Dobry Den from Prague!

While Todd went to London for his writing course, Kathleen took off to Prague to catch up with some good friends and meet some new additions to their families. This photo is of Marcela and her two daughters, Anna and Barbora at a monastery not too far from Plzen in the Czech Republic.

Sechselauten

"Sechselauten" - or six bells. The series of events taking place this weekend in April are meant to symbolize the end of winter and the coming of summer. It is a unique celebration to the city of Zurich and has reportedly been around for over 600 years. Besides the parades, the big climax of the festivities is the "burning of the Boogg" or a cotton wool snowman filled with firecrackers. The snowman (which is usually over 10 feet high) stands on top of a wooden pyre (12 feet high); once the bells of St. Peter church chime six o'clock (in the evening), the pyre is ignited. When the head of the snowman explodes, winter is considered to be officially ended. The shorter the time from ignition to explosion, the sooner summer is to arrive. It's kind of like Groundhog Day except with a lot more pyrotechnics involved. In our case, the Boogg burned in almost record time -- in a little over 10 minutes! Lucky for us. Say what you will about myths, but the summer has been long and hot so far!

Davos: More than just the home to the World Economic Forum and Angelina Jolie Sightings

Known as the "Magic Mountain" and the focus of Thomas Mann's book of the same name, Davos was our final ski destination. We went there two weekends in a row, in fact. It was that good. In addition to the World Economic Forum, Davos is famous for being one of the highest ski areas in Switzerland, so snow stays around for a while. Which was good for us, considering we hit slopes there at the beginning and mid weeks of April. The skiing was great, and we were fortunate enough to share the experience with Rolf and Valerie, two other American expats, one of the weekends.

The town of Davos, on the other hand, was not necessarily one of our favorites. Other than the Freitag flagship store, of course. Freitag, for those who don't know, is a Swiss brand which evolved from two bike-riding designers who decided it would be so cool to have messenger bags made from big rig truck tarps. Their designs became so popular, they now manufacturer much more than just the standard messenger bag -- we recently saw punching bags made from the tarp. It is seriously a cool product: it's recycled, so it's great for the environment; and it's hip -- it is featured at NYC's MOMA. Todd had one made with his own selection of tarp or the "It's Your Fault" bag. Check them out if you have a chance: www.freitag.com. And no, we aren't paid to advertise for them. Just ask Steve Boness, who is also a big fan. What's not to love.

But back to Davos. Highly recommend it: great skiing - some of the longest runs we've ever done, and great on-piste bars - some of the best sunning areas we experienced. And no, for those who are wondering, no Angelina and Brad sightings. Alas, 3 months too late.