tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3354085651060245052024-03-14T18:31:45.288+01:00gustofood. drink. travel. design. music. writing. photography. acting.Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.comBlogger259125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-59553794592770660012020-10-13T14:05:00.002+02:002020-10-13T20:42:51.530+02:00The Swiss Fox, The Big Shoe, And The Famous Tall Mountain<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UdvtBX4Khggpa6vSRVhG7D_mywxEs0M_gOh2NgE4g6OlUO9vEw32ackLptOheSXFhbGohClQUS-WGrOM9VcEAZPKyUvVHgV15WOjhztbgJrSV8l1FJOcsTQT9kiYxAJ26crx4BFmNbc/s2048/IMG_1865.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_UdvtBX4Khggpa6vSRVhG7D_mywxEs0M_gOh2NgE4g6OlUO9vEw32ackLptOheSXFhbGohClQUS-WGrOM9VcEAZPKyUvVHgV15WOjhztbgJrSV8l1FJOcsTQT9kiYxAJ26crx4BFmNbc/w480-h640/IMG_1865.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>Once upon a time, there was a playful fox who lived near a campground in a magical Swiss village. The fox loved to steal people's shoes. The fox stole so many shoes from careless campers that the owner of the campground even put up a warning sign.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijeP4efNuYZdZBLJG0lYK_XHqu3UGFVKvrJdaPuSX87uioc-6XXkrzBTogBIyBWgRTxJf2PIk9HiOzj1rjxbf34v9eu63IScYMcuEJslprm1jz_ZMkB0saKGazh-W8Pi4P47xE_0yD5J8/s2048/IMG_1884.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijeP4efNuYZdZBLJG0lYK_XHqu3UGFVKvrJdaPuSX87uioc-6XXkrzBTogBIyBWgRTxJf2PIk9HiOzj1rjxbf34v9eu63IScYMcuEJslprm1jz_ZMkB0saKGazh-W8Pi4P47xE_0yD5J8/w640-h480/IMG_1884.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">One night, a silly man who forgot about the sign or perhaps had had too much wine left his only pair of shoes under a table outside his rented RV. When the silly man got up in the morning, he discovered that one of his shoes was missing. And that his remaining shoe had been shit in and upon by what looked like a very sick fox.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9pA0N1JKZzFryOWPPkBSZ4uSa5hdz0n1VsCOBxgMbRtEE_vuAgEr-g54GS30dMNBHO2ucQ65nhGSvJk33YAV6WgZqIAh-k69yiGT-nLGPNEE0z2YxU_rnG0T1Bk3RzFq5SX6MMdWzwI/s2048/IMG_0976.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ9pA0N1JKZzFryOWPPkBSZ4uSa5hdz0n1VsCOBxgMbRtEE_vuAgEr-g54GS30dMNBHO2ucQ65nhGSvJk33YAV6WgZqIAh-k69yiGT-nLGPNEE0z2YxU_rnG0T1Bk3RzFq5SX6MMdWzwI/w640-h480/IMG_0976.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">The silly man walked barefoot all through the surrounding farmer's fields of cold, dewy grass, being careful not to step in the scattered mounds of manure, as he searched for his shoe. His feet were cold and wet. The silly man found three other single shoes in the long grass, the footwear of other careless campers, which at first gave him hope. But his hope quickly vanished. His shoe was nowhere to be seen.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">But he did meet a nice cat.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYztEP-Oyr04qE8Pf3Q2zo0KcoIv8it2QnDFN3Nx3uaR6B3GqgKcWlC3pbOnObHJzh0mlfB7knBpnTVgJt4opYcdyVX9txUXD4WCrgqA0NyVSzDa2bnvu9ERUs46la33WBfkxtS6i4BHM/s2048/IMG_1871.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYztEP-Oyr04qE8Pf3Q2zo0KcoIv8it2QnDFN3Nx3uaR6B3GqgKcWlC3pbOnObHJzh0mlfB7knBpnTVgJt4opYcdyVX9txUXD4WCrgqA0NyVSzDa2bnvu9ERUs46la33WBfkxtS6i4BHM/w480-h640/IMG_1871.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">What was the silly man to do?</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">He had big feet and found it hard to buy new shoes, even at home, which was more than 700 kilometers away. He knew that he had no choice: He must take the bus down into the tiny village below and try to find a pair of size 51 shoes (or 15.5 U.S.).</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">His wife kindly cleaned off the silly man's one shoe, and he put a sock on the other foot, and put on his face mask, and took the bus into the village with his family and his dog. He was hoping that no one was staring at his one shoeless foot, but he knew that they were.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRBvTBR2_yt1gfu_BW1Cr343RkUQHxOJy9-kAHpv6k7t5Owhm4ge4mMDEcLylnsJVyefEeSufhmOtQsDmV2uZLKGyg8P2DY3GFFbjWU1pko6ikgsx5Q9P2u6gWaQuTNrwTxhwpm3mhg_M/s2048/IMG_0978.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRBvTBR2_yt1gfu_BW1Cr343RkUQHxOJy9-kAHpv6k7t5Owhm4ge4mMDEcLylnsJVyefEeSufhmOtQsDmV2uZLKGyg8P2DY3GFFbjWU1pko6ikgsx5Q9P2u6gWaQuTNrwTxhwpm3mhg_M/w480-h640/IMG_0978.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">He went into many stores, whose friendly shopkeepers were amused by his story. But they only laughed heartily when he told them the size of shoe he needed. One very nice shopkeeper worked really hard to find some sandals that the silly man could wear.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">Finally, they found one pair that kinda, sorta fit, and the silly man bought those for 30 CHF, because he had no choice. He really wanted to go to the top of the famous tall mountain the next day and knew that he needed something on his feet because there was still snow up there, even though it was August.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8urxQ9I3bk-jyv4zreiVoTh5WJrdWKUxmwl8tFSEx5BsqvEHclVY8_43W5P-DL0Nh3yH0ttO0n1MAeCUiuxHR2IBfelRHBDcPbGSHaDwyAID9xml6kGospIITdr-7rRhOZsEupJw3uYg/s2048/62013635330__134BDB2A-3156-495B-8DB5-26100E749F3F.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8urxQ9I3bk-jyv4zreiVoTh5WJrdWKUxmwl8tFSEx5BsqvEHclVY8_43W5P-DL0Nh3yH0ttO0n1MAeCUiuxHR2IBfelRHBDcPbGSHaDwyAID9xml6kGospIITdr-7rRhOZsEupJw3uYg/w480-h640/62013635330__134BDB2A-3156-495B-8DB5-26100E749F3F.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The last shop in the village told the silly man that they could order a pair in his size from a nearby city, but that it would take 24 hours to arrive. So the silly man said yes. He didn't want to wear ill-fitting sandals for the rest of his trip.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicbSHX7tDSr63KZ8ypoR2ymfN9ER6Vmo2zw-N1aV_aLGnzmNVXP1Av4heCeps5XxCCYoENlXP8Xa5RL790FlKxnGaHgwQRlYJjefEXrdzL14YMNH0NzaED19T7xwDVTm8kKk1aBVMlgmg/s2048/IMG_1925.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicbSHX7tDSr63KZ8ypoR2ymfN9ER6Vmo2zw-N1aV_aLGnzmNVXP1Av4heCeps5XxCCYoENlXP8Xa5RL790FlKxnGaHgwQRlYJjefEXrdzL14YMNH0NzaED19T7xwDVTm8kKk1aBVMlgmg/w480-h640/IMG_1925.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The silly man did go to the top of the famous tall mountain and walk in the snow in his silly sandals, and later that day, when he came down from the mountain, the nice shopkeeper who ordered him some shoes sold him a new pair of size 51s for 200 CHF.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">And that's how a silly man lost a giant shoe to a crafty fox, who is probably living inside it now. With his whole family.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYRgsKj7sETEiGky7NzWUDo5I-g31eQEMzCv0FFk6lrvqi0CFGvXVRbqXamwmwZiGyET-Mr1wAc2BN__Ps91PlHMH2s5qHJVlMcqLdniAhDUuW625YCrRPbE8g6iCS_75DtCvivi4dj0/s2048/IMG_1987.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnYRgsKj7sETEiGky7NzWUDo5I-g31eQEMzCv0FFk6lrvqi0CFGvXVRbqXamwmwZiGyET-Mr1wAc2BN__Ps91PlHMH2s5qHJVlMcqLdniAhDUuW625YCrRPbE8g6iCS_75DtCvivi4dj0/w480-h640/IMG_1987.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div></div>Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-31752904028054761162017-02-05T09:48:00.000+01:002017-02-05T09:53:45.605+01:00Beyond The Basics, Human Anatomy Lab Offers A Bigger Lesson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">The Anatomy Lesson Of Dr. Tulp (1632) by Rembrandt</span></i></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">This essay was published in <a href="http://registerguard.com/rg/news/" target="_blank"><b>The Eugene (Oregon) Register-Guard</b></a> on July 8, 2001. I worked as the features editor for The R-G, after I left Prague in November 1999, before returning, as so many of us do, in August 2001. I think about this experience often and thought I'd share this here on Gusto.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>By Grant Podelco</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">A FEW WEEKS AGO, my wife and I stopped at the Farmers' Market to buy red potatoes, radishes, and baby zucchini for a dinner we were preparing for guests later that day. Then we headed over to the University of Oregon to touch dead people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My wife is going to school at the Cascade Institute of Massage & Body Therapies in Eugene to become a licensed massage therapist. It's an intense, yearlong program and involves the study of everything from anatomy and cell structures to ethics and pathology.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's one thing to be learning muscles from textbooks, peeling back clear plastic pages to reveal layers of tissue and muscle and bone, or to probe for the gastrocnemius muscle under the warm, giving flesh of a fellow student.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's something else entirely to wrap your fingers around the thick ropes of muscle exposed on the calf of a male cadaver and follow them down from knee to ankle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When Deana first told me part of her studies would involve multiple visits to a cadaver lab, I asked if I could go along. When would I ever have such a chance to peer inside the human body? Morbid curiosity got the better of me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">That's how I ended up in Room B75 of the UO's Human Anatomy Teaching Laboratory, surrounded by five moist corpses, each wrapped in cloth and plastic, resting in various states of dissection on stainless steel gurneys. There were 21 of us in that cramped, low-ceilinged room, including 13 students, an instructor and a UO graduate student.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Large charts detailing the inner workings of the human spine and digestive system decorated the walls. A human skeleton hung listlessly in a corner, next to some life-sized mannequins upholstered in exposed muscle, standing near a bin labeled: Used Gloves and Other Dissecting Waste.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We had been warned about the smell, told to bring a change of clothes, that we wouldn't be able to get the odor out of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As our group waited anxiously in a basement hallway of the Onyx Bridge building before entering the laboratory, one student spoke for many when she said, "I'm kinda terrified, actually."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"As long as there's no juice stuff coming out, I'll be OK," another said.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Cascade's pathology instructor, Dr. Marie Freyre, gave us a little pep talk before we went in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"The preciousness of life is a wonderful thing," she said. "That's what you're going to be experiencing today."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Then she mentioned the smell again. "It's going to be intense.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"... Are you ready?"</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's uncommon anymore to come face-to-face with death. Even funerals are antiseptic affairs, the bodies on view well-dressed, their hair combed, cheeks rouged. Seems to me this wasn't always the case, that seeing a dead body probably wasn't that unusual 100 years ago. Before antibiotics and penicillin, it was much more common to wake up one morning and find that a family member hadn't.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There was no rouge on the cheeks of the bodies in Room B75. Some of the bodies didn't even have cheeks. They were naked. Their identities, exact ages and causes of death were unknown.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One male cadaver was resting face down, his nose pressed against the cold metal table. He sported a round metal tag looped through his ear that was stamped with the number 302225. Small plastic buckets hung beneath drain holes on the gurneys, each filled with a cup or so of reddish liquid. A sign dangling from one of the gurneys read: "This Is Gerty" - a playful nickname, something to take the edge off.