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Showing posts from 2016

Scents of September

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About 6:30 am. I had to go to work an hour early that day. And it turned out to be lovely. Hello, hello! Long time no see, I know. Let's not dwell on that. Let's enjoy that for once in a century I have something worth sharing with the internet and here it is: I don't recall this ever happening to me before, but recently my nose has been very perceptive and it seems to affect my mood or appreciation of a certain place, a situation, etc. It might seem rather peculiar, but here is a list of interesting smells that caught my... er... nose... last month. Rabbits. A couple of hudreds pure-bred animals ranging from dwarfs to giants. Sometimes a slightly aggresive stench attacking your nostrils, but the fluffy bastards are so cute!  Sunlight . The early September heatwave. I love these late summer/early autumn warm days :) And the smell of long and dry grass, bushes and trees roasting in the constant, almost deadly, supply of sunrays. The poor plants, all scorched and

I'm Thinking...

I'm thinking... of "rebranding". Renaming and redisigning this whole thing. But I cannot come up with a suitable name that I would be happy with. I need to be happy with it. Otherwise I will get tired of it in 3 years. about all the Music Monthly's I had not written, even though I still take careful note of all my favourite songs each month. about what kind of wallpaper I should buy for the bed corner of my room. a lot of negative and bad thoughts. I don't like them, but I cannot stop them. of sharing my mental health struggles on the newly reborn blog, but I'm not sure anybody is interested in reading about how a girl in Prague is depressed. that unless I change something, I am headed towards being the crazy single auntie. Probably owning cats or other pet animals. Parrots or canaries are a cute option too. the lot of challenges ahead of me (at work and such...) and the lack of holiday before and after them. a monthly film club I would like to do wi

Film Excitement | Anthropoid

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In case you have not seen it yet, let me direct your attention to a movie trailer that keeps me alive these days. We're in 1942, Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. The name of the film refers to Operation Anthropoid, which was the code name given to a resistance plot to assasinate Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich. Based on true events. Our heroes are real historical figures Josef Gabčík (Cillian Murphy) and Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan), Czechoslovakian soldiers trained in British exile to carry out this mission. Why is this exciting? Because it's an important story worth telling, an important moment in our history that is worth sharing, not only because it proved to have such massive and tragic consequences. So far, the prevailing mood among the Czechs concerning the movie is somewhat reserved, I would say. We are half excited and curious, half worried that "the foreigners" have butchered our history into a Hollywood flick. The trailer, however, looks promisi

Butterfly Cards

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It's been painfully long since I ventured into any papercrafting and I've been missing it sorely. Come spring, my mum had an important birthday and we were giving her concert tickets... Naturally, it fell to me to handcraft a birthday card/ticket holder. For your esthetic pleasure, I am here to share the result :) I had a colour scheme, then I went a bit mad in a craft shop when I bought anything and everything that could potentially be used for the colour scheme and spring mood... The finished card turned out rather well, I think :) I particularly enjoy how the yellow striped paper, unexpectedly, works well with the butterfly pattern :) One thing that I've learned from my online crafting gurus: mixing patterns is about colours, which obviously need to match, and the size of the patterns, which need to be different. The inside with the tickets looked like this:  I still had a lot of the material left and was in a spring creative fit, so I decided

London Extra | Maree's Collection of Handsome Guitar Boys

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Major throwback to summer 2014. You know, that time I went to London and never finished my blog posts on the trip. Well, I'm going to London again. Very soon! Turns out, that's what I needed to kick me into finishing all these. Even though it's strange seeing how much of a different person I am now, but I feel like I need to stay to true to the notes I wrote down 2 years ago. I promise that this time around I will be wiser and make a more realistic blog post plan. Back to the lovely day on South Bank . This is an extra music-y blog post about all the lovely buskers along the Thames that made me smile and generally made my life much better that day. It's no secret that music plays and important part in my life and these boys provided a much needed comfort to me, for which I shall be eternally grateful. If you enjoy acoustic guitars, click below to check them out and have a listen. 

