Liebster Love

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Yee-haw! Czechesotans has been nominated for a Liebster blogger award :) The lovely and talented Cynthia from ADVENTURINGS, a blog about her Bohemian life in the Czech town of Ceske Budovice, put us up to the task.

First, here are my subsequent nominations:

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere: How do people in Mongolia live? I didn't know, either! Loads of pretty pictures and interesting bits on yurts and things here, folks.

Mark in Maine: Mark is a gifted journalist from St. Paul, MN, who is now a Bangor transplant thanks to his professor wife. He has an eye for small-town detail that's both quirky and informative.

Tonbogirl: I'm a sucker for good design and creative clothing, and this visual fashion diary out of Bratislava is top-notch. Plus, writer Marika speaks like 5 languages!

Ricky Yates: Rev. Yates is an Anglican chaplain in Prague who writes extensively about Czech history and culture. Consider yourself educated after reading this one.

And second, here are my answers to Cynthia's questions:

1. When you think of the word “home”, what place comes to mind?
Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, even though I was born in a teeny-tiny town in North Dakota and BW is from the 'burbs. St. Paul's Cathedral Hill neighborhood (the stomping grounds of F. Scott Fitzgerald) is where BW and I made a home together before getting the international bug.
Super St. Paul!
2. How important is it to learn the language of the country where you’re living?
What I should say: Oh-so important!
What I'm saying instead: It's easy to live in Prague and not know Czech. We are embarrassed by our lack of Czech, but the language is really flipping hard.

3. What was your biggest travel or expat “oops” you’ve ever made?
Um, like a thousand. In Thailand, I had a bad stomach, bought meds from a dubious pharmacist, and then got even sicker from the meds. Good thing the view was so spectacular!
It was pretty splendid once we survived the asylum
4. What is a city or place you LOVE that is totally off the tourist radar?
Kandy, Sri Lanka. It has a temple containing one of Buddha's teeth. It was awash in flower offerings and incense and people dressed all in white - just lovely.
In the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic
5. How do you like to unwind after a long day?
Me: Writing, playing with the dog, eating BW's cooking, walking around Prague. Most evenings, I'm marking papers or planning lessons. BW: Cooking, watching TV online.

6. If I gave you free tickets to fly anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Japan! BW wants to eat at a famous restaurant featured in the documentary "Jiro Dreams of Sushi." I waitressed in a sushi eatery in grad school and am fascinated by Japanese food and culture. Origami, haiku, ikebana, nigiri - everything seems so precise and beautiful. 

7. What’s the best material possession you’ve acquired in the past two years?
My wedding ring. I'm not a "diamonds are a girl's best friend" type of gal, but BW designed it himself and it reminds me of a Mucha painting - and our commitment to each other, of course.
Mucha!

8. What inspires you most, creatively?
Living abroad, definitely. I tried to write a blog in the U.S. but just couldn't give it steam. I also like taking a boatload of random photos and using them as stimuli for blog posts/poetry/short stories.

9. Best book you’ve read in the past year?
Probably "Freedom" by Jonathan Franzen. It begins in the St. Paul 'hood we left and follows a twisted plot line through the destruction of a "normal" American middle-class family. The writing is superb.

10. What’s your travel style like? Slow, fast, budget, luxurious….
We like to do home exchanges so we can stay in one place for a while and keep costs down. Plus it's fun seeing how other people live; here's a photo of a quirky spot we recently stayed in:

11. What are your travel plans for the rest of 2014?
Sumava and Cesky Krumlov (southern Czech Republic) in early July with my parents. Home to Minnesota and North Dakota for a month this summer, and probably the south of Spain for the Fall when BW's parents come to visit. Christmas somewhere exotic, hopefully. (Japan??!)
Cesky Krumlov, via Wikimedia Commons
Finally, here are my 11 questions for my Liebster nominees:
1. If your blog was a song, what would it be and why?
2. What is one thing you reeeeally like about the town where you live?
3. What are you doing this summer?
4. Name a place you've traveled that you'd recommend to others and why.
5. Who is someone you look up to?
6. What drives you crazy?
7. Where do you do most of your blogging?
8. How do you spend your free time?
9. What is something cool you've found?
10. If you could switch places with someone for a day, who would it be?
11. What gets your creative juices flowing?

3 comments

  1. Hi Em! Congratulations on the well deserved Liebster Blog award. And I have to say that I'm honoured and most grateful for your subsequent nomination of my blog. To tell readers to 'Consider yourself educated after reading this one' when describing my blog, made me realise I'd forgotten an item when I last visited our local Kaufland supermarket - a serious supply of polish for my halo :-) One very minor correction - I'm not 'an' but 'the Anglican Chaplain in Prague. In fact I'm the only Anglican priest resident in the whole of the Czech Republic.

    I promise to try & answer your eleven questions in a forthcoming post. As you already follow me on Bloglovin', you'll soon know when I've done so.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "...polish for my halo" = :D.
      I didn't realize that regarding Anglicanism in the Czech Republic; how cool! I hope you're having a lovely June!

      Delete
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