summer's over....hello autumn!

Oh hello autumn...you start today, right? What have you prepared for me?

Let's see what's there. So far I haven't done any sewing,...but I am planning to make a skirt soon cos I simply cannot survive without a plain black skirt,...how girly :) I did bits and pieces of art, mostly watercolours stuff and not only on paper....pictures will come soon.
I am learning how to make a stopmotion video which is real fun cos I am using pictures that we made with my mates in Grammar School in 2006. Old pictures, young Iva. Once it's done, I will post a link here too. The main reason why I want to learn how to make a nice stopmotion is friend's B-Day. She is this sort of person who has everything...so I didn't really know what to give her. Not even sure if she'll appreciate the video, but at least I enjoy doing it for her.

Other updates: I am in love with peanutbutter with nutella and I simply love this video of Spanish cool girls longboarding downhill. I love the colours, tho I don't know why cos they are just a bit blurry, but maybe it's the contrast with the shiny clothes that some of the girls wear.

Last but not least, Ieva Blazeviciute came up with an amazing French photographer whose pictures illustrate life in a different...in a way which I like, check him out - Theo Gosselin.

Summer - Part III.

Hope this is the final part, it might be a bit extensive though...

Gundula, a friend from studies, and Pauline, a friend who I visited in Paris, came to Prague and even made a trip to the beautiful city of Melnik. I took them around and we had a very nice dinner in a former wine cellar which is now a stylish restaurant. They stayed over night and continued to Poland...

...and another friend of mine came. He's German, but still cool (bit of teasing for Germans here). He studies with me and most of the time seems to be enthusiastic about the stuff we do, but I still believe he'd do well in something more...more creative too. He stayed in my place for a few days, went to Prague, for a lunch to my grandmum's, had a beer with Jana B. and went to Zelva Book Store to watch an awsome movie "exit through the gift shop". On the day Simon, cos he's actually called Simon, left I went to Italy with Jana.

I believe that I don't have to say that Italy was simply awsome, lovely and that we had great time together, talking about stuff & life & school & guys & everything...I really really enjoyed the time. Marina, the nicest Italian mum ever, was taking care of us and we were entertaining her little nephew Diego whose level of Italian was comperable with mine...oh well. Time there flied faster than light...see Einstein, it's possible... My parents came to pick me up and enjoy my company for a few days. When we all got enough of being a happy family we headed home.

Happiness with Jana in Venice


Venezia and her pink clothes

I had a pretty much a free week at home before I left for Germany...so there was nothing better to do than get sick. I went to visit Simon in Wurzburg - Germanywith antibiotics. Anyway, we had a great time there too. The city is simply beautiful, it's a sort of small Prague, so it felt nearly like at home. ...no more wondering why Simon liked Prague that much... After a short stay at Simon's we went together back to Aachen to get ready for university which started on the 5th September.

Looking back, I had a really great summer...enjoyed being with friends and family. I am still thinking a lot about those lovely moments I had in Italy. And "Postcards from Italy" by Beirut doesn't allow me to get rid of the nostalgy for the beautiful chaotic country. La bella Italia.

PS: I hope to get more pictures soon...

Summer - Part II.

And the story goes on...after Sicily I stayed in Aachen for couple more days. Probably nothing exciting cos I can't remember much from those days. I got to know that I managed the last exam on a day before I went home(home means Melnik in this case). Home was unsuprisingly very homy, tho weird at first...as usual. I took part in Summer School of European Studies in Prague, a sort of internship, which was rather nice...got to know new people and had heaps of fun with them. It was not always easy to get it organised, but it was good experience...still remember this funky guy from Venezuela who was telling us that the EU rocks and is simply the best...is it? Guess he should come to Maastricht for an exchange to realize how things actually are with the EU... oh well :)

Viktor came to Prague for around 2 weeks in June/August. So, we actually went to mountains together where it was very cold, meaning around 12 celsius. It wasn't that nice there, tho the nature is beautiful and it was felt nice to be in small village where are few houses, a church, a pub and a small shop. Especially it felt cool cos I was in the village with my class from Grammar School in 2002. So, I could actually see how much it changed. Usually when you live in a place you don't realize the changes around you, but in this case it was a bit shocky...9 years is 9 years.

PS: It seems I don't have any pictures...well, I do have them at home probably.

