Cerny Most

I guess some people like taking pictures of castles. I really liked taking pictures of end-of-the-subway-stop Cerny Most today, where I went to meet a student. It sort of reminded me of a post-apocolyptic movie, predicting the future from 1985.

Nettles: everywhere you want to be

No joke. I was biking along the bike path in Karlovy Vary and these leggy, furry stalks brushed at my ankles. I was running in Prague 9, along the brook in the park, where they grow in choking bunches along the banks, and almost had to plunge into a nasty patch to avoid a band of serious mountain bikers. Under bridges and along the roadway, in the garden and along the walk, CZ has an obscene amount of nettles: everywhere you want to be.

Prague and Karlovy Vary, after the asphalt was laid

Downhill Mt Bike Racing, Czech Cup

Pec Pod Snezkou--part of the Krkonose mountains, Eastern Bohemia.
-Freezing Cold July Weather
-Sausages and Beer for breakfast/lunch/dinner
-American pop music on the loudspeakers
-Could the fun ever cease?

the Czech-Out Aisle

While there is a blurry definition of sausage in this country (I would oftentimes call the aforementioned meat a "hot dog", but that might diminish its importance to a czech person), long skinny mystery meat products are incredibly popular. You can get a sausage wrapped in pastry dough (read Pig in a Blanket) at the local petrol station. You can get a roasted, unusually long sausage in a pita (via Balkan Grill) and you can also have a Drowned Man Sausage, or a small pickled sausage stuffed into bread with cabbage and peppers.


(not my photo)

When I am less up-to-my-ears in lesson planning, I'm thinking of starting up a Czech food product blog. Predicted name: the Czech-Out Aisle.

Floods in southern Czech Republic

Many of the houses in Southern Moravia (southern part of the Czech Republic) are made from straw and clay bricks that easily get washed away. It's the same material Katka and Simon are using in Solany, where it somehow rarely ever rains.

Floods via Prague Post

Solany

The north-eastern part of Czech R. is carved into by coal mines and eaten by power plants. The rest of it is agricultural fields full of sugar beets, corn, grains and poppies for poppy seed. I went to deliver some Arizona sage to a Czech woman, Katka, in Solany. I arrived just in time to watch her, her Norwegian-Czech partner and their summer helper mixing clay in bathtubs for ongoing roof repair on their old brick factory abode. Summer helper was so energized by the spa-like mud, he took a bath in it.

Loket Castle

You'll never see torture chamber like these in any circus fun house. Loket Castle, overlooking the tiny medieval town of Loket, CZ, is surrounded by the Ohre River and boasts a great collection of torture tools from the 15th century, including the ominous "thumb crusher". Walking down into the dim dungeon, you are met by the screams and groans of long-dead prisoners. Dusty, electric dummies re-create torture scenes, from the winding of the wrack to the slow jabbing of a hot iron poker. With plenty of painted blood and old bones, the basement scene certainly feels morbid, if not altogether authentic. Emerge to the fresh air and climb the castle turret, where you can glimpse a view of the surrounding forest, and watch people zip line from the castle across the river--a more exuberant Loket Castle activity .
For trazzler.com

At the Glasslands

I stayed 30 hours in Brooklyn. Here is the walk to Glasslands Gallery.





Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

This is what it looks like

From the funicular up to a look-out over Karlovy Vary, to the mountain biking paths into Loket, to the advertisements for ever-popular Becherovka , to the border of Germany, to the bizarro memory game handed out at the castle tour, here is some of what I've seen of the Czech Republic so far:

From the Window Where I'm Staying

Karlovy Vary, Western Bohemia, Czech Republic. The weather is overcast and on and off rainy. They're repairing the street, so the constant hum of brick cutters and jackhammers....