Happy Halloween!

We have to wait until next year to go trick-or-treating, but that didn't stop us from carving some super cool Jack O'Lanterns. Pumpkins came from our trip to a farm in Bykoš several weeks ago. The owners host an annual Pumpkin Picking event, which is attended mostly by expats longing for a little seasonal spookiness. They know a revenue source when they see one.

Garrett wanted a vampire pumpkin.


Ben opted for a more unusual design. Any guesses?


Enter your impression of Ben's pumpkin -- first correct answer gets a postcard from Prague. :)

Hope you had a harrowing Halloween! Next year, we'll be back on your doorstep, shaking you down for treats.

Letting You in on the Blague

Little posting this week as I was back in Oneonta for a long weekend. I returned home on a super secret assignment. Okay, not really on that last bit. I was just blague-ing.

My friend Chantal informs me that "blague" means "joke" in French. "Trick" or "blunder," too. Hmm. I suppose we could have called this The Prank from Prague or Bohemian Buffoonery. But that's not really what we were going for. Any resemblance of our little blog here to a joke or trick or blunder is purely coincidental.

That said, should you wish to impress your French friends or foes or fries, here are a few phrases to foist.

Definition: joke, trick, blunder

J'ai entendu une bonne blague hier - I heard a good joke yesterday.

Expressions:

Sans blague ? - Seriously? You don't say!

Sans blague, Blague à part - Joking aside

Prendre tout à la blague - To not take anything seriously

Raconter des blagues - To put someone on

Faire une blague à - Play a trick on; Faire une blague - Make a silly mistake; Faire des blagues - Do stupid things

Pas de blagues ! - No messing around!

Related: blaguer (inf) - to joke or kid; blagueur (adj) - ironic, teasing

By the way, it's no joke that I was back in the States this weekend. Just not on a super secret mission. More later.

Večerníček

"Dobrý večer!" Good evening!

Since 1965, Večerníček (literally Little Eveninger) has ushered in bedtime for children throughout the Czech Republic. Every night at 18:45, the starry-eyed tot spirals down from the night sky, bows deeply, and wishes his audience a good evening before meandering around on a wooden horse, in a little car, and finally perched on a unicycle. A five- or six-minute cartoon -- which often is at least 20 or 30 years old -- follows Večerníček's greeting.

Broadcast in a series over several nights, we've seen Pat a Mat (Pat and Matt),



Doktor Animo (not to be confused with Doctor Animo from Ben10 Alien Force),



and Příběhy včelích medvídků (Tales of the Bee Bears).



Currently we are enjoying a week of Kočiči (Kittens). (Couldn't find videos for Doktor Animo or the Kittens as they were obscured by videos of Ben10's Dr. Animo and real kittens.)



And then Little Eveninger returns to bid the children a good night.

Karl recalls watching Večerníček 18 years ago when he lived with the Jišas in Plzeň. That a family with young children would make Večerníček an evening ritual is not surprising, but Czechs of all ages take pleasure in the broadcast as this article marking Večerníček's 40th anniversary notes. In fact I learned (online, of course), that to generations of Czechs Večerníček represents a part of their cultural heritage and national identity.

Our kids have jumped right on board with the tradition. The threat of missing Večerníček repeatedly proves itself a valuable tool for wrapping up dinner and prepping for bed. The short stories (told through animation, claymation, or puppets) may not be visually sophisticated, but they are charming and easy enough to follow, even when Karl is unavailable to translate.

I'll say it: they provide a welcome alternative to Disney.

"Dobrou noc!" Good night!

[If you seek a more pedagogical approach to understanding the appeal of this sweet animated tradition, I refer you to“Večerníček and the Czech Mobile Market: A Cultural Approach to Killer Apps” by Joschko, Moscicki, and Quigley (2006).]

Kuky se vrací

We're off to see the film Kuky se vrací this afternoon! Karl read (and translated) the book to us over the last few weeks, so we've got the plot. Check out the trailer. It's subtitled.

Disappointed that you don't understand Czech? A DVD with English subtitles comes out in November. Look for it on Netflix. I'm sure the boys and I will appreciate a viewing in English someday!

Get Out the Vote

Election season is upon us. Political parties stand ready to woo voters by any means necessary. No, I'm not referring to all the emails piling up in my in-box from MoveOn.Org, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and various senators and congressfolk. No, no, those went right in the trash folder this year.

I'm talking about the Czech elections being held yesterday and today. Throughout the country Czechs lined up and dropped ballots, mostly for municipal seats. In Prague, residents voted for city mayor, district mayors, and city council. Also on the ballots are senators, who have powers much like the House of Lords in Great Britain -- they can slow laws down but can't stop them. Czech senators have a much more limited role than those in the US. On the upside (for them), they only met 18 days last year.

No lawn signs here, just these enormous sidewalk displays all over the city.

"Rozum i cit, Reason, and feeling," proclaims the CSSD (Czech Party of Social Democrats). "Přídejte závaží, přídejte svůj hlas. Add weight, add your vote."

CSSD pre-dates the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia in 1918. It figured prominently in the governing coalitions of the First Republic. CSSD used to stand for Czecho-Slovak Social Democrats. Replacing "Slovak" with "strana" (party), the organization kept its acronym and presumably any gravitas that accompanies longevity.

"Podzim má oranžovou barvu. Autumn is orange." Orange is the party's color.