Music Monthly | March 2016

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It's only half of April, that's not too bad for March Music Monthly, is it?  And it's finally begining to look a lot like... spring! Without further delay, let's listen to some music. For me March was slightly more on the contemporary radio pop side. but we don't mind that, do we? Click below to read more and listen to X Ambassadors, Duke Dumont, a bit of James Bay and more ;) Here comes the sun...

Music(al) Monthly | February 2016

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Shh, let's pretend there's been a distortion in the fabric of time and somehow this was posted at the beginning of March. I've been at a loss about what to put in February monthly collection. The  respective note section in my calendar was glaringly empty. I thought about it long and hard, tried to remember what I listened to at work, what I sang to myself when waiting for a tram... And then the theme was clear: musicals. I usually go through a "musical" phase during witner time. This year has been no different. So I suppose this is something between February music and a compilation of my all time  favourite musicals. Here they come, in no particular order:

Nice & Not So Nice Things | February 2016

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Evening everybody, you were supposed to be getting another music compilation this weekend, but... You can see for yourself, it's not happening. However, I don't want to leave you empty handed, so I decided to do a bit of over-sharing and top it off with a poem I've written. 'coz why not?

Enchanted, Elated, Emotional

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For the second time in my life I've won something! Tickets to see Prague Symphony Orchestra in concert, conducted by none other than maestro José Cura , yes, the world famous tenor himself! Who knew that he originally studied Composition and Conducting? Anyway, this unexpected cultural pleasure left me in raptures and mesmerised, therefore I cannot contain myself and must share my delight with you. Smetana Hall, Municipal House (image from prague.eu )

Music (not so) Monthly | January 2016

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It's here again! No, I haven't given up on it completely. Let's see how long it sticks this time :D If you don't know what I'm referring to, I'm talking about Music Monthly, which is a regular series I used to to here on the blog. Only then the regularity died (hence Music Irregular) and then... Somehow everytime I try to get the series back on track, it dies on me. Either I don't have music to write about or I don't have the time to do it. In spite of all the bad luck Music Monthly has been attracting, I'm trying once again to beat the odds. Here's a music taste of my January 2016.

All The Books I've Been Reading

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One of my "resolutions" for 2015 (if I must call it that way) has been to read more than 5 books. Don't laugh at me. Getting out of a long term reading slump is tough. I am here to happily report that I succeeded! For the last year, I have read a whole lot of SEVEN books. Fireworks, please! Seriously though, 2 of those 7 were more than 800 pages long. That's a lot of letters when you put it together. Maybe it could have been more. I certainly thought so when I got a new job and started commuting nearly 2 hours a day. Turns out that my body prefers to sleep... But I still try my best to read on the tram for as long as my eyes are open. Well then, without further ado, here is a little run-down of what I read and some thoughts... 

Book or Film: Which Comes First?

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We live in a world of countless literary adaptations both for the big and the small screen. Be it famous and much loved adventures, romances and thrillers or "under the radar" stories that get finally introduced to wider audiences, the film makers can't get enough of literary adaptations. And who is to blame them? Neither can we. With the amount of literature-inspired films and TV shows produced these days, it seems impossible to read all of the books. One needs to chose wisely where to invest the time, but when you make your choice and decide to both read and watch... Which do you do first? I used to be a firm believer in the book. The book comes first, the book is true. Nothing can touch the book. I still stand by that, but I have come to realize that it only works to a certain extent. Here's an explanation of my recent experience in this area and how I arrived to the conclusion that it actually is allowed / it is not always a bad idea to watch the film befo

Letters to the Past, the Future and the People

Dear 2015 , Thank you, you've been a good one. We've been good together, haven't we? :) We got me a job and altogether changed my life for the better. There was a lot of work, but also socializing, a lot of culture and even some holiday time. Not too bad, I would say. I will keep this short, but I must mention the couple of travellers who visitied Prague in 2015 and who kindly requested my company to walk around the city or just plainly agreed to meet up for a chat. Here is a personal thank you to Sioux , Anna :P and her friend, Viviana , and Kirsty and Mark . Meeting you and having fun with you is just one of the many things this past year that go in the trend of "a couple of years back this would have been impossible for me." And here I go doing those things and enjoying them. Now isn't that magical? :) One thing that has not worked out well is blogging. I'm sad about it. The ideas are there, but the energy and the necessary time ma