Summer - Part I.

As I promised earlier...I am back to talk about my summer. It seems so far away. Memories are fading away. Slowly but they are. Once again I start to remember only the more pleasant stuff which is actually good in a way.
So, where to start...on the 10th June I did my very last exam of the 1st year, to be honest I don't even remember what was the precise name of the subject, something with the EU and politics...maybe EU Politics..who knows. See, I remember only the more pleasant things, tho I remember how tired and exhausted I was after the exam...better leave out the details. However, the night or rather the evening after the exam was great fun...had friends here, played cards and random Czech games...oh yes, I made those poor Germans to read the questions which were part of the game and were logically in Czech, as I said great fun!
The day after Viktor and me left for Sicily where we stayed for couple of days, enjoyed the Italian or better say Sicilian cuisine, I talked the lovely language to locals and was happy cos of the sun and sea which gave me a sense of freedom. Looking back, Sicily is beautiful....should go back at some point.

Something is wrong with the flags...isn't it?



The Italian way...


and a summer kitsch from Sicily!

whereabouts

hello...don't really know who is there, but hello anyway :) Seems that I back in Aachen and I am not very happy about it cos it's cold and rainy all the time...almost all the time. It doesn't really feel like home here...wonder why. Anyway, doing bits and pieces of art always cheers me up...and when even art making fails there is still ice-cream... oh no, I scream :) I made a card for Davina, but I was such a bad girl that I forgot to take a picture of it. Oh well. My summer was lovely. I did enjoy it very badly. Felt good to be back in the east. There were some friends who came to visit....long story which I should keep for later. Hope to update something about my summer soon. And yes, I fell in love with this french bad boy...I hope he doesn't mind.

Peanutbutter Cookies :)

I miss my little sorella Allison Jones and I remember that she loves peanutbutter and she was often making peanutbutter cookies in the college. So, I decided to make them too. I found a simple recipe on the internet and started the baking process. It was rather easy and the result was delicious...some of the cookies were darker than aimed...but still good :) I only have pictures from the preparation process and they are all gone by now...

German sandals

Oh yeah, I got my very first real German shoes...don't worry I am not turning German...never ever...but I thought that they look nice and my feet like them a lot...so I got new good quality shoes :)

Collage

I am sometimes very badly homesick, it's usually not that much about home but rather about the culture and the slightly different way of living...So, I decided to get a little bit the Czech mood and culture and politics and everything into our everyday lives by creating a collage from Czech magazines. You can see quite a few Czech famous and sometimes even smart and very clever people - there are Zdenek Sverak, two presidents, Svejk,...etc. By now it's hanged in our living room and like to look at it and think about home...
Last, please excuse the very bad quality of the picture.

Belgium - Brussels, Brugge and the ocean :)

I was supposed to go to visit Vanessa in Brussels and go to the 5th Czech Street Party there...but I went there with Viktor and we indeed went to the Street Party and because we were there by car we managed to travel a bit around Belgium too...very nice weekend.
We got there Friday late afternoon/evening and rushed to the city to enjoy all the Czechs there and Chinaski playing their famous songs...it was nice, we got lots of stickers saying "today, I am Czech". It was great to see all the random people having the stickers on them.
On Saturday, we travelled a bit further to see Brugge. It's a lovely town, reminded me of Venice with all the canals and turists around. Later on the day we got to the seaside to Oostende. It would be awsome town...but the wind there was simply terrible. I could not even stand still how strong it was.
Sunday was in the name of Brussels - we explored the city very well with Viktor thanks to the brilliant Guidebook which I got from my dad before leaving home in August 2010. Brussels is nice,...but there is something missing, I cannot really say what it is, but there is definitely lack of it... However, we had a nice time there. Viktor had had some troubles with opening a bottle of red wine, consequently I had troubles getting rid of the red stains on his light-blue T-shirt. Thanks Vanessa that we could stay at your place...and thanks Viktor for driving all the time and cooking the delicious broccoli soup :)

oh yes, this is my beloved boyfriend


The three of us


Chinaski


beautiful detail in Brugge

more pictures here

Sicily - escape from Aachen

The day after my last exam we took a plane and went to Trapani/Sicily/. It was quite an adventure to get there, but we managed and enjoyed 6 days in the beautiful south! It was nicely warm there, people were friendly, food was delicious, water was clean as the cleanest thing in the world...not very crowded beaches. We went to see the most beautiful beach in Italy - San Vito Lo Capo which I would say was absolute niceness. I wish we would go back at some point :) We also visited a mediaval village called Erice which is place on the top of a rather high mountain, so we had to go there by cableway which was really cool :) Up there on the mountain it was considerably cold, so we did not stay there for long. Overall, it was nice relax. I should thank Viktor that he was not too annoying as I had expected...he dislikes sea, sun and on the top of everything he's not really a fan of Italy. Anyway, we managed to have a good time in Sicilia.

