Month in Review: July 2019
I thought it would be fun to add in a little monthly review and roundup post, at least for this next year while we’re in Prague, to document our new adventure. So without further ado, here’s the month in review for July 2019!
PS: Missed June? Here is June 2019 for you!
Travels
This month we went to…
- Vienna, Austria
It was definitely a slower month for us travel-wise compared to all of the travelling we did in June. But it still felt really busy! We did quite a few things in Prague and just seemed to be busier with work and life stuff. But I am hoping we can travel a bit more in the months to come.
Highlights
One of the big highlights of July is that it’s my birthday month! I turned 27 in Vienna, Austria and had the best time exploring the grounds of Schonbrunn Palace. I’ve got a post all about our time in Vienna coming out soon.
This month also started out with a fun highlight when we joined some other Canadian expats for a Canada Day picnic in Letna. Colin and I aren’t great at mingling with strangers, but we did make a new friend and I’m so proud of us for going outside of our comfort zone to this event. It was awesome to hang out with some Canadians and to see the beautiful views from the Letna Beer Garden.
Some other highlights of July included seeing the new Spiderman movie here in Prague – which was our first time going to a Prague movie theatre. And (spoiler alert!) they go to Prague in the movie, which was really fun! We also bought a vacuum cleaner, which was a very necessary purchase. And we had a successful dog training session with Ellie. She has gotten so good at socializing with other dogs now! And we had a really fun night out bowling with new friends. Would you believe I got two whole strikes in about three hours of bowling? I also scored a very impressive 48 one game (a perfect score is 300).
(Side note: I just read that last paragraph back and realized I might officially be a boring old lady. How are the highlights of my month a movie, a vacuum, dog training and bowling? 27 is hitting me hard, but I still love it!)
Lowlights
The biggest lowlight of July would definitely have to be when our kitchen sink started leaking. And this was no small leak! It was a huge problem with water coming from everywhere. We were doing dishes in the bathroom, but luckily it only took a day for things to get fixed. We met our landlord, who came over to try and fix it, and then had a plumber come over who spoke no English. But it’s fixed!
I think I was also a little down about the lack of travel in July. After coming off of June when we went to Paris, Munich, moved to Prague, Kutna Hora and Dresden, it was a little underwhelming to only go to Vienna in July. I need to learn to balance the realities of real life with chores, errands and jobs, while also satisfying my need for travel and making the most of our time here.
Another lowlight this month? It started to get hot again…
Posts from this month
Here’s what was published on Teaspoon of Adventure this month. If you missed any of my July posts, click below to read them (and add your email to the subscribe box on the right or at the end of the page so you don’t miss anymore!).
Kutna Hora: The Perfect Day Trip from Prague
How to Spend 2 Days in Chiang Mai
Happy Birthday to Me: 27 Goals for 27 Years
How to Visit Dresden in 24 Hours
10 Reasons Why You Should Revisit A Country You’ve Already Been To
And a little change up: I am now publishing twice a week! Since January 2018, I’ve consistently published one blog post a week. I’m proud that I was able to maintain that schedule, and I wanted to make sure I never felt pressured or rushed to write sub-par posts. But I noticed that by only publishing once a week, it was taking me forever to share my travels. Case in point: We went to Southeast Asia in Jan/Feb and I’m still posting content from that trip! And since we’ll be doing more travelling and adventuring in Prague, I decided I would bump up my publication schedule to two times per week. So you can now expect new Teaspoon of Adventure posts every Tuesday and Friday.
What I read this month
Below are the books I completed reading in July. If you want to check out my reading and reviews on these books, visit the Story Highlights on my personal Instagram @rianaautumn.
- Shrill
- The Happiness Project
- A House in the Sky
- The Day the World Came to Town
- Tiny Beautiful Things
Not as much as I read in June, but still a good month of reading! I’m currently working on Blood in the Water (loving it but it’s a long read) and The Silent Patient, for book club.
Best reads/listens/watches
Reads: My favourite reads from July were Shrill and A House in the Sky. Shrill is hilarious but also increibly deep and gut-wrenching. It’s a beautiful story about comedy, feminism, writing, bodies and so much more. A must-read for sure! A House in the Sky started a bit slow for me but became incredibly captivating (no pun intended – you’ll get it if you know the book!). I stayed up till 5:00AM to finish it!
