Maree('s) Muses

As promised when I was gushing over some London photos from last year, I am back to gush over some photos from Liverpool. Hope you enjoy them :)  Jak jsem slíbila, když jsem se tu rozplývala nad loňskými fotkami z Londýna , jsem tu abych se rozplývala nad fotkami z Liverpoolu. Snad se vám budou líbit :)  It was all very important for me, arranging and managing the journey up north. It was the first time I left London, actually. Moreover, what with me being a Beatlemaniak ever since I was a little girl, visiting Liverpool was very special <3  Všechno to pro mně bylo hodně důležité, zařídit a zvládnout cestu na sever. Bylo to vlastně poprvé, co jsem opustila Londýn. Navíc, jelikož jsem od malička Beatlemaniak, navštívit Liverpool bylo prostě něco výjimečného.

As soon as the warmer spring air arrives, I always catch the travel bug. However, having just started a new job, traveling will not be an option for a while yet. So, with nostalgia, I turn to memories and photos from my last trip to London, which I took about a year ago, just after leaving my old job . I've got a bunch of photos for you here, how about that?  Vždycky když přijde teplejší jarní vzduch, dostanu cestovní horečku. Nicméně tentokrát, protože jsem začala nové zaměstnání, musím na cestování ještě nějakou chvíli zapomenout. A tak se s nostalgií obracím k fotkám a vzpomínkám na svůj poslední výlet do Londýna, což bylo asi před rokem, když jsem skončila ve staré práci . Mám pro vás nějaké fotky, co vy na to? It was my third time going on a solo trip to London and the best one yet! It involved a lot of bookshopping, aimless wandering around, also guided walks, seeing long distance friends and culture. Wait. This needs a song. Bylo to potřetí, co jsem se sama v...

packing list notepad from Flying Tiger Copenhagen 1) The first thing I do is that I compile a preliminary list of books I would be interested in buying, should I run into a nice copy. I have this tradition, you see, that when I travel abroad, I always buy a book. As in, I try to be a good girl and not by too many O:) Especially if I’m visiting the bookshop heaven that is London. We all know how dangerous (for the purse) can spontaneous bookshopping be! I figured having a shortlist of titles that I would like to add to my collection, would do me good. Here’s what I got: 1) První, co udělám, je že sestavím předběžný seznam knížek, které bych si chtěla koupit, pokud narazím na pěkný výtisk. Mám totiž takovou tradici, že vždycky, když cestuji, koupím si nějakou knížku. Tedy, snažím se být hodná a nekoupit jich příliš O:) Zvlášť pokud je cílem návštěvy ráj knihkupectví jako Londýn. Všichni víme, jak nebezpečné (pro peněženku) může být spontánní nakupování knih! Usoudila jsem, že mít ...

Recently I have had a chance to take a couple days off work and actually leave my very lovely but very busy home town. Me and my sister enjoyed a winter mini-break and a much needed change of scenery, visiting a small town in Southern Bohemia, where our grandparents used to live. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a frosty photo-heavy blog post. Nedávno se mi poštěstilo vzít si na pár dní volno z práce a dokonce opustit moje překrásné, ale hlučné rodné město. Vyrazila jsem se svojí sestrou a užily jsme si zimní prodloužený víkend v městečku v jižních Čechách, kde dřív žili naši prarodiče. Zde, pro potěšení vašich očí, je příspěvek, plný zamrzlých fotografií.  I tried to find balance between time spent outside and resting in the warm cosiness of the apartment where we were staying, and I think it all turned out rather lovely and relaxing. 10 point to Gryffindor/your respective house, if you can recognize where we were:   Snažila jsem se najít rovnováhu mezi tráv...

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. 

So, it's Novemeber. One is slowly grasping the fact that Christmas is inevitably getting closer and as the air grows cold, I end up remembering last year and a very spontaneuous trip to Nuremberg in Germany. Here's a little Throwback Sunday. The premise of the trip was simple: me doing a course to be a tourist guide + my sister being a teacher overseeing a school trip to Nuremberg and having a free spot on the bus. I thought it would be fun to spy on the guide who would be taking care of us and comparing if they are doing all the necessary things we were being taught at the course :) I will try to keep this short and picture friendly.

So I went on a holiday. A proper week-long, taking time off my work and going abroad kind of holiday. That was a first! Second time on a sea-side family holiday, but the first one was about 14 year ago. I barely remember anything. All in all, exciting stuff! We went to Croatia and stayed in little town called Šimuni on the island of Pag. I thought I would share a couple of my favourite photos, because... some of them turned out quite well I think. And they demonstrate the peaceful atmosphere very well.

For all you lovers of theatre and Shakespeare, here is another travel themed London throwback to when I visited Shakespeare's Globe theatre. It happened on a very sunny Friday, almost exactly a year ago. ou can read about what else I did on that day here .  When I got to the Globe, I wasted no time, went pretty much straight in and got myself a ticket :) I didn’t even mind spending £ 13,50. Since I didn’t get the HT T-shirt the night before , I decided that I deserved a treat. And I knew visiting The Globe would make me happy :) And I deserved that and owed it to myself :)

As promised in my previous post , here comes the foolish attempt to finish my London stories before the 1 year anniversary of the trip. If you are new here (Hellooo and welcome!) and want to read up more about the London adventure, check out the TRAVEL label. I feel like I need to reiterate that these posts are in no way trying to objecitvely tell you what London is like and what to do when you visit. This is all heavily based on my (very) detailed travel diary, which, as diaries go, is a very subjective account of my personal experience and thoughts. Filtered to be fit for the public eye, obviously. And it's quite long. If the words bore you, look at the photos ;) *timey wimey wheezing noise of the tardis* Day 4: 6th June 2014 (Fri) Waking up, I decided that today seemed like a good day to Globe :) and to South Bank :) I wanted to get going as soon as I could, because the guided tours in The Globe Thetre run only until 12:30 and I had no idea how busy it w...