Erice

Viktor was bored...this is the result.

Viktor's favourite...he said: "That's so pretty, you don't look like you there...."

more pictures here

Bubble making

So, this actually happened before I wrote my last exams but it took my sometime to get the photos from the camera...In short, we wanted to go to a park and read/study there...but once we got there it started raining quite heavily, so we stayed in front of one shop's roof to keep ourselves at least little bit dry. Although it was still raining we started making lovely bubbles and tried to capture their beauty by a camera. It was a great time, lots of fun :)

can you see the rain?

Last day of the first year

Hello again! It seems that I could be done with the first year of university. Though, it is not really sure yet cos I am not really sure about my last exams...they were not student-friendly. Anyway, it is over and on the last day right after I got home from Meersen, the place where we write our exams, I had a tiny breakdown...it felt really weird, a little bit of sadness surrounded me for the afternoon. I cannot explain it, maybe the feeling that the school was over for a moment at least, the bad feeling about the exam... However, some friends came in the evening and we played cards and "The World" game. It was great fun and I do miss those moments...

Hike in Belgium

We had holidays yesterday and I wanted to do something cool and special...however most of my friends were badly lazy, so we ended up going in three... me, Viktor and Simon. I did not mind being in boy's company...since I am starting to realize that in many aspects boys are better to have as friends than girls...especially here. We walked around a dam in Belgium in rather beautiful nature...we made almost 15 km and were really tired...at least I was tired cos I am not doing any sport recently... It was relaxing and sometimes quite fun. Simon picking beatles, Viktor pretending to be an owl...and then both of them playing the grass... :) Oh well, guys never stop to be kids and I like it :)

serious sewing - dress making

So, yeah, I made a dress...It was not so hard as it seems cos I got my mum's old dress with brown, beige and red geometric pattern and a simple brown top from H&M.... Then, I simply cut the dress to get only the skirt part from it and I cut the top as well...and then I put them together and a simply summer dress was born :) I don't have a picture yet...I will try to get some during the week.

I am getting old...or 21st B-day :)

My B-day get together was great fun. I invited friends from school and from my German class...we ended up talking till 3 am or so...which is not very common for me...but I enjoyed it sooo much :) I made this quiz about the Czech Rep. and it was quite fun to hear people wondering who could had been the first Czech president... Moreover, I made my friends to dress up,..so we got really brilliant Ferda Mravenec, Víla Amálka, Večerníček, Krteček, etc. coming... Very nice evening indeed. On the top of everything, it finally gave me the feeling that I do have friends here :)

Kelli Jelly Fish in Aachen

Kelli, my best Estonian friend, came to visit me in Aachen. She was on her way to Duino. It felt really great to have Kelli here, we talked about everything. She managed to express that she dislikes Aachen...anyway, we had a good time. And I was happy to see her and be with her again. I am going to see her soon again because she should come to my hometown in early June. Looking forward to it!

Artist + Child = Iva

I am having a little bit more free time cos the horror called economics is over and the new subject has just started, so there is not much stress yet. I had 4 days of free time as one of my classes was rescheduled, therefore I got lots of time to do things that I like. First of all, I need it to clean up a bit and organise my stuff in a way that I would be able to find things...and then, I started to put together my new box for all the sewing stuff I have. I got the box from Vanessa who had found it somewhere in a second hand or so, it had very bad smell at first but now it is clean and also smells really nice. It offers lots of space for all the tiny things that one needs for sewing.

