london, calling.

i began this post weeks ago. i had great intentions of telling you all the wonderful news that bill and i would be moving to london in a little over a month’s time. that my wonderful husband had secured a wonderful new job (with an energy news site off fleet street, no less!) and that even i was interviewing for a fancy job in one of the world’s greatest cities (i didn’t take it, by the way. i turns our i really AM way too much of a hippie to want to work in a corporate office.)

so here we are. it’s five weeks later and i’m blogging from the back room of a tiny camera shop-cum-cafe around the corner from the british museum, from my ipad. (first time using wordpress for ipad, by the way, and i’m loving it now that i learned how to turn off apple’s crazy auto-correct feature, which always hated my ee cummings-esque non-use of capital letters.)

we’ve been in london for 4 days now and i already love it. the way that hipsters and power suits alike dart down the streets, rushing to and fro, ducking into busy shops boasting mobile top up cards and cans of ale, or munching on designer sushi bentos at lunch.

the culinary exploits of a techspat

"spak" bbq sauce and... why, is that corn on the cob?!

i am not sure i like the term ‘techspat’ just yet. that’s because i just made it up, mostly to describe myself and for the purposes of this blog, which involves some stuff about expat life and some stuff about tech, and also because i know that husby loves a good word play.

i am equally unsure about my love for cooking. in fact, wagering between the two, i think i already prefer the term ‘techspat’ to cooking in general. cooking has never been my forté. for as long as i can remember, i shouted at my mother (who sometimes tried to nudge me into learning) that i couldn’t cook and that i burned toast and that i hated cooking. i guess, despite myself, i always was a bit of a feminist.

but back to cooking. if you happen to read here “often” (bless you), you might remember me talking about being diagnosed with pre-diabetes last year. i’ve also blogged about travelling on a diet over at tripwolf.

the thing is, i love food. i never refer to myself as a foodie, though, because i don’t really know anything about food. i just know i love it. and i want to eat anything and everything. i was also raised with a keen sense of eating food from such faraway places as china and japan on a regular basis and, since my diagnosis last year, i have come to appreciate and, indeed, prefer a wide variety of foods in my diet, especially vegetables.

the murtaugh list

it was about 1:12 am last night. we were on the way home from our very civilized wine celebration of bill’s 30th birthday, when i saw a guy get on the tram, start to hiccup wildly and then puke out the window. two thoughts occurred to me at that moment:

1. fuck’s sake prague.
2. i’m too old for this shit.

so, i decided with my 30th rapidly approaching and bill’s quite literally just passed, i should pay tribute to the murtaugh list. if you watch how i met your mother, you already know that this is a list of stuff you’re too old to do, inspired by sergeant roger murtaugh (aka danny glover in lethal weapon.)

what do you do when…?

i have been thinking about how to start this blog entry since last week, when the incident happened. i suppose it is best to begin by telling you a bit of back story about the day. it was thursday and husby had taken a vacation day from work, so we were out flaneuring, as we’ve come to refer to our lolling walks-slash-drinks around prague.

we’d been wanting to go to two brew pubs, thanks to the recommendations of prague beerophile, evan rail, and our boozy buddy (and prague post food writer), fiona gaze. both pubs, zlý časy (a.k.a. “bad times”) and zubatý pes (a.k.a. “the toothy dog”) are located in an area of prague called vršovice (roughly “vr sho vitsuh” – try saying that ten times fast), which is nowhere near where we live or where bill works. so, this was the perfect chance for us to check out a new area of the city.

a bit o’ bluegrass

giant mountains band

it seems no matter where i go in this world, i always need some good americana music to keep my soul in shape. perhaps it has something to do with being lugged around to bars as a baby, falling asleep on the floor while my mom and dad were sound checking with their various bands or maybe it was my mother playing the mandolin over her tummy when i was still in the womb. whichever combination of these things it is, i don’t know, but i need bluegrass.

interestingly, the czechs are really into bluegrass. in fact, they are into all sorts of americana, and there is even a subculture of czechs who actually go out into the woods with cowboy hats and boots and spurs and pretend to be in the wild west. i am not kidding.

suburban prague

as you may notice, my last post was in november. it is now march the fourth. i would love to say that time has just gotten away from me here in my enjoyment of prague, but that would not be enitrely truthful. time did get away during december and january, when we had friends visiting for the holidays and then were off for several weeks for our dublin wedding and subsequent honeymoon in lisbon and rome. and i suppose i could’ve blogged about all that, but i didn’t.

so here we are in march.

check-ups in a foreign land

one of my favorite stories to tell people is about the time that i got rolled over on by a horse two weeks before my first trip to china and fractured my wrist and L3 vertebra. i was pretty out of it for a few days, but i got a cute, short cast (in purple) put on my left forearm and somehow managed to go on my merry way across the world for nearly a month of english teaching and then traveling.

despite my pleading, the US hospital was unwilling to take off my cast just four weeks into the healing process when i was due to fly out. instead, i’d have to wear the cast for an extra unnecessary four weeks because of my trip.

i was not prepared for 

a first-time love affair

every traveler has a first love. i believe this as strongly as i believe in real love. it is that city – or sometimes that place or country – that you first completely fall for. you are a young traveler, inexperienced and green enough to think the world is even more amazing than it is and fully believing that none of your experiences will ever disappoint you. you can only learn later that, sure you’ll be disappointed, but that only adds to the experiences.

but there is always that one place that you fall for and can never go back.