Well aren't you good at patiently waiting for me to get it together? I hope the following music-y ramblings will not disappoint you. In all honesty, the timing of this post could not be any better, because Hudson Taylor's debut album has only just been released in Ireland and for the rest of us the wait is almost over. Trust me, 23rd March will be here sooner than you think. Head over to hudsontaylormusic.com to find out about how and where you can pre-order it. (Or indeed, purchase if you have the proverbial luck of the Irish :) ) Now, let me once again take you back in time, to last summer, 5th June 2014, if you want me to be date specific. On that memorable day I strolled around Regent's Park and in the evening I went to my first (and hopefully not last) concert in London. I've already talked about the supporting musicians: Kimberly Ann and the oh so amazing Flyte (still not over them!), but now comes the time to talk about the music that I...

Welcome to another part of my live music experience in the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town. If you haven't already, don't forget to have a look what I've been doing on the gig day and who the first support act of the night was . All caught up? Let's get to it then :) There was a short technical break. In the meantime we were kept entertained by some reproduced music, which was a good mix of old-timey and folksy type of things (Simon & Garfunkel among others). Then out of the blue, as a complete surprise, a 4-piece band that I don’t know takes the stage. Turns out there’s another support band before Hudson Taylor come on :) Weeell, when I say a surprise, I mean I should have realized, ‘coz I did notice there were 2 sets of drums on the stage and I wondered what the deal with that was... Duh! There's another band. Silly Maree :D Please, excuse the rubbishness and zero reporting value of the photo. The band was (I didn’t quite catch the name, but l...

If you are not (and want to be) in the loop on what led up to me being at a gig at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, read here ;)) Otherwise, welcome and let me introduce you to the first support act of the night, which was a girl with a guitar, big voice and big hair, going by the name of Kimberly Anne.

This is the one you have been waiting for so long, I hope. Thank you for your patience. August has been a bit of a weird month (more on that later), resulting in a weird blog silence. What can you do? Life happens. Here's more of my unnecessarily long London stories for you. "Oh dear, is she still going on about London? That was ages ago!" Yes it was, but I will never stop going on about it! The best is yet to come, believe me ;) Now, let's travel in time: Day 3: 5th June 2014 (Thu) I was woken up by the traffic early in the morning. It surprised me. We are a bit off the main road and still the noise is remarkably prominent (says the girl, who has lived on the main street for all her life, and is used to the sound of traffic day and night. Only in a “big city” of a different scale.) I made my plan for the day, which included Baker Street, Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill. Not more, because I needed to get back home early to get ready and leave in time f...

the inner courtyard of the V&A. read below. I'm baaaack with more of my London stories. Sorry it takes so long, but that's just the way it is with perfectionists, who keep polishing the text, moving paragraphs, deleting TMI... If you've been reading me for a while, you know very well that I don't do short and sweet. I do long. And not limit myself to sweet... Beware, I guess. As always, there are photos to save the day. Oh, before I forget, I have an important announcement : Dance the Drizzle has a page on facebook now :) This is me encouraging you to go over there and click the like button ;) Anyway, here is Day 2: 4th June 2014 (Wed)

!!! Warning: What you are about to read is based mainly on my very detailed travel diary. However, there are bits and pieces left out because of privacy, etc. So chances are that at times these posts might seem a little bit uneven in the level of detail. Basically, it's all very confused and not my most brilliant piece of writing. I am aware ;) Also, I hope you are ready for how long this is. #sorrynotsorry If you're tired of reading, look at the photos. I wonder if there will ever be a time when I’m actually on time or early for an important bus or a train. This time it wasn’t my fault though. It was the tube’s fault. The train I took on the way to the coach station stopped and it took a good couple of minutes for it to get moving again. (You must understand that for Prague underground it is very uncommon that the trains would stop and wait.) Not nerve-wracking at all!!! Not when you're catching an international coach, you're just about on the...

I have marked all the calendars with a very relevant washi tape that was given to me by a friend some while ago. Finally there is some proper good use for it :) Here are some of the things that I've already got ready: an umbrella so cute that it's borderline childish CHECK extra batteries and charger for my camera  CHECK Thanks, family! :) a cutesy travel-themed notebook to jot down impressions, stories, anything and everything... CHECK That means I will have a solid source for upcoming London-y blog posts :) an unnecessarily lovely and detailed street map of London CHECK Thanks, mom! :) Yes, I am old school and I believe in real maps. Nothing can go wrong if you have a map. My phone is just a regular stupid one, but even if I had a smartphone, I think I would prefer a real map in my hands. an ever-growing list of places I need to see and take a picture of, because they appeared in a film/television series that I like CHECK I am now getting to a point of endles...

... from misery to happiness todaaay (*cue sing-along in a Scottish accent*) Here is the big announcement and the super exciting adventure that I have been hinting pretty much for about 2 months now. And surely, the Sherlocks and Watsons among you have already figured it out, because the last couple of clues that I left were so damn obvious... I will be visiting London. In less than a month, for a couple of days, I will be in the actual London town over in my beloved Britain. I had a new passport made :) Which in in itself deserves a celebration, because for the first time in my life I have a good picture on an ID type of thing. Love my passport. Here it is with my super London-y folder where I keep all my organizing and planning stuff for the trip.  I didn't want to say anything in public until it was for certain that I can go. And honestly, never in my life has there been a project with so many ups and downs. I had everything planned and ready and t...