Moreover, I even had time to search for Viktor's watercolours that his dad brought him around 20 years ago from the USA. I really love them, they have nicely fresh colours and are simply adorable. So, I had time to make one of the ideas which I had appeared in my mind in one of the lectures where everyone around spoke only German and did not care that there might be some other people...that moment I felt special and weird at the same time. I never wish to be a German, I only wish that they would be more open-minded and maybe more friendly with strangers. But back to the art, so once I was sitting there, waiting for a lecture to start and idea of driving a car up in the sky came to me and suddenly I felt much better and free indeed. However, the knowledge obtained in Environmental systems or somewhere else whispered that driving in the clouds is not a good thing to do.... and that was the inspiration for the small piece of art. It looks like done by a child but trust me - it has a deep thought.

clouds driving

sewing, sewing, sewing....

...or being practical in every day life. Here I would like to show some practical stuff that I made in tha last days. I managed to shorten my throusers so well that it is not really visible that they were ever shortened.

shortened Timeout jeans

Moreover, I finally solved the problem of super tall boyfriend and I elongated his bed linen by leftovers that I had from lessening our pillow cases.

joining of the two parts

Last but not least, I made a cover for Viktor's piano that fits with our pillow cases in the living room, so one more step towards creating a nice place to relax, read, watch TV or anything...

the pink piano cover

Sewing - Bubble Chain

The Bubble Chain skirt is my last major sewing piece of work. It is a rather short skirt with an elastic in the waist. It is made from a fabric that I bought when I was at home for the carnival break. It is a rather hard but still cotton material of chocolate brown colour with white or light beige bubbles that are vertically joined by lines. It looks very good with colourful T-shirts and/or with colourful tights. The skirt can be used both on formal and informal occasions. The Bubble Chain is higly comfortable and it feels good wearing it. It was succesful in the street as people kept looking at the skirt.

Bubble Chain on me

Exams over - Trip to Monschau

Finally, the economics exams are over, so I took a deep breath on Friday evening and started to relax as much as I could. It felt really good when I did not have to read anything or prepare answers for Learning goals...Moreover, friend of mine - Vanessa came to visit us and we went for ice-cream. The ice-cream was delicious but too big, so we all got ice-cream poisoned. While recovering from the poisoning we walk in the city and had a good time chilling around. We watched Kolja, a Czech movie that got Oscar in 1990s. The movie was great, I higly recommend everyone to watch it...and on Sunday we went for a trip to Monschau. It was great weather, truly summer and later we went hiking a bit in the valley of the Rur river. It was a great day!

Viktor, Iva & Vanessa

button T-shirt

As I said the past weeks were very busy as I had so much stuff for school, so there wasn't much time for any serious sewing. However, I made this funky T-shirt. I had many different sizes of buttons of the same type. Vanessa bought me a simple green T-shirt and the result was done in 15 minutes...however, the T-shirt is original now and that's what I like :)

L'Italia - Reunion

I was looking forward to going to Italy for really long, so I was happy to be there again. It was a great feeling it is sooo different than Germany, life there is so nicely relaxed, people smile at you without a reason, they hug you and they are friendly... while here, in Germany, it is simply different.
I stayed with Marina, my adoptive mum, she was so sweet and all the family took me as I would be one of them. Hence, I was Italian girl for 4 days...but I am still a little bit even now. I got to see all the Duino people I miss so much and also my primi who mostly change a lot and now they are these mature people prepared to leave Duino and go to live the real life. It felt strange but good at the same time to be in Duino. However, now I know that my place is here - meaning this German flat and the European Studies course in Maastricht, the swimming pool here around the corner, Va piano pizzeria, the great bookstore in the middle of aachen and much more. Moreover, while I was in Italy, I missed some new friends who I have here namely Vanessa and perhaps Simon with whom I like to talk a lot... and of course Viktor :)

Home

Spring in Duino

Eifel - feeling free

I was rather busy with all kinds of things lately and I am still busy even now. I was travelling and I have an exam to do...but anyway, it will be fine...
Around 2 weeks ago we went to the national park called Eifel, it is not far from us - around 1 hour of driving. It is such a gorgeous place! I was a little bit fed up with the city or perhaps rather town culture lately, but the trip to nature helped me a lot to see the beauty around me again...I enjoyed the open space and the sudden freedom that surrounded me once we got out of the car and I looked around. I felt so great to have the feeling that you can run any direction you want and that there is nothing that would stop you. No crowds of people rushing to work, no traffic lights that would stop you....we were there for around 7 hours, nice hike with tonns of breaks as it was the first hike this year. I was very tired in the evening but after a long time I was feeling free and full of life again.

