Sometimes perfection has to take a holiday

Praha z Letné

Originally uploaded by uruque

I’m kind of trying to figure out how to connect my flickr account to my blog in a way that makes sense, so enjoy this picture, there might be more coming :)

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Ich habe es (nach drei Wochen – gefühlten drei Monaten) endlich geschafft, ein paar neue Fotos auf Flickr hochzuladen, und irgendwann werde ich sicher auch mal lernen, wie man Bilder aus dem Fotostrom hier bei Wordpress einfügt.

After about three weeks (felt three months), I finally managed to upload some new pictures on Flickr (why’s everybody using Picasa anyway???), and at one point in the future I might even learn how to integrate Flickr’s photostream into Wordpress.

Dorts gibts ein paar mittelmäßige Fotos von einem Ausflug in die frisch zugeschneite Stromovka, von der Nachweihnachtsfeier von Magda & Martin in Tisnov und Umgebung und ein Ausflug ins winterliche Prag.

There, you’ll find some medium quality pictures of a trip to Stromovka park under a fresh, nice and clean snow coating, the trip to MaMaJaLu (Tisnov and surroundings) and a trip through winterly Prague.

Im Zuge des letztgenannten Ausflugs waren wir auch endlich im Teehaus U zlatého kohouta, das sehr nett ist und – praktisch im Winter – über einen offenen Kamin verfügt. Der Tee war auch gut, das Teegebäck auch, allerdings war die Bedienung etwas komisch.

In the course of this last mentioned trip, we also finally managed to pay a visit to the tearoom U zlatého kohouta, which is very neat and, very useful and cosy in winter, got a open fireplace in one of its rooms.

The last week was a bit annoying – I learned that I have to become a VAT payer, which, even though it is normal in the rest of Europe, is a catastrophe in the Czech Republic. I think it is quite telling that most people who have to become VAT payers according to the new Czech VAT law don’t actually know about it.  It is also interesting that – and I really don’t pretend that I understand what I am writing – you have to become a VAT payer if you send an invoice to someone in another EU country who is in this country a VAT payer (i.e. basically everyone), but – because logic is not on our side – you don’t invoice the VAT, because it is an EU-international transaction and therefore you just don’t.
Anyway, before I realized this, I had a little fun in Moravia – I borrowed Ondrasek’s snowshoes and went on a little walk with Martin (see here).

And I also found out that Magda’s cousin has a daughter that looks like the Dalai Lama :)

Today it became clear what exactly this police tape meant… So I suggest you don’t park in our street.

Yesterday, I went to watch the new Sherlock Holmes, and, not unsurprisingly, I liked it (it’s got Robert Downey Jr. in it). The only thing that spoilt the experience was the fact that the film broke of five minutes before the end (some technical defect, it seems), and the choleric guy in front of the  entrance that screamed at the poor guy that seemed to be in charge and couldn’t do anything about it.  Anyway, after ten minutes we got back in and saw the last five minutes, though I have to admit it would have been better to end the film with the scene where it broke off.

Also, the other day I watched The Prestige with Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman and Scarlett in it. That’s another one you should watch, and I think I’m getting a bit obsessed with movies. Not good.

But at least I’m back to a two phase climbing training programme (plus a dreadful ten minutes of training every day to improve my body muscle structure or whatever it is I am suffering for), and I can now (with only minor difficulties) play a Malaguena theme. I also seem to remember how to say “ocean” in Japanese (very useful if you want to say “I don’t eat saltwater fish, thank you very much, but I will have some of that delicious tuna nigiri over there :)), and Lenka’s back from Chile.

I also wanted to complain that all the snow is melting, but it just started to snow (Marcial, do you want me to send some over to you? :)), so I’ll keep my digital mouth shut and want you to imagine all those wonderful iciles on the roofs of Prague, which you recognize by the police tape or other obstacles (mostly Christmas trees) right under them, or by the fire brigade in front of the house trying to take them down – not so easy if it is frozen to one of the cables hanging from the roof and leading to the ground floor, I suppose.

(And this post is what happens when your New Year’s resolution is to post on a more regular basis, plus lazyness to write everything twice, plus reading China Miéville’s Iron Council.)

Nach aufregenden Wochen ein paar frohe Nachrichten:  Ich habe es endlich geschafft, die Japan-Bilder online zu stellen, und außerdem einen natürlich supertollen Artikel über tschechische Filme nach 1999 zu schreiben, den ich nach seiner Veröffentlichung vielleicht auch hier verlinke. Bis dahin ein paar Empfehlungen, welche tschechischen Filme man sich nicht entgehen lassen sollte (die Reihenfolge ist zufällig):

I finally managed to upload my Japan pics to Flickr, and I wrote a wonderful article about Czech cinematography after 1999, maybe I’ll even post a link here after it’s been published. As it is in German, you will have a lot of fun with it :). Meanwhile some suggestions for you, if you want to expand your knowledge (or are bored), and the order of the movies mentioned is completely random:

• O rodičích a dětech (drama)
• Nejkrásnější hádanka (Märchen/fairy tale)
• Karamazovi (drama)
• Vratné láhve (Komödie/comedy)
• Český sen (Doku/documentary)
• Rok ďábla (Komödie/comedy)
• Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále (Literaturverfilmung/literary)
• Samotáři
• Hórem pádem

Und wenn wir schon dabei sind, hier noch meine All-time-Favourites/And while we’re at it, these are my all time favourites:

• Limonádový Joe
• Pelíšky
• Adéla ještě nevečeřela

und noch ein paar mehr, an die ich mich gerade nicht erinnere/and some more that I don’t remember at the moment.

Aber um zu den wichtigen Dingen des Lebens zurückzukommen: Die Festivalsaison beginnt demnächst. Hat jemand Lust auf WFF? Beim Graspop kommt irgendwie nur dummes Zeuch, hab ich den Eindruck. Ebenfalls einen Gedanken wert wäre Wacken, da scheint es noch Karten zu geben (und es kommen Slayer!).

But to come back to the important things in life: Festival Season is on soon. Is anyone interested in going to the WFF? At Graspop, there seems to be only weird stuff. Wacken would also be worth a thought, there seem to be tickets left (and Slayer’ll be there!).

Und übrigens, wie im Rest Europas wohl auch, liegen hier 40 cm Schnee!

Oh, and as in the rest of Europe, there are 40 cm of snow here!

This is what I was told by Ondra (follow this link only if you have strong nerves), and I think he was right. But I don’t think I’ll go deeper into that right at this moment, I just want to apologize that I haven’t written anything for quite some time – I think I start to hate my computer, which is why I try to spend as little time as possible in front of it, and unfortunately, this is no “quality time” (i.e. I spend it playing stupid facebook games or watching cheap US serials instead of doing something worthwhile).
From this, I learned that it does not make sense to promise anything, but I think, at some point in the near future I will upload some pictures from Japan (which is, by the way, a great place to eat so much that you’ll explode and still want more, and if you like temples and shrines, it is perfect for you too).
Anyway, I really enjoyed this.

Ich fahr gleich nach Japan, vielleicht werd ich es ja zwischendurch schaffen, mal was zu schreiben….

I’m off to Japan now, maybe I’ll manage to blog something on the road…