I have been rather delighted with the weather lately. Cold and crisp! The project is progressing steadily as I´ve now begun work on the paper. Hopefully it will turn out well.
Christmas fever, aka "Vanoce" has hit the country. On December 5 there is St. Mikulas (sp?) Day where an angel, a devil and St. Mikulas visit each child and ask them if they have been good or bad so I'm pretty excited to witness this. Obviously, I have been good. Musicians are preparing the music for the midnight Mass and there are Christmas markets around Old Town, selling mostly kitschy stuff BUT also roasted chestnuts, which are pretty great. All sorts of yummy smells are in the air from mulled wine to Christmas bread with raisins and cinnamon and though there is definitely commercialism it is far less pronounced than American Christmas commercialism.
On Thursday I had several notable adventures, the first of which was a trip to the Postovni Muzeum which is the museum of postal history in the Czech Republic. Iťs housed in a former mill/mansion with paintings on the wall by Josef Navratil, so definitely a beautiful building on its own accord. The official librarian there was thrilled that someone was at the museum, especially a young person, so I got a personal tour of the entire museum, all in Czech. I was, however, pleasantly surprised to realize how much of it I actually did understand. Czech stamps are mighty classy, by the way.
Then I went to Chabad of Prague to pick up my free chanukia, candles and dreidel, because Chanukah is creeping up quickly. They had a nice facility and also a preschool for little kids run in English and Hebrew and naturally the rabbi and his wife knew all the Bay Area Chabad people, so there you have it, small world. There is even a giant chanukia lighting in front of the Rudolfinum next week.
Finally that night there was the baptism for my host cousin Nela, the one born on my birthday. All the extended family showed up at the church where the priest baptized her and then we all had wine and medovnik at the parish house and I played with 2-year-old Emma, who is learning her numbers and makes me super happy because not only is she ridiculously adorable, we are also at a similar linguistic level of Czech, so we understand each other very well.
Yesterday I went up to the castle and saw one of the big cathedrals there and will have to go back next week to get the full tour, because it's sort of crazy I've been in Prague this long and haven't toured the castle, and then went to Petrin where unfortunately the pseudo Eiffel tower was closed but I got to take the lanovka, the funicular railway, back down the hill. And tonight, after working on the paper, a piano concert at the Rudolfinum and maybe ice skating tomorrow (and more working).
Be well.
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