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">They'd all been dead for six months or more. The smell of the preservatives was sharp, intensely medicinal, but more tolerable than I had imagined.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tesa Brown, 24, a UO master's student in sports medicine, had already been working on a few of the cadavers and introduced us to them, unwrapping them from their shrouds, revealing their grim, pinched faces and opened torsos overflowing with organs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">We inched closer to the bodies, hesitant, keeping a respectful distance from death. Freyre detected our shyness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"It's an experience to open the cadaver and view the human form. That's why we're here," she said. "This is your first lab, so walk around and really get in there."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-size: large;">In the end, we really did get in there, unfurling Slinky-like lengths of intestine, poking the subcutaneous fat exposed on an abdomen, following veins and arteries, limp as shoestrings, down an arm with our fingers, turning loose pages of skin and muscle to reveal the next anatomical chapters hidden beneath.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Everybody take a look at this one," Freyre said, standing next to an old woman's body, her muscles a dark brown, like beef jerky. "The organs are really beautiful."</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-size: large;">It was oddly moving for me to reach inside this woman's chest and cradle her heart -- stiff, heavy, the color of red wine -- in the palm of my hand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I'll remember how it felt for the rest of my life, how for such a small, old woman, it was such a presence in her tiny chest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Morbid curiosity had given way to profound respect. I wondered about the lives these bodies -- these people -- had led, the children they had borne, the places they had traveled, the homes where they'd lived, the birthdays they'd celebrated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I wondered about those they had loved and those who had loved them in return.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I find myself thinking about them often now, and not only for what their sacrifice taught me about the inner workings of the human body, which was considerable. Yes, it's a cliche, but confronting their death has made me appreciate anew the fragility of life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Seeing inside them has helped me to see inside myself.</span></div>
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Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-54567054492056234232016-01-25T16:48:00.002+01:002016-01-27T14:27:34.633+01:00Acting The Part<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>As the Sea Captain. (Photo courtesy of Kaja Curtis</b></span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>)</b></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Boldness be my friend! Arm me, audacity. -- William Shakespeare, "</span></i><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Cymbeline"</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">I</span><span style="font-size: large;">n 2014, I think it was, for one of my New Year's resolutions, I vowed to do something that made me uncomfortable, that I was scared of doing, that frightened me, that took me out of my comfort zone.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I succeeded in accomplishing that resolution, but it took me until the spring of 2015 to do it. And what did I do, exactly? Well, I acted before a live audience in a Shakespeare play, and to say that I was scared is to belabor understatement.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've done a few scary things in my life, or things that seemed scary to me at the time, at least. I wrote my own jokes and went on stage at a comedy club in Syracuse, New York, in the late 1980s; I went bungee jumping in the early 1990s; and I reported from Afghanistan for four weeks in 2002. So it had been awhile since I'd challenged myself in that way.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Daisy and I have become good friends over the past few years with Guy Roberts and Jessica Boone of the Prague Shakespeare Company. Guy is artistic director of PSC and Jessica is co-CEO. They're both incredibly talented Shakespearean actors, and Guy has directed many of the Shakespeare works performed at the historic Kolowrat Theatre in Prague.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Every time Daisy and I would go to a PSC production, I'd always think to myself, "Man, I would love to do something like that." Just a small part, mind you. Just to feel what it's like to act on the stage, to feel the adrenalin rush of coming out from behind the curtain as someone else, to interact with other actors in a situation where there's no Take 2, where it's all live, baby.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I was bold enough to mention my dream to Guy a few years ago. He didn't laugh or dismiss the idea immediately, as I figured he might. I have done <a href="https://vimeo.com/73026410" target="_blank"><b>some acting in a few TV shows</b></a> that have been filmed in Prague, as well as in a number of student films for the Prague Film School, so my idea wasn't totally crazy, but I'd never done live theater. It just seemed too damn scary.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i><b>With Jessica Boone as Viola. </b></i></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(Photo courtesy of Kaja Curtis</b></span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>)</b></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I was secretly hoping that Guy might make something happen someday, but I was also secretly dreading it. What if he <i>did </i>offer me something? Could I act before a live audience? Could I memorize my lines? I'm bad at memorizing things. I suck at foreign languages. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">In the end, Guy did ask me to audition, for Hamlet, back in 2012, but I declined, writing back:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">"There is a part of me that is truly desperate to try something like this. And part of me thinks I'd succeed somehow. (Hubris!) Of course, I have no stage experience, so starting with Shakespeare is probably a huge mistake anyway. But I don't have any Shakespeare scenes or monologues from my past that I could audition </span><span style="font-size: large;">with, and I wouldn't know where to start, frankly. Seems like the Gravedigger would best suit me, but I am confident that you will find someone slightly more experienced than I!"</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I thought nothing more of my dream. I'd turned down the one offer I was ever likely to get.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And then, on January 27, 2015, I received this e-mail:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>"Hi, Grant. I hope this finds you well… How are you? We just had an actor drop out of Twelfth Night and now we have two small roles that we need to fill and thought it would be really cool to get you involved if at all possible..</i></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">We would like to offer you the role of The Sea Captain and the Priest. The production will be directed by Rebecca Greene Udden, the Artistic Director of Main Street Theater Company in Houston, Texas.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">I know this is a bit out of left field but I have seen you act in film clips and you are a good actor and I would love to get you involved with the show if possible.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">So let me know what you think and if you have any questions - thanks so much for the consideration.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">All my best,</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Guy</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Gulp.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>As The Priest, with the amazing Gregory Gudgeon as Malvolio. </i></b></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(Photo courtesy of Kaja Curtis</b></span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>)</b></span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">It had happened. I felt like throwing up. Shakespeare? Me? What had I gotten myself into, for Chrissakes? I can’t memorize Shakespeare!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I kept the offer to myself for a day or so and then mentioned it to Daisy.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">“You have to do it,” she said.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I felt sick to my stomach. I had Guy e-mail me the script. I looked at my parts. They were both small, but bigger than I had ever imagined. But Daisy was right. I could not say no. Or rather, I could not not say yes. I screwed my courage to the sticking place and told Guy I was in.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Backstage with director Rebecca Greene Udden (center), Jessica Boone as Viola, and Guy Roberts as Sir Toby Belch.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Backstage as The Priest.</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And for the next six weeks, I lived and breathed those parts. I dreamed them. I carried my script with me everywhere I went, mumbling my lines to myself over and over as I walked to the metro, while I rode the metro or tram, in my car, in the shower.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And you know what? Slowly, very slowly, and much to my surprise, I did learn them. For example, as the Sea Captain, part of my lines went like this:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>True, madam: and, to comfort you with chance,<br /> </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Assure yourself, after our ship did split,<br /> </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>When you and those poor number saved with you<br /> </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,<br /> </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Most provident in peril, bind himself,<br /> </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>To a strong mast that lived upon the sea;<br /> </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,<br /> </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves<br /> </i></span><span style="font-size: large;"><i>So long as I could see.</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">Pretty cool stuff.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We spent many weeks in rehearsals. I loved every minute of it. I loved seeing how such a big production all came together. I loved being backstage and being made to feel like a real member of the company by the real members of the company. I loved getting fitted for my Sea Captain and Priest costumes. In the end, after a bit of difficulty early on, I even loved dancing in the choreographed number that ended the play. And it was such an honor to be working side by side with Rebecca and Guy and even having scenes with both Jessica as Viola and Jan Thompson O.B.E., the British ambassador to the Czech Republic, as Olivia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And when opening night came and the theater filled with people and it was my time to take the stage, my body was electrified. I was nervous, but it was a different kind of nervous. I </span><i><span style="font-size: large;">wanted</span></i><span style="font-size: large;"> to walk on that stage. I couldn't wait, in fact. It was almost like this was where I was supposed to be.