Category: in czechia

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birdwatching in czechia weeknotes

weeknotes, 17/26

this week had 2 highlights! first, me and the boy celebrated 20 years together, if you can believe it! <3 we had a nice pasta + tiramisu dinner and then watched when harry met sally. :) i mean, 20 years…!! what a brilliant adventure this has been.

this week’s other highlight was a quick solo trip to czech republic to meet a dear friend! we’ve been talking online for years, but had never actually met, and so it felt like it was time. lately, i feel like this might be the best reason to travel: just go and hug the people we care about. i don’t know if it’s because i’m over 40, or maybe because i feel the phantom threat of alzheimer’s on the horizon (made much more real by seeing how dementia robs us of our loved ones)… it’s probably a bit of both. it feels like the universe is always telling me there’s no better time than this to get out there and do things with the ones we love — so i try to listen sometimes.

i packed my stuff into a tiny ryanair-sized suitcase and flew across europe on a friday to spend the weekend with my friend D, and it was just lovely. we spent most of our time walking, talking and birdwatching. my phone battery died halfway through the day and i didn’t care one bit. i came back home the next monday with a huge smile on my face, ready for whatever.

plus, the country is just gorgeous, of a greenness that feels unreal to us southerners. rolling hills and thick forests where deer (and ticks…) roam. grilled cheese and gingerbread snacks. you can pay with cards or apps everywhere, and it’s so smooth that you barely even notice you’re using a different currency.


traveling alone also makes me brave, somehow — the more i get out there and prove to myself that i can do things on my own, the more i believe it and want to do more. so it was a very good week. more of this, please!

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in czechia postcrossing

meet me at starbucks

some years ago, starbucks was doing a campaign about people or groups that met in their shops regularly, all around the world. somehow, they found about postcrossing meetups sometimes taking place there, and invited us to shoot a mini-movie about it.

we were a bit skeptical (not to mention, camera-shy…), but in the end it was a cool experience — we assembled a group of nice postcrossers from prague and sat around, sipping coffee and talking postcards for the afternoon. like they say, good things happen when we’re together! :)

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in czechia stationery sundays

stationery in prague: papelote

though it definitely has its perks, living in a quiet little village in the south does present some challenges… like the complete lack of nice stationery shops nearby. this might be a blessing for my wallet, but it’s also a curse for a paper-and-mail aficionado like me. which is why these days, i tend to go a bit overboard on the paper purchases when we find ourselves interesting places! :) i wanted to write about a few of the things we brought back from our recent trips, because some of these make me really happy, and maybe some of you will enjoy them as well.

so, first off, prague! on our last day in town, we walked by papelote, a small stationery studio and shop, which turned out to be a highlight of the trip. far from being an ordinary stationery shop, these guys take paper to a whole other level, designing products that are familiar but with a twist, making you take a second look and wonder.

anyway, enough of the poetry… off to the bounty!

Papelote

their mail-related items were some of my favourite. i’m a big fan of aerogrammes and other small mail formats, and was quite happy to discover they have a whole line of beautiful photographic aerogrammes, with different black-and-white motives. (why are the normal aerogrammes so boring?)

these were part of their writing set, which also included cartographic postcards, a brilliant island-letter (which i liked so much, i ended up using before i got the chance to photograph it!), as well as a pencil, writing paper and a letter opener.
Papelote

we also couldn’t resist their spiral notebooks, and ended up bringing back a couple, plus a very handy elastic band which has been a comforting addition to my traveling kit. i can never pick just one writing utensil to travel with me, so it’s nice to have something which can hold a few of them simultaneously — but not toooo many.

the little dots à la leuchturm and the pleasing texture of the paper on the notebooks made me very happy indeed.

Papelote

papelote’s love for paper is obvious in all the things they do, so i’m looking forward to our next trip to prague, and to see what they will come up with next! :)

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in czechia postcards postcrossing

the czech postcrossing stamp

we were in prague at the beginning of the month for the czech postcrossing stamp launch. this was a very special stamp for us: for the first time ever, we were given free reign to design something from scratch — no questions asked. of course, with it came a huge responsibility… how do you convey the idea of postcrossing on such a tiny rectangle?!

well, the task to translate postcrossing into images fell on the shoulders of our friend maria, and she more than delivered!

we’re so pleased and proud of how this one turned out! the concept is there, perfectly illustrated: writing, sending and receivng… a never-ending flow of postcards, connecting the world from hand to hand! :)