Michael Carøe Andersen

Category: Living in Prague

  • Thanksgiving in Prague

    Turkey!
    Last post was about Halloween, this post is about Thanksgiving and I should have made a post a week ago about the people of USA electing Barack Obama – what a historical moment! A lot of America going on I guess :)

    Kathleen’s parents from Long Island, New York were travelling Europe and stopped in Prague for a weeks time. Kathleen and her parents decided to throw us an early Thanksgiving Dinner (although it should have been the last thursday of November). We were very thankful anyways and had a great evening with amazing food. So as the tradition goes the dinner is a true palette of flavours. There were turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, beans, sweet potatoes, cauliflower with cheese and apple something. (Click the image below to see what is what) 

    Digging in

    After eating too much of the very well prepared meal the Renehan’s dished out with pumpkin pie and apple crust pie – more yummy stuff.

    Pumpkin pie

    I think I counted 18 people in the small flat with people sitting on cusions all over the flat. The limited space just made it that much cozier and I think everyone had a great night.

    People hardly had time to look up
    Hermann cracking jokes
    Let me tell you something funny

    Many thanks to Kathleen, Dan and Ann for their friendliness, delicious cooking and sharing this great American tradition with us.

    See the rest of the photos from Renehan’s Thanksgiving in Prague.

     

    Lat time I had Thanksgiving was three years ago when Femi, Chris and I went on the road from Michigan to North Carolina. Back then I was blogging in Danish but google does a decent job at translating it to English:

    • Thanksgiving Road Trip part I: read in Danish or English
    • Thanksgiving Road Trip part II: read in Danish or English


  • Halloween in Prague

    Its been two years since I last attended a Halloween party. So I was quite excited about this years celebration. I went as a viking and had found most of my gear at a thrift store.

    Me, the Viking

    We where a bunch of people from MeetInPrague that went out together. We started out with a couple of drinks at a bar and then headed on to theMonster Ball party.

    Kathleen in her little plane is probably my favourite this year.

    Kathleen in her airplane

    See the rest of my pictures from the night on Flickr.

    Update Nov 4th: Prague.tv has uploaded pictures from their photographers Ian Bull, Milk Shejk and Elle Driver. And it looks like the picture used at the City Beats post about Monster Ball are with my horns :)

  • An update

    It’s eerily quiet on this blog these days. It’s been a month since Ive updated it so about time. Well, its not a lack of events thats kept me from posting, so let me give a brief update.

    IMG_5330

    After I went home from London, we moved into a new apartment in Zizkov. Nice new apartment, closer to town and an interesting neighbourhood. I will have to make a full post later about Zizkov the neigbourhood. Zizkov is a lot of things but one thing you cant get away from is the ugly, yet fascinating TV tower from doom that is visible from everywhere in Prague.

    Crawling on the TV Tower, Prague

    Soon after I moved in Mulle, a friend from bording school who I ran into on Facebook earlier this year, came to Prague. Him and a friend had decided to drive down here for a weekend to party. I decided to go back to Denmark with them. It had been quite a while and my grandfarther is not doing so well.

    Back in Denmark I covered a good amount of ground. Went to see my grand parents who are in good spirit but old bodies.

    With my dad I went to the German border where hundreds of thousands of starlings gather for a couple of weeks to feast before their long migration to North Africa. At dusk they all gather and make wonderful patterns before they settle in for the night.See more of my dads pictures.

    Black Sun
    Black Sun

    The phenomenon is called Black Sun and there is a couple of nice videos on youtube.

    After that I went up to visit Majbrit, Magnus and Mogens – sis and family in Odder, visited my mother who was on vacation, and hung out in Ã…rhus with Christian, Rasmus and my cousin Rikke.

    From Ã…rhus I took the train to Berlin. I had never been there before so decided to make a day stop over to see the place. Cool city I must say – will return some day

    Brandenburger Tor

    Soon after Ann came to Prague :D Its nice having her closer this year – although it is hard to classify London as close. She stayed for four days where we went to IAESTE Day 2008 at the universities where we did a presentation on what we have gained from IAESTE. We also went out with my uncle Geert and Elin and her daughters Elisabeth and Majbrit and their husbands who was on vacation in Prague.

    Ok that was it for now. I hope it wont be another month before the next post

  • Ann in Prague

    Ann stayed with me in Prague for a week and it was great having her back here in Prague where it all started exactly a year ago.

    One of the first days here we went on a hiking trip with a bunch of people from MeetInPrague (an online event group for people in Prague). We took the train to a station in the middle of nowhere and walked to the ruins of Okor – a medieval castle and later on to the Rotunda in Budec where the Czech national figure Wenceslaus is suppose to have grown up.

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    We went to Prague Zoo with Michael and Sarah some German friends of mine. We spend about two hours there but only covered about half of the huge park. We will just have to come back another time.

    Ann and the giraffes

    Afterwards we went out and met up with Christoph and Sue who recently went to Malta.

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    For Anns birthday we went out to meet Jakub and Martina, some of her colleagues from her work in Prague.

    Dinner with Jakub and Martina

    For the cooking of the day I had consulted Mikkel The Happy Cook and made pancakes for breakfast and pork tenderloin for dinner.

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    Dead early the next day we took the flight to London. Ann is going to do a PhD within the Centre for Sustainable Heritage at UCL.


  • Prague 40 years ago

    Praha today and in 1968

    I took the image above at the central Wenceslas Square in Prague today. The poster in the bottom right is from 21st of August 1968.

    There was an attempt by the Czechoslovakian communist party to do Socialism with a human face and reform the country. But today 40 years ago tanks from Soviet and other Warsaw Pact countries intervened and rolled into Czechoslovakia and successfully crushed what is known now as the Prague Spring.

    Helge and Pavel have written more on the Prague Spring and Pavel provides a level-headed reflection from a Czech on the events:

    I look opon socialism with a human face and Dubceks reforms with the same distance as people in the West look upon hippies. […] The political messages during Dubceks time was also on thin ice – socialism and democracy, sovereignty and friendship with the Soviet Union, democracy and a one-party-government. A true Czech stew dish of everything. Prague Spring as a fight for freedom is a myth. (my translation)

    Read their original post on Prag Foråret or an English translation.


  • 1 year in Prague

    Sunset over Belohorska
    I just realized that 1st of June it has been a year since I arrived in Prague. Time flies and I must say I have been positively surprised by many things about this city and the people I have met here. One thing that is very appalling is my Czech though. When I came I thought I would take language courses and learn some of the local lingo, but I must admit I gave up on that pretty quickly and have resorted to my English, German, a few Czech words and the international language of hand gestures and body language.

    Last week I met with a fellow blogger, Al from the family blog Tischlers in Prague. After having lived in Prague for almost two years the Tischlers are moving back to Minnesota. I have been following the blog and their trips in and around Prague (and around Europe) since before I arrived in Prague so it was great to meet the man behind the words. Al has been working for Radio Free Europe in Prague while they have been building their new headquarters. He had great stories of his time in Saudi Arabia their life in Prague and filled me in on the New Wave music in general after we went to a museum on the history of the rock music in Czechoslovakia in the 80ies.

    We met in a small beer garden very close to our apartment for a couple of beers. Al got photo documentation and posted it here. Its always a pleasure to meet other bloggers and Im glad I caught Al before they went back home. I wish the best for the three of them.


  • Prague beer prices

    Working in Prague

    The good guys of the Prague search site Nelso has made an invaluable resource for people on the hunt cheap beer in Prague. The beer price heatmap shows the prices on beer at more than 250 bars in Prague. As I understand the underlying technology they have used a meteorological predictions based on the points to create the map – very cool. I guess that is also why all of Letna Park is expensive because of the 90czk beer at Hanavsky pavilion.

    Prague Cheap Beer Map: Jedno pivo prosim!

    By the way – the sweaty beer on the picture is a 0,5L Staropramen at 59czk from Cafe Savoy which puts it in the red.

    There is also a Danish edition for Øl i Prag.


  • Sunday Walk In Prague

    Yesterday I grabbed my camera and started walking. I ended up walking from our apartment to the city center. A trip of about 7 km that took me all afternoon.

    Hover the mouse on the pictures to get explanations of the pictures – or click on them.

    Colorful houses in Brevnov, Prague

    Rundown house in Prague 6

    Front of Strahov stadium

    Prepping mini bikes

    Old soccer game

    AGRH

    Under the arches

    Minogue poster at Strahov

    Path in Kinsky Garden

    Prague seen from Kinsky Garden

    Prague Castle through a gate

    Winding path

    Wuf

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    March 11, 2008

  • Asian weekend

    Nina was doing an internship in Prague over the summer and came back for a visit this weekend. First we went to Sapa a Vietnamese market in the southern part of Prague.

    Lunch at Lotus

    We went there for lunch and to do some food shopping for the nights dinner. I was about the only one you didnt know any Asian. At the table here is from the left; Rie from Japan, Petra a Czech who is on her way to do a PhD in Japanese/Korean collaboration in Tokyo, Dominic a British journalist who has lived in Vietnam, Nina from Germany who is taking Japanese lessons, Christoph a German/American who has lived in Japan and speaks Japanese and finally Sue from Korea.

    Entrance to the Vietnamese market Sapa in Prague

    Sapa is a fascinating place. It started out in some old abandoned warehouses and has grown into a community with kindergarten, hairdressers, travel agencies, insurance companies and of course shops that sells (copies of) clothes, toys and crap.

    Saturday ended with a nice Japanese dinner by Rie and Sue and some beautiful flower tea.
    Flower tea - looks beautiful and smells nice


  • 19 degrees in Prague today

    I just want to send a warm greeting to the people of Denmark today as they are stuck in the gray, windy and wet winter :P Here in Prague the spring peaked out today with 19 C and clear skies. Here’s a picture from the park by Brevnov Monastery just 5 minutes down the road from our place.

    The park by Brevnov Monastery

    Update: “March ducks” arriving to Prague in February.