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">I think I did eight performances of Twelfth Night. Yes, I stepped on Jessica's lines at least once, and as The Priest, I must admit that a moment came onstage where I simply forgot what I was supposed to say. I froze. Believe me, I'll never forget that moment. Sheer, abject terror. I looked at Jan and I looked at the other performers onstage (at that point in the play, there are a lot of people onstage), and I looked at the audience, and nothing came out of my mouth. I had rehearsed those lines probably 1,000 times, but when I needed them, they weren't there.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Just the sounds of crickets.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">And then, eventually, after what seemed like five minutes of awkward silence but was probably only five seconds, a few stumbling words came out of my mouth, and then somehow my brain slid back into gear and I picked back up from where I was supposed to be. I was mortified, but was assured that it happens to the best of them. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">In the end, the play was a big hit. And I had accomplished something I thought was impossible.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Fast forward to the end of August, and I get another e-mail:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Hi all,</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">John Poston is adapting and directing a new play for our Artistic Lab series based on Karel Capek's Pocket Stories and we would like to have a gathering of all the cast we hope to be in the show to meet and go over the script.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">If you are getting this email it means we would love for you to be in the show.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Please come to Divadlo Kolowrat on 8 September at 7pm and find out more...</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Let me know if you can or cannot make it.</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Thanks,</span></i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-size: large;">Guy</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And so my second foray into live theater – The Order of the Blue Chrysanthemum (OBC) -- began. I entered into it with as much – or more -- trepidation than I did Twelfth Night, because my part – that of Interior Minister Martin </span><span style="font-size: large;">Bartosek – is HUGE. At least compared with Twelfth Night. Many, many lines.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">But when the final script came in, I had a month or so to prepare, and I did it. I learned my lines. I did something that I didn't think I could do. And we played to three sold-out houses. And if that wasn't enough, Emma, my step-daughter, who wants to be a professional actress and has been in many, many plays at the International School of Prague and at Prague Youth Theatre, is also in OBC. She has a speaking part as a maid, marking her first professional acting gig. How cool is that?!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Rehearsing OBC with director John Poston (right) and Curtis Matthew, not in the Kolowrat Theatre but, just for a few days, in the lovely Divadlo Bez zábradlí.</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Backstage at the Kolowrat with Emma.</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>With John Poston, the director of OBC, who also plays Dr. Mejzlik. </i></b></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(Photo courtesy of Kaja Curtis</b></span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>)</b></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>With John Poston (left), Karel Heřmánek as Pretty Boy, and Sam Barlien as Novak. </i></b><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(Photo courtesy of Kaja Curtis</b></span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>)</b></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>With Peter Hosking (left) as Major Vrzal and Bob Boudreaux as Colonel Hampl. </i></b></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>(Photo courtesy of Kaja Curtis</b></span></i><i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>)</b></span></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you want to see The Order of the Blue Chrysanthemum, we're doing it again this week. It plays January 29-30 at 7 p.m. at the Kolowrat Theatre in Prague, near Mustek. You can find ticket information <a href="http://www.pragueshakespeare.com/event/order-blue-chrysanthemum/2016-01-29/" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>. It's a fun night out at the theater. There's comedy, there's drama, and a few surprises. You won't be bored. And the Kolowrat is a wonderfully intimate venue in which to experience theater.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If all of this weren't enough, I learned that at the PSC holiday party in December (which I was unable to attend), I shared the award for Best Newcomer with fellow Twelfth Night and OBC actor Sam Barlien! Wow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Thanks to Guy, Jessica, Rebecca, OBC director John Poston, Stage Manager Kris Ayers, and everyone in both casts, both in front of and behind the curtain, for making me feel not only so welcome but that I was capable of doing this and not embarrassing myself or the Prague Shakespeare Company. Bravo to them!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I will never forget it. </span></span>Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-7035992142586416772015-10-06T09:21:00.001+02:002015-10-06T09:27:58.462+02:00Photographic Evidence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I know I haven't been spending as much time tending to this blog as I should. No excuses. But here is some photographic evidence that I still care about you, dear Gusto.<br />
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-56091474314916259812015-08-23T21:44:00.004+02:002015-08-23T21:44:30.647+02:00Summer Wine<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-39842005117404549852015-01-25T21:02:00.002+01:002015-01-25T21:02:39.072+01:00Lichen Stromovka<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-63227943734028993752014-11-17T20:09:00.000+01:002014-11-17T20:09:10.260+01:00More Stromovka <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Until I got to know it a little better, I had kinda thought of Stromovka park as a little too wild and shaggy. In my mind, it wasn't manicured enough. It was nice, but it could be so much nicer, I thought. But now that I live close by, and have spent more time there, I've grown to really love it.</b><br />
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<b>Not sure what I was thinking, really. </b><br />
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<b>(You can see more of my Stromovka photos </b><a href="http://www.gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/2014/09/saturday-morning-stromovka-park.html" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a><b> and </b><a href="http://www.gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/2014/10/stromovka-redux.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">here</a><b>.)</b><br />
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-44468499511402337192014-11-17T13:00:00.003+01:002014-11-17T13:08:24.639+01:00World, Meet Sadie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Introducing Sadie.<br />
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We got her in early August, a few months after <a href="http://www.gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/2014/03/it-is-fearful-thing-to-love-what-death.html" target="_blank"><b>our beloved Chicho</b> </a>died. I'm allergic to cats, the apartment seemed incredibly empty without an animal, and the girls had desperately wanted a dog.<br />
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We decided to get a rescue dog. Daisy began following various shelters on Facebook.<br />
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Daisy and Emma were (and still are) particularly taken with French bulldogs, and we ended up finding two (!) who needed homes in the early summer. They lived a few hours outside of Prague in what turned out to be pretty horrible conditions. We didn't really want <i>two </i>French bulldogs, but this pair -- named Lilly and Adena -- had been together for many years and it seemed unwise to split them up. They had a few health problems, but nothing that we couldn't handle. Or so we thought.<br />
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They ended up being too much for our small flat. Their health problems and behavior, combined with our work schedules, made keeping them impossible.<br />
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We felt awful.<br />
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During our quest for a dog, we had met Jana Bednarova from the <a href="http://www.xyzs.org/" target="_blank"><b>XY agency</b></a> in the small village of Vsenory, a few minutes outside of Prague. With nowhere else to turn, we asked Jana if she could take Lilly and Adena. She said she would. We donated a good<br />
chunk of money to her shelter for her kindness.<br />
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We were very happy to learn that, after a few more health scares, both dogs were soon adopted to homes better able to accommodate their needs.<br />
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We can't thank Jana enough or say enough about the work she does there. If you're looking to adopt, please get in touch with her. Or just donate some money. She's a wonderful person, and it's a wonderful cause.<br />
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Our search for a dog continued.<br />
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In July, Daisy saw Sadie on the Facebook page of <a href="http://www.home4pets.cz/" target="_blank"><b>Home 4 Pets</b></a>, another local adoption agency. She had been rescued from an illegal puppy mill in Slovakia that had been shut down. If you don't know anything about puppy mills, they are horrible places where dogs are kept in terrible conditions for the sole purpose of giving birth to litter after litter of puppies so they can be sold for big profits. God only knows what Sadie had been through before she was rescued.<br />
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Home 4 Pets believed she was about 3 years old. She was staying in a foster home when Emma and I first we went to see her.<br />
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She was very shy and very cute and very small (2.8 kilos) and had a very sad face. She was tan and white, with faint, caramel-coloreds wisps across her back. She was, we were told, mostly house-trained. I think I knew the moment I saw her that she was The One.<br />
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Sadie is the definition of a lap dog. If there's a lap anywhere in her vicinity, she'll find it. If you stop petting her, she'll scratch at you until you have no choice but to resume. Give her a treat and she runs around in circles with such delight that all you want to do is to give her another. (One of the reasons she's gained half a kilo since we got her.) She sleeps on our bed at night and during the day, while we're at work, she either snoozes in her own little bed or finds some nook and cranny in a closet somewhere in which to wedge herself.<br />
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Like most chihuahuas, she's very protective of her owners and barks at dogs 50 times her size. She has no idea how small she is. She also hates bicycles for some reason and barks and lunges at them when they whiz by. (We just took her to her first obedience class, run by <a href="http://mujweb.cz/k9dogs/home.html" target="_blank"><b>Alex Van Der Kuijl</b></a>, a dog trainer who also runs a dog hotel. He offers free obedience lessons at 11:15 every Saturday at Letna Park in Prague 7. So far, so good.)<br />
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We love her a lot and hope she's forgotten all about that terrible puppy mill by now.