Listens: I’m still listening to a ton of podcasts. These days, my favourites are Workationing and Extra Pack of Peanuts (EPOP). Workationing is a podcast by two hiliarious digital nomads who decide to leave the US to live around the world in places like Medellin, Acapulco and Amsterdam. They’re hilarious and so relatable. The show isn’t active anymore, but I’m hoping for new episodes soon! And EPOP has been my favourite travel podcast for a while now. It’s a must-listen for all travellers!
Watches: Queer Eye season 4! It came out on July 19 and you better believe Colin and I had cried, laughed and smiled our way through every episode by July 20. Time for a Queer Eye rewatch? Yes, please!
Best and worst meals
Best: Delivery from Chilli & Lime! Chilli & Lime is my new obsession as they serve some of the best Vietnamese food around. My go-to order is the beef bun and duck udon noodle. It’s so freaking tasty! I literally ask Colin if we can order from them almost every day.
Worst: I was very disappointed by the sachertorte we had in Vienna. This is Vienna’s iconic chocolate cake and I had high expectations, especially since this would be my birthday cake. Sadly, the cake was very dry and kind of boring. But Vienna wasn’t all bad – more on our time there to come!
Expat life
One thing I love is our walking route through Riegrovy Sady. Riegrovy Sady is the large park just a block or so away from our apartment, and one of my favourite places to walk Ellie. I absolutely love the route we take through the park as it has one of the best views over Prague. It’s a little uphill but has lots of interesting paths and an off-leash area for Ellie to run around.
One thing I hate is the realities of working and life, and not just travelling 24/7. It has definitely been a balancing act that I don’t think I have managed quite yet. It’s hard to remember that expat life is also real life – complete with work, grocery shopping, vacuuming and other daily life tasks. Even though we’re in Prague, we can’t travel all the time and I struggle with that.
Bonus: One thing I’m learning to live with is hanging our laundry to dry. We do have a dryer, but it’s not the efficient kind I’m used to back in Canada. It takes over three hours to dry clothing and the entire apartment gets really warm. So instead, we save energy and hang our clothing to dry. It’s been an adjustment but I don’t really mind it.
Coming up next
Next month, I’m off to Stockholm for a solo trip for a couple of days. I’m very excited about this as I haven’t been on a solo trip since Antwerp last October. I’ve also never been to Sweden, and from the research I’ve done, Stockholm sounds awesome!
Besides Stockholm, nothing else is on the calendar for August. I hope we get to do some more local exploring and maybe even take a spontaneous weekend trip. Colin and I have a Prague bucket list we’re working on so I’m sure we’ll cross some more items off of that. And then we’ll be gearing up for September, which is going to be a very busy month of family and travel!
What did you get up to this month?
European washers and dryers are truly nothing like what we’re used to in North America! I’ve never had it take so long to do laundry as it has when I’ve lived in Europe.
As to feeling like you should travel more, I know the feeling! Try to remember that just the observations of living in a new place are part of the adventure of moving somewhere–rather than just traveling all the time (or as much as you can). I’ve had so many friends ask about my travels in Europe since I moved back, and I have to remind them that I’m living and working and–just like them–don’t have unlimited vacation (or funds!) to travel all the time. They forget that living in Europe is still living–not vacationing!
Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I really needed this reminder. I think that’s definitely part of it – living up to the expectations of friends, family (but also social media!) to constantly be travelling since everything is so close by and easy to get to. But you’re right; it’s life that we’re doing here, not just vacation!
AH! Thank you so much for the shoutout! We’re recording new episodes this week and will be comin’ in hot with fresh episodes of the Workationing podcast soon! Are you in our Facebook group? We’re active over there: facebook.com/groups/workationing.
Thanks again for your kind words – seeing this pop into my alerts made my day! I’d also love to connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karidephillips/
AH, you have no idea how much this has totally made my day! So thrilled you commented and even more thrilled that there will be new episodes soon. YAY!!!! I’m not on LinkedIn but I will definitely be joining your Facebook Group. Thanks for letting me know!