Tuesday, May 25, 2010

We go?

4 days and counting until I'm back in Marrakech

10 days and counting until Kept Man and I are on a plane to Spain (The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.....sorry musical interlude)

11 days and counting until this "adventurous" couple are back in California where they belong and I see my mommy and the cats (cat lady all the way!)

12 days and counting until we have a BBQ with our friends and family

14 days and counting until we spend some time with the Fishers in Redding

16 days and counting until I get to see my sister and future brother in law

17 days and counting until I get to go to a Giants game (where are my crackerjacks?)

18 days and counting until we just can't wait anymore to go to Wood Tavern

19 days and counting until my mom graduates. (Seriously. It's about time!)

21 days and counting until Finer Things Club is reunited (and if feels so good)

25 days and counting until my best friend who I've know since I was five (that's one whole hand people) gets married

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We go now?

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Stop. Reject.

I have not been doing well on keeping up with my short term goals. Pathetic really. And all I can say dear readers is that I am exhausted. You would think that living where you work would be easier, no commute, you can go home for lunch, but really all you end up doing is working more because you just have to walk upstairs and you just want to finish one more thing. And the truth is I like having a commute (a short one mind you) but I need that 20 minutes to wind down, relax and process my day.

Basically I come home, lie down and do not want to move. Kept Man was always good at getting me to go out, to keep me from being a bed potato, but he's off traveling and I'm here in Prague in the hotel room wallowing.

And I want to say Stop. Reject. No wallowing. No depression. Get up and do something. You're in Prague. It's new. It's different. But the truth is that I'm over not having a home. This whole year has been starting off new in two different places and as soon as I start feeling comfortable in one I'm yanked away. I miss having a place of my own. A kitchen. Family. Close friends. A life outside of work. I wish I could look at it as one big adventure. I wish I could not take it all so seriously and just enjoy what I do have. But for the most part I find not being able to plan out my personal life and things I want to do frustrating. I do not like being all about work.

I'm hoping to have some answers about where the rest of this year will be going in the next few weeks. I hope that the rest of this year will be settled in one place or another sometime soon and I hope that makes me happy.

And that is where I am at today. I promise that the next blog will be less blah and more fun. Kept Man and I visited Cesky Krumlov last weekend with some friends and as soon as I can access the pictures I'll be sure to post about the trip. Which is fun and upbeat. Really. I swear.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

A Yummy Little Whale

Kept Man and I have periodically been attending some events here in Prague hosted by InterNations and MeetinPrague. It's been a good way to meet other expats in the Czech Republic and while I was in town on my own it forced me to get out of the hotel and interact with people besides my work colleagues.

A few weeks ago the event organizers posted a 'Secret Dinner' which was limited to under 15 people and was to highlight a lesser known restaurant in the city. The name of the restaurant was not to be revealed until closer to the date. I thought it looked interesting and right up our alley. Food + drinking + limited number of people = good times. We managed to secure a place at the table and then found out that the restaurant was The Little Whale (U Male Velryby) which is right across the street from the hotel and a place I had been telling Kept Man we should try.

I had a bad day Thursday and I almost didn't want to go to dinner but I had been looking forward to the night so I ran out of work 15 minutes before we had to meet at the restaurant, did some speed dressing out of work clothes and into normal clothes, and we headed on over. I'm so glad that we did. The evening lifted my spirits and got me out of the stressful mood I had been feeling all day. The restaurant in a word is YUM. I mean super good, and in my humble opinion it was Wood Tavern good. I can give no higher praise.

The chef is Irish. He said a quick hello, but he could have a rat under his hat whispering cooking techniques for all I cared, as long as everything I ate that came out of the kitchen continued to be lip smacking delicious. The waitress was also wonderful and managed to keep everyone in a larger group very happy. And her husband is from Morocco. Marrakech is always a source of conversation wherever we go.

We had a set menu for the evening. For starters I had the octopus salad and Kept Man had sauteed duck livers. We both had the cod with mash potatoes (lumpy, ah yeah) and a creamy mustard sauce and some sort of crunchy light bread topping for our main course. The steak was also apparently very good which had a side of corn on the cob. And for dessert it was a chocolate torte with brown bread ice cream. Weird right?! But incredibly, it was amazing.

Besides the great food and service we had a great time with the group of people put together by the InterNations Ambassador and we got to know some of the people we had met in passing at these events a little bit better.

Kept Man and I had previously avoided the Little Whale because we found the pricing to be a bit high, but now having gone I can say that it was definitely more than we usually spend during a night out for dinner in Prague but was much less expensive that what we regularly spent at our favorite restaurant in Berkeley. While dining we noticed that the restaurant has a tapas menu and reasonably priced wine by the glass so a sunny afternoon sometime soon we plan to head across the street to sit on the patio and partake in some delicious bites offered from the Little Whale kitchen.

U Male Velryby
Maltézské náměstí 15 | Praha 1 | 420257214703