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<b><i>We took Sadie to Germany a few weeks ago for some hiking. We ended up walking about 8 or 9 kilometers, and Sadie did the whole thing. We found out later than a long walk for a chihuahua is, at most, a couple of kilometers. She was exhausted. </i></b><br />
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<b><i>We gave Sadie a rawhide bone and were quite surprised when she took it out onto our terrace and buried it in a bowl full of dirt that Daisy had laying around from some gardening.</i></b><br />
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-16325529990789060882014-10-03T08:39:00.004+02:002014-11-17T18:59:27.746+01:00Stromovka Redux<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<b>Since we've moved to our new flat in Prague 6, I've found endless inspiration as a photographer in nearby Stromovka park. More in my continuing series.</b><br />
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-60125398201007159382014-09-13T11:11:00.001+02:002014-11-17T19:00:05.273+01:00Saturday Morning, Stromovka Park<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>One of the many nice things about our new apartment in Prague 6 is being so close to Stromovka park.</b>Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-40628818617717612682014-09-07T11:58:00.001+02:002014-09-07T11:59:22.606+02:00Grand Sand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
I took this photograph on Sand Beach in Maine's Acadia National Park in late July of this year.<br />
<br />
Some young Mennonite women were taking photos of themselves in front of the surf on a very foggy day.<br />
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I'm quite proud of it and am going to enter it in some photo contests. Has the look of a Winslow Homer painting, I think.<br />
<br />
I like the juxtaposition of the timeless nature of the setting and the subjects with the fact that they are using a digital camera. I like the arch in the girl's back, too, as she tries to compose her own photograph.<br />
<br />
I took it with my iPhone 4s, believe it or not. There is no filter or any special effects. Just some small cropping.<br />
<br />
Wish me luck.Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-5008807976734436532014-06-01T10:14:00.002+02:002014-06-01T10:14:47.070+02:00What It Feels Like When They Steal Your Bike<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i>The author at Letna with Bike No. 3.</i></b><br />
<br />
<i>My friend Mark Baker wrote this for my other blog, <a href="http://www.praguebikeblog.blogspot.cz/" target="_blank"><b>Grant's Prague Bike Blog</b></a>, but I thought the issue needed as wide an audience as possible, so I thought I'd post it here, too.</i><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>By Mark Baker</b><br />
<br />
I saw a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000002896894/is-this-a-bait-bike.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=VI_HTC_20140528&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=1" target="_blank"><b>great video</b></a> on bike theft recently on "The New York Times" website. According to the video, called "How to Catch a Bike Thief," police in San Francisco have formed a special unit to fight bike theft and employed some creative ideas to that end, including using "bait bikes" to lure thieves, hidden cameras, GPS devices, and social media.<br />
<br />
For me, the most satisfying moment comes at the 1:20 mark, when through CCTV we see a thief make off with a bike, only to be wrestled to the ground seconds later by the police. The head of the bike-theft unit, officer Matt Friedman, chuckles while watching the thief go down hard. Sounds bad to say it, but I could probably watch that moment 50 times in a row and not get tired of it.<br />
<br />
In the past decade or so living in Prague, I've lost at least six bikes to theft (to be fair, two bikes were stolen on trips to Poland, not in Prague). I long ago lost sympathy for anyone who would steal a bike for whatever reason, and would probably go to great lengths to try to catch a thief (even, perhaps, setting out a bait bike).<br />
<br />
<b>Trail of Tears</b><br />
<br />
Many people don’t realize it, but finding that your bike has been stolen can set you off on an emotional roller-coaster ride. There’s the immediate surge of anger you feel toward the thief that actually seems good and healthy. That’s suddenly tamped down, though, by the realization that you’re never going to see the bike again. The prospect of recovering a stolen bike (here in Prague, and just about everywhere else) is nil. There’s no place for that anger to go and what felt like strength in the first moments, starts to feels more like impotent rage a couple minutes later.<br />
<br />
There’s also the frustration (and boredom) of having to deal with the police and insurance company (if you’re lucky enough to have a policy) and all of the fruitless, pointless questions they ask. Make, model, color, serial number (who has that in their wallet?) This is just the start of the process. Where did you buy it? When did you buy it? Do you have the receipt? ("Yes, officer, right here in my pocket."). The police in Poland, on one occasion, even asked me to sketch out the bike on a piece of paper and<br />
identify the angle between the crossbar and the down tube (45°? 35°? 65°??) On that occasion, the police kept me at the station for four hours filing a report -- without the slightest expectation they would ever catch the thief.<br />
<br />
Then there are your friends -- your closest friends -- and their well meaning but maddening inability to understand your predicament.<br />
<br />
Tell someone your bike’s been stolen and instead of sympathy you often get a barrage of questions: "Was it locked?" "Where did you leave it?" "How good was the lock?" "How long did you leave the bike unattended?" It’s as if they’re working on behalf of the bike thief and trying to find holes in your story.<br />
<br />
(As a short aside, if you’re ever in the situation where a friend tells you his or her bike has been stolen, try hard not to make the first question, "Was it locked?" Of course it was locked. Simply say: "Sorry<br />
to hear it. That’s really bad news.")<br />
<br />
Maybe the toughest – and most unwelcome -- emotion is somehow related to the above. It’s the inward shame and nagging feeling that maybe you really did do something to enable the theft. "Of course that lock wasn’t strong enough." "I should never have parked the bike there." "What was I thinking?"<br />
"What an idiot I was."<br />
<br />
All these thoughts run through your mind over and over again, and inevitably lead you to the faulty, messed-up "realization" that somehow you’re complicit in the theft of your own bike.<br />
<br />
<b>It’s Not The Bike Owner’s Fault</b><br />
<br />
Writing all this out now has been therapeutic and helped me to understand why, perhaps, I appreciated that "New York Times" video so much. In the video, Officer Friedman’s moral clarity is rare and refreshing in a way that possibly only a person who has lost a bike can really understand.<br />
<br />
Simply by the way he talks and acts, you can see he knows that it’s NEVER the bike owner’s fault. It doesn’t matter where he or she parked the bike. It doesn’t matter if the lock was strong enough (or even possibly if the bike was locked at all). Theft is theft and honest people should be free to ride and park where they wish, without fear their bike will be stolen. It’s time to ditch the remorse and fight back.<br />
<br />
Hear hear! What a welcome reminder, and I wish him and the San Francisco police department all the success in the world. I only wish now the police in Prague would get the memo (or at least see the video).<br />
<br />
<i>Mark Baker is a Prague-based journalist and independent travel writer. He’s co-author of the "Lonely Planet Guide to Prague and the Czech Republic." He’s been riding bikes in Prague for more than 20 years.</i><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>MISSING IN ACTION</b><br />
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<b><i>Bike 1 (no photo)</i></b><br />
<b><i>White Trek MB</i></b><br />
<b><i>Last seen: Betlemska 1, Prague 1, in 2000</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Bike 2 (no photo)</i></b><br />
<b><i>Black Cannondale MB</i></b><br />
<b><i>Last seen: Cechova 20, Prague 6, in 2002</i></b><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b><i>Bike 3</i></b></div>
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<b><i>White/Black Specialized MB</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Last seen: Lodz, Poland, in 2006</i></b></div>
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<br />
<b><i>Bike 4</i></b><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b><i>Blue Scott MB</i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b><i>Last seen: InterContinental Hotel, Prague 1, in 2007</i></b></div>
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<br />
<b><i>Bike 5</i></b><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b><i>Gold Kona Caldera MB</i></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b><i>Last seen: Ve struhach 22, Prague 6, in 2008</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Bike 6</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Black Kona Caldera MB</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Last seen: Plotsk, Poland, in 2011</i></b><br />
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<b><i>Bike 7</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Blue Specialized Rockhopper MB</i></b></div>
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<b><i>Still have it. For now.</i></b></div>
Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-20989266029728943472014-03-31T22:31:00.000+02:002014-04-01T18:46:41.539+02:00Farewell, Chicho<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i>"It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch." – Anonymous</i></b><br />
<br />
Chicho died next to me on the bed on Saturday as we were both napping in the sun. His last anguished breaths woke me up and I was able to comfort him for a few seconds before he passed.<br />
<br />
I had brought him home from the vet just a few hours before. The doctor had called to say his condition wasn't improving and suggested that it might be best to take him home, where he might feel more comfortable.<br />
<br />
I didn't want him to die in a doctor's office.<br />
<br />
Man, I really, really miss that old cat.<br />
<br />
I'd been a dog person all of my life, but getting to know <a href="http://gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/2009/12/zhenya.html" target="_blank"><b>Daisy's two cats</b></a>, <a href="http://gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/search?q=oscar" target="_blank"><b>and a few other strays along the way</b></a>, changed my mind forever.<br />
<br />
I could write more about Chicho, but I thought I'd let Daisy and Emma have the floor. I thought I'd also share a few photos of Chicho taken over the years.<br />