freedom

shy spring

Iva - fashion designer

When I was home, my parents asked what I want to do in the future and I said "I want to make clothes". They were a bit shocked, but yeah...what I said was the truth. That's what I want to do, although I know that I will not do it as my main job. I will probably be one of those very important people doing something very important in the EU or in the government at least...but still I will be sewing in my free time. I invaded cloth shops at home and got some nice material. The next stuff I will make in the near future is a skirt for my friend Vanessa. She is a very stylish person who does not hesitate to wear even her granmum's clothes if she likes it. She mixes things together and the result is always awsome. She was actually the one who made me start with making clothes for other people than for myself. You can see the patterns I bought for skirts... Do you like it?

Here I am...on the road again. Actually, I am done with travelling for some time...until the Italian trip in the end of March. I was in Paris where I lived with Gundula, a friend of mine, and with an awsome French family. I had a really good time, active relaxing... I loved it but at the same time I realized that Paris is such a huge city and I would not be able to live my life there, maybe few months but not years and years... and after Paris I went home. Home is always good, although I think that I have my home inside me already, it goes where I go...However, it felt good to be home for a moment.

candle&flowers

So, here I am...on the road again. This is made due to Kelli, she seems to be intersted in my progress, what I do, what I like or where I go...and as she cannot speak Czech I have to write in English. Last weeks I was a little bit obsessed with getting more and more flowers for our flat and at the same time I often transformed our living room into crematorium(as my dad would say) as I liked to light tonns of candles. I like the relaxed mood with candles...

a candle glass I got from my good friend around 8 years ago

time for a new blog

Hey you, takze no nevim, proste mam pocit, ze by to chtelo neco noveho, chela bych si asi udelat novy blog...anglicky, aby ho mohli cist pratele a abych tam mohla davat obrazky co mam rada...hmmm...tak co s tim?? a jak by se mel jmenovat??? :) who knows...I have to think about it. And btw, happy St.Valentine's day :)

horska draha

Takze, vim, ze jsme prisera a konice, protoze jsem zde jiz dluoho neztratila ani jedno slovicko...ale pekne poporadku. Takze mam novy fotak, Viktor si koupi klavesy, pojedu domu a mozna do Parize. Skola je silena, prave delame ekonomii a asi mi z toho upadne hlava... taky pojedu do Italie a prijede tam Kelli, tak mam moc radost. A pak prijede Urska sem k nam, tak se na to taky moc tesim. Jinak delame spoustu veci, obohatila jsem svuj satnik o par kousku a hlavne o takovy jeden vetsi kousek - kabat, chodime poustet draka a taky plavat, uklizime a bojujeme s prachem. Pomalu se stavam zavislou na Humoreskach a hlavne na Arazimovi, ach jak moc on je jako muj otec. Taky jsme absolvovali jednu oslavu narozenin a bylo to moc fajn... Jen me trapi, ze jsem pred nedavnem ztratila svoji oblibenou ucitelku a zahradnici, takze zivot je stale jeste jako ta horska draha, jednou dole a jindy zas nahore.... a obcas se cloveku chce zvracet.
PS: na obrazku je svicka, co Viktor vyrabel... :)

Lednové šílenství aneb Perioda 3

Tak i v novém roce stále chodím do školy, bydlím s Viktorem a jsem spokojená. Vánoce byly prima, dostala jsem vysněný šicí stroj, tak teď šiju jako šílená :) Škola je teď taky šílená, mám ji 4x týdně, na což nejsem zvyklá a mám dokonce 3 předměty, na což nejsem už vůbec zvyklá, tak je to docela frmol. Jen o víkend se člověk na chvíli zastaví, vydechne a pak povzdechne, neb se musí nadechnout na ten další víkend. Výsledek té převánoční zkoušky ještě nemám, až 28. snad bude. Pevně doufám, že jsem to dala. Taky tu teď mám novou kumpánku, jezdíme spolu do školy, v sobotu jsme spolu byly v Ikea a od února spolu budeme chodit cvičit. Je moc fajn, jenom to její jméno mi dělá těžkou hlavu, jmenuje se totiž Gundula :)