1000 WORDS » prague

leaving Prague

anna — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:11:26 +0000

I left Prague in a whirl – the last few days were spent trying to cram the bike in a box and all my other things into bags in between meeting friends for a last minute dinner, a hurried goodbye drink, dropping off something here, picking up something there, rushing off to the shops for a forgotten item of apparently vital importance.

I don’t like serious goodbyes – I prefer a casual ‘see you later’ – as though it will be tomorrow when we will meet again but in this case things are more uncertain. I believe I’m going back to Prague but, practically, my ties there are a little tenuous. Certainly, I have very dear friends there but I have never felt very securely embedded in Prague life.

Leaving Prague.

packing chaos

anna — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:24:38 +0000

I’m camping on my friends’ lounge room floor after moving out of my own apartment a couple of weeks ago. Melda and Jakub have been pretty tolerant of the growing piles of stuff colonising all available floor space in their lounge room and kitchen; bike box, tents, piles of clothes, tools, panniers, video camera, digital SLR, the list is endless.

Today I finally managed to get almost of all of the stuff into my four panniers and gear sack which was a good thing because Jakub’s mum came over to make strawberry dumplings for dinner. Czech mums usually take housekeeping pretty seriously so I was pleased that the bike gracing the kitchen looked quite neat with it’s shiny new red panniers all in place.

Tomorrow’s task is to unpack everything again, take the bike to pieces and put it in the bike box and pack everything else so that it can go on the plane.

Did I mention I hate packing? I do – it’s probably almost on the top of my list of things that I really really don’t like doing. I’ll be very glad when I’m on the plane and even gladder when I start pedalling out of Deadhorse.

Bike chaos.

a selection of photos from the META project

anna — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:02:40 +0000

A few photos taken by the young people who took part in the META project. These images are from the selection that were exhibited at the Kampa Community Centre in Prague at the end of the series of workshops held at META between March and May 2009 .

Photo by Ferida.

Photo by Min Soe.

Photo by Oksana.

Photo by Sasha.

Photo by Sara.

first META workshop

anna — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:46:49 +0000

We held the first workshop on Saturday 21, March 2009, and were overwhelmed by almost double the number of participants we were expecting.

All the fuses blew while I was setting up the computers and slide projects causing a few slight technical hitches but everybody seemed to have fun.

We should have some photos online soon.

Workshop at META.

Excursion to Langhans.

Experimenting with the cameras.

thanks

anna — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:43:42 +0000

Many thanks to the people who donated to the META photo project in Prague. We received a diverse selection of second-hand digital cameras and $950 in cash. These contributions combined with voluntary labour have made the project possible.

Cameras were donated by:

Istvan Pap
Elizabeth and Milan Polak
Arne Johan Erikson
Gordon Smith

Financial contributions were made by:

Andrew Finlay
Camilla and Lindsay
Ernest and Helen Korchak
Irfan Kortschak
Jenny Gibson
Julie Begg
Laura Broese van Groenou
Melda Hope and Jakub Nesetril
Tom Korchak
Zanny Begg
Zelda Grimshaw
Nicola Coles
Nicola Robinsonova