<br />
Daisy wrote her wonderful eulogy for a Facebook post. Emma wrote hers through her tears as a sort of therapy in the minutes after Chicho died.<br />
<br />
<b><i>From Daisy:</i></b><br />
<br />
We lost a very important member of our family today.<br />
<br />
A few days ago, Chicho became lethargic and seemed to have trouble breathing. After a few unpleasant days at the vet, he came home this afternoon and breathed his last while lying on the bed in a patch of sunlight. Emma and Grant were with him.<br />
<br />
He did purr today, and he also drank out of the toilet. I choose to interpret those things as meaning he lived his life to the fullest to the end.<br />
<br />
Allergies mean Chicho is probably our last cat. Fortunately, he leaves a lot to remember him by.<br />
<br />
A little bit of his history:<br />
<br />
We got Chicho in 1999, when he was a kitten in a cardboard box at a pet market in St. Petersburg. We had already selected a "fancy" kitten, our beloved Zhenya, and they offered to throw in Chicho, a street cat, for free.<br />
<br />
Despite his scrappy origins, he put together a distinguished CV.<br />
<br />
I'm sure he's one of the few cats to take the Krasnaya Strela to Moscow, and he also holds a Russian (cat) passport, which we all know are currently in great demand in Crimea. Named after Salvadore Allende, his name made a graceful transition to the Czech Republic, where it also means "kitty."<br />
<br />
To the last, he enjoyed his hobbies: eating, purring, winking, laser tag, meowing at the crack of dawn, scratching furniture, "thinking" outside the box, and engaging in ostentatious acts of relaxation.<br />
<br />
To anyone who thinks cats are aloof and unloving, I'm sorry you never met Chicho. He loved people, belly rubs, and simply hanging out.<br />
<br />
We're going to miss him a lot.<br />
<br />
<b><i>From Emma:</i></b><br />
<br />
<b><u>CHICHO SINDELAR 1999-2014</u></b><br />
<br />
He was a well-loved pet and a family member. He was loving, hungry, kind, sometimes annoying, and very popular. I’ve never loved an animal as much as I loved Chicho. He’s been around my entire life, since before I was born.<br />
<br />
Sure he could be annoying and nagging, but he was always there for me. He had a good life and a good death. I know that he’s still happy right now, wherever he is.<br />
<br />
He will always be in my heart and always remembered.<br />
<br />
Goodbye forever, Chicho.<br />
<br />
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-72421409610772672152014-01-01T19:52:00.002+01:002014-01-07T06:22:44.946+01:00Images Of Amsterdam<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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We made a return trip to one of our favorite cities recently -- Amsterdam. There's a great photo just waiting to be taken almost everywhere you turn -- from grandmothers riding scooters to some truly bizarre graffiti. Enjoy.<br />
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You can read about a guided bike tour we took outside of the city on my other blog, Grant's Prague Bike Blog,<b> <a href="http://praguebikeblog.blogspot.cz/2014/01/renting-bikes-in-amsterdam.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</b><br />
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Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-23950676782983945132013-09-23T11:27:00.000+02:002013-09-23T11:27:01.700+02:00The Easiest Best Chili Recipe In The World<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-EnKAVEQ8bR4wB5sFePJkBN_ZLgJRs5O-jmZzRAMim3gN3AqYZz_V3MC2kPkDpULRMOHwZc0QPnPzKr7r6U7Ap93KeCiZjZ7cpwbHr340khFzVmx1q3dk79KLV3J4zo24aETiU2QfX67a/s700-h/DSCN1897.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5178701079826727378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-EnKAVEQ8bR4wB5sFePJkBN_ZLgJRs5O-jmZzRAMim3gN3AqYZz_V3MC2kPkDpULRMOHwZc0QPnPzKr7r6U7Ap93KeCiZjZ7cpwbHr340khFzVmx1q3dk79KLV3J4zo24aETiU2QfX67a/s700/DSCN1897.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">The world needs the recipe for Grant's Mom's Famous Chili.</span><br />
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<i>(Editor's Note: I just made this chili again, for the umpteenth time and it turned out great, as always, and thought I'd repost this entry from way back in 2008 for those who missed it.)</i><br />
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Everyone loves this chili.<br />
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My mom made it quite often when I was growing up. We'd always crush saltine crackers over the top for the final touch. I use Jacob's Cream Crackers now, since you can't buy real saltines in Prague. (Robertson's sells Cream Crackers.)<br />
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There's just no way to screw up this chili, and it's versatile enough that you can add (or subtract) anything you want from it.<br />
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You can add more meat, or make it half ground beef and half ground pork, or take out the beans, or just add one can instead of two, or spice it up with more chili powder. I've even poured a few shots of bourbon in for a little extra kick.<br />
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It's also very simple to prepare. Open a few cans, chop an onion and a couple of peppers, and that's it.<br />
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It always comes out tasting great, and is the hit of any party I bring it to. I always bring home an empty pot.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;">GRANT'S MOM'S FAMOUS CHILI<br /><br />2 pounds ground beef or beef/pork, give or take (or around 1 kilogram)<br />1 or 2 large onions, chopped<br />1 or 2 large green peppers, chopped<br />1 or 2 cans kidney beans<br />2 large cans chopped tomatoes<br />2 or 3 cloves of crushed garlic (or garlic powder) to taste<br />salt and pepper, to taste<br />1 package premixed chili con carne spice mix</span><br />
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Place beef in big pot and add 1 cup of water (about .25 liter). Stir beef to remove lumps. Add other ingredients. Stir it up.<br />
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Cook on low heat for 3 to 4 hours until done.<br />
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Add extra chili powder when finished, to taste. But be careful, a little goes a long way.<br />
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Enjoy!Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-3798476956410346042013-09-08T14:58:00.000+02:002013-09-08T15:04:52.967+02:00Why We've Gone On Vacation To Brela (Croatia) For 10 Years In A Row<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i>At Obala, one of our other favorite dining spots. (2013)</i></b><br />
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After 10 years in a row of vacationing in the same house in the same village on Croatia's ridiculously gorgeous Adriatic coast, people often ask us how we ended up in tiny Brela.<br />
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It was the late summer of 2003, not long after we started seeing each seriously, and Daisy and I were looking for somewhere to travel to together that Emma, her then 3-year-old daughter, would also enjoy.<br />
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Asking around, Daisy heard from a work colleague about a little place about 20 minutes north of Makarska, an hour of so south of Split. It had apparently once been <i>the</i> place to go on holiday for Yugoslavia's elite. And we were fascinated by the idea of going to Croatia. We'd heard many wonderful things.<br />
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<b><i>One of the many idyllic beaches along the six kilometers or so of shaded promenade in Brela. (2013)</i></b><br />
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Shortly after that, we stumbled across <a href="http://www.forbes.com/2003/07/10/cx_cv_0710feat2.html" target="_blank"><b>an article from "Forbes"</b></a> that listed the world's 10 most beautiful beaches, and a blue-flag beach in Brela was among them -- listed first in Europe and sixth in the world.<br />
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Brela it would be.<br />
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I stopped by the Anagram bookstore behind the Tyn church to buy a Lonely Planet guide to Croatia, hoping for some tips on where to stay and what else to see. As I recall it, the cashier noticed my purchase and asked me about my trip. I told him about the "Forbes" article and mentioned Brela. He lit up. He knew Brela, had some sort of connection to it. Maybe he was Croatian. My memory is a bit fuzzy.<br />
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<b><i>Daisy and Emma in 2003, our first year in Croatia.</i></b><br />
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What I know for sure is that he immediately made a call to a travel agent friend of his, told her about us, and instructed her to find us a place to stay in Brela that would be right on the beach. I stopped by her office a few days later and picked up a voucher that we would present to a travel agency in Brela, who would show us to our flat.<br />
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We flew to Split, rented a car, and drove the 75 minutes or so south to Brela along a dizzying two-lane cliff-hugging coastal highway that afforded sweeping views of the Adriatic across to the islands of Brac and Hvar.<br />
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<b><i>The kids in 2008 (top), 2012 (middle) and 2013.</i></b><br />
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(After the first two years of renting cars, we realized that the car was mostly sitting unused while we spent the days on the beach, so we've since hired a taxi to pick us up and take us back to Split. We did use it to drive to Dubrovnik those first two years, which was great, but now we're content to just stay on the beaches in Brela.)<br />
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To make a long story short, we had such a wonderful time that first year that we've gone back to Brela every single year for the past 10 years and have stayed in the same house on the same beach. (And no, I'm not going to reveal our secret spot. Even writing about Brela makes me nervous, as if I'll somehow ruin it by doing so.)<br />
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It turned out to be such a perfect vacation for families with small kids that we invited our dear friends to join us. The second year we were there, Stewart and Kathleen Moore joined us with their two boys, and they've been back every year since. A year or two after that, Momchil Blagoev and Tanya Kancheva joined the group with their son Victor, and they haven't missed a year since.<br />
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<b><i>Brela sunset.</i></b><br />
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We've also had various family members and friends join us for our usual two weeks in paradise. Quite a few other friends, hearing our stories, have also gone down to Brela on our recommendation and had a blast. A few of them have also returned to Brela for a few years running.<br />