"Praha je kultura. Kultura je Praha, Prague is culture. Culture is Prague," claims Jan Kalousek from ODS, the Civil Democratic Party. Catchy.


"Náš svět je Praha 6, Our world is Prague 6," says Tomáš Chalupa, current mayor of Prague 6, who is running to retain his position. Also, "Radnice pro lidi. City Hall for people." As opposed to zebras.

Chalupa is another ODS member.


ODS was pulling hard for the pastry-lovers vote. I picked up pastries at the trolley stop and in front of the grocery store.


These two weren't swayed by the pastries. They're cycling for VV (Public Affairs party). Because ... "Jde to lepe! "It's better!"

The dinosaurs represent ODS, the party that has run Prague for years. VV and ODS are battling for municipal seats, but they're together (along with TOP09) in the governing coalition at the national level.


"Počítám s Vámi. Příjďte 15-16 října k volbám. I'm counting on you. Come to the elections, October 15-16." So says Zdeněk Tůma, who recently ended his term as governor of the Czech National Bank -- the country's central bank, like the US Federal Reserve -- and is running for city-wide mayor on the TOP09 line.

TOP09, as the name suggests, was founded last year. It's a conservative party whose major drawing power is the country's most popular politician these days, Prince Karel Schwarzenberg, the pipe-smoking, bow-tie wearing foreign minister. The guy's got a fan club, for crying out loud.

As for our meeting our civic responsibilities, Karl and I requested absentee ballots for next month's US elections. We will give careful consideration to all candidates who send baked goods our way.

Company!

We hosted our first guests this week! Our dear friend Eric from Seattle and his friend (now our friend) Morna from London joined us on Tuesday evening and will catch a train to Berlin tomorrow.

Here's Eric looking dashingly handsome with Malostranské náměstí in the background.

Perhaps it will be no surprise that Mr. Clean is his default Halloween costume.

When last we saw Eric, Ben had an oral vocabulary of 50 words (lots more when you threw in the sign language) and Garrett was the size of a walnut in utero. We've longed to see him again lo these many years. And now, here he is. Prague, apparently, makes a better carrot than Oneonta.

We've covered a lot of ground this week -- both in catching up on old friends and acquaintances (she married who?) and seeing the Golden City.

Morna and Eric take a much needed rest at the Cubist lamppost. (Seriously ... we covered a lot of ground.)

Thank you so much for visiting M&E! It was wonderful to have you with us.

And you're always welcome to come see us back in Oneonta. ☺

Family time

From a personal perspective, probably the best aspect of Karl's sabbatical -- aside from a year in Prague, for goodness' sake -- is the huge amount of unstructured family time we enjoy. Just this weekend we went geocaching in the nearby village of Hostivice and out to dinner at a neighborhood pub on Friday, rode a train to a farm near Beroun on Saturday to pick pumpkins, and then sat down to our usual Sunday morning pancake-fest (Karl's best batch on the metric system) before all the boys in the family did some more geocaching, this time in Hvězda, a new park for us.


Hostivice pond in the late afternoon


Garrett in front of the star-shaped summer palace Hvězda.

Unfortunately I spent Sunday afternoon inside IKEA shopping for towels and a duvet and cover. (We are hosting our first guests this week!) But I got to participate in the pumpkin carving before dinner.


We miss our friends and family. But we relish our freedom from meetings and committees. Karl and I even manage to sneak time out in the city by ourselves sometimes. Good news -- we still enjoy each other's company!

Divoká Šárka

A 15-minute trolley ride on Tram 26 took us out of the city to the rugged and beautiful Divoká Šárka, a nature preserve featuring limestone cliffs and a gorge carved by the Šárka stream.


Online Karl had confirmed several geocache sites within the park, so TeamK4 (Karl, Kate, 2 kids) went off to find them. Here's the first cache, which you can see nestled between the tree and the big rock, just off of Ben's right shoulder.


Ben located this cache, and victory is always sweet!


Official cache sizes include large, regular, small, and micro. Here is an article with a quick explanation of the size parameters. We found a micro cache at Radyně Castle that was in a 35mm film container attached to the back of a pipe with a magnet. Contents usually include a sticker or document identifying the container as a geocache (with a request that if you found it by accident would you be so kind as to put it back exactly as it was), a log book and pen, and -- if the container size permits -- swag (Stuff We All Get). Swag might include small toys, keychains, rubber ducks, whatever can fit in the container. Swapping swag is part of the fun, and we come armed with offerings.

TeamK4 members, like many geocachers, have various motives for geocaching: exploring new regions (or being introduced to new places in familiar regions), going for a hike with a goal, the thrill of discovery and victory (see Ben's picture above).

For Garrett, it's all about the swag.

Revealing cache contents makes for a little bit of Christmas any day.


The official mark of the Czech geocache. The top line reads "Prosím neschovávej tuto schránku jinam a nenič ji! Please do not disturb!" (Karl said the literal translation is "Please do not hide this box elsewhere and do not destroy it!")


We found the second cache about 20 minutes later and headed home triumphant.


Our minister, Craig, and his wife, Cheryl , introduced us to geocaching back in July. It couldn't have been more timely for us. With the European sites downloaded on Ben's Geomate Jr. (a birthday gift), we can head off in search of geocaches all over the city and countryside.

And -- not unlike counting and Škoda -- the boys hardly realize that we're off on a hike.