Adventure #033- The Posters

I spend my days walking around the city of Prague, from one job to another, through all parts of the city.  As I walk, I see posters.  Lots and lots of posters.  Half the time I don't know what they are advertising for, sometimes they are ads for some product, many times they are ads for things to do, like concerts, shows, festivals, exhibits etc.  Every now and then I see some that are interesting.  Like the one advertising recycled animals at the botanical gardens, or that's how I translated it anyway.

Adventure #032- The Green/A- line Metro Crawl

A while ago, I ran into some friends at the Christmas Market in Namesti Miru. who were doing a pub crawl down the Green (A) metro line, which has 13 stops. I laughed and thought 'HA! That's a lot of alcohol! Impressive.'

Fast forward to about a month ago. Jon, a friend and colleague, was talking to his student who had also done a Green line crawl, complete with a signed paper that worked as a certificate for those who finished. Jon is a regular follower of our blog and suggested that we (Chloe and I) add this adventure to the list. I was a bit reluctant because 13 beers is a lot of alcohol for one day.

Adventure # 031- The Photo Shoots

I know, I know. Chloe posted hers a long time ago. What can I say? I am a slacker and my brain works in a different way from everyone else's :)

I don't really know anything about Alexander McQueen. Had never seen his stuff, got the name confused with the actor Steve McQueen so I had no real emotion attached to the passing of this designer. But when Chloe asked me to participate so she could have the number of people she needed, I agreed. I had never been part of a photo shoot before.

Adventure #030 - The Vegan Week

As I was procrastinating doing some research on internet a few weeks ago, I ended up on the WWF website to calculate my Carbon Monoxide Footprint, i.e. your impact on the environment. Well, if everybody was living like I do, we would need 2.25 planets. Ouch. After taking the test, you can have access to a few "eco-tips" to help reduce your footprint. The first one was "cut down on meat and dairy products". I am already a vegeterian, but I can't imagine living without dairy products. I am addicted to cheese, cream, yoghurt, butter ... It must be the French genes! But I decided to try a vegan diet for a week and see if it would really be that difficult.

Adventure #029- A Czech Easter

Pomlazka

Easter is a holiday that many cultures celebrate, and many of them have crazy pagan rituals incorporated.  In the Czech Republic, there are many such traditions and very few religious ones.  There are painted eggs, pomlazky, songs, beatings and of course, alcohol and chocolate.

They celebrate Easter on Monday.  On Easter morning, the tradition is that the guys go from house to house, looking for women.  They hit them with the pomlazka and sing them a song (a pomlazka is a braided stick made with willow.)  The women then give the guys painted eggs, a shot or chocolate.  This ritual is to 'make the girls wet' (as my students all told me) or rather, fertile.  The idea is that the 'Spring'/life from the willow will transfer to the women, making them fertile for the year to come.  The women thank the men for their kind thoughts by giving out painted eggs, etc.  But, here's the recent addition, if the guy comes by after 12pm, then the woman can dump cold water on him. In Slovakia, the guys can hit the girls at any time in the day and dump water on them.  Thankfully, this tradition is dying a bit in the big cities. One student told me that he would visit around 20 girls when he was younger!  That's a lot of alcohol and chocolate, bad combination!