Leuven is a beautiful, interesting city about a half hour from Brussels. This is the site of this year's European Conference on Social Work Research. It has a stunningly intricate city hall building with more statues affixed to the exterior than you can count. It has cobblestone winding streets (cause for me to get lost... Continue Reading →

I am attending a European social work research conference all week in Belgium, but in Leuven, a suburb of Brussels. I've never seen Brussels, so I opted to come a little early and just spend one day there. I didn't do any research into what to do once I got here. I just figured I... Continue Reading →

When you're several hours into a train ride to Krakow & the conductor casually looks at your ticket and says, "you do know that this train is headed to Warsaw, right?" you know it is going to be a long night. Especially when you'd been traveling for 7+ hours already. I went straight from Kutna... Continue Reading →

Kutna Hora is best known for the "Bone Church" (properly known as the Sedlec Ossuary), but it also has breathtaking cathedrals, one of which is a UNESCO world heritage site.  And well-deserved: the Cathedral of St. Barbara is a gothic monstrosity complete with a bazillion flying buttresses. Pretty much alone in the place, I wandered... Continue Reading →

As I've said many times - and I'm nothing if not redundant - every Czech town, no matter how small, has a castle. Some are grand. Others are small. Many are in ruins. Hukvaldy had really interesting ruins for my sister Lori and I to explore. We took a tram and then bus there, maybe... Continue Reading →

Český Těšín and Cieszyn Silesia are twin cities, divided by a river and country line, one in the Czech Republic, one in Poland. And as some tell me, the country border has moved over the years/centuries so that sometimes they were both in the same country. As far as I can tell, Těšín and Cieszyn... Continue Reading →

(in Czechia that is) I came here with my interpreter, Marta, to conduct research interviews with what turned out to be a remarkable organization called Don Bosco.  They assist and work with young people who grew up in institutions and have little chance of making it on their own without assistance. Some are developmentally delayed.... Continue Reading →

This trip was an unsettling mix of visiting institutions (e.g. orphanages) for babies in Most (name of a town, but means "bridge"), for children and adults with cognitive disabilities, in the tiny town of Osek, and then seeing my Fulbright colleagues perform bluegrass music at a small pub in Ústí nad Labem. Follow that up... Continue Reading →

It started snowing heavily just before we arrived in Plzň, and it didn't give up for two days. That did not stop us (even though my Fulbright compatriots were both seriously ...let's say affected...from the last night in Humpolec). I'm from Minnesota, so what do I care about some white fluffy stuff? Michelle, however, is... Continue Reading →

Humpolec is quite literally in the middle of nowhere, Czech. And our Fulbright commission opted to have this as the location of our midyear event. It was cold, snowy, small, and I loved it. It is about equidistant between Praha and Brno, 2+ hours from each. I was already in Praha doing research so I... Continue Reading →