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Even though they're all teen-agers now, to suggest to the kids that we pass a summer without a visit to Brela would be to utter the unthinkable.<br />
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I have this image in my mind that Brela looks and feels much like the French Riviera must have in the 1920s. Unspoiled. As yet undiscovered by the teeming masses. The beaches -- made up of small white rocks, not sand -- are clean, the water clear and inviting. There are no multistory hotels scarring the landscape. The restaurants are reasonably priced, the food simple and delicious. The local beer is crisp and cold, and the white wine exceedingly drinkable. The Croatian people are friendly and welcoming.<br />
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If you know what's good for you, you'll get yourself to Brela next year (or even this year, as September is a fantastic time to visit). Just don't spoil it for the rest of us.<br />
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<b><i>Doing what we do best.</i></b><br />
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<i><b>Stewart and Kathleen.</b></i><br />
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<b><i>Momchil and Tanya.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Heading to dinner with Stewart and Kathleen (2013).</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Happy together (2013).</i></b><br />
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<i><b>Every year, the men wake up early and walk along the coast to the nearby village of Baska Voda, which has a fresh fish market. We buy a mess of fish and bags of fresh green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes, onions, and corn and have a barbecue on the terrace that night back at the house.</b></i><br />
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<b><i>Also a tradition is that after we've bought the fish and vegetables, we retire to a nearby cafe for a few beers to reward ourselves for our early morning labors. This year, the first beers were served at 7:53 a.m.</i></b>
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<b><i>One of our special restaurants in Brela, Ivandica Dvori, which requires a free taxi ride to get to, but which has wonderful food and fantastic views across the sea. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Tanya and Momchil getting to know each other on the way to dinner. We had a big group and seats were hard to come by in the free taxi to Ivandica Dvori. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Fried smelt. So good.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Each year, we love to take the yellow "speedboat" ride to the island of Brac. This year, on our way back, we spotted a pod of dolphins. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Stewart and Kathleen on the speedboat on the way back from Brac. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Momchil looking cool, on the lookout for dolphins. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>A harborside scene in Pučišća, on the island of Brač. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<i><b>Brač, which is famous for the white stone quarried on the island. The White House in Washington is made from </b><b>Brač stone.</b></i><br />
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<b><i>Brela sunset. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>The kids got to navigate their own paddleboat this year, sans adults. This photo captures the moment when Stewart passed along a box of pizza for them to enjoy on the water. No wonder they like coming back. That's the life! (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>The gang, including Stewart's mother, Mabel, who's joined us in Brela for the past four years or so.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>A big plate of mussels at Arca. The bibs were new this year.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Emma and Daisy, stylin' on their way to dinner.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Dinner at Obala with Tanya, Momchil, and Victor.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>They are growing up so fast.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Hot dogs, no fish, for the kids on barbecue night.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>A rooftop in Brela. It's said the clay tiles were originally formed by shaping them over the thighs of the muscular male kiln workers.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>This view of Brela probably hasn't changed much in the last 50 years. </i></b><br />
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<b><i>Brela sunset.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>A Renault 4 GTL, built in the 1960s or '70s in what was then Yugoslavia, now Slovenia. Still ubiquitous on the streets.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Still life at the beach.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Yes, that's what the water really looks like.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Croatian prosciutto, melon, olives and roasted hazelnuts. And of course a cold beer.</i></b><br />
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<b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>We were eating at Arca and noticed this cat who had decided to use the tented ceiling as a soft bed. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Kamen Brela, or Brela Stone, the symbol of the village. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>At Arca, one of our favorite restaurants in Brela. They treat us right there. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Brela. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Brela. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>I was sitting on the beach when the fruit boat arrived. This family stepped right up. I couldn't resist taking their picture. You see small kids running around naked all the time on the beach in Croatia. Many women go topless. It's a far cry from the Jersey shore.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>A view of the Adriatic from the six-kilometer promenade, shaded by old pines, that runs along the entire Brela beachfront, one of the many things that makes the village very special.</i></b>
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<b><i>When we think of the food in Croatia, this is what invariably springs to mind first: grilled calimari.</i></b><br />
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<i><b>This year, for the first time, we decided to drive the 12 hours or so down to Brela, so we could stop along the way at Plitvice Lakes National Park, a couple of hours north of Split. The drive was long, but we'd heard so much about Plitvice that we just had to see for ourselves. Well worth it. (2013)</b></i><br />
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<b><i>At Plitvice. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Plitvice. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>At Plitvice. (2013)</i></b><br />
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<b><i>A waiting area in our cool communist-era hotel at Plitvice. (2013)</i></b>Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-19503168411657864012013-08-22T11:31:00.002+02:002013-08-22T16:30:29.223+02:00Restaurant Review: Grazing Daysi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i>Roasted carrot and beetroot soup.</i></b><br />
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I want to tell you about a lovely little restaurant that is hidden in a corner of Divoká Šárka. You probably haven't heard about it, even if you follow the latest restaurant comings-and-goings in Prague. It's called Grazing Daysi and its motto is "Eat Your Best, Leave The Rest." It's a vegetarian restaurant run by a charming Brit named Gary Wright, who's also the chef.<br />
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The restaurant is on the northwestern shore of Džbán, the small lake on the edge of Šárka. It's housed in a building that Gary told me used to be the home of one of Prague's most famous butchers, during communist rule. Then it became a disco until that, too, closed.<br />
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It's an odd place for a butcher, a disco, or a restaurant, to be honest. You can't really drive to the restaurant, and it's a bit of a walk from the nearest tram stop. But I think it's worth it. Much of the restaurant is open-air, with long lace curtains billowing in the breeze, and tables recycled from old wooden pallets, and when the weather's nice, as it has been, it's a beautiful spot to relax and enjoy some delicious, and healthy, food, prepared and presented simply.<br />
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As the <a href="http://www.grazingdaysi.cz/" target="_blank"><b>website</b></a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/GrazingDaysi" target="_blank"><b>Facebook page</b></a> describes it:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Family-friendly vegetarian restaurant passionate about healthy,
seasonal, nutritious food cooked with love, insight and attention. <span class="text_exposed_show">We are using preservative-free, colouring-free, additive-free ingredients, organic and local where possible. </span>Grazing Daysi doesn't use white flour, white sugar and processed food. We provide gluten-free, dairy-free and egg-free options.</i></blockquote>
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The menu changes daily (the restaurant's only open Fridays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.), so it's hard to recommend specific dishes. The only thing I can say with certainty is that when you go, make sure you order the soup. Let me repeat: Whatever soup is on offer, order it. Gary is a master. The other day, I had a bowl of rich roasted carrot and beetroot soup that was to die for. On a previous visit, a carrot and sweet potato soup was also heavenly.<br />
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As for main dishes, we've enjoyed black and urad dal with green tomatoes and rice or chapati, as well as chapati rolls with cucumber raita. While tasty, I've found the main courses to be a little bland. I'd prefer a bit more oomph, but they're likely cooked to appeal more to Czechs, who are not noted for their love of spice.<br />
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<b><i>Chapati rolls with cucumber raita, and a cold bottle of Matuška California. </i></b><br />
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For dessert, a vegan fruit crumble hit the spot, but I didn't finish a very generous portion of gluten-free tapioca pudding with strawberries. Again, rather bland and not very appealingly presented. Grazing Daysi also offers an assortment of ice creams and sorbets -- some made there, most from a small local Prague creamery -- that are worth saving room for.<br />
