorful craft supplies laid out on the shelves, perhaps stopping to enjoy espresso and a pastry or sandwich at the full cafe in the center, this morning I needed to pick up a child's birthday present... AND conveniently, today was the day the print I had left for framing a few weeks before was supposed to be ready.  

On our first road trip, I found this for 35 euro in the Belgian antique market that we visited and fell in love with it. It's a large, beautifully lettered page from an old Bible.  The passage is Matthew 6:26-34, beginning in the middle of verse 26:

"[...] your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not neither do they spin and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Wherefore if God so clothe the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven shall he not much more cloth you, O ye of little faith?  Therefore take no thought, saying "What shall we eat?" or What shall we drink?" or "Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" (for after all these things do the Gentiles seek) for you heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.  But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  Take therefor no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Now it hangs over my new old desk, which I found at a wonderful antik warehouse-style shop called Trödel Safari, which translates to Junk Safari. The little framed picture on the desk is also from Trödel Safari (for 5 euros!) and is a picture from 1904 of Drachenburg (our First Hike).  I may need a separate post just on Trödel Safari.  It's one of those great treasure houses of junk where you can find absolute gems for dirt cheap.

We also hung the painting we bought of the red roofs of Prague.  The prior tenants were kind enough to leave a nail over the fireplace and Prague fits just perfectly over it. I love the bright colors!  And also love surrounding ourselves with art that has meaning and memories for us.

  

Tschüss! 

Coming "Home"

Home. Warm, cozy, and comfortable.  Through our moves over the years, I have come to love the first time of feeling like you've come home when you arrive back in your new city from a trip.  It lets me know that I'm settling in.  Sometimes it takes many trips before this feeling hits, and sometimes it's the first trip.  You never really know.

In the past, this feeling usually hit when the skyline appeared as my flight touched down or as I drove over a hill.  But Bonn doesn't have a striking skyline like Houston or Atlanta.  I've only taken three trips since we arrived in October, and each time we returned in the dark. No skyline or view. However, this time, when we drove back into Germany from the Czech Republic, I walked into a gas station, ordered sandwiches, coffee, and bottled waters in (albeit poor) German and understood what the lady at the counter asked me. In German. After spending 5 days of reverting to English, unsure of how to ask where the bathroom was or how to order a bottle of water, I suddenly felt like I had come "home".  And walking into our house never felt more comfortable. 

It may not be a skyline, but I think this counts too.

Tschüss!

Happy New Year!

We rang in the new year with a bang! Quite literally and unexpectedly. We were completely unprepared for the array and intensity of the fireworks here.  Although on a typical night Germany is one of the quietest places I've ever been, everyone lets loose on New Year's Eve with firecrackers, sparklers, and bottle rockets. The quiet of every day and extreme celebration on New Year's Eve seem to be in direct proportion to each other.

On New Year's Eve, we had just returned from Prague and noticed a few fireworks being shot not long after nightfall.  Bottle rockets and the like. To which I wondered if fireworks are legal in the city here. Oh. That was just the tip of the iceberg.

The sounds of fireworks increased and escalated throughout the night and around 10 minutes prior to midnight, it all broke loose.  Matthew & I were ready to kiss at midnight and go to bed when we heard what sounded like explosions all around our house.  From every window, we could see HUGE (As in, you would have to be licensed to even buy these in the U.S. and probably a city permit to shoot them) fireworks, being shot from the streets, backyards, and rooftops.  People filled the streets and stood on balconies holding sparklers in one hand and champagne in the other. It was impressive and beautiful and so fun.  Unfortunately, we didn't think to get a video until it was starting to wind down.  But you can sort of see the wide double-street that we live on and the magnitude.  And to think I had wondered if we would be able to see/hear the fireworks from the show on the river!

Next year we'll plan to join them!!


On New Year's day, we joined a group of friends for a 5k run along the Rhine.  It was SO cold!  But a great start to the year.

Brandtley rode his bike, and Jackson rode his scooter.  (Jackson's bike is now too big to fit in the trunk, and we don't yet have a bike rack for the car, so his choices were scooter or run with us. He chose scooter this time.)

Today we woke up to snow! Less than an inch, but beautiful nonetheless. The snow in Bonn doesn't usually last long.  As I write this from the chair near the radiator under the front windows, I can see families with children playing in the wide grassy area in the center of our street while our boys play in the backyard. Another beautiful way to start 2017.