Pre-School Activities

What We Did On Our Summer Break

by The Seeleys

The trip to Italy was our big Bells & Whistles excursion for the summer — aside from, of course, moving to Prague. A lot of the early days in the Czech Republic, however, focused on mundane but necessary tasks like setting up a back account, stocking the apartment's kitchen with food and gadgets that weren't provided, getting mobile phones for everyone, arranging internet access, etc., etc. We still tried to get out for some fun by revisiting favorite haunts and discovering new sights for us.

Here is a visual sampling of how we entertained ourselves in the days before the boys' school started.

Went to Wenceslas Square to pay homage to the patron saint of Bohemia ...

St. Wenceslas I, statue by Josef Václav Myslbek

... and to have dinner at Výtopna, where diners' drinks are delivered by train.

After our meal we made our way down to the Lucerna passage to check in with David Černý's Václav statue,

Kůň by David Černý

I wrote a whole post about David Černý on the old blog, which includes a discussion about this horse.

Spent several evenings strolling through Letná, our new favorite park. We loved Stromovka and our proximity to it last time. But Letná is lovely and has some wonderful vistas and cool structures.

Bridges on the Vltava

The Metronome by Vratislav Novak

But, I ask you, was there ever a day as glorious as the day the internet guy came and hooked us up?  The boys can't recall one.

Overwatcher Garrett. Xbox gives G the opportunity to hang out/play with friends from home on the weekends.

Did you read that old post on David Černý? Did you get to the part at the end where I said there was one more sculpture that I really wanted to get to?

I finally got to it. I took the boys, too.

Brown-nosers by David Černý

Before we all start clutching our pearls, let's just talk about this installation a bit. Černý's always been provocative. But while his work is admittedly crass it has some social commentary behind it. As it were.

With Brown-nosers, Černý lambastes former Czech president Václav Klaus and artist/ former dissident Milan Knížák. Černý was no fan of Klaus, and he was very critical of Knížák when he served as the general director of the National Gallery. When you climb the ladder and peer inside, you'll see this:

A video on a loop showing Klaus and Knížák (or actually people wearing masks to depict them) feeding each other slop to the background music of Queen's "We Are The Champions."

We all climbed up and had a peak.

Am I going to post on the internet a picture of my children with their heads in this statue? Of course not.

Ben, capturing blackmail material on his mother.

But feel free to have a good laugh at my expense.

Moving on. 

Spent an afternoon at the Prague bobsleigh, as it's called here. At home we'd call it an alpine slide. 

Found out that there's an outdoor cinema set up at Výstaviště, Prague's exhibition grounds. This is about five blocks away from us on the eastern edge of Stromovka.

We all went and saw Dunkirk on a warm night.

And finally, on the day before school began, the boys got to have fun at a climbing wall not far from us (in fact, right across the street from Výstaviště). 

Ben

G

And with that, summer vacation drew to a close.