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Prices are around 90 CZK for the soups and 200 CZK for the main courses. Desserts range from 55 CZK to 65 CZK.<br />
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In addition to the vegetarian fixings, Grazing Daysi also serves fresh juices, homemade lemonades, and a variety of teas, some very drinkable Czech wines, and, most importantly, beer from the celebrated Matuška brewery, whose California Pale Ale is one of my all-time favorites. A small bottle is 64 CZK.<br />
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The restaurant also offers regular Kids Days, with all sorts of activities aimed at the little ones.<br />
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Grazing Daysi is a unique spot. And I'm very lucky to be able to walk to it from where I live. But even if you have to take a tram or a taxi, check it out. Combine lunch with a walk through the park. And if you're feeling brave, pay a visit to the nude beach just down the shore. You'll be feeling good about yourself, after all, for having chosen such a healthy restaurant.<br />
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<b><i>Carrot and sweet potato soup.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Black and urad dal with green tomatoes and chapati and a fresh salad with pumpkin gomasio.</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Vegan and gluten-free tapioca pudding with strawberries. </i></b><br />
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<b><i>Fruit crumble.</i></b><br />
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-7556971681710110952013-07-25T13:15:00.001+02:002013-07-25T13:15:57.383+02:00My Small Collection Of Old Radios<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq5pg-UfMzw8K3hx8XW_kRcrtwHAjXDOVFUAF6dhka-zlwyAOy-z50fQ4TEZnQ4SvJwYNkricdkSAJ7p3H5dt0Jj8-U2Lg_ktqDv71p4M35BUdMm9RrNjyZywzt7RbJhFmFCNb34yjosE/s700/radio1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq5pg-UfMzw8K3hx8XW_kRcrtwHAjXDOVFUAF6dhka-zlwyAOy-z50fQ4TEZnQ4SvJwYNkricdkSAJ7p3H5dt0Jj8-U2Lg_ktqDv71p4M35BUdMm9RrNjyZywzt7RbJhFmFCNb34yjosE/s700/radio1.jpg" /></a></div>
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I collect old radios.<br />
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I'm not sure what it is about old radios that I find so
appealing. The design, for sure. I'm an Art Deco fan, and radio designs from
the 1930s seem to encapsulate all of Art Deco's elements in a miniature little
package.</div>
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There's also a romantic attraction to all the foreign cities often
listed on the dials. And the idea that families used to gather around these
radios to listen to the news or serials.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I should say that I <i>used</i> to collect old radios. I haven't
added to my collection in awhile, although I've certainly come across quite a
few wonderful specimens in antique shops here in the Czech Republic. It pains
me to pass them by, but I simply don't have any place to display them.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I thought I'd share my small collection here. I don't really
know anything about them, other than their brand names. Two of them are
Philcos, one is a General Electric, and the big floor model is a Silvertone.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I'd be happy if anyone knows anything else about these
models.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-63806435355605375722013-07-07T13:09:00.002+02:002013-07-07T13:13:50.352+02:00A Gamble That Paid Off<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0kelKpm-rC8RvR0mHcFSEsRMdSRQckFP-oyZeznrpOiQ0NVtIw3REwVdeNgC24ZeHi-89TYRSczAxDihJ6OhsCYLo5uMNuaV28fxcuD7j9_v9c54AsNO-XilKcZVuTU9Yi8oldb-AHvs/s700/painting.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0kelKpm-rC8RvR0mHcFSEsRMdSRQckFP-oyZeznrpOiQ0NVtIw3REwVdeNgC24ZeHi-89TYRSczAxDihJ6OhsCYLo5uMNuaV28fxcuD7j9_v9c54AsNO-XilKcZVuTU9Yi8oldb-AHvs/s700/painting.jpg" /></a><br />
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Daisy and I used to spend a lot of time hanging around the Casino Grand in Brno. We'd watch gamblers come and go, see them win some and lose some, and when they looked to us, two regulars, for advice, about whether they should hold 'em or fold 'em, as they inevitably did, our expressions would remain inscrutable.<br />
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Way back in 2002, our good friend, the multitalented artist <a href="http://wineink.blogspot.cz/" target="_blank"><b>Stewart Moore</b></a>, used Daisy and me and another friend, Jennifer Lau, as models for a commission from the Casino Grand. He painted three massive portraits, all of a rather fantastical nature, incorporating sentences from a text on gambler's giveaways, a "Book of Tells," if you like.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjRZruY6_cBbJgtiyk8CkfX_impaIuiID-bMfl8BZJEaNB8Kfy0hhW0UlGMhbyuFeUfU3YxpS45DRqLJoLleawzx3_ElGFet2PCYzTnfrDAUPoGq1DbhqVElElkXUphWzvCJk9tkIRMw/s700/paintings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyjRZruY6_cBbJgtiyk8CkfX_impaIuiID-bMfl8BZJEaNB8Kfy0hhW0UlGMhbyuFeUfU3YxpS45DRqLJoLleawzx3_ElGFet2PCYzTnfrDAUPoGq1DbhqVElElkXUphWzvCJk9tkIRMw/s700/paintings.jpg" /></a><br />
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<b><i>The paintings as they looked when they were still hanging in the Casino Grand</i></b></div>
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Daisy and I always thought it cool that our likenesses were hanging in a dark casino in the Czech Republic's second city. We even went down to visit them one time many years ago. And we always wondered what might become of those paintings once the casino was through with them. Would they be bricked up behind a new wall, sold to the highest bidder, or blanketed in bubble wrap and put into a dark warehouse somewhere?<br />
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A few months ago, on a whim, I wrote to the casino to inquire about the paintings, not really expecting an answer. But as luck would have it, the operations manager wrote me back, saying the paintings were in storage after a casino refurbishment a few years ago. And they were for sale.<br />
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After a bit of negotating, we agreed on a price, and the three paintings were delivered to our Prague 6 flat.<br />
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Now, as I said, the paintings are huge -- 285 centimeters by176 centimeters, to be exact. That's 9 feet 4 inches by 6 feet. I wondered whether they would even fit through our front door, let alone whether we could find a wall on which to hang them. Totally impractical, but totally cool. There was no way we <i>couldn't </i>buy them.<br />
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Turns out they fit through our front door, but not up the staircase to our top-floor flat. The delivery guy and I had to hoist them by hand up a just-big-enough slot between the stairway and the railings. But we managed to get them into our apartment, where they now sit, sideways, since, indeed, we don't have a wall big enough to hang them on.<br />
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We're not quite sure what we're going to do with them. Stewart says they can be removed from their backing frames and rolled up quite easily. He can even cut them down to a smaller size and reframe them, although that seems a shame. We may be able to hang them in a future flat that we'd like to buy.<br />
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The portrait of Jennifer is quite wonderful, too. She's playing the accordion. But I don't want to remove it from its bubble wrap before she comes to pick it up and I can't find the photo I took of her portrait when it was still hanging in the casino.<br />
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Hopefully, I can update this blog post with a photo at some point in the near future.<br />
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<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-1262169273026565112013-06-21T17:47:00.000+02:002013-06-21T17:48:00.642+02:00Seeing Savages In Prague<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I first heard of Savages after reading a profile of the band in "The New Yorker" a month or so ago. I checked them out on iTunes and liked what I heard. I bought their album, "Silence Yourself," and fell for it. Hard. It's raw, driving, splintery, with great hooks. Each instrument -- guitar, base, and drums -- is clear, distinct, and urgent in the mix. And I love lead singer Jehnny Beth's voice, even if I can't quite make out what she's singing about most of the time.<br />
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Last week, I was doing a casual check on the web to see if Savages were touring Europe anytime soon and discovered that they were the opening act for Portishead in Prague on June 19. I had no real desire to see Portishead, but there was no way I was not going to go to see Savages.<br />
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In the end, I paid $70 to see an opening act. I left the Portishead show after two songs. Just not my thing.<br />
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But Savages, my goodness. They came on precisely at 8 p.m. and played a blistering 40-minute set. The crowd at that point was sparse and I was able to easily get right up front. (That's my photograph above.) I'm not sure any of the folks standing around me had ever even heard of Savages before, although they seemed to enjoy the show.<br />
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It was a perfect night of rock 'n' roll.Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-36240304840972298922013-06-06T19:31:00.003+02:002013-06-06T19:32:12.795+02:00Waiting For A Sign<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I love cool signs, especially if they're written in cool fonts. Here are a couple more to add to my Gusto collection (just search fonts, if you're into that sort of thing). I found these up at Barrandov Studios in Prague.<br />
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I like the hip Soviet-looking 1960s graphics in the No Smoking sign above. The sign below basically asks for quiet, as filming is going on.<br />
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Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-19695752008104888012013-06-01T11:12:00.001+02:002013-06-01T11:12:34.208+02:00Oscar Lives<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Daisy met a little ghost the other day on a bike ride.<br />
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Down to the black eyeliner, this Únětice fellow on the left was the spitting image of our late, great Oscar (right) from one
village over in Černý Vůl.<br />
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The resemblance is uncanny. As if the new guy was Oscar reincarnated.<br />
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We're so glad to see the bloodline lives on.
