handblown by yours truly

drumroll please...

now.  fair warning, these are no dale chihuly!  glass blowers start with three years of school and many years of apprenticeship to follow.  however, with some major assistance from some brave professionals, i was able to create these masterpieces (which now accessorize my apartment)!

blow

remember that trip i took to the czech republic? 

i spent most of my time there learning about the art of glass blowing.  i even got to give it a go myself.  check me out in action!

 our first day!

 this is seriously hard work, lots of multi-tasking to keep a mass of molten glass from falling off the end of the stick and blowing it into a piece that will look good!  the beginning part is key to how the rest of the piece will turn out... mess this up and well... you have to start over!

 once the blowing is done, then there is a series of manipulating the shape to be what you want, which is a process of using tools, reheating, and repeating until you decide its done, no exact science.

 the tools used to do this are beautiful and simple, still and always will be handcrafted. 

 glass blowing is a bit of a team sport to get the perfect piece!

 here we are at the big studio, experiencing the work of the professionals!

 these bins are full of fine glass particles that will be melted in the furnaces, they all look to be the same, but they make different colors, cool!  kind of like those white mystery dum dums lollipops when i was a kid!

 after trying this on a small scale, seeing them do what they do on a large scale is outright impressive!

 third day, no more nice time, these guys made me work it myself, and they were tough teachers, but by the end i had definitely learned something, about myself and glass!

 moment of truth! each time you put something back into the furnace it becomes more and more vulnerable, some of our pieces just didnt make it at the end of the day...

 here is the crew, we really had an amazing time!

 here is the outside of the big studio, it was pretty picturesque.

 

 glass glass everywhere!

 

really, this was one of the most amazing experiences in my life, i definitely see more glass blowing in my future!!! stay posted for some pics of the pieces i created. 

prague

this is a city i've always wanted to visit.  another one of those very walkable cities which is exactly what i did, only this time i had company.  since i arrived to prague on friday evening and was leaving saturday evening, there wasn't going to be much time for exploring.  luckily, i was able to coerce the marketing guy from the glass company i was visiting into walking around with me for the day!  it was much more enjoyable than a tour group and allowed me to see a lot more in a shorter amount of time, not to mention the company wasn't so bad either :)

one of the downfalls of having someone walk you around is that you don't spend much time looking at a map, listing places you want to see, you just kind of walk and take it all in.  it is a very relaxing way to see a city, but i'm afraid i don't remember the names or much of the information about the specific places i saw.  what i do remember is that prague is beautiful and i had an amazing day!  here is a little window into my day in prague.   

 view from my hotel room

 adorable toy store with wooden toys, they just don't make them like this anymore!

 picturesque pastries

 bell tower

 castle guards

 pretty church at castle

 old jewish cemetary in prague, nothing like the cemetary i visited in milan.  there are about 12 layers of graves and literally thousands of graves... interesting history, check it out here.

 love the detail in this door.

 i climbed a ridiculous amount of stairs to nab this view!

 they have this great idea in Prague to use these beautiful vintage cars as sightseeing vehicles you can hire to take you around the city, genius!

 a view from a bridge

 astronomical clock at old town city hall

 world's smallest hotel, really.

 town square

i really enjoyed Prague, i must get back there sooner rather than later... one day just wasn't enough!

czech love

november was a whirlwind of a month.  in this time i managed to get a new apartment, experience some of the Formula One festivities, including performances by Kanye West and Prince among others.  and over the Eid Holiday I was also able to squeeze in a trip to the Czech Republic. 

i was invited on this trip by an amazingly creative glass company called Lasvit. the main focus on this trip was to understand more about the world of glass blowing, i even got to give it a go myself  (more to come on this later)!  after my glass blowing experience in the small town of Novy Bor, we took a lovely drive through the countryside of the czech republic to a beautiful spa town called Carlsbad.  remember when i was in italy and found that lovely little restaurant the one that was "a place that dreams are made of"?  Carlsbad is another one of those! this town is famous for its hot springs and a very popular place for filming movies, including the likes of Bond with Casino Royale. we didn't spend much time here, just a late lunch and evening stroll through town, but it was enough for me to know that even though this place may have never been on my list before, it definitely is on the list now as a place to go back to!

 a walk through town

 grandhotel pupp

 buildings are built around each hot spring

both traditional and contemporary.

hot spring

next up.... prague!