Feliz Navidad (...in February)

Late as always, but here to deliver a quick feliz navidad and a few fond memories! As you know, I was lucky enough to be able to spend this past Christmas in the beautiful Land of Enchantment. I arrived in New Mexico on the 21st of December and flew out on the 5th of January. It was absolutely amazing to be back home and get to spend some time with the family, as well as spend a few U.S. dollars purchasing the gastronomical wonders only available through the benevolence of New Mexico green and red chile. Fun fact: some international readers may not know that the usual English spelling of "chile" is, in fact, "chili"...but the originally Spanish spelling of "chile" was officially adopted in New Mexico by the governor. If a New Mexican sees it spelled "chili" they will most likely wrinkle their nose, disgusted by the inauthentic impostor, and continue to another restaurant.

One of the biggest surprises of my trip home was that I was surrounded by snow the entire time. I landed and was greeted by a white Albuquerque and Riley, my best friend, and I drove into a snowy Farmington the following evening. Needless to say, my first meal/stop upon entering the 505 was Frontier for a fiesta burger (green chile cheeseburger). 

#shamelessselfie

The gorgeous landscape of New Mexico

The roads were snowy for the entire drive

My trip to the U.S. was a series of satisfying sentences, with a couple sporting a punctuation mark at their ends. One of these was the family cross-country skiing trip just across the border, north of Chama. This expedition on Neff Mountain had a yurt as its destination. We thought there would be a bit of snow. There was A LOT...9 feet (3 meters). We thought there would be tracks to follow. There weren't. It turned out to be quite the back country adventure. You will find photos below. 

A second 'punctuator' was the wedding of Tyler Elliot, our cousin, to his now wife, Jaimee. The wedding took place in Kalispell, Montana and the Pavliks traveled there via van in a throwback to the old days of family road trips. After two days of driving we were able to spend a few days up there in the (bitter) cold and (picturesque) snow. The wedding took place at the Grouse Mountain Lodge. It was an amazing experience and I still can't believe that my old beach and fishing buddy is now married and embarking on a new stage of his life. Congrats to the newlyweds! 

One of our two dogs, Bella, sporting her
Christmas attire

Some of my students in Prague don't
believe that we put chile in/on everything...

View from the front window of the house

Christmas is never the same without the five of us together. What you can't
see in this picture is my mother, who probably has already unwrapped half of
her presents (she is often overcome by the Christmas spirit)

Scrumptious Christmas dinner with the family and my other best friend, Patrick.

Prime Rib. This is usually our traditional New Year's meal, but, as we
were to be in Montana for New Year's, we decided to
have it early on Christmas.

Nothing quite like the New Mexico skies...especially sunrises and sunsets.

 Meanwhile, on Neff Mountain...

There were at least 5 fallen trees that needed
to be navigated over the course of our ascent 

Mountain lighting.

The inside of the yurt

The outside of the yurt. Everything was covered with snow upon arrival and we had to shovel it off.

We had to make our own tracks. The snow
the week before hadn't been exactly light...

One of my last meals in New Mexico, getting
my fix of chile

Sunrise in Blackfoot...

....temperature in Blackfoot. (temperature is
in degrees Celsius)

Some humor always helps take the bite of the cold off...

Driving back down to New Mexico

 When I landed in Prague, I was once more greeted with a snowy city. It turns out that it had just begun snowing there. I guess I must have brought it with me....from....New Mexico?

České Vánoce

I'm not sure if you remember, but many moons ago I said that I would write about Christmas in the Czech Republic. However, a few less moons ago I found myself on a Delta flight across the Atlantic with an end destination of Albuquerque, New Mexico; a story for another time. This being said, my Czech Christmas only spanned November 11th (yes, this is when many of the decorations went up) to December 21st. I was able to get a pretty good idea of some of the Christmas environment and traditions here before departure though...

Malls and shopping centers tossed decorations up as early as November 11th here. This photo is a photo of the inside of Nový Smichov, a huge shopping center in Prague 5. 

Starting in late November and early December the "Christmas stands" and Christmas markets started popping up in the streets. These stands are your one-stop shops for everything you could ever need for the season. They sell everything from gold and silver painted mistletoe to every size of Christmas tree imaginable. Stands and markets can be found all over town in any public space. There is one 'main' Christmas market in Staré Město (Old Town), but this is considered very touristy and a little more expensive. However, this makes it no less impressive, and it is always worth a trip to see the gigantic Christmas tree. This year's was at least 50ft tall, taking up an epic portion of the square. 

Lady in the tram with her mistletoe in hand

A Christmas stand outside Nový Smichov

Christmas tree in Old Town

Christmas market in Anděl, the district
of Prague in which Nový Smichov is located

Christmas stand (notice the painted mistletoe) outside of the Hůrka metro
station. This is an area that I have an English lesson in

To the chagrin of  many of my Czech friends,
Santa Claus has made it to the country

Christmas stand on Náměstí Míru (Square of Peace)

You can see the arbitrary location of Christmas
stands

A bag of scrumptious homemade Christmas
cookies that one of my students was kind
enough to bestow upon me. (I was ordered to
take them back to the U.S. with me and share
with my family. I can't say the cookies arrived
in one piece, but their taste was complete.)

This is a free Christmas concert that was being given in the Hlavní Náddraží (main stration) 

The Náměstí Míru Christmas market...just a couple blocks down the street from
my house at the time. Náměstí Míru was my main metro station start point for
teaching travels

Some interesting Christmas tidbits/traditions are:

• Christmas Day in December 24th in the Czech Republic, not the 25th as it is in the U.S. Christmas consists of three main days: 24th-26th.
• The traditional Christmas meal is carp and you can find fishmongers at all Christmas markets and street corners with tubs of live carp starting around Dec. 20th
• The Czechs do not have Santa Claus, but Ježíšek (baby Jesus) delivers the Christmas presents during the meal on the 24th
• During the Christmas meal all eaters must stay seated once they have sat down, as it is considered bad luck to leave the table (I have found bad luck to mean anything from bad health to death)
• After dinner children will often melt lead ingots and then poor them into water. The shapes can reveal some hint about the future if you look hard enough and are able to find something
• The arrival of Ježíšek is signaled by the ringing of a bell and a parent encouraging the children to hurry and look, the baby Jesus is about to escape! The children never seem to quite reach the room in time to catch a glimpse of the little trickster
• Walnuts are often halved and then set with a candle. They are then placed in a bowl of water. Each family member has one of these 'ships' and their movements tell something of what the coming year holds for the family and its various members
• It is common to fast Christmas day before the main dinner meal. The goal is to see a golden pig, which brings good luck. If you fail to see the golden pig it is, of course, bad luck or death the coming year

A couple New Year's traditions:

• One must eat plenty of lentils on New Year's day, as they represent money/wealth. The more lentils, the more money. Needless to say, bowls are better to count in 
• One mustn't eat poultry on New Year's, as anything consumed with wings will cause your luck to fly away

After returning to Prague on the 6th of January I was met with a sad, sad sight: the death of Christmas. All through the streets you could find poor little Christmas trees whose time was up...really driving home the fact that the holiday was over...

The 'Local's Tour'

There is a little joke between some friends of mine and me about the "local's tour". It basically centers around the idea of exploring Prague as in-depth as possible, finding the secret gems of the city (or maybe not-so-secret), and successfully being able to navigate oneself back to them at a later date. Extra points are awarded for efficiency. Extra points are awarded for authenticity.

Anyway, I have been the successful leader of a couple 'local's tours' and would like to take you on a small virtual one right now. Before I begin, I must cover my back and say that I am by no means the only guide for these tours, lest I face retribution upon my return to camp. The whole of our group have led many successful 'tours' and that is what makes it fun, we each find something unique one day and share it with the rest of the posse.

This is just a small collection of various photos taken at differing locations around Prague. While I by no means would seriously consider myself a local yet, I will say that I am able to quite easily navigate the city and am becoming increasingly more confident giving directions or answering questions about Prague. This being said, I will include a little caption describing each one, but it will be very general and I will save detailed explanations for later posts. Here's the little sampler...

The metro exit to Korunní street, where Mark
and I share a flat. It is extremely close to the gothic church
 Náměstí Míru, which will be included in a later blog
about the churches here

An automatic milk machine and a couple sweet old ladies trying to figure
out how it works. I've never seen one before, but you grab the size of
bottle you would like, insert coins, insert bottle, and fill 'er up!

Václavské Náměstí (Wenceslas Square). This famous statue of Wenceslas on his
horse has become one of the typical meeting points for groups, as it is a huge
site in the city, is central, and directly on the intersection of two metro lines

Climbing up Petřín to reach the tower at top. You can see the segway at the
bottom right of the photo. These have become a huge form of touring in
Prague, much to the dismay of many locals. They do get quite obnoxious as
they zoom around.

Strahov Monastery...also turns out to have quite
a nice IPA that they brew. 

There are so many secret passages and alleyways
connecting the streets of Prague. This is one up by
the Prague Castle

The Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square seen from the side.

An example of the different periods of
architecture found in Prague. There are
obviously also many ultra-modern buildings

Art at Národní Třida

The Infant of Prague. This church and the infant will
also be described in more detail in a future
post

Karlův Most (Charles Bridge) on an overcast afternoon

Where the tracks end...

The Church of the Most Sacred Heart of Our Lord, a
few blocks away from the flat in the opposite direction
of Náměstí Míru

Vyšehrad, a second castle in Prague. This
is one of my favorite places to spend time
and will certainly have its own entry
to come

View of the Vltava from Vyšehrad

Street art by the school

A view of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague Castle from across the
way in the royal gardens/orangery 

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Jiřího z Poděbrad square at sunset

The spirit of Prague

A cool shot of an apartment building and its various doors

View of Prague from across the Vltava in Letna beer garden. The City of a Thousand Spires 

 Hope you enjoyed the local's tour and it gave you a little taste of the city. Expect the next entry to be about Christmas in Prague.