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You can read more about Oscar <a href="http://gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/2013/01/king-oscar.html" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>. It's full of links to all of my other blog posts about this cool cat.Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-39437301625050003192013-05-29T17:30:00.000+02:002013-07-09T13:20:23.400+02:00Eating And Drinking (And Spending) In Oslo (UPDATED)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><i>At Bar Boca</i></b><br />
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In March, Daisy and I took a trip to Oslo -- our first -- to catch one of our favorite comedians, Louis CK, in concert at the Oslo Spektrum. The show was fantastic. It was very impressive to see Louis come out, stand alone on a bare stage under a single spotlight, and make 8,000 people laugh for 90 minutes nonstop.<br />
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<b><i>My doppelganger, Louis CK</i></b><br />
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Of course, while we were in Oslo, we ate and drank in some cool places.<br />
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Daisy's a big fan of the Harry Hole books by Jo Nesbø, so we checked out a few of Hole's watering holes, including the Underwater Pub and Restaurant Schrøder. The former was very cool, all dark wood and cozy little tables hidden in nooks and crannies. We happened to be there on a Thursday night, when professional opera singers come in and perform for free. The latter, however, was a bit of a letdown. The atmosphere was nonexistent and the food just passable. Of course, we ordered Harry's favorite dish: stekt flesk og duppe (slices of fried bacon, mashed turnip and boiled potatoes). Not sure what he sees in it, but what are you going to to? At least it was reasonably priced, by Oslo standards.<br />
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<b><i>Stekt flesk og duppe</i></b><br />
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<b><i>The Underwater Pub</i></b><br />
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We also enjoyed a few expertly made cocktails at tiny Bar Boca in the hip Grünerløkka neighborhood and enjoyed shooting the breeze with the manager, who was behind the bar mixing drinks and making a fresh batch of raspberry syrup from scratch. I liked that place.<br />
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<b><i>Making fresh raspberry syrup at Bar Boca</i></b><br />
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We also enjoyed a few pints at a bar and jazz joint we just happened upon called Herr Nilsen at C.J. Hambros Plass 5, right in the center. It was a warm and welcoming place and seems like a fantastic club to see some live music.<br />
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Our best meal of the trip was at a restaurant called Von Porat in the Mathallen indoor food hall, which I'd read about on a blog called the <a href="http://www.nordicnibbler.com/" target="_blank"><b>Nordic Nibbler</b></a>. The Nibbler described it as a restaurant that "serves no nonsense modern Norwegian food made from local ingredients. It's the sort of restaurant that Oslo has needed for a long time – simple, honest, and above all tasty food that won't break the bank."<br />
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We weren't disappointed.<br />
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<b>(UPDATE: I just received an e-mail from Von Porat that reads: "We regret to inform you that von Porat restaurant will be closing its doors due to the imposibilty to bear future economical challenges." Achhhh!)</b><br />
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Ivan Zednik of Von Porat (the place is named after a Norwegian heavyweight boxer from the 1920s) told me that the restaurant tries its best to use only locally grown produce and present the possibilities that are hiding behind the Nordic climate, which is quite challenging due to the long and cold winters. The restaurant also prides itself on its vegetarian options.<br />
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"Our vision and goal could be formulated as new Nordic gastronomy where season, simplicity, and clean taste stand in the center of our focus," Zednik says. "We like to add that our modus operandi is to buy from local and small producers and show that Norway and the entire north has much more to offer than snow, darkness, and oil."<br />
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<b><i>The Mathallen food hall</i></b><br />
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Our meal started with flat bread with creme fraiche, dill and salmon roe, followed by a salad of beef cured with fennel seeds and sugar and served with pickled vegetables, raw beet root and smoked butternut squash puree. Then it was a dish of cod served with kale cooked with apple vinegar, and served with potato and steamed mussels, and then another course of turkey breast poached in milk and turkey leg confit, served with sauteed parsley root and pickled and sauteed Jerusalem artichokes. Dessert was exquisite: coffee ice cream with toasted salted almonds, accompanied by a meringue with a biscuit crumble and frozen dried black currant powder.<br />
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We liked the atmosphere of the place, looking down as it does from the mezzanine on the bustling market. And for what you get, it's a reasonable price. Our meal, including drinks, came to about $250 (although I was shocked to see that the bottle of Saison beer from the Nøgne microbrewery that I ordered with my main course and which was recommended by the waiter ended up costing me $22.50).<br />
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Yes, $250 for two is a reasonable price for a nice dinner in Oslo.<br />
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Let me just say that Oslo is the most expensive place we've ever visited. A pint of regular old beer is around $13. I had a regular old hamburger at an outdoor cafe in Grünerløkka that cost me $30. A cocktail at Bar Boca is around $20. You just have to laugh and hand over your cash if you're traveling to Oslo.<br />
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The best bargain of the trip may have been our double at the Radisson Blu Scandinavian Hotel. Our top-floor room had a panoramic view of Oslo, including the distant Holmenkollen ski jump, and was around $150 per night, which included a magnificent breakfast. The hotel was also, conveniently, the last stop for the bus we took into town from the airport.<br />
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Oslo has a great vibe. Lots of young people sitting outside at fashionable cafes in the sunshine, even when it was below freezing; a nice city park; a developing waterfront; great culture (including a magnificent new opera house); and good food and drink.<br />
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I'd like to go back in the summer, when it must be a different place. For now, we've tasted Oslo, and it tasted good. Just be expected to pay through the nose for a bite of it.<br />
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<b><i>Flat bread with creme fraiche, dill and salmon roe</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Salad of beef cured with fennel seeds and sugar and served with pickled vegetables, raw beet root and smoked butternut squash puree</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Cod served with kale cooked with apple vinegar, and served with potato and steamed mussels</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Turkey breast poached in milk and turkey leg confit, served with sauteed parsley root and pickled and sauteed Jerusalem artichokes</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Coffee ice cream with toasted salted almonds, accompanied by a meringue with a biscuit crumble and frozen dried black currant powder</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Bar Boca</i></b><br />
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<b><i> Restaurant Schrøder</i></b><br />
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<b><i>Being serenaded at Underwater</i></b><br />
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<b><i>A $30 hamburger in a cafe in Grünerløkka </i></b><br />
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<b><i>Oslo's impressive $700 million opera house on the waterfront</i></b><br />
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<b><i>The Underwater Pub, one of Harry Hole's watering holes</i></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCbNa4iNV6X7wa_2i509plpfDf1Fw67O-52OAdAqUKUHu6DElCnOomgXAwrW8eou6JhDqgrx8sABYsBfI60ZVE4aS2fpf10vTaUwu8byhT8U-je4RZE6hlWyZjXHz0kLAlOXfcnAFJSzI/s700/DSCN7718.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCbNa4iNV6X7wa_2i509plpfDf1Fw67O-52OAdAqUKUHu6DElCnOomgXAwrW8eou6JhDqgrx8sABYsBfI60ZVE4aS2fpf10vTaUwu8byhT8U-je4RZE6hlWyZjXHz0kLAlOXfcnAFJSzI/s700/DSCN7718.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><i>At Herr Nilsen (that's about $25 worth of drinks there)</i></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUJzhOWtmvY7OopHvNqkAzH2kSEc5f7irpKydR_SXHhGCceMMwKQoRnMGgsckuQlBh2JsJGCIL1OCFVBDw12Bgjh2rMe0FHs3z91ec-YR_v1-6JDY6SVIzbH2hXMhje582T8P_zaurEHw/s700/DSCN7719.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUJzhOWtmvY7OopHvNqkAzH2kSEc5f7irpKydR_SXHhGCceMMwKQoRnMGgsckuQlBh2JsJGCIL1OCFVBDw12Bgjh2rMe0FHs3z91ec-YR_v1-6JDY6SVIzbH2hXMhje582T8P_zaurEHw/s700/DSCN7719.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Inside Herr Nilsen</i></b><br />
<br />Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-17093860400142987632013-05-29T09:15:00.003+02:002013-05-29T09:16:52.539+02:00Country Of Cool Fonts (Continued)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw4wyaSZgZnpCHg7eXIoN1DVoBq-EEp5lF1O4hGbZtbXQlSZqbGq1LrsPmqPoQIsgtasHgE7RP57Ij9wnGOC4zgKcM0RNIxmT2e9t5_3MzXlduSsYeW1VCvchxBgBmOOHZ6IzVkBGGijw/s700/photo+(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw4wyaSZgZnpCHg7eXIoN1DVoBq-EEp5lF1O4hGbZtbXQlSZqbGq1LrsPmqPoQIsgtasHgE7RP57Ij9wnGOC4zgKcM0RNIxmT2e9t5_3MzXlduSsYeW1VCvchxBgBmOOHZ6IzVkBGGijw/s700/photo+(1).JPG" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxzCdnc4kTwWRX0gMCqlJFiZsBkBZNGKL2A-rkPsXuIqDxjsRidUvU7rm3zhZxCH-qXFFPNtufQ9_Hw1EucWwW9ngQTcJ21gFJHzlHsCAk9Vmxo42hIdX3ResREo3wFSmq-j3ZpR33Xyg/s700/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxzCdnc4kTwWRX0gMCqlJFiZsBkBZNGKL2A-rkPsXuIqDxjsRidUvU7rm3zhZxCH-qXFFPNtufQ9_Hw1EucWwW9ngQTcJ21gFJHzlHsCAk9Vmxo42hIdX3ResREo3wFSmq-j3ZpR33Xyg/s700/photo.JPG" /></a></div>
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More in my series of old Prague signs written in cool, seldom-seen (or never-seen) fonts. Somebody's got to document this stuff.<br />
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See more in this series <a href="http://gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/2012/01/fascinated-by-fonts.html" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a> and<b> <a href="http://gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/2010/09/country-of-cool-fonts.html" target="_blank">here</a></b> and<b> </b><a href="http://gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/2012/04/font-tastic.html" target="_blank"><b>here</b> </a>and <b><a href="http://gusto-blog.blogspot.cz/2010/10/cool-fonts-continued.html" target="_blank">here</a></b>.Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-335408565106024505.post-14112371770771432232013-05-14T09:35:00.000+02:002013-05-14T09:35:46.738+02:00Let's Ride<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1NrCZFRSAkHb7MFL85IiMngVTQo7TnEO3VVWbFIUzlBPDVmRGrdVbo5P-WqdpXkR3V2esq9JAjKNSFEH9x4-W7yfxIg30EQkQCC3Jn9UZ5a9uV50aFz9i6QFZSbwesdUIOqTAnAvvCks/s700/honda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1NrCZFRSAkHb7MFL85IiMngVTQo7TnEO3VVWbFIUzlBPDVmRGrdVbo5P-WqdpXkR3V2esq9JAjKNSFEH9x4-W7yfxIg30EQkQCC3Jn9UZ5a9uV50aFz9i6QFZSbwesdUIOqTAnAvvCks/s700/honda.jpg" /></a></div>
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My Honda Shadow 600 on a beautiful spring day.Grant Podelcohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14046561738258645391noreply@blogger.com0