At Home in Strasnice, Prague 10

We are learning Czech, and I want to teach you about the letter c.  A plain old c sounds like ts.  So our new home is in Strasnitse.  If we put a little hat, or hachek over the c, it sounds like ch.  But ch doesn't sound like ch; it sounds like a hard H.  Remember The Princess Bride, when the Spaniard said "Hello, my name is Emilio Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die."  He said "hello" with a hard h - almost like he was getting ready to spit.  Bread in Czech is Chleb, with the hard H sound.  When I asked for shleb or "ch"leb, they looked at me like I was from Mars.  I have a very bad accent, I guess.  So forget all about Strasnice, and just say we live in Prague 10.  It'll do, even on envelopes.
   We found an apartment we thought we could live in, but it was unfurnished.  We just couldn't imagine the difficulties of finding furniture and schlepping it up to a third floor walk-up.  We found another, a bit small, but furnished, in a remote part of the city.  But we were all set to take it, high fiving each other and everything.  We just wanted to be extra, extra sure, so we went to look at one more place.  And found our home.
   It is on the east side of Prague, a little further out than the expensive "ExPat" neighborhood of Vinohrady.

We are at the blue circle.  The green metro line is just north of us.  The tram line is just south.  But we are on a small, one-way street with little traffic.  There is an open field behind us, but we were warned a new house will be built there over the next 18 months.  That's why we could afford this nice place.  

Our house has the brown roof and white walls.  We are on the upper floor, just under the roof, and have views out three sides of the house.  

Did I forget to tell Bart not to take pictures of my back?  This is taken from our balcony.  We get a great breeze, and hear many birds singing, mainly Mockingbirds.  They sound very pretty.

bedroom - bed almost down to the floor, and almost as hard.  I ordered a memory foam topper from Amazon.DE in Germany.

This is a panoramic shot Bart took with the kitchen in the middle, door on the left to the dining room, door on the right to a walk-in pantry.  

The living room.  Views out over the balcony.  There is a smaller balcony off the bedroom.  Just to the left of this shot is a working fireplace.  We never thought we could afford anything this nice, but we shall see how we feel when the new house construction begins next door!

We moved in on Saturday, May 19.  We were exhausted.  Bart carried 4 suitcases weighing over 45 pounds each down 4 flights of stairs (23 steps to each flight), and then back up another flight to the new apartment.  We hired a van to help with transport because we couldn't imagine getting all that plus small boxes and my bike here on public transport.  The van only cost about $35, which was worth it.  There is a grocery store about 5 blocks away, near the Metro station (Skalka).  We are also near bars, restaurants, and other shops, but none on our actual street, which is nice and quiet.  The landlady lives downstairs, and her 35-40 year old son lives upstairs, and that's it.  

Now in August I'm editing this post to add more pictures, including the construction going on next door in what was originally a lovely open field with small trees, the Fire Dept offices across the main street down where we pick up the tram, a tram schedule for the #22 (we also catch the #26 here), a sunset, and a cement high rise down at the next tram stop that has a Potraviny (minimart) we have shopped at.