New Year's!

We had considered going into the city of Prague for New Year's Eve. Surely watching fireworks over the Charles Bridge and Prague Castle would be magical.

But, like New York, New Year's in Prague is crowded, expensive and cold.

Supposedly fireworks are sold to anyone and thus you've got drunken commoners lighting those suckers up in the streets, and with my luck, aiming them for my eye. Firework in the eye? No thank you!

So, after much debate, we have decided to spend this New Year's - our 11th together! - in Vojokovice, at David and Lukas' house (originally Andy's grandfather's house). We will drink wine, eat food that Hanka and Katka are making, play poker and have a great time.

Happy New Year!

Who Am I??

Because I have so much time on my hands lately, and because it's cold out, I have found myself reading about blog writing.

You know, you find some websites that say, "Do you want to write for a living? Earn money writing your blog!"

Hey, I think. That sounds great. I mean, who wouldn't want to write for money? I want that. Or just know that someone other than my mom reads about my thoughts and daily adventures?

So, because I want to make easy money, I read on. A big step in all this is promoting your blog - getting it hooked up to sites so that it will come up when people, like me, are looking to be entertained by some stranger's goings-on and such.

So, in my signing up for these sites, I find myself faced with a problem.

My dilemma: I don't have a proper name for my blog.

It's hard to find one because I don't have an angle. I don't write focused on food or travel or crafts or parenting. It's just me.

I started writing the blog to entertain myself and any bored friends. When we came to Europe it seemed an easy way for friends and family to keep in touch and know what's going on with me. That's all fine and good, but...a name?

I'm really bad at trying to think of things like this. Like my handwriting, or my blog background, I choose something great, for a while, but soon want to change it. This probably means that I'm manic or psychotic in some way. Whatever.

I asked Andy for help and he was useless. Thanks, Andy. For nothing.

In my search for a blog name, I used a random word generator online. It made me think of when I was in high school and we were trying to think of names for our band (that never really happened), pairing random words together like (examples, not real) "Citizen Shitball", or "Angry Tampons" (grrrl band?).

Regardless, here's some words it generated, and why they didn't work for me:
Bigotry - duh
Stick - this just doesn't feel like it represents me in any way. I don't really do nature, nor am I really skinny
Utterly - makes me think of cows
Con - I am not a con-man
Oddly - I don't think I can live up to this, I'm not *quirky* enough
Naturally - this sounds like some nudist or "not so fresh" thing
Cowbell - I think of one thing only - "More Cowbell!" And I'm not Christopher Walken
Frankincense - Christmas blog? I am not a wise man

I found some words that were good, though. I'll think about it and should be naming this blog soon. Don't be scared when it doesn't just say "allyn allyn allyn" anymore.

Prague Christmas

Christmas in Prague was wonderful - on Christmas Eve morning Andy and I went with his parents to the cemeteries to put flowers and candles on his grandparents' graves.
We came back home, hung out, ate yummy yummy fish soup for lunch, then watched a movie. David, Lukas and Katka came over and we did dinner - fried carp, potato salad and Christmas cookies. Here, presents are exchanged on Christmas eve, which I'm not crazy about, but it was nice and fun. We had a good time.









On Christmas morning we woke up early and went to Prague, to St. Vitus Cathedral, which is in Prague Castle, for mass. Yes, it was all in Czech, but it was very pretty. Sadly, I have been totally spoiled by my little modern American church and didn't realize that because I was in a real church, old and stone, that I'd be freezing. Oh well, it was still beautiful and lovely.

We returned home, and I spent several hours talking to my family and Edith.
It was a great holiday! Click here for pictures, including many of the Christmas carp!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! After Christmas I'll post some pictures and exciting details of my first Czech Christmas...

as they say here in Prague, Veselé Vánoce!

StumbleUpon

If you're like me and sometimes want to see new websites or blogs to entertain you, you should try StumbleUpon.

Basically, you fill out a little profile and click boxes about your interests, and then you just hit the stumble button and it brings up a different website/blog each time, based on what you enjoy reading about. Then you rate it and as you rate more, the picks become more specific to your liking.

This is something I've been doing for several days now, "stumbling" around, and reading a lot of interesting stuff, like lists of unusual deaths, or medical experiments conducted by the US... fun, heartwarming stuff like that.

Anyway, I'm telling you about this because I've added these little buttons at the end of each post here, and if you think I've written about something that other people would enjoy, click on it. That will make my blog come up for others, if they are interested in something, like, say, travel. Or food. Or something.

Thanks!

Glitz Rocks!

It's cold out and we are staying in. Therefore, I have lots of nice time to play around with free things to make my blog fancy, and you can't get more fancy than glittery strands of glitz. I love my new background. It's the little things that make us happy.

And speaking of things that rock - I hear my least-favorite person on Gossip Girl - Aaron Rose, Serena's stupid artist boyfriend - won't be returning. Hooray! My prayers have been answered!

What's on my mind today

-Getting a driver's license once I come home (Yes, I'm 30, BUT I'm a New Yorker - don't judge!).

- Getting a job (thus the need of the license to drive my sorry self to work... I'm reminded of the end of my favorite movie, "Goodfellas", Henry Hill's last line - "I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook." That's exactly how I feel after this work-hiatus I've been on. Oh well.).

- Why it took me so long to watch "The Wire" (We finished season 2 last night and are trying to hold off on downloading anymore before the christmas gift of an itunes gift certificate comes floating it's way over here